MANCHESTER, N.H. – If there is one thought that sums up Sean Parr’s quest to become the next Board of School Committee (BOSC) Member for Ward 2, it’s a thought that has stuck with him over the last three years: a desire to do his part to help make the Manchester School District (MSD) a better place.
A music professor at Saint Anselm College, Parr attended a Parent Teacher Organization conference at Smyth Road Elementary School in 2018 where he learned that his children’s teachers would more than likely not have enough school supplies to last the year.
That moment spurred him into action, and he began to volunteer and donate supplies for the city’s public school teachers, eventually running for the BOSC in 2019 in the hopes of helping the city’s teachers find a positive resolution to the then ongoing contractual dispute between the MSD and the Manchester Education Association.
As COVID-19 vaccines slowly became available earlier this year, he worked with fellow parents across the state to gather over 12,000 to present to New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, asking him to allow teachers expedited access to the vaccines to facilitate a safe return of students to in-person learning.
While the situation has evolved since 2018, his desire to help has not.
“I try to be involved, I try to be active, and if I see something I think I can do to help, I do it,” he says.
Parr believes the primary issue facing the MSD in the near future is the safe return of in-person learning in the fall, agreeing with MSD Superintendent Dr. John Goldhardt that masks are important to help protect children too young to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, but that in-person education is vital for the mental and emotional health of Manchester’s children, something he’s heard repeatedly from voters in Ward 2.
Parr also says that he is open to the concept of a “super high school” if it can be centrally located enough to make each part of the city feel as though it is accessible to them, but he sees implementation of dual-language immersion elementary schools as the primary item in Goldhardt’s facilities plan, noting that he strongly supports the dual-language education concept.
He also hopes to spread the spirit of cooperation he’s seen among Ward 2 families across all of Manchester.
“(Ward 2) is a fairly tight-knit community,” he said. “That’s just the kind of ward it is, people helping people out and I want to map that onto the wider city.”