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Jurors found a former Manchester teacher who solicited sex with a child during work hours guilty Thursday on one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor.

Stacey Lancaster, 46, a Navy veteran and Manchester West High School’s lead NJROTC teacher, was busted last year as part of a federal sting operation nabbing several men. Lancaster was arrested in the parking lot of the Manchester Econo Lodge where he thought he was meeting a child’s pimp.

Lancaster was fired by the school district shortly after his arrest. His trial started this week in the United States District Court in Concord.

Federal agents set up a sting last year, using an online ad to draw out men interested in sex with children, according to court records. Lancaster responded to the ad while at work and engaged in a text conversation with an undercover agent.

Lancaster texted back and forth online with someone offering up two young girls for paid sex. Lancaster was first given the choice of the 12-year-old, but seemed incredulous at the girl’s photo.

“Did you say she’s 12? Are you being serious? That’s really bad if it’s true,” Lancaster texted after seeing the child’s photo, according to court records.

The pimp offered a 14-year-old girl to Lancaster instead, but Lancaster decided to go with the 12-year-old, and agreed to pay $100. He finished up his work at the high school that afternoon, and a short time later went to the Manchester hotel to meet the pimp and the girl, according to court records. 

In the hotel parking lot, Lancaster frisked the pimp to make sure there was now hidden police microphone, and then proceeded to close the deal. That’s when agents with Homeland Security Investigations and Manchester Police pounced, taking Lancaster into custody on attempted sex trafficking charges.

Lancaster is the latest New Hampshire school employee recently busted for inappropriate behavior with children.

• A Portsmouth High School assistant track coach is being accused of paying for sex with an underage girl who was actually an undercover officer.
• The superintendent of the Sanborn Regional School District just announced he’s resigning after the arrest of a special education teacher who was allegedly abusing children on his watch.
• A Claremont Middle School teacher was recently arrested for violating a restraining order requiring her to stay away from a 14-year-old boy.
• A former substitute teacher from the Bedford school district was charged with possession of child sex abuse images.

Opponents of GOP-backed parents’ rights legislation currently working its way through the State House argue teachers and school staff should be allowed to have information about students’ behavior regarding sex and gender that is denied to parents. State House Democrats have repeatedly argued adult teachers and students should be allowed to share secrets because parents can’t be trusted with that information. Parents might harm — or even kill — their children if they are allowed to know what teachers do, Democrats say.

Supporters of parents’ rights point to the significant number of cases of criminal behavior by teachers to remind lawmakers that teachers are no more or less trustworthy than parents.

Lancaster will be sentenced at a later date in federal court.

One of Donald Trump’s first political successes was his embrace of the opioid addiction issue in New Hampshire during the 2016 campaign. Long overlooked, the scourge of addiction was hitting working-class Americans hard, with the Granite State suffering more than 300 drug overdose deaths in 2015.

In 2018, the data analysts at WalletHub ranked New Hampshire as having the third-highest drug use rate in the U.S.

But a decade after Trump came down the golden escalator and helped raise the profile of the opioid issue, New Hampshire’s fortunes have reversed. The latest WalletHub report, released Wednesday, ranks New Hampshire 11th best overall in terms of its drug problem. The report looks at factors like recovery availability, law enforcement efforts, and rates of addiction. Hawaii, Utah, and Nebraska were in the top three for states doing well, while New Mexico, West Virginia, and Nevada have the most dire drug addiction problems according to the report. 

“I think we’re doing significantly better,” said Chris Stawasz, regional director with ambulance company American Medical Response.

Only one New England state, Connecticut, has a lower rate of drug abuse than New Hampshire. Massachusetts and Maine rank 26th and 27th, respectively; Rhode Island comes in at 28th, and Vermont is last in the region at number 32.

Stawasz, who has been collecting and publishing overdose data from the cities of Manchester and Nashua for years, said data from this year is already showing a major improvement.

“Nashua and Manchester are at half of where we were a year ago, and statewide it’s down as well,” Stawasz said. 

Part of the credit goes to state government, where Gov. Chris Sununu led a bipartisan effort to make treatment more readily available to Granite Staters. Mental health and confronting addiction have been among a handful of issues where, despite some differences in approach, support for solutions has been strong on both sides of the aisle.

