As Mayor, Jim is always focused on the well-being and success of Nashua’s children and on the city’s role in preparing them for college, careers, and meaningful lives. He believes that great schools and a caring community can make a big difference in outcomes for our children. His mantra is always that the city has a great responsibility to provide an excellent education for every child, at every school, every day in Nashua. And as he sees it, educational excellence in Nashua’s schools is critical to the city’s future as well as an important aspect of the city’s economic development blueprint. Jim’s efforts on behalf of Nashua’s children include:
- Together with the Joint Special School Building Committee, completing the comprehensive Nashua middle schools redesign and upgrade project. The aim was to offer to our 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students one of the best middle school educations of any district in the state. All three middle schools would be equipped with 21st century technology, be powered by solar energy, and have athletic fields. Fairgrounds Middle School was the first renovation completed in 2022, and the Pennichuck Middle School project will be completed this year. The third middle school – a replacement of the near obsolete Elm Street Middle School – will be the new Brian McCarthy Middle School, currently under construction in southwest Nashua and named in honor of one of the city’s most hard-working and effective Aldermen-at-Large.
- Together with the Joint Special School Building Committee, planning the safety-focused renovation of Birch Hill and Main Dunstable, Nashua’s two remaining open-classroom elementary schools.
- Expanding full-day kindergarten across all of Nashua’s twelve elementary schools beginning in the fall of 2017.
- In late 2017, opening the Arlington Street Community Center adjacent to the Dr. Crisp Elementary School with programming to address learning gaps for improved student academic performance and to promote stronger families in a healthier Crown Hill neighborhood.
- Enthusiastically endorsing the current teachers’ contract aimed at checking losses of Nashua’s mid-career teachers to higher-paying neighboring school districts but instead providing salary incentives and retaining highly qualified educators with careers at their peak for the benefit of Nashua’s children.
- Launching a summer youth jobs program for rising high school seniors featuring paying jobs in a number of city departments.
- Since the 2018-2019 school year, sponsoring the Mayor’s Winter Reading Challenge aimed at fostering a love of reading and building vocabulary among Nashua’s elementary school children.
- Signing on as a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition of more than 1,000 U.S. mayors dedicated to protecting their communities from the threat of gun violence and to building a safer American society. Also, working with Moms Demand Action-NH, our state’s chapter of the grassroots action network focused on the fight for life-saving gun safety reforms
