Claremont School Board — April 19, 2023

MEDIUM The board voted to "appropriate the adequate funding" for a district-wide curriculum purchase, and no dollar figure appears in the motion, the minutes, the presentation or the packet

The agenda called it a purchase and required a vote. Item 6 as posted: "Approval of Purchase of Materials to support Literacy and ELA Programs (Vote Required) Introduction by Michael Koski, Assistant Superintendent * members are encouraged to thoroughly review and be prepared to discuss. (See exhibit C)". The exhibit members were told to review is a nine-slide deck on the selection process. It contains no cost, no vendor quotation, no term and no funding line.

Nor did the meeting supply one. Neither presenter named a price. The chair put the question as "to appropriate the adequate funding to purchase the materials required for the new Ela, Ela program and curriculum" — the word "adequate" doing the work a number would normally do. The minutes record something narrower still: "Steven Horsky makes a motion to approve the ELA program; seconded by Arlene Hawkins; all in favor via voice vote; motion passes." A reader of the minutes cannot tell that money was authorised at all; a listener to the recording cannot tell how much.

The single funding question was answered off-microphone. Frank Sprague at 1:19:10: "So are we are we paying for this through the extraordinary needs grant that came from the state? Is that where the money is coming from this okay, okay. Yes." The answer is inside his own transcript segment as an inaudible exchange, so the record names a possible source only in the form of a question. If the source is a state grant, the terms of that grant govern what the money may buy and by when; none of that is on the record either.

Why it matters. RSA 197:23-a makes the district treasurer the custodian of district money who "shall pay out the same only upon orders of the school board" — the board's vote is the order, and an order with no amount cannot be checked against a disbursement afterwards. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to record "final decisions"; where the recording and the minutes state two materially different decisions and neither carries a figure, the final decision is not on the public record in a form anyone can audit. Nothing here suggests the purchase was improper — it followed a year of piloting against a rubric, with an advisory committee and a curriculum subcommittee — and the board plainly intended to buy the four named programmes. The defect is that the amount it committed is nowhere recoverable from the public record of the meeting that committed it.

Sources: RSA 197:23-a (treasurer has custody of district money and pays out only upon orders of the school board); RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes to record final decisions); Exhibit C — Wit & Wisdom Package: Selecting High-Quality Instructional Materials; 4.19.23 CSB Agenda; minutes of April 19, 2023.

MEDIUM Four motions on the roof, one withdrawal, one vote — and neither the recording nor the minutes ever disposes of the motion that started it

The sequence, from both records. (1) Sprague moved to "begin the process of releasing 350,000 from our capital reserve fund"; Miles seconded. (2) Horsky moved to amend by striking the dollar amount; Sprague seconded. (3) The chair converted that into her own restatement — "Or we can just make it a friendly amendment. I'll change it to move." — at up to $500,000; an unidentified voice seconded, and the minutes name Whitney Skillen. (4) The chair then asked Horsky to "withdraw your amendment and start from scratch"; he withdrew and moved the version that carried, with an RFP and a three-bid review; Gallagher seconded; voice vote, no count, at 1:44:32.

What is missing is the disposition of (1) and (3). The chair had asked the right question — "Should we rescind the previous the amendment and the initial motion and come up with a more comprehensive motion to vote on?" — but only the amendment was withdrawn. Sprague's main motion at $350,000 and the chair's friendly amendment at up to $500,000 are, on the face of both records, still pending when the fourth motion is put and carried. The minutes reproduce the tangle faithfully, which is to their credit, and therefore reproduce the gap too: their item 9 runs d, i, ii, iii, iv, v with no vote recorded at any step until the last.

Why it matters. RSA 91-A:2, II requires the minutes to record "a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions" and "the names of the members who made or seconded each motion". The names are all there. What a reader cannot reconstruct is which motion the board actually acted on: the sum authorised differs between the motions ($350,000 versus up to $500,000), and the fourth motion is described in its own words as an amendment ("change the amendment to approach to fix the Stevens High School West wing roof") while functioning as a substitute main motion. A district that must later show its trustees "the active minutes" — the superintendent's own phrase for what releases the money — is relying on a record with two live motions in it.