As a result, New Hampshire ranks 48th among states with adults whose drug-treatment needs are unmet, WalletHub reports.

In Manchester, which has been ground zero for the Granite State’s battle with addiction, Mayor Jay Ruais — who has struggled with his own addiction issues — says the battle has been hard fought. But, he told NHJournal, the results are undeniable as the number of fentanyl overdoses and deaths continues to decline.

“Trend lines have been extraordinarily clear,” Ruais said. 

Stawasz will release numbers for the first quarter of 2025 within the next few days, but he said Manchester and Nashua have seen at least a 50 percent reduction from the first quarter of 2024. The projections for the total 2025 number of overdoses and deaths could be their lowest in at least a decade. 

Getting from the worst of the opioid crisis to the recovery being seen today takes a combination of different people and agencies working on different aspects of the problem, Stawasz said.

“I can’t point to one specific item. There’s a lot of effort going into the recovery, prevention, and law enforcement.”

Focusing police agencies on busting fentanyl dealers and stopping the traffic of drugs coming up from Massachusetts has been a big part of the recent success, Stawasz said. Ruais said police are a major component of Manchester’s success in combating the epidemic, along with the city’s Rapid Overdose Assessment and Response (ROAR) Team, assembled to deal with different aspects of addiction.

“This is an entirely collaborative effort,” Ruais said. 

Now, the ROAR team can redouble efforts and hopefully get ahead before there is a next wave, Ruais said. The city can start looking more at prevention, targeting efforts to schools and youth in the city to keep them away from drugs. 

“We can further reduce these numbers so that a person never gets into an addiction,” he said. 

Emails and handouts from Manchester School District staff make two things clear.

The school district is still embracing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion content and policies. And they don’t want parents or the public to know about it.

The district is scrambling after a student handout using DEI teacher training materials in a class on the Holocaust was posted on the internet.

When it did, Amadou Hamady Sy, the Manchester School District’s executive director of Student Engagement, Outcomes and Success, sent staffers an email reminding them to keep the DEI lessons to themselves. Hamady Sy expressed concern that the materials had leaked to “individuals outside the school community and even the local press.”

“Given the current political climate and heightened scrutiny around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work, we are again reminding all staff to refrain from sharing any training materials, especially presentation slides, surveys, facilitator guides, or discussion content with students or external parties,” Hamady Sy wrote. “These resources were designed strictly for internal staff development purposes.”

Not the right answer for parents or opponents of race-based DEI curricula.

“They don’t want parents and taxpayers to know that teachers are being trained to bring these divisive concepts into the classroom,” said state Sen. Victoria Sullivan (R-Manchester).

The handout in question was given to eighth-grade students at the Henry McLaughlin Jr. Middle School. It purported to lay out the “Wheel of Power and Privilege” in society, encouraging children to contemplate their own “power and privilege” by circling attributes they felt matched their own, such as skin color and economic background.

There was also a packet on so-called “microaggressions” — actions that can be labeled as racist or discriminatory even if the person committing them has no racist or discriminatory beliefs or motives.

The school district claims it was part of its Holocaust education, a state requirement. However, the handout makes no mention of Nazi Germany’s slaughter of Jews.

Sullivan called the materials the type of divisive, race-based ideology that the legislature has been trying to get out of schools for years.

“Within that lesson was a power and privilege wheel that sent a message to students that some children are better than others. That is a message that should never be put upon children,” Sullivan said. “All children are unique in their talents and abilities. Telling children that they are better than some people or are less than others based on skin color, sexuality, body size, and gender is unacceptable. The lesson also uses the term ‘cisgender,’ which is a made-up term not rooted in any science and has been deemed a slur.”

When parents began complaining about the DEI materials, district officials blamed the teacher. According to the district, the microaggressions worksheet and “Wheel of Power and Privilege” are part of teacher training and never intended for students.

“In this isolated incident, students were asked to complete an anonymous self-reflection form to explore their understanding of self to text within the unit. Unfortunately, materials intended only for staff professional development were used for this anonymous student self-reflection,” the district said in a statement released Friday. “We want to be clear that there was never a survey completed as part of this lesson or unit. The district team has taken steps so this action is not repeated.”

“But the fact remains the materials are used for teacher training, which shows the school district has the wrong priorities,” Sullivan said.

