Broken Ground, Mill Brook Students In Concord Get Primary Day Off

CONCORD, NH — The Concord School District has reversed a prior decision to keep classes going at the only city polling location located inside of a school — and those students will now get the day off. Students who attend Broken Ground Elementary School and the Mill Brook Primary School, the location where Ward 10 voting takes place, will get Tuesday, Feb. 11 off from school, the day of New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. No other SAU 8 district schools will be closed in Concord.

Originally, classes were going to be held with stepped up security after about 50 teachers created a petition requesting the day off from school or rescheduling professional development days to Feb. 11. Ward 10, which votes in the gym of Broken Ground, is historically one of the highest turnout wards in the city during federal elections — with about 80 percent of the more than 3,800 registered voters casting ballots.

The times when students prepare to come to class early in the morning and when they leave for the day in the afternoon, when voting is going on, can be busy and cause traffic hazards, the teachers noted.

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Interim School Superintendent Franklyn Bass nixed the request saying he wanted to see how bad traffic and security were at the campus first. However, he reversed that decision this week and the school made the cancelation announcement Tuesday.

"Yeah, despite my best efforts to minimize the impact," he said, "the additional concerns with so many of the national media arriving created too much of a distraction for classroom instruction, not to mention the headaches with traffic and parking."

The date of the general election, Tuesday, Nov. 3, has already been booked as a day off for SAU 8 district students.

Both the city and the school district are having discussions about potentially utilizing school buildings for voting locations for future elections, possibly after redistricting in the wake of the completion of the 2020 Census.

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