The published goal of The Walpolean is “Keeping the community up to date on community topics”.  In view of that, it has come to my attention that a number of people thought that School Board members were elected as representatives of their town to the regional school board.  As someone who (while not born here) has been around for many years, I would like to take the opportunity to clarify “the topic”.

When the School District was conceived this was, indeed the case. Langdon and Acworth each had one representative, Alstead had two, Charlestown and Walpole had three.  Each was elected by the people in their respective town.  

In 1987, the following amendment was made to the Articles of Agreement:

The main reason for the change was to create a more manageable number of Board members. (Considering the difficulty we experience in getting people to run for office, I would say the change was a good thing!)  The reason for “at large voting” was to assure that each town had a resident at the table and that the change met the principle of “one man, one vote”.

I hope that helps. – Lil