Mitigation. The board's intent is not seriously in doubt; every speaker treated the fourth motion as the operative one, the chair asked twice whether anyone wanted it restated, and the minutes' last line under the item is unambiguous about what passed. The defect is procedural bookkeeping, not a disputed outcome.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes to record subject matter, final decisions, and the names of members who made or seconded each motion — the mover/seconder clause in force from 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019); minutes of April 19, 2023, item 9(d).

MEDIUM The board voted to release up to $500,000 from a capital reserve fund without establishing on the record who is authorised to expend it, and was told the trustee "works for the board"

What the record contains. The superintendent gave the board an accurate account of the practical mechanism — "this is a whole process that has to be released by the trustee. They have to see the minutes that this was the will of the board to do that. This money cannot be accessed except by a structured public vote like this" — and an accurate warning about the past: "It cannot be released any other way. That's what got the board into trouble in the past other years go." Steven Horsky added the same point from the board's side: "You see where the funds are being appropriated from. It requires a public board vote."

What it does not contain. Any statute, and any document. Asked whether striking the dollar amount would compromise the approach to the trustee, the answer on the recording is "the trustee is works for the board." Under RSA 35, that is not the relationship. RSA 35:1 lets a school district establish a capital reserve fund; RSA 35:9 provides for the custody and investment of such funds by trustees of trust funds — that section was amended by 2023, 36:2, effective July 16, 2023, three months after this meeting, so it is relied on here only for the custody framework, which long predates the amendment, and none of its current wording is quoted; and RSA 35:15, I, last amended in 2021, has the trustees hold the fund "until such time as the town, district or county shall have voted to withdraw funds from such capital reserve fund or shall have named agents of the town, district or county to carry out the objects designated." That is a statutory gate with two keys — a vote of the district, or a prior designation of agents to expend — and neither is identified anywhere in this meeting's record. Whether the Claremont School District has named its school board as agents to expend this fund is exactly the question the board did not ask and the packet does not answer.

What this flag does and does not say. It does not say the release was unlawful; it is entirely possible, and common, that the district designated its board as agents when the fund was created, in which case the board's vote is the operative authorisation and everything said at the table was substantively right. It says that a board committing up to half a million dollars from a trust fund it does not itself hold established its own authority to do so from nobody's memory but the superintendent's, on a characterisation that does not match the statute. The board also improved the motion in the same breath — the RFP and three-bid condition, and the point that no money leaves the fund until an amount is fixed ("The money never comes out. You're you're only allocating exactly what you need") — which is why this is a MEDIUM about the record rather than a HIGH about the act.

Sources: RSA 35:15, I (trustees hold the fund until the town, district or county has voted to withdraw or has named agents to carry out the objects designated); RSA 35:9 (custody and investment of capital reserve funds by trustees of trust funds — amended by 2023, 36:2, eff. July 16, 2023, after this meeting; cited for the custody framework only, and no current wording is quoted); RSA 35:1 (school districts may establish capital reserve funds for capital improvements; last amended 1998); RSA 32:1 (the municipal budget law's application to school districts — cited for the framework in which "appropriation" is a legislative-body act, not as a claim that it was breached); minutes of April 19, 2023.

MEDIUM The only "Vote required" policy item on the agenda — the second read and adoption of the board's public-participation policy — was struck before business began, with no reason given beyond length and no date set for its return

The item. Posted agenda, item 5: "Second read and adoption of BEDH Method of Public Participation at Board Meetings. Vote required (See exhibit B)." A second read means the policy had already had a first read and was ripe for adoption; the full text was in the packet as Exhibit B, and the agenda directed members to it.

What happened to it. It was removed in the chair's opening amendment at 0:03:46, "just to kind of tighten it up a little bit because it's pretty extensive", and the agenda as amended was adopted by voice vote. The only other reference to it in the whole meeting is the chair telling a member who had lost her place, "That was removed at the beginning." No member asked why, no return date was fixed, and the minutes carry the agenda text forward as their item 6 with nothing underneath it — the only numbered item in the minutes with no disposition at all.

