In what is likely to be my final entry in this series—after nearly seven years, I can’t imagine there’s much more to uncover—I will share various documents that demonstrate Sandy Hook Elementary School’s continuous operation between 2008 and 2012. While some documents have appeared on the site, the majority have not, as they never quite fit elsewhere. I’ve opted not to include nearly one hundred issues of the Sandy Hook Connection newsletter due to the personal information contained within, such as the names and email addresses of teachers and volunteers. Large files that may cause performance issues with your browser will be linked for download instead of being embedded, and sources will be provided when possible.
Strategic school profile, 2007-2008:
strategic_school_profile_2007-2008Source: http://edsight.ct.gov/ssp/2007-2008/97-02.pdf
For a detailed description of the information available within Connecticut’s Strategic School Profiles, click here.
Sandy Hook PTA short form return of organization exempt from income tax form, 2008 (Download PDF, sixteen pages)
Strategic school profile, 2008-2009:
strategic_school_profile_2008-2009Source: http://edsight.ct.gov/ssp/2008-2009/97-02.pdf
Sandy Hook PTA short form return of organization exempt from income tax form, 2009 (Download PDF, sixteen pages)
Speech/language pathologist job posting, August 30th, 2009:
Source: Hartford Courant, August 30th, 2009
Strategic school profile, 2009-2010:
strategic_school_profile_2009-2010Source: http://edsight.ct.gov/ssp/2009-2010/097-02.pdf
“No Child Left Behind” report card, 2009-2010:
nclb_report_card_2009-2010Source: http://ctayp.emetric.net/Content/ReportCards/2010/100971051_2010.PDF
These NCLB report cards provide information on a school’s “Achievement, Accountability, Other Indicators and Highly Qualified Teachers”. You can read more about the No Child Left Behind Act here.
Sandy Hook PTA short form return of organization exempt from income tax form, 2010 (Download PDF, fifteen pages)
Fundraising gala invitation, 2010:
fundraising_invitation_2010Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20100401013128/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us:80/shs/site/files/invitation.pdf
Principal job posting, March 28th, 2010:
Source: Hartford Courant, March 28th, 2010
4th grade concert and music information, September 14th, 2010:
fourth_grade_concert_music_information_2010Letter to all parents, September 14th, 2010:
letter_to_all_parents_2010Library media specialist job posting, December 12th, 2010:
Source: Hartford Courant, December 12th, 2010
Strategic school profile, 2010-2011:
strategic_school_profile_2010-2011Source: http://edsight.ct.gov/ssp/2010-2011/097-02.pdf
“No Child Left Behind” report card, 2010-2011:
nclb_report_card_2010-2011Source: http://ctayp.emetric.net/Content/ReportCards/2011/100971002_2011.PDF
Newtown Board of Education approved budget, 2010-2011 (Download PDF, 106 pages)
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20140709193551/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/BOARD%20OF%20EDUCATION/BOE%20Budgets/boe.apprv.bdgt2010-2011.pdf
With over one hundred pages to sort through, you may want to skip to page twenty-four (page thirty-one in your PDF reader) to find a three-page breakdown of Sandy Hook’s $3,146,300 budget for the 2010-2011 school year:
By comparison, Hawley Elementary (page twenty-one, or twenty-eight in your PDF reader)—a school no one has ever claimed was closed—was budgeted nearly one million dollars less. Sandy Hook’s budget also documents the total student population (594) and teaching staff (36.70) for the year. For details on approved building and site improvements, including HVAC installation in the computer room, carpet replacement, gym line repainting, and irrigation, skip to page ninety-six (ninety-nine in your PDF reader):
That’s a hefty budget, staff count, and workload for a school supposedly shuttered for two years—though, of course, that claim exists solely in the imagination of those without a shred of credibility.
School handbook, 2010-2011 (Download PDF, thirty-four pages)
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120407201345/http://newtown.sandyhook.schooldesk.net/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=KSkLZ-fxuvQ%3D&tabid=17843
Sandy Hook PTA short form return of organization exempt from income tax form, 2011 (Download PDF, thirteen pages)
Fourth grade teacher job posting, June 13th, 2011:
sandy_hook_job_posting_2011-02Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20110626144552/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us:80/site/files/sh.grd4teacher6-11.pdf
School facilities survey, August, 2011:
sandy_hook_school_facilities_survey_2011Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140714130545/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/Facilities/School%20Facilities%20Survey/ED050-SANDY%20HOOK.pdf
Educational assistant job posting, October 7th, 2011:
sandy_hook_job_posting_2011Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20111018105540/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us:80/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/Human%20Resources/Employment%20positions/SH/SH.EA.10-7-11.pdf
Strategic school profile, 2011-2012:
strategic_school_profile_2011-2012Source: http://edsight.ct.gov/ssp/2011-2012/097-02.pdf
Newtown Board of Education approved budget, 2011-2012 (Download PDF, seventy-four pages)
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20140709193629/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/BOARD%20OF%20EDUCATION/BOE%20Budgets/BOE.%20approv.budget%202011-2012.pdf
On page eight (page sixteen in your PDF reader), you’ll find Sandy Hook’s budget for the 2011-2012 school year, which comes in about $107,000 lower than the previous year. This reduction likely reflects declining enrollment and the loss of two teachers. Funds were still allocated for routine maintenance like emergency generators, HVAC, playground safety inspections, and more. Notably, though, no new building or site maintenance projects are listed for Sandy Hook this year (see page thirty-nine, or page forty-seven in your PDF reader). Given that Middle Gate and Head O’ Meadow also show no such projects, this is hardly unusual.