“Manchester repeatedly makes headlines for inadequate proficiency scores. Yet, this is where they are spending taxpayer dollars,” Sullivan said.

And, Sullivan added, the fact that the school is trying to keep materials secret from parents and the public raises more questions about what’s being taught in classrooms.

The Manchester School District already fought a lawsuit defending its right to keep parents in the dark about their children’s behavior regarding sex and gender at school. In court, Manchester argued the district has no legal duty to tell parents if their child identifies as a different sex at school than his or her biological one.

If Manchester parents don’t like it, “They can homeschool, or they can send their child to a private school; those are options available to them,” said the district’s attorney, Meghan Glynn.

The school district prevailed before the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

“We cannot conclude that any interference with parental rights which may result from non-disclosure is of constitutional dimension,” the Supreme Court justices ruled.

While every death is tragic, the fact that there was only one fatal opioid overdose in the city of Manchester last month is good news for a city that has long struggled to address the drug crisis. It’s the latest data point in a positive trend in the Queen City since Mayor Jay Ruais took office in January 2024.

“If these results continue, Manchester is on pace to realize the lowest numbers in suspected overdoses and deaths since the beginning of the opioid epidemic more than 10 years ago,” Ruais said Wednesday. “This is an incredible accomplishment. We’re saving lives, and getting people in need help.”

The one death out of the 33 suspected opioid overdoses last month brings the total fatalities up to seven for the year, compared to 47 deaths out of 527 suspected overdoses the year before.

Chris Stawasz with Global Medical Response, Inc., says Manchester is on pace for 357 opioid overdoses and 28 deaths in 2025. Global Medical Response tracks overdoses and fatalities in Manchester and Nashua, two cities hard hit by the opioid crisis in the last decade. Both cities are seeing a turnaround, according to Stawasz.

“March continued the trend of significantly lower overall opioid overdose totals in both communities, 14 percent below the rolling 12-month average,” Stawasz said.

However, while Nashua had far fewer suspected overdoses (16), five of those were fatal, a significantly higher single-month number than is typical. Nashua has already seen 12 deaths and could see as many as 49 if Stawasz’s projections hold for the rest of the year.

In Manchester, where 79 people died in 2022 out of 701 overdoses, Ruais says the lower death toll is welcome evidence that the city’s holistic approach is working. Since winning election, the Republican mayor has focused on empowering police, getting people in crisis access to medical care, and pursuing an effective strategy to get homeless people housed.

The opioid epidemic has been most acute among the city’s homeless population, and 25 of the March suspected overdose victims in Manchester were homeless. Stawasz said three of the overdoses took place in shelters.

Ruais has changed Manchester’s direction in dealing with homelessness, too. His emphasis is to build a collaborative network with city, state, and nonprofit organizations to get people off the streets and into shelters, address why they ended up homeless, and get them into permanent housing. 

This week, Manchester announced its partnership with HarborCare, the Veterans Administration, and city landlords has resulted in housing for 40 homeless veterans thus far.

“The level of success we’ve reached in finding sustainable housing for our homeless veterans since our initiative kicked off last September has exceeded my highest hopes,” Ruais said.

Manchester’s Public Health Director, Anna Thomas, said Manchester is thankful for the help it has received from the Centers for Disease Control, as well as the combined efforts come from a community of health providers, city officials like Director of Overdose Prevention Andrew Warner, the Manchester Police Department, and ambulance company American Medical Response. 

“All life is precious and every one saved is worth fighting for,” Thomas said.

The crisis isn’t over, Stawasz cautioned. Data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner indicates the drugs xylazine and carfentanil are showing up in the street fentanyl being used by addicts. Xylazine is worrisome, Stawasz said, and it does not respond to Narcan.

“Increasingly now mixed with illicit fentanyl, xylazine’s powerful sedative properties complicate EMS providers’ treatment of suspected opioid overdoses. It is undetectable to medics and Narcan does not reverse its effect,” Stawasz said. “When present, it requires a significant additional and prolonged effort to maintain an effective respiratory status on a victim.”

Mayors from across the Granite State, as well as the entire Manchester Board of Aldermen, are joining in a bipartisan push and are backing Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s call to reform bail. 

