Newfound superintendent resigns at end of school year

BRISTOL — Superintendent Paul Hoiriis will be leaving the Newfound Area School District at the end of the academic year, the second member of the central office staff to resign in as many months. Business Administrator Angela Carpenter submitted her resignation in March.

In his letter to the school board, Hoiriis wrote, “It is with a heavy heart that I submit this letter of resignation as Superintendent of Schools for the Newfound Area School District effective June 30, 2026. It has been a privilege and honor to serve the Newfound community for 18 years as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and superintendent. I did not come to this decision lightly, but it is the right one for my family life at this time. I will miss the staff, students, and greater Newfound community greatly as Newfound has been my family for nearly two decades and will always hold a special place in my heart.”

The school board accepted Hoiriis’ resignation “with regret” on April 13.

Hoiriis came to Newfound from the Inter-Lakes School District, first as a social studies teacher at Newfound Memorial Middle School, then as assistant principal and principal at Newfound Regional High School. The school board hired him as superintendent in July 2024, as part of an entirely new administrative team in the central office that included Carpenter, who had to deal with the aftermath of a November 2023 cyber attack that eradicated the district’s financial records.

Over the past two years, in addition to restoring what could be recovered of the records to allow a financial audit, district staff have had to navigate the challenges of aging infrastructure, declining student enrollment, restrictions in state funding, and a tax cap imposing additional constraints on programming. As the school district considers the consolidation of schools, the school board voted to close Danbury Elementary School next year, sending students to Bristol. They then learned Bristol Elementary School has structural problems requiring immediate remediation if it is to reopen in September.

After the board accepted his resignation, Hoiriis said, “I’m gonna miss this board, the staff, the students, the community. Eighteen years — I feel like it’s more my community than the one I live in.”

Building updates

The April 13 meeting began with a public hearing on the use of money in the building maintenance expendable trust fund to cover emergency repairs of the boiler ignition and transformer at the high school ($2,900), roof repairs at New Hampton Community School ($1,074), and the structural engineering inspection at Bristol Elementary ($2,850).

Facilities Director Armand Girouard reported asbestos removal at BES had been completed, and workers were engaged in building new walls to make the building secure until further work could be done over the summer. Those costs, approved on March 30, were estimated at $28,100 for the asbestos removal and supporting walls, and as much as $324,975 for the additional work required to reopen the school next year.

Altogether, Girouard said, the repairs — including those approved April 13 — would still leave more than $915,000 in the building maintenance trust fund.

Students had to evacuate the building during asbestos removal, and should be able to return to that portion of the elementary school once the structural engineer ensures it is safe.

“We won’t let anybody in there before that,” Girouard said. “Not quite sure when that’s going to happen yet. It might be over the weekend. It could be next week. It really depends on how everything goes. So there’s no concrete date yet, but ... we’d love to get this done and everyone moved back to where they want to be.

"We want to get it all done, back to normal before the kids go on [April] break.”

“We may have to look at one more day of remote learning when we do move all those classrooms back, and it’s more than just hauling the furniture over a weekend. It is the teachers making sure that their curriculum is back in place, their materials are back in place, their technologies up and working. I think doing that while trying to have students at the same time will put a lot of stress on them,” Hoiriis added.

As for the spending adjustments necessary to fall within the default budget voters adopted in March, Hoiriis noted, “When the board voted to close Danbury, we were able to restore the co-curriculars and athletics, and there was also another bit of money as part of the savings from the closure” that will allow the district to restore some of the other items that were initially reduced or eliminated.

“In addition, myself, along with Armand, have been looking under every rock to continue looking for savings that included some renegotiated contracts. I worked with the bus company about looking at going down one bus on our route next year. So, as well, as we talked about, the after-school bus was not well-used. Armand renegotiated a lot of his vendor contracts, and I am working with some of our agencies on some of their pricing [for] contracted services, as well as looking into working really hard not to use contracted services, and hiring direct. So in that, we realized an additional $212,000 in possible savings.”

That allows the district to restore a French teacher position at the high school; bring back a special education case manager position; provide raises to teachers who did not get raises alongside union members; put $100,000 back into the regular building maintenance budget; and provide transportation for field trips. Parents still would be responsible for field trip fees.

Also restored was money for library books, the summer Bridge Academy and Mid-Step programs, the Alternative Pathways tutor at the high school, a stipend for a fifth grade team leader, and a special education contingency fund.