Sandy Hook sock hop invitation, 2012:
sock_hop_2012Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140114045147/http://newtown.sandyhook.schooldesk.net/Portals/Newtown/Sandyhook/docs/SHS%20Sock%20Hop%202012.doc
Sandy Hook spirit week, 2012:
spirit_week_2012Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20131216144237/http://newtown.sandyhook.schooldesk.net/Portals/Newtown/Sandyhook/docs/Spirit%20Week%202012.doc
Superintendent’s newsletter, February, 2012:
superintendents_newsletter_02-2012Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20120206104654/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/Newsletters/Febnewsletter.final.pdf
On page four, you’ll find an article about Sandy Hook’s Kindle program, initially published in The Digital Shift in December 2011. For more details on the Kindle program, see additional coverage here and here. On page five, you’ll find dates for Sandy Hook’s kindergarten registration for the 2012-2013 school year.
Board of education ad hoc facilities subcommittee, March 6th, 2012 (Download PDF, twenty-seven pages)
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20140709193525/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/BOARD%20OF%20EDUCATION/BOE%20Presentations/2011-2012%20presentations/Rec%20of%20BoE%20Ad%20Hoc%20Facilities%20Subcomm.pdf
This document is officially titled “a summary overview of recommendations to the board of education by the ad hoc facilities subcommittee.” That’s quite the mouthful, but those are their words, not mine. Formed in November 2010 by Newtown’s board of education, this ad hoc subcommittee was comprised of “people from across the town’s government” and tasked with “examining enrollment projections, developing options, analyzing their potential impact, and making recommendations for future action.” Their goal was to consider changes that “may provide cost savings while maintaining or improving education quality.” Although not committee members, principals from Newtown’s elementary and middle schools, including Sandy Hook’s own Dawn Hochsprung (a victim of the shooting), were invited to participate:
While the document sounds like a snoozefest, packed with the sort of bureaucratic jargon that would knock most people out cold (and yes, it mostly is), it still contains bits of information that handily debunk a few classic denier myths. First, Sandy Hook’s inclusion in this committee’s discussions, alongside Principal Dawn Hochsprung, should be all the proof needed that the school was open when this document was written in March 2012. On page nine, for instance, we see one of the consolidation options (never enacted) that included closing Sandy Hook:
It seems absurd to even need to say this, but you obviously can’t consider closing a school that’s supposedly already been closed for four years. And while it may not be as glaringly obvious, another often-repeated denier claim takes a serious hit on page twelve:
As of March 2012, neither Hawley nor Newtown Middle School—both open, fully operational schools—were ADA compliant. This fact is crucial because prominent Sandy Hook deniers like James Fetzer and Wolfgang Halbig have frequently argued that Sandy Hook, supposedly non-ADA compliant at the time of the shooting, could not have been in use. This claim is baseless; many older public schools and buildings remain open despite not meeting full ADA standards. For example, in 2015, 83% of public elementary schools in New York City were not fully accessible. Even if Sandy Hook, like Hawley, had lacked ADA compliance, it would only have been a factor if the school were reopened as a new public building. This issue only became relevant later, during discussions about whether to repair or replace the school, as reopening would require updating it to meet ADA standards.
Educational assistant job posting, March 6th, 2012:
sandy_hook_job_posting_2012Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20120324072136/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us:80/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/Human%20Resources/Employment%20positions/SH/SH.EA3-6-12.pdf
ABA tutor job posting, March 19th, 2012:
sandy_hook_job_posting_2012-02Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20111018105540/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us:80/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/Human%20Resources/Employment%20positions/SH/SH.EA.10-7-11.pdf
Seems awfully strange to hire educational assistants and tutors for a non-existent elementary school, doesn’t it? It’s almost as if the school was actually open the whole time.
One School, One Read family homework guide, March, 2012:
shs_one_school_hw_2012While there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here, this serves as further corroboration of the information found here and here.
