MANCHESTER — The state education commissioner has apologized for a scathing report released in June that catalogued a long list of “deficiencies” in the city's schools.

Commissioner Virginia Barry, in a letter to Superintendent Thomas Brennan, said the Department of Education report, which was based on site visits to four schools in April, was flawed and shouldn't have been released until he had a chance to review its findings.

In the letter, Barry retracts the original report while issuing a revised version that focuses more narrowly on how the schools are not meeting the state's minimum education requirements.

The original report noted “there were more deficiencies identified in Manchester than in any other district yet visited,” and it pointed to observations of crowded classrooms, a lack of working computers, the use of 14-year-old textbooks and students sleeping in class.

The report concluded the “schools in Manchester are not meeting the statutory requirement to provide the opportunity for an adequate education.”

On this point, Barry wrote: “We see this statement as erroneous and will revise it accordingly.”

The original report was strongly criticized by both Brennan and Mayor Ted Gatsas.

“I think somebody paid attention to what the facts were,” Gatsas said. “The people who stood up and pointed the finger at the school district should be apologizing just as fast as they pointed the finger.”

The revised report still finds several deficiencies at the four schools visited: Memorial High School, Southside Middle School, Jewett Street School and Highland-Goffs Falls School. It notes Memorial does not offer the requisite credit in geography; Southside has no health education program; Southside, Jewett, Highland-Goffs Falls lack technology resources; Jewett and Highland Goffs do not offer sufficient social studies instruction; and Highland-Goffs Falls doesn't devote enough class time to science.

In a letter to Barry, Brennan lamented that the original report contained subjective observations that had little to do with the purported subject of the audit, the schools' compliance with the state's minimum standards, or Ed 306.

“After reading the report, one would think that the Manchester School District has failed to meet any of the School Approval Standards set forth in Ed 306 that the site visit team reviewed. Further, the tone of many of the comments was highly unprofessional,” Brennan wrote.

Brennan has acknowledged a lack of technology resources, but has said the district hasn't been able to fully implement its information technology plan because of budget constraints.

He notes that original report stated class size was “an issue in grades 4 and 5” and Jewett Street School. In fact, those classes ranged from 27 to 29 students, below the 30-per-teacher state standard.

As for students sleeping, Brennan asked, “Why would this appear in a compliance report for school approval?”

Finally, Brennan faulted the report's authors for not consulting him to review their findings before releasing the report to the public.

Barry conceded this was a problem, and said she was changing how the DOE performs the audits statewide. The site visits, which have been conducted since 2006, were meant to provide a “quick, informal view of school performance,” but the process would be formalized as the state fully implements its adequacy review program this year, Barry wrote.

Brennan is now reviewing the revised report.

Meanwhile on Monday, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted to send a letter to Barry to thank her for responding to the concerns of the mayor and superintendent.
tsiefer@unionleader.com