Why it matters. Striking an item is squarely within the board's power; RSA 91-A:2's notice requirement attaches to the meeting, not to a final agenda, and the policy itself (Exhibit B, clause 3) contemplates reordering "under Policy BEDB by the discretion of the Chair or by a majority vote of the Board." Two things make it worth a reviewer's attention anyway. First, the item was the board's own rules for how the public participates in its meetings — the one subject on which a board's procedural choices most directly affect the public's statutory rights under RSA 91-A and RSA 189:74 — and it was the only item on the agenda flagged "Vote required" that produced no vote. Second, the board applied the unadopted policy's terms the same evening anyway: the chair opened citizens' comments with "State your name and you have three minutes", which is Exhibit B's clause 9 ("Individual speakers will be allotted three (3) minutes per person") and clause 8's identification requirement, and the printed agenda's own limitation of comments to non-agenda items has no source in RSA 189:74. Applying a policy that is on the agenda for adoption and not adopted leaves the public unable to tell which rules govern its own participation.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2 (notice attaches to the meeting; minutes to record final decisions); RSA 189:74 (school board public comment period; 2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022); Exhibit B — Policy BEDH, Method of Public Participation in Board Meetings; 4.19.23 CSB Agenda; minutes of April 19, 2023.

MEDIUM Six subcommittees and a delegate seat were filled with no motion, no second and no vote — and one of the seven appointments was not on the posted agenda

What the agenda promised. Item 7: "Appointing Members/Chairs for School Board Sub-Committee (See exhibit D)", listing six bodies (a) to (f). What the record shows is five minutes of conversation in which the chair proposed names she had canvassed privately — "I did kind of reach out to a number of people. And I've taught spoken informally" — members volunteered, swapped and stood aside, and the chair concluded "So we now have our subcommittees set up." The minutes list the resulting membership in full and record no motion, no seconder and no vote for any of it. A seventh appointment, the NH School Boards Association delegate, appears in neither the posted agenda nor Exhibit D and was raised from the chair at 1:26:47.

Why the appointments matter beyond housekeeping. RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) makes a "committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body" of a school district a public body in its own right, owing the full duties of RSA 91-A:2 — 24 hours' notice, meetings open to the public, and minutes available within five business days. This meeting created the membership of six such bodies, one of which (Budget) holds three of the board's seven members. The board's own Exhibit D says exactly this in writing, which is why the absence of a recorded appointment matters: the document assigns duties to "Subcommittee Chair" and "Subcommittee Member", and if no vote appointed anyone, the record does not establish when those duties attached or to whom.

What this flag does not say. Nothing in RSA 91-A requires a roll-call vote, or any vote, to seat a subcommittee; a board may act by unanimous consent, and every person named accepted aloud. Nor does the size of any subcommittee breach Exhibit D's own cap of "no more than three board members" — the largest is three. The flag is that an agenda item captioned "Appointing" produced no appointment anyone can point to in the record, and that the seventh appointment had no notice at all.

Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (a committee or subcommittee of a school district is a "public body"); RSA 91-A:2 (open meetings, 24-hour notice, minutes within five business days, movers and seconders recorded); Exhibit D — Claremont School Board Subcommittee; 4.19.23 CSB Agenda (items (a)–(f) only).

MEDIUM The public-participation policy in the packet lets the chair rule speech out of order for being "antagonistic" or "frivolous" — words a federal court of appeals has held viewpoint-discriminatory in a school board's public-comment rules

The policy text. Exhibit B, clause 6: "The Chair may interrupt or terminate the speaker's privilege of address if the speaker does not follow these rules of order. Speech that is slanderous, defamatory, violent, irrelevant, repetitious, harassing, frivolous, off-topic, disruptive, or antagonistic may be considered out of order. Repeated violations or disruptions may result in the intervention of law enforcement." Clause 12 adds that comments "which disrupt the official business of the Board may be ruled out of order by the Chair," and that repeated concerns "may result in the individual being asked to leave the meeting."