Newtown Bee’s back to school supplement, August 17th, 2012 (Download PDF, fifty-six pages)
In addition to the Sandy Hook bus routes provided on pages 45-48, the school is depicted, with its address and website listed on page eleven. Sandy Hook’s operational hours can be found on page sixteen.
Science Center field trip, September, 2012:
science_center_field_trip_2012Strategic school profile, 2012-2013:
strategic_school_profile_2012-2013Source: http://edsight.ct.gov/ssp/2012-2013/097-02.pdf
Newtown Board of Education approved budget, 2012-2013 (Download PDF, forty-three pages)
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20140709193720/http://www.newtown.k12.ct.us/Portals/Newtown/District/docs/BOARD%20OF%20EDUCATION/BOE%20Budgets/2012-2013%20Budgets/2012-13%20Approved%20Budget7-12-12.pdf
Sandy Hook’s budget summary begins on page eight (nine in your PDF reader), revealing a loss of around $4,500 for the year. While enrollment continues to decline across all four of Newtown’s elementary schools, only Head O’ Meadow has managed to avoid a budget cut. Nevertheless, with nearly $3 million allocated, Sandy Hook remains the most well-funded school in the district:
That’s a significant amount of money to allocate for a ‘toxic waste dump’ (as Wolfgang Halbig puts it) that is simultaneously somehow also being used for storage (according to Maria Hsia Chang).
Newtown before and after school programs, 2012-2013:
ed_conn_2012-2013Project Eagle service pledge, 2012-2013:
project_eagle_service_pledge_2012-2013Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120804113931/http://newtown.sandyhook.schooldesk.net:80/Portals/Newtown/Sandyhook/docs/PTA/PE.service_pledge_form.docx
For more in the “Sandy Hook Elementary Was Open” series, please read:
Part One: The Lobby
Part Two: The Obstinate Pen
Part Three: Holiday Decorations And Calendars
Part Four: SMART Technologies
Part Five: Dawn Hochsprung’s Twitter Feed
Part Six: The 2011-2012 Scrapbook
Part Seven: Children’s Authors Visit Sandy Hook
Part Eight: Charitable Causes
Part Nine: The Library
Part Ten: 92 More Photos From Sandy Hook School
Part Eleven: Over 195 Articles Referencing Sandy Hook School, Written Between 2008-2012
Part Twelve: The Glass Display Cases
Part Thirteen: Google Earth
Part Fourteen: The November 2012 Scholastic Book Fair
Part Fifteen: Sandy Hook School Enrollment For 2008-2017
Part Sixteen: School Documents From 2008-2012
Thank you for your great work ,
Thanks, Brian.
Hello, Shill Murray
Love the work that you do around here and appreciate that you were able to debunk the fraudulent book. Will you still be in the comment section debunking idiots that come and claim stupid stuff (stuff that hasn’t been said before or rarely said)? I’ve been hearing that some people are threatening to come into these comment sections and trying to “expose” you.
Nice try.
Sir, can you completely debunk the latest nonsense Fetzer’s peddling here: https://jamesfetzer.org/2019/12/alison-sunny-maynard-j-d-sandy-hook-no-burial-for-the-dead-boy/
It’s funny that Maynard (aka Sonja Mullerin) says she’s been “assisting” Fetzer in the Pozner lawsuit (which Fetzer of course lost), as she is not licensed to practice law in Wisconsin, and as such was told that she “may not give assistance in the preparation of pleadings, briefs, or other documents to be filed in Wisconsin courts until and unless she is licensed in the state.” Whoops.
Anyway, if I’m reading correctly, Maynard’s argument boils down to “I don’t have the burial permit, therefore there is no burial permit, therefore there was no burial, therefore Noah Pozner never died”. That is… quite a leap. Of course she provides no evidence whatsoever of her claim that she was told there was no burial permit, so I guess we’re just supposed to take her word for it. This is pretty rich as she accused Samuel Green of hearsay earlier in her entry.
So is there a burial permit? I would certainly bet that there is, but I guess we’ll find out eventually as I’ve asked someone to order a copy for me. I’m not sure how long that’ll take, but I will update accordingly once I’ve gotten word either way. Meanwhile, I guess we’re expected to believe that “they” were willing to fabricate Noah’s death certificate as well as erect a tombstone for a body that doesn’t exist at B’nai Israel Cemetery, but they couldn’t bother to print up a fake burial permit? Come on.
