MANCHESTER – A New Hampshire Department of Education review of four city schools this spring determined the district is not meeting state standards or providing “the opportunity for an adequate education.”

Scarce resources, crowded classrooms and a lack of communication between schools are the biggest problems facing the district, according to the report. Teachers do not have the tools they need to keep students engaged, especially in the larger classes, and the lack of technology in the classroom was deemed troubling.

“I have never personally observed students sleeping in class until these visits. Other team members also saw students sleeping. These were not isolated cases. I saw it in six different classrooms in two schools,” the report's author Edward Murdough form the DOE wrote. This indicates a lack of student engagement, he added. “I have to believe each situation is exacerbated by large classes where teachers cannot give enough time to each student and lack of the things that make education exciting to today's students.”

The report also pointed to differences from teacher to teacher, such as some teachers being up-to-date on current approaches to instruction while others relied on worksheets “and virtually no technology.”

The report identified a dozen total areas at Memorial High School, Southside Middle School, Jewett Street School and Highland-Goffe's Falls School that did not meet state standards. These included a lack of a geography class at Memorial, failing to provide enough time for unified arts classes at Southside, failing to offer a middle school health curriculum, and inadequate time given to social studies, science and overall instruction at Highland-Goffe's Falls and Jewett Street schools.

Mayor Ted Gatsas sharply criticized the report before the school board and aldermen this week, saying poor reporting and contradictions call into question its conclusions. He also noted that the week of the interviews was the same week pink slips were handed out.

“What ability do we have to respond to this so-called audit?” asked Gatsas. “I look at this audit and want to know who these people were.”

Gatsas pledged to directly contact the commissioner of education to discuss the results.

Superintendent of Schools Thomas Brennan said there were issues raised in the report he knows are problems in the district, but the way the review was done and some of the comments offered were not productive. Comments about needing an information technology plan or that teachers need to talk more to teachers in other schools are things Brennan said the district are working on, but have been hindered by cuts in teacher time and money.

“That's the most frustrating part when you look at that report,” said Brennan. “We do have a thoughtful, laid out plan for IT, we're just having trouble getting the money to do it.”

Each year, the state Department of Education conducts a “school approval site visit” at 10 percent of New Hampshire's public schools districts to see if they are following state education guidelines. An example is having a full-time principal at an elementary school of more than 500 students.

The report said “there were more deficiencies identified in Manchester than in any other district yet visited.”

A lack of technology caused “serious concerns” among the reviewers. Teachers said equipment is old and unreliable, few people are available to fix broken computers and what functioning technology the schools have is a hodgepodge put together through donations and grants, not through a comprehensive technology plan.

The report also urged a more comprehensive K-12 curriculum through better communication. While the district is doing a good job streamlining math courses, teachers at the middle school are not talking to their counterparts at the high school to better prepare students.

Overall, the report states that “teachers in Manchester clearly face challenges that their counterparts in other districts do not, yet they have fewer tools and less opportunity for coordination than their peers,” the report said.

Brennan said there were a number of comments and observations he would refute in the report. On Monday, he told the school board that comments about 14-year-old text books being used and a lack of supplies were troubling, since the administration has repeatedly asked principals and teachers to put in requests. Although supply requests may not always be honored, if an item is needed the district will try to get it, Brennan said.

“I don't know if anyone could have read anymore in the paper about the text book loan (from the city last year) and that we were replacing text books,” said Gatsas, in response to a comment about 14-year-old books being used in a classroom. “I question what class that was. ... I want to know that information. I want to know who the teacher was. I didn't go to any classrooms that didn't have new text books.”

Brennan and Gatsas agreed the recommendations were unclear and not helpful. There were also places where the reviewer cut and paste comments from one review sheet onto another. Regarding the city's alternative school program, PASS, the report noted it did not meet state standards but did not say how. It also said that because it was being phased out of Manchester School of Technology, the program should remain unchanged, seeming to contradict its criticism.

Brennan said he is going to reach out to the DOE's commissioner's office to ask for a clear outline of needed improvements, as well as mention that the district should have had a chance to respond before the report was released.

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Beth LaMontagne Hall may be reached at bhall@unionleader.com.