In Laconia Schools: Gearing up for another eventful year

Hello Laconia School District staff and families. Our school community begins winter break as school ends on Friday. On behalf of the Laconia School District, I wish you a wonderful holiday break. I would like to share some highlights and some great work that is happening in the Laconia School District:

Strategic plan

After a year of work, the Laconia School District strategic goals have been approved by the Laconia School Board this past Tuesday. Strategic goals establish an organization’s priorities and can challenge habitual behaviors to develop strategic actions that focus on improvement. Aligning the efforts of people in an organization and resources are necessary to achieve strategic goals. The Laconia School District’s goal areas were developed from data collected from the community on the district’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in November of 2022. The goals were developed by task forces and went through several iterations after receiving feedback from the school board, the board’s Strategic Planning Committee, a community focus group, school district administrators, and the goal-area task forces themselves. These goals are an important component to help us realize our mission and vision. Kathleen McCabe presented the goals at the last board meeting. She is a consultant for the district. She played an instrumental role in developing the plan.

Two anonymous donors

Two anonymous donors generously made a holiday gift for families in each of our schools. One donated $2,500 to our schools to support 25 families in need during the holiday season. Another donor gave the district over $10,000 in gift certificates to local restaurants that were dispersed in each school to a total of 200 families. This donor wanted to support local businesses and to provide a gift of a dining experience for some of our families. Both donors have generously given to our families in the past.

More holiday generosity

As is typical in Laconia, there are other ways that the holidays have been made special for people in our school community. Here are some examples:

• Got Lunch! will provide a $15 gift certificate to Vista Foods for each child who received food from the program this summer. The total amount of this donation is about $8,000.
• With the help of various organizations, 150 Laconia students will be receiving gifts. These organizations include: Taylor Community, Hope Ministries, Sons of the American Legion, NH Ball Bearing, Aroma Joe's, Melcher & Prescott Insurance, and various community and staff members.
• There are various holiday performances and holiday learning experiences in our schools.
• The school district staff raised $1,170 on two jeans days in November for the Greater Lakes Region Children’s Auction. This year, the Children’s Auction surpassed their annual holiday total again, raising $711,493.
• There were also food drives, donations, and opportunities to “shop” for gifts for their families from donations given to the schools.

NH civics and civility event for kids

Laconia High School Principal Lisa Hinds and I are working with the Manchester School District, former NH State Board of Education Chair Fred Bramante, and the NH Department of Education to organize a National Presidential Youth Convention with the theme of Civics and Civility for students around the state. It will take place Jan. 11, 2024, shortly before the New Hampshire presidential primary at the City Auditorium in Concord. The event will be purposefully nonpartisan and has been endorsed by Gov. Chris Sununu, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and Congressman Chris Pappas. It will bring together students from across the state, including a group from LHS, for a half-day civics lesson aimed at building our students' knowledge and skills around civics and civility. Other students from outside the state will be streaming into the event. There is a Declaration of Civility associated with the event that expresses the guiding principles of the event.

LHS competes in Granite State Challenge

Laconia High School has moved onto the next round of New Hampshire Public Broadcasting Service’s Granite State Challenge. Thirty-one New Hampshire high schools took a 100-question written test at Plymouth High School on Nov. 18, competing for one of 16 spaces on Granite State Challenge. After qualifying, the team from LHS will engage in a competition on Sunday, Jan. 14, at 3:45 p.m. against Inter-Lakes High School. The event will be live streamed and then televised on NH PBS at a later date. The students on the team are Reid Vaillancourt; Brody Rollins, captain; Haley Cullen; Alex Richardson; Wynter Murgatroy and James Horan. The coaches are Susan Finch, Keith Ball and Taylor Osborne. LHS teams have gone to the finals of Granite State Challenge three times (1984, 1990 and 1995), and won the final match in 1990 and 1995.

January 2024 staff in-service days

We have two in-service days for staff in January on which there will be no school for students. After the New Hampshire Secretary of State declared that Tuesday, Jan. 23, would be the date for the New Hampshire primary in November, this became an in-service day for staff because two of our schools are polling places. In the spirit of RSA 188-E (originally HB 1661), which requires sending schools to career and technical centers like the Huot to align their calendars within 10 days, we will keep the Huot open on this day for students, including for those in Laconia. Also, Friday, Jan. 26 was already an established in-service day on the 2023-24 school district calendar.

In my last communication of the year 2023, thank you for all that you did and continue to do to make Laconia and our schools special places. I hope the holidays offer you a chance to relax, reflect, and rejuvenate.

— Steve Tucker, superintendent, Laconia School District