“This is not a partisan issue, it’s a safety issue, and the safety of our cities is non-negotiable,” Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais said.

Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan, Claremont Mayor Dale Girard, Dover Mayor Robert Carrier, Keene Mayor Jay Kahn, Berlin Mayor Robert Cone, Franklin Mayor Desiree McLaughlin, and Concord Mayor Byron Champlin joined Ruais in a letter to House Speaker Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) and Senate President Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry) urging action on bail reform.

“Our citizens, businesses and tourists deserve our best efforts when it comes to keeping our streets safe,” the mayors wrote.

Ayotte has made fixing the bail system a top priority since taking office. She wants to see the 2018 attempt at bail reform, which made it easier for suspects to get released without posting cash bail, rolled back.

“Our current system is a joke to criminals. Too often, offenders are back on the street before officers who arrested them have even finished filing their paperwork. Our law enforcement officers and the public deserve better than this. The safest state in the nation deserves better than this,” Ayotte said.

In an op-ed for NHJournal, Ayotte pledged that, if the current bail reform proposal doesn’t make it to her desk, she will get it done anyway. The governor is putting bail reform into House Bill 2, the state budget trailer, to make sure it passes.

Manchester’s Board of Aldermen says the 2018 law reforming bail has had disastrous consequences for the city. In 2024, Manchester Police arrested 2,971 adults in 4,551 incidents. That’s because 27 percent of people arrested in Manchester last year were arrested more than once. Of the individuals arrested, 24 percent of them, or 715 people, were already out on bail at the time of their arrest.

“We understand the good intentions behind the previous changes to our bail laws. However, those good intentions have been replaced by criminal acts … When individuals are not held accountable for their actions, it encourages more bad behavior,” the Aldermen said in a statement.

Manchester became ground zero for the bail reform debate last month when Kyle Bisson, 25, was released on personal recognizance bail after he repeatedly stabbed another man in an Elm Street confrontation. Bisson has a criminal record, including a prior assault conviction, but he was not out on bail when he was arrested for the Feb. 7 fight. Manchester’s Police prosecutor did not request cash bail at Bisson’s initial bail hearing.

Cities and towns throughout New Hampshire are already struggling to hire police officers, leaving those they do have overworked. The revolving door bail system is only making the staffing and morale problems worse, the mayors said in their letter.

“This problem compounds itself when criminals cycle through a process of arrest and release, only to be arrested again,” the mayors said.

People just want safe cities again, Ruais added. 

“We need to focus on making sure violent and repeat offenders are taken off our streets,” Ruais said. “We are counting on the legislature to do the right thing, which will go a long way to making all Granite Staters safer, regardless of where they live.”

The alleged stabber at the center of the bail reform firestorm remains free after a Hillsborough Superior Court judge refused to revoke his personal recognizance bail.

Judge Michael Klass denied Hillsborough County Attorney John Coughlin’s motion to have Kyle Bisson, 25, locked up pending trial on assault charges, saying video evidence shows the alleged victim was an aggressor in the violent Feb. 7 fracas.

“The video reflects that (the victim) and the defendant both played a role in this incident,” Klass said. “They both appeared to be aggressors at times.”

Bisson’s initial no-cash bail for the alleged violent assault, coupled with his prior domestic violence conviction, led to renewed calls for bail reform from Gov. Kelly Ayotte, Mayor Jay Ruais, and the Manchester Police Department.

Ayotte’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Ruais said he’s disappointed in Klass’ ruling but remains determined to see the bail system changed.

“From the beginning, this case has demonstrated the urgent need for Bail Reform and I am disappointed the defendant’s PR Bail was not revoked. This incident brought real violence to our downtown, threatening citizens and business owners, which is unacceptable,” Ruais said. “Despite today’s decision, I remain confident that legislators in Concord are listening and will get behind the necessary changes to our bail laws. Violent and repeat offenders need to stay behind bars,” Ruais said.

Court records show Bisson was released on personal recognizance bail after the police department’s prosecutor did not request cash bail during the initial arraignment. With calls for sanctioning the original Bail Magistrate Stephanie Johnson coming from Concord, Coughlin’s office filed a motion to have Bisson’s bail revoked.

