Long-Time Concord School Board Member Last Candidate To File For 2024

CONCORD, NH — A sixth candidate filed to run for three citywide SAU 8 Concord School District board of education seats, and he is no stranger to the board.

Clint Cogswell, a long-time educator in the city and a board member for several terms, filed on Monday as the last candidate to sign up. He will face incumbents Barbara Higgins and Pamela Walsh and three challengers, Sarah Sadowski, Joe Scroggins, and Andrew Winter.

Bob Cotton, a citywide board member, declined to run again in November.

“It was a hard decision,” Cotton said, “but I think the right one for me.”

Cogswell is a former teacher and principal who served previously on the board for about a decade. He also served on the district’s charter commission in 2012 and 2022.

Cogswell said one of the reasons he stepped down from the board was to spend more time with his wife, Jane, in retirement. Her death, he said, in August, after more than 50 years of marriage, allowed him to serve again because he had time on his hands. Cogswell said the couple traveled a lot and spent time with family during the last few years.

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Cogswell had been watching recent situations with the board, including the decision to build a middle school on the east side of the city, as well as two ballot questions forwarded by residents upset with that decision. He supported the current charter and the district’s autonomy, having voted against changes allowing any voting rights to residents during two charter commissions. Cogswell also said autonomy had been handy in the past, allowing the board to make quick decisions like converting schools to natural gas after the Concord Steam bankruptcy instead of implementing full-day kindergarten. Another was building the new elementary schools all at once, which was cheaper than spreading them out due to the Great Recession, which saved money.

At the same time, if Question 1, mandatory voter approval for school relocation, is approved, Cogswell said the board would have to stop the project and reexamine everything.

“I’m anxious to see how the ballot initiative turns out,” he said. “If it is over 60 percent, the board has to be very conscious of what the voters are telling them. (The board) would have to blow open everything and relook at it. I’m not for or against a (middle) school at the Rundlett Middle School or Broken Ground. What I am open to is whatever the voters tell us.”

Cogswell said he needed help understanding the motives of the second ballot question. But he added it was clear many people in the community think “something is going on behind the scenes and I don’t know what it is … there is a lot of information not getting out to the community.” The second question was bewildering because the district had few landholdings left to sell.

Regarding budgeting, Cogswell said the problem was the need for more money from the state and the heavy reliance of all school districts on property taxes. That is not going to change, he said.

Class size guidance, however, had always been the critical point for the district, going back to his days as a principal in the early 1980s. The process is “pretty extensive.” Balancing all the other costs, which continue to increase, including teacher salaries, healthcare, maintenance, special education, and other items, was “a tough job.” Cogswell, who has been retired for many years, feels the pinch, even more so now that his spouse has passed, and he expects to receive less Social Security.

“I can be a pain in the ass,” he said, “but I can also be a help. I’ve always been a peacemaker.”

When asked whether the Concord and Merrimack Valley school districts should consider merging in the wake of enrollment drops and the need for cost reductions and property tax relief, Cogswell said he did not have enough knowledge to make a comment and had not thought a lot about it. He added consolidation “would really help with the budget.”

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