As for the rest of the entry, it’s a bit of a Gish gallop. I’m not about to go down some rabbit hole looking into cemetery sextons (which she spends an awful lot of time prattling on about), but there are a couple of other things that I’d like to address: her claim that Samuel Green is licensed only as an embalmer and not a funeral director in the state of Connecticut? Yeah, if she had bothered to read the Connecticut General Statutes for Embalmers and Funeral Directors, then she would know that embalmers may act as funeral directors (section 20-223):
This was later confirmed by actually talking to Mr. Green himself. It’s incredible what you can learn by actually asking people stuff.
Then there’s this…
This is just silly. The actual, full name of the business is obviously “Abraham L. Green & Son Funeral Home” as that is how it is listed in literally every corner of the Internet; on the actual, physical signage in front of the home; in the Connecticut Funeral Directors Association directory; on the list of Independent Jewish Funeral Chapels; by the International Cemetery, Cremation & Funeral Association, etc. It is clearly being abbreviated in Connecticut’s license lookup system. She should be embarrassed to have included this.
Lastly, asking for Lenny Pozner to produce a receipt for his six year-old son’s coffin? For a burial that happened over seven years ago? Who in their right mind would keep such a thing? Just absurd.
Strap yourself into your seat and staple your socks to your calves, because I’m about to deliver the shock of a lifetime: as it turns out, Alison “Sunny” Maynard (aka Sonja Mullerin) is either a liar or totally incompetent, because I had no issue receiving the burial permit:
(Actual plot location censored by me for what should be obvious reasons)
Maybe Maynard/Mullerin didn’t want to spend the dollar fee? You’d think with all of the money she’s saved by cutting her own hair that she’d have plenty of it.
P.S. – Notice the “ISSUED TO” is listed as “Abraham L. Green & Son, F.H.”, which further debunks Maynard/Mullerin’s silly claim that Samuel Green doesn’t know the name of his own funeral home.
I read rule #5, but I’ll need you to debunk this one. In this link, Fetzer claims that Lenny Pozner has been using HONR as a cash cow since the year 2005.
https://jamesfetzer.org/2019/04/lenny-pozners-honr-network-there-is-no-honor-among-thieves/
Great! You may actually be the first, so thank you. But you’re in the clear; I haven’t debunked this one yet. I actually had never seen it before as I don’t stay up-to-date on Fetzer’s ramblings.
Lenny did in fact purchase the domain for Honr (which is not an acronym, for the record) back in 2005, seven or so years before it became a charity. That much is true. It was one of a few domains he had purchased around that time while working as the CTO of a hotel development project in Manhattan. That hotel was Hotel on Rivington… or “H on R”. HonR. Get it? Anyway, the company ultimately chose HotelOnRivington.com over HonR.com, but Pozner decided to hold onto it as it was a four letter domain and he thought maybe he could flip it at some point, though nobody ever bit.
As for the idea that he’s used it as a “cash cow” since registering it, there’s absolutely no evidence of that. Honr – the actual organization – isn’t even a cash cow now. It didn’t receive its tax-free designation until 2018 and even now its income is listed as less than $50k a year. As for the domain, you can use the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to see that it sat parked for years, so there was no money being made off of it. At one point it forwarded to another domain that Lenny used to sell remote PC repair services. After the shooting, it simply forwarded to noahpozner.org. Two important things to note here: 1) noahpozner.org (which, unlike honr.com, directly references the shooting) was not registered until 12/18/2012. If it had been registered beforehand, that would certainly be much more noteworthy. 2) Lenny originally solicited for cards and donations through “Noah’s Ark of Hope Fund” and not Honr, so obviously the idea to use the honr.com domain for that purpose hadn’t yet occurred to him (if the Wayback Machine is any indication, that didn’t take place until late 2014).
Honestly, I’m not even sure what Fetzer is implying here. Does he really think that Lenny Pozner registered honr.com for a charity that wouldn’t exist and a shooting that wouldn’t occur for another seven years? And that he chose a name that literally has nothing to do with his son or Sandy Hook? And that he didn’t bother to register a much more relevant and significant domain name (in noahpozner.org) until much, much later?
For someone who allegedly wants to debunk those nasty SH skeptics, you have a LOT of conditions for comments — honestly, it looks like you’re more interested in censorship/blocking input than open discussion.
“5) Asking questions that have already been answered/making claims that have already been debunked.”
The above is *particularly laughable*.
“4) Requests for photos of dead children.”
How about a foto of the dead Adam Lanza? — protecting the feelings of SH parents (after more than 7 years?) is often given as a reason for not releasing fotos of the (allegedly) deceased kids (such a foto is not something I would ever request), but it’s not clear what harm a foto of the dead Adam Lanza would do, compared to the *incalculable value* that would have in silencing most SH skeptics, right?
Adam Lanza is still someone’s child. What about his father’s feelings?
Yeah, but Adam wasn’t a child anymore at that point. He was 20 years old, technically making him a legal adult.