But Klass said Wednesday the prosecutor does not have evidence to justify holding Bisson in jail before he’s convicted of a crime. While state law allows for defendants to be held pre-trial, that is typically reserved for people deemed a danger to the community.

Klass said the evidence in the case shows the alleged victim, Michael Perry, 42, instigated the confrontation that took place outside Bunny’s Convenience Store in Manchester. Perry reportedly used a racial slur to insult Bisson, and took the first swing, according to court records.

While Perry reportedly claimed to have a knife, but did not, Bisson actually had a knife when the fight began. Bisson stabbed Perry several times before Perry ran away and the knife wielding Bisson chased him, according to court records. 

When the fight was over, Bisson threw away his knife and jacket before calling 911 to report that he had been stabbed. Bisson did have a single stab wound to his chest, an injury that was likely self-inflicted by accident during the fight, according to the police report.

Ayotte used Bisson’s arrest and release as an illustration of the need for bail reform during a speech in the House chamber last week, saying it is unacceptable for people like him to walk free after a violent attack.

“What happened in Manchester last Friday night is completely unbelievable, when an individual accused of repeatedly stabbing a complete stranger, and who has a prior conviction for domestic violence, is allowed to walk free by a magistrate. I cannot emphasize this enough,” Ayotte told lawmakers. “Send me legislation to fix this once and for all.” 

If the current push for bail reform is successful, it will be the third time New Hampshire has tinkered with the system since Gov. Chris Sununu signed a bail reform bill in 2018.

That reform was supposed to eliminate cash bail for non-violent suspects. But the law’s detractors say it simply enabled repeat offenders to get out of jail and continue their criminal activity. A reform of the reform bill signed last year put a stop to the release of people re-arrested while already out on bail, as well as causing certain violent offenders to be only allowed bail after review by a judge or magistrate.

It appears the Bisson case fell within the framework of last year’s law. Bisson was not out on bail when he was arrested for the Feb. 7 fight. And he did get a bail hearing in front of a magistrate where the prosecutor did not seek cash bail. 

Her budget speech may have been focused on fiscal issues like education funding and spending cuts, but it was Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s comments on bail reform that’s created the most conversation — and backlash.

Ayotte used part of her speech Thursday to decry a stabbing in downtown Manchester in which the suspect had been released on personal recognizance.

“What happened in Manchester last Friday night is completely unbelievable, when an individual accused of repeatedly stabbing a complete stranger, and who has a prior conviction for domestic violence, is allowed to walk free by a magistrate. I cannot emphasize this enough,” Ayotte told the state legislators listening to her speech in the House chamber. “Send me legislation to fix this once and for all.”

A few hours later, those same House members debated a proposal to consider impeaching Magistrate Stephanie Johnson, who allowed suspect Kyle Bisson, 26, to go free. Rep. Buzz Scherr (D-Portsmouth) spoke on the floor in defense of both the suspect and the decision.

Scherr described the incident surrounding the stabbing as a “tussle” and claimed both Bisson and his alleged victim could be seen as at fault. According to Scherr, the victim also had a knife and struck first in the fracas, leaving Bisson to defend himself as best he could.

“This is not the horror that people that we know made it to be. This is a simple fight between two people instigated by the alleged victim,” Scherr said. 

Scherr is an outspoken supporter of “decarceration” efforts, with the goal of keeping people out of jail if possible. In a recent op-ed, Scherr dismissed stories of violent offenders who reoffended after being released rather than held on bail as mere “seductive anecdotes.”

However, the Manchester Police report filed in court conflicts with Scherr’s version of the stabbing. According to police, the victim, who was not armed, was stabbed between nine and 13 times by Bisson. While the victim tried to run away, Bisson is seen on surveillance video chasing the man, brandishing his knife, according to the report.

Bison did end up with a stab wound to his chest, likely the result of an accidental self-stabbing, he told police. 

While the alleged victim did claim to have a knife, and did swing first after a verbal altercation with Bisson, he told police he did both actions to scare off the armed Bisson. Bisson is seen on video taking out his knife, dropping it in the snow, and picking it up again in order to stab the victim, according to the report.

After the assault, Bisson walked off, throwing away the knife and his jacket, according to the report. He told police he did not want to be seen and deal with the police inquiry. 

