Depending on the outcome of the Nov. 8 election, the Portsmouth Middle School may be the next major project the city invests in. However, even though many school board and City Council members agree something needs to be done about the school, a new building is still far away.

According principal John Stokel, the middle school has been facing issues dealing with renovation and overcrowding ever since he started teaching there in 1974. Even back then, it was “very overcrowded,” he said, and the school had to convert existing hallways and teachers’ lounges into classrooms.

“We’ve been talking about (expanding) for a long time,” Stokel said. “We have to wait our turn.”
The narrow halls of the school branch off into small classrooms, many of which do not have windows. The school’s auditorium was converted into these classrooms in the 1970s. According to Stokel, most of the classrooms are about 600 square feet; the current state requirement for new classrooms is 900 square feet.

“(In the 1970s) they had a certain amount of space and fit in as many rooms as they could,” he said.
Expanding the physical structure of the school is almost impossible, as much of the land surrounding the building is privately owned. Currently, there are 490 students enrolled at the school in grades six through eight, and Stokel expects about 525 to be enrolled next year.

Due to the age and physical structure of the building, extensive renovations are difficult, Stokel said, and would probably result in fewer, not more, classrooms.

Though most current school board members, and the candidates looking to replace them, agree something needs to be done, no one is quite sure what the solution is. The Portsmouth School Board created the Middle School Needs Assessment Study Committee in 2003. The committee is still working and last week toured a potential site off of Jones Avenue, near Portsmouth High School. The 30-acre parcel of property is owned by the city and is near Sagamore Creek, according to Stokel.
Carvel Tefft, a school board member and city council candidate, said it’s “premature” to talk about what will happen with the middle school.

“The final report (by assessment committee) hasn’t been given to the School Board yet,” Tefft said. “I’d say it will probably come back to us before the end of the year, but even then, it would be preliminary.” The city must determine whether it can afford to renovate the school or construct a new facility, as well as figure out how to finance the project.

“It wouldn’t be surprising that no matter what we do now, we’re a number of years too early (to start the project),” he said. Once the committee’s final report is issued, the school board must decide whether to present it to the City Council, which will then determine how to proceed on the project.

According to Tefft, the public opinion he’s encountered on what to do with the middle school seems to be split evenly among those who want a new building and those who want to renovate. However, there’s at least one City Council candidate who’s steadfastly opposed to building a new middle school.
“We have a beautiful middle school in town … and it has more than enough capacity for the students attending,” Stephen Durgin said in a previous interview with The Wire.

And while Stokel agrees that the building is aesthetically pleasing, he said the school is showing its age.
“It’s really outlived it s function as a school,” he says. “(The building) has given a lot to the city.”

committee releases recommendations on HIV/AIDS services
A legislative study committee charged with researching how the state provides services to people with HIV and AIDS recommended last week that Gov. John Lynch and the state’s congressional delegation encourage the federal government not to cut funds from a federal program that helps people with the disease get access to healthcare.

“Faced with potentially severe funding cuts, it is important for the state not to turn its back on our citizens living and dealing with HIV/AIDS,” said Sen. Iris Estabrook (D-Durham), the committee’s chairwoman. “We have concluded that the current funding streams are the most effective, and we encourage their reauthorization.”

The Wire reported on the formation of the committee in May. Most of New Hampshire’s HIV/AIDS program funding comes from the Ryan White CARE Act, a federal program that sets aside money for counseling and treatment of those with the disease. Funding for the RWCA may be cut in upcoming federal budget talks as lawmakers look for ways to accommodate the billions of dollars needed for the war in Iraq and relief efforts for the Gulf Coast, as well as other programs. The state provides very little funding for HIV/AIDS programs.

The committee also recommended that HIV/AIDS service providers expand testing and counseling programs. That may prove to be difficult, as this summer, new Center for Disease Control guidelines required that service providers receiving federal funding limit HIV, AIDS and STD tests to the following four “high risk” groups: men who have sex with men, partners of HIV-positive people, intravenous drug users, and people who are incarcerated.

