I Want to Start with a Win (That Shouldn’t Have Been a Fight)

Let’s be clear about something up front: I didn’t want this fight. I didn’t ask for it. But after the Hinsdale School District finally consulted their attorneys, and yes, after taxpayer dollars were burned reviewing a court order that never should have been questioned, I was granted access to PowerSchool.

Exactly as the court order required. Exactly as New Hampshire law mandated. Exactly as should have happened months ago. Exactly as I told them.

There was no apology. No explanation. Just quiet compliance once they realized legal exposure was no longer a theoretical risk but an immediate reality.

That detail matters.

It reveals something deeper than simple incompetence. It exposes how institutions operate when they believe no one is watching, and how quickly they snap back into line when they realize someone is documenting every single move.

I didn’t “win” anything. I was simply given what I already had the legal right to possess.

And then, the very next day, the other shoe dropped.

The Next Door Down the Hall

With the school issue finally corrected, I turned my attention to a separate, equally critical matter, involving a juvenile case where I held a dual role, including that of a victim.

As part of that process, I submitted a formal records request to the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), specifically the Keene office.

This request concerned records to which I am legally entitled under New Hampshire statute. This wasn’t a casual inquiry. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a statutory demand for transparency.

I sent the request via certified mail.

The United States Postal Service confirms it was delivered. It was signed for. A human being at the DCYF Keene office took that envelope, signed their name, and accepted legal custody of that request.

Months later, I was told the request had “never been received.”

“How Can You Prove We Got It?”

At first, I assumed this was a standard administrative fumble. Papers get lost. Inboxes get cluttered. I’m reasonable.

But when I called the office directly, the tone shifted. They weren’t hiding the negligence; they were almost proud of it. The voice on the other end was dismissive, abrupt, and practically dared me to challenge them.

Then came the question that stopped me cold:

“How can you prove we got it?”

I replied calmly at first, then with the kind of firmness that only comes when you know you hold the aces.

“Because the post office has a signature from your office on file.”

That was the moment the dynamic changed. The request hadn’t gone missing. It had been delivered in November. It had simply been ignored. No processing. No notification. No acknowledgment.

Immediately after that call, I filed formal complaints with the State.

I didn’t do it out of anger. I did it out of necessity. Because once a government agency starts gaslighting you about documented certified mail, you are no longer dealing with a mistake. You are dealing with a culture of impunity.

Why This Raises Serious Concerns

Context is everything. What makes this situation especially radioactive is the broader landscape surrounding this case.

At the exact time this records request was sent and received, four licensed mental health professionals connected to this matter were already under active investigation by the New Hampshire Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC). Two of those professionals are employees of Community Improvement Associates, an organization that, by nature of its work, likely interacts regularly with the DCYF Keene office.

Let me be precise about what I am saying here:

• I am not alleging a grand conspiracy.
• I am not asserting improper backroom coordination.
• I am not accusing specific individuals of criminal wrongdoing.

But context matters.

When multiple professionals tied to the same juvenile case are under ethics review, you would expect the state agency involved to exercise heightened care. You would expect them to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’.

Instead, a certified, delivered request from a victim was treated like junk mail.

That disconnect isn’t just annoying; it is deeply alarming. It suggests that the standard operating procedure isn’t “protect the vulnerable,” but rather “protect the system.”

The Pattern of Cheshire County Corruption

Taken individually, these events might look like minor bureaucratic screw-ups.

A delayed PowerSchool login here. A misplaced DCYF file there. An administrative shrug when questioned.

But when they happen back-to-back, within the same county, involving the same juvenile matter, they stop looking like accidents. They begin to resemble a pattern. A pattern where statutory rights exist on paper, but not in practice. A pattern where compliance only happens after escalation.

Remember, my civil complaint against Cheshire County involves mishandling of evidence in the same case. What are they hiding?

This is what institutional rot looks like. It’s not always a smoke-filled room where villains plot crimes. More often, it’s a bored administrator deciding your rights aren’t worth the paperwork. It’s a risk-averse system deciding that silence is safer than transparency.

How Systems Protect Themselves

Institutions do not need malicious intent to cause harm. They only need to be risk-averse and narrative-driven.

Once a system accepts an early storyline “this parent is difficult,” or “this case is closed” everything that follows is filtered through that lens. Requests become “disruptions.” Valid legal questions become “harassment.” Silence becomes the default policy.

They rely on you giving up or not knowing the specific statutes regarding juvenile records. They rely on the fact that most people don’t have the time, money, or energy to fight a headless bureaucracy.

Cheshire County’s Quiet Crisis

This isn’t just about me. It isn’t just about one office in Keene. It is about a broader culture inside Cheshire County.

We are seeing a culture where legal rights are treated as optional privileges. Where certified delivery can be questioned despite federal proof. Where victims must build exhaustive paper trails just to get a return phone call.

This is not how public service works. This is how a protection racket works.

The Weaponization of Documentation

If there is one lesson I have learned in this trenches-deep battle, it is this: Institutions do not respond to concern. They respond to documentation.

They do not care about your feelings. They care about their liability.

My concerns regarding the DCYF Keene office are now formally recorded through state oversight complaints. Not to punish anyone—though accountability would be a nice change of pace—but to ensure facts exist somewhere beyond verbal denial.

Because once something is written, timestamped, and logged, it becomes real. It becomes evidence.

Why You Should Care?

You might be reading this thinking, “Well, that sucks for him, but it’s not my problem.”

You’re wrong.

This is about what happens when the system you fund, the system you are told exists to protect children, quietly stops responding when doing so becomes inconvenient.

If a certified, documented records request submitted by a legally recognized victim can be ignored without consequence, what chance does a regular parent have?

It happens to ordinary families. It happens to grandmothers trying to get custody. It happens to fathers trying to see their kids. It happens to victims who don’t have the emotional bandwidth to fight a state agency on a Tuesday afternoon.

I am very aware of my rights. I expect a follow-up letter eventually, telling me how this “administrative error” has been corrected. But I can’t help but wonder:

How would the response look if my child support check had been sent but “not received”?

Would silence be acceptable then? Would they just shrug and say, “Well, maybe it got lost”?

Taxpayers deserve transparency. Victims deserve responses. And children deserve institutions that treat accountability as a sacred duty, not an optional inconvenience.

When silence becomes normal, harm does not need intent to spread. It only needs permission.

And right now, Cheshire County is giving it plenty of permission.