Ayotte and other New Hampshire Republicans were stunned by the response from some defenders of the current bail law to this incident. During a WMUR interview that aired Sunday, Ayotte said it’s time for legislators opposed to reversing the failed bail reform effort to stop blaming victims and police.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Ayotte said of Scherr’s comments. “That is part of the problem. They’re trying to protect their own bad votes.”

“Why are you trying to defend people who committed harm?” Ayotte added.

Mayor Jay Ruais was also outraged by Bisson’s release and the response, saying the assault is a perfect illustration of the current bail law’s failure.

“On what planet is it considered acceptable to stab another human being at least 9 times, then be released back out onto our streets? This is unconscionable. Our police, our residents, and our visitors are put at risk when criminals like this continue to be released, and it has to stop,” Ruais said.

Stacey Lancaster spent his Friday afternoon at work doing a little online shopping.

But the Manchester West High School’s lead NJROTC teacher wasn’t browsing Amazon for deals. According to law enforcement officials, he was working out the details of buying a sexual encounter with a 12-year-old girl. 

Lancaster texted back and forth online with someone offering up two young girls for paid sex. Lancaster was first given the choice of the 12-year-old but seemed incredulous at the girl’s photo.

“Did you say she’s 12? Are you being serious? That’s really bad if it’s true,” Lancaster texted after seeing the child’s photo, according to court records.

At this, the pimp offered a 14-year-old girl to Lancaster instead, but Lancaster decided to go with the 12-year-old, and agreed to pay $100. He finished up his work at the high school that afternoon, and a short time later went to the Manchester hotel to meet the pimp and the girl, according to court records. 

In the hotel parking lot, Lancaster frisked the pimp to make sure there was no hidden police microphone, and then proceeded to close the deal. That’s when agents with Homeland Security Investigations and Manchester Police moved in, taking Lancaster into custody on attempted sex trafficking charges.

The now-unemployed Lancaster, 46, is one of five men busted in recent days as part of a proactive law enforcement investigation operated by HSI agents. According to court records and an interview with United States Attorney Jane Young, HSI agents set up a fake service online catering to men seeking sex with children in order to stop child sex trafficking.

“Law enforcement is going to pursue every avenue to make sure the communities in New Hampshire are safe from all forms of crime,” Young said. “This is exactly what law enforcement should be doing. They should be applauded for that work.”

Along with Lancaster, agents arrested Arthur Picanco, 42, of Bradford, Mass., Ozeias Luiz Guilherme, 38, of Haverhill, Mass., Sharath Chandra Boll, 23, of Chelmsford, Mass., and Koteshwara Raju Jonnagodda, 24, of Chelmsford, Mass..

All of the men found an advertisement HSI agents placed on a website known to attract men looking for sex with children, Young said, though she declined to specify the name of the site. An undercover agent acted as the online pimp to set up deals with the men, directing them to the Manchester hotel for the in-person encounter. 

Young said some details, like the name of the website and the hotel, are not being disclosed in order to protect the investigation, and potential future investigations as well.

Young declined to answer when asked about the immigration status of the suspects from Massachusetts. She did acknowledge that immigration status is taken into account by her office, and the appropriate laws are followed. 

The men were held in jail over the weekend and on Monday, Lancaster had a detention hearing in the United States District Court in Concord. Judge Andrea Johnstone ruled Lancaster could be released on several conditions including no access to children or the internet, and submitting to home confinement. Lancaster, who is married, will be placed under house arrest in his mother’s home.

Manchester school officials have said there’s no indication Lancaster preyed on any children in the district. The 24-year Navy veteran began teaching within the last year at the school’s NJROTC program. He also served as the district’s liaison with the United States Navy. Lancaster has no prior criminal history, according to statements made in court.

Manchester School District practices a controversial policy of refusing to answer questions from parents about their own children’s behavior related to sex and gender, encouraging teachers and students to keep secrets from moms and dads. While the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the right of the district to follow the policy, criticism has continued.

In the wake of Lancaster’s arrest, some GOP lawmakers plan to act.

“I have already filed the ‘Honesty and Transparency in Education Act’ this year,” said state Sen. Tim Lang (R-Sanbornton). “This bill passed the Senate with ease, and I suspect it will again.”

The legislation, which was killed by Democrats in the House last year, would require all school employees to respond honestly and completely to written requests by parents regarding information relating to their children.