Free State Project drops 2006 goal
The Free State Project, the political group seeking to promote “liberty in our lifetime” by having its members move to New Hampshire, has dropped its goal to have 20,000 members signed up by 2006.
The FSP selected New Hampshire as the “free state” in October 2003. One of the project’s long-term goals was to have by 2006 at least 20,000 members committed to moving to the state sometime in the future. However, the FSP board of directors recently released a statement saying meeting the 20,000 goal in the next year is unlikely. According to the group’s Web site, the FSP has almost 6,900 participants, 383 of whom live in the state.  

In the statement, the board of directors attributed the dearth in new members to the downturn in media coverage following the selection of New Hampshire in 2003. The group hasn’t set a date to reach 20,000 members, but expects to do so “within a reasonable time frame.” The FSP also announced plans to hire a public relations company to help drum up excitement about the project.

500 UNH alums brought back from the dead
Some very-much alive University of New Hampshire graduates may have been shocked last week to learn the school’s recently completed 2005 Alumni Directory listed them as deceased.

Five hundred and one UNH alums were listed in the publication as being dead. The gaffe was attributed to a coding error by PCI, the company that produced the directory, according to the University’s Alumni Association.

Among the not-dead was Sandra Keans, a Rochester City Council member and state representative. She said the snafu isn’t a big deal to her.

“When you’re compiling 100,000-plus names, it’s one of those things that happen,” she said. “I haven’t had any bad results, no one in my family’s gotten a condolence card or anything, so I don’t have a problem with that.”

In fact, she said the mistake may help her in her City Council reelection campaign.

“I may stand out in front of the polls with a sign that says, ‘Vote for Keans, dead or alive,’” she joked.
The University of New Hampshire released a statement saying the school deeply regrets the errors published in the 2005 UNH alumni directory—a 2,000-page book of more than 108,000 names. “The Alumni Association is working very closely with PCI, the company responsible for this embarrassing situation,” said University spokesperson Kim Billings in the statement.

According to the Alumni Association’s Web site, PCI will reimburse those who paid for the book and were listed as dead. Also, the company will call the still-living alums and apologize and will offer a corrected CD version of the directory and an addendum to the printed version. Meanwhile, all alumni who ordered the directory will receive a letter of apology and the corrected version of the book.
For the list of alumni listed incorrectly, visit www.alumni.unh.edu/info/directory_list.html.

Newton man protests at Portsmouth District Court
Ralph Holder held a solitary protest in front of Portsmouth District Court on Thursday morning, calling for the dismissal of marital master Harriet Fishman, whom he claims unfairly used race as a determining factor in custody proceedings involving his 9-year-old son.

Holder, who is African American, went through divorce proceedings in the Brentwood Family Court in 2003. According to documents provided by Holder, when determining who should be awarded custody of his son, Fishman ruled his son should live with his mother in Haverhill, Mass., because he would be “lonely” as the only African American student in Newton, N.H., where Holder lives.

“It’s intentional, court-ordered segregation,” Holder said. Forcing his son to go to school in Haverhill “exacerbated the emotional trauma of the divorce,” Holder said, adding that the school was located in a high-crime area.

Holder stationed himself outside of Brentwood Family Court last week with signs calling for Fishman’s removal; however, he soon learned she had been transferred to Portsmouth District Court. Standing outside the court on a windy morning, Holder attracted a few curious glances from people entering and exiting the court.

Holder staged the protest to “expose the judicial bias” that he said is often found in custody proceedings. He has filed complaints with the state and the federal departments of justice and he said he is considering filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state.

“I’m not going to allow the judiciary or anyone else to infringe on my son’s constitutional rights,” he said.

Calls to the Portsmouth Family Division were referred to the Family Division offices in Concord. Judge Edwin W. Kelly, administrative judge for the Family Division, said he was unaware of the protest and had no personal knowledge of Holder’s case. Kelly said that race is never used as a determining factor in custody decisions.

“Absolutely not. This is the United States of America,” he said.

meeting scheduled for Memorial Bridge
Get the latest scoop on the renovations coming to the Memorial Bridge when The New Hampshire Department of Transportation meets with Kittery and Portsmouth officials at a public meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. at Portsmouth City Hall to discuss plans for the project, which is slated to start in 2008.