“My arguments remain the same: Schools and teachers have no business keeping secrets from parents,” Lang said. “Schools have pushed parents aside for too long now, it’s time for the legislature to clearly put parents back in charge of their children’s lives.”

Manchester High School students dropped out at an alarming rate under former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig’s watch, but that isn’t stopping the state’s largest teacher’s union from backing her bid for governor.

According to data from the Manchester School District and the state Department of Education, while Craig was in office, the district’s drop out rate was more than four times higher than the state average. And about one in four students failed to graduate each year, much higher than the state average.

But the NEA-New Hampshire is still on board. Union president Meg Tuttle told her members Democrat Craig will spend more on public schools, get them pay raises, and end New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Account (EFA) school choice program.

“New Hampshire’s students and educators deserve a governor who will have their backs. That means adequately funding our public schools, fighting for pay raises for educators, and making sure every child in our state can thrive,” Tuttle said.

Granite State taxpayers are currently spending an average of more than $20,000 per public school student, higher than many private schools in the state.

Tuttle also praised Craig for pledging to “put an end to the state’s current voucher scheme that is gouging taxpayers,” a reference to the EFA program. With Republican Kelly Ayotte promising to keep the EFA program going, Tuttle and the teachers unions see Craig as the obvious choice.

But what about her record on student achievement? How did Manchester students perform while Craig was mayor?

Craig took office in January 2018 as both mayor and chair of the Manchester School Committee. In 2019, Manchester reported a total graduation rate 17 percent below the statewide average, 73.8 percent vs. 88.42 percent.

And while the state’s dropout rate was 2.74 percent, Manchester’s was more than four times higher at 12.44 percent.

Under Craig’s tenure, the numbers got worse.

Manchester reported graduation rates of 73.01 percent in 2020. The following year, 2021, was directly impacted by the COVID pandemic, and the graduation rate plummeted to 67.85. But even when the rate rebounded, it was still well below the state average of around 88 percent. It was 72.23 in 2022, and 72.97 percent in 2023, the most recent year of data available.

The dropout rates in 2020 were 10.45 percent, 13.26 percent in COVID-plagued 2021, 11.84 percent in 2022, and 12.99 percent in 2023. The state averages for dropout rates in those same years ranged from 2.4 to 3.4 percent.

On top of overseeing an expensive public school district that failed students and their families, Craig raised city taxes several times as mayor, and repeatedly tried to override the tax cap. Raising taxes to spend on public schools is part of Craig’s platform.

Craig, who has not taken the no income tax pledge, recently admitted she would push to bring back an income tax on interest and dividends if elected governor. She says that, despite record spending on public schools, New Hampshire needs the tax to spend even more.

Craig’s tax increase does have at least one fan in New Hampshire politics. U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen told radio host Jack Heath on Tuesday raising taxes is a solid idea.

“Well, nobody in New Hampshire likes taxes,” Shaheen said. “But if we want to fund our schools, if we want to have roads and bridges that we can drive on, if we want to have safe commerce, if we want to provide health care, then we have to raise revenue.”

Shaheen first won the governor’s office in 1996 by signing the no-new-taxes pledge. But she raised taxes as governor, which haunted her in her first failed bid for the U.S. Senate.

Ironically, Shaheen had to answer for her record on education in 2002. New Hampshire’s abysmal dropout rates under her watch helped sink her run. 

A Republican prosecutor running a tough-on-crime campaign against a Democratic defense attorney should have checked his evidence before launching the political attack that’s now backfiring.

Hillsborough County Attorney John Coughlin’s reelection campaign recently launched a website attacking his opponent, Kim Kossick, for defending alleged Valley Cemetery rapist Amuri Diole. Diole was arrested in April 2021 for the violent rape of a woman for two hours in the cemetery.

But court records show Diole had been released from jail a week before the alleged rape because prosecutors in Coughlin’s office failed to file the necessary paperwork to keep the dangerous suspect locked up.

“I can’t change history. I can’t change the facts,” Coughlin told NHJournal.

At the same time, Coughlin’s opponent is trying to use the campaign website to get Diole off the hook for ever facing a trial over the horrific crime he allegedly committed.

Kossick is taking heat for running as a liberal reformer.

Because the campaign website mentions the Diole case, Kossick filed a motion in court to have the criminal charges dismissed. Diole was deemed incompetent to stand trial in the alleged rape in 2022 and is currently being held in the New Hampshire State Prison Secure Psychiatric Unit in Concord as the state seeks to have him ruled a sexually violent predator and then have him further held on an involuntary civil commitment.

But under state law, if Diole is ever returned to competency through medical treatment, he could then go on trial for the alleged rape. Kossik wants Diole to avoid prosecution in the future because, she says, Coughlin’s attack on her work defending Diole against the civil commitment taints the potential jury pool.

“The website is targeted at Hillsborough County voters and jurors,” Kossick said. “The people on the voting rolls are the jurors.”

Coughlin supporters say it is an example of the progressive approach Kossick would take to prosecuting crime. The issue has even reached the New Hampshire governor’s race.

On WMUR, Adam Sexton asked Democrat Joyce Craig if she supported the effort to use a campaign attack ad to get Diole exempted from prosecution. She appeared to defend her fellow Democrat.

“Everyone has the right to a civil defense,” Craig said. “And Kim Kossick is doing her job, and I believe that the county attorney has to be someone who represents our county and is always doing what’s right.”

Kossick says the real issue is that Diole wouldn’t have been out and able to commit the crime of Coughlin’s office had done its job.

“Coughlin doesn’t know what’s going on in his own office,” Kossick said.

Kossick was appointed to represent Diole during the civil commitment proceedings in the 2021 rape case, and ended up appealing the commitment to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. The Supreme Court sided against Doile. Coughlin’s website attacks Kossick for representing Diole.

“Instead of ensuring justice for the victim, Kossick prioritized the legal defense of a man deemed too dangerous to release into society,” the website states.

Coughlin, echoing the website, told NHJournal that Kossick does not prioritize the rights of victims and their families as evidenced by her work to represent Diole. 

“The website is about her judgment and about victims rights, and her failure to protect the victims of crimes and their families,” Coughlin said.

But NHJournal reviewed the court records in Diole’s criminal history and found a failure by Coughlin’s office put Diole on the street a week before the alleged rape.

According to court records, Diole was jailed in early 2021 as the result of a 2018 assault case in Nashua. When the issue of Dole’s competency was raised in pre-trial in that case, he underwent an examination by Forensic Psychologist Mathilde Pelaprat. On Jan. 27, 2021, Judge Charles Temple deemed Diole a danger to himself and others and ordered Diole held for 90 days, giving time for prosecutors to have Diole committed.

But prosecutors failed to get the involuntary commitment order within the 90 days, forcing Temple to release Diole in his April 23, 2021, order. 

“In accordance with RSA 135:17-a, V, the defendant is released from custody at the Hillsborough County House of Corrections. The State has been unable to secure an involuntary commitment order and the 90 day hold period expires on April 27, 2021. As such, Mr. Diole’s release is mandatory under RSA 135:17-a, V,” Temple wrote.

According to media reports, Diole went from living in the Valley Street Jail in Manchester to the Valley Cemetery across the street for the next six days before he was arrested again for the brutal rape. 

Coughlin blamed Diole’s release on the fact one of his assistant county attorneys was unable to get a qualified specialist to examine Diole within the 90-day timeframe. Prosecutors must use specially qualified experts from a pre-approved list provided by the state to examine people for involuntary commitment proceedings, he said. 

“We made reasonable efforts to identify specialists,” Coughlin said.

Since Dole’s re-arrest for the alleged rape, Coughlin said his office worked with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office on an expanded list of qualified specialists to make sure people who are a danger to the community can be committed. 

Kossick said blaming her, a defense attorney, for representing a criminal ignores the right every American has for a vigorous defense under both the United States Constitution and the New Hampshire Constitution.

“Defense attorneys are the only people standing between the government and their client,” Kossick said.

Kossick was surprised that Coughlin, a former judge, would attack her for the work she did as a defense attorney. Not only does such an attack undermine the criminal justice system, but it is totally out of character for Coughlin, she said.

“We all thought John Coughlin was a very good judge,” Kossick said. “We all thought he was great because he never revoked bail and never put anyone in jail. I can only assume he’s pandering to somebody.”