The case. In Ison v. Madison Local School District Board of Education, 3 F.4th 887 (6th Cir. 2021), decided July 7, 2021 — twenty-one months before this meeting — the Sixth Circuit held that a school board's public-participation policy barring "abusive," "personally directed" and "antagonistic" statements was viewpoint discrimination and violated the First Amendment. The court treated the board meeting as a limited public forum, in which restrictions must be reasonable and viewpoint-neutral, and reasoned that "The antagonistic restriction, by definition, prohibits speech opposing the Board... And abusive prohibits 'insulting' language... These terms plainly fit in the 'broad' scope of impermissible viewpoint discrimination because, like in Matal, Iancu, and American Freedom Defense Initiative, they prohibit speech purely because it disparages or offends." The same court upheld a preregistration requirement as a valid time, place and manner rule.

What follows, and what does not. The Sixth Circuit does not bind New Hampshire, which sits in the First Circuit, and no New Hampshire or First Circuit decision on these words has been located for this page; Ison is persuasive authority, not law here. Nor was the policy adopted at this meeting — it was struck from the agenda (see flag 5), so no vote was taken on any of it. What is flagged is that the text placed before the board for adoption uses the exact word a federal appellate court had already singled out, alongside "frivolous" and "irrelevant", and that nobody at the table discussed clause 6 at all. The rest of the policy is careful — it cites RSA 189:74 by name, it provides for verbatim written comments to be entered in the minutes, and it directs complaints about named individuals to the superintendent's grievance process — which makes the one clause more conspicuous, not less. A board reviewing this policy on its next read would want to know that a viewpoint-neutral formulation ("disruptive", "off-topic", the true threats and defamation exceptions) is available and that "antagonistic" is the term with a published loss attached to it.

Sources: Ison v. Madison Local School District Board of Education, 3 F.4th 887 (6th Cir. July 7, 2021) (school board public-comment restrictions on "abusive," "personally directed" and "antagonistic" speech held viewpoint-discriminatory in a limited public forum; preregistration upheld) — persuasive only; the Sixth Circuit does not bind New Hampshire; Exhibit B — Policy BEDH, clauses 6 and 12; RSA 189:74 (the statutory comment period the policy implements).

MEDIUM A $3,000 gift was added to the agenda from the floor and then thanked rather than accepted — and RSA 198:20-b, at its April 2023 threshold, required notice of it in the agenda

Get the vintage right first. RSA 198:20-b today requires a prior public hearing, with seven days' published notice, for unanticipated funds of $20,000 or more. That figure was inserted by 2023, 38:1, effective July 18, 2023 — thirteen weeks after this meeting. On April 19, 2023 the threshold was $5,000, and the statute did not simply fall silent below it. Paragraph III(b) as then in force: "For unanticipated funds in an amount less than $5,000, the school board shall post notice of the funds in the agenda and shall include notice in the minutes of the school board meeting in which such funds are discussed. The acceptance of unanticipated funds under this subparagraph shall be made in public session of any regular school board meeting." A $3,000 gift is below the threshold, so no public hearing was required and none is missing — but the agenda-notice limb applies.

What happened. The gift is not on the posted agenda. It was added by the chair's opening amendment as item 1 — "add the acceptance of a gift of $3,000, facilitated by adopt a classroom" — and taken up thirty seconds later with no motion, no second and no vote: "We're just going to be expressing our thanks to adopt a classroom for facilitating this, acquisition of funds to help our teachers and our schools succeed." The minutes do carry it, satisfying the second limb, and they supply the donor the recording never names: "Donation in the amount of $3000.00 from Subaru of Claremont, Adopt a Classroom." The minutes give the donor two ways in two sentences — "Subaru of Claremont" and "Claremont Subaru".

The board's own practice is the comparison. Two weeks earlier the same board took two smaller gifts — $1,000 and $2,000 — each named on the posted agenda with donor, recipient programme and exact amount, each moved, seconded and voted separately, with the donors' letters in the packet. That is the sub-threshold limb performed exactly. Here the amount is larger, the agenda notice is absent, no letter is in the packet, and no vote was taken. And in the same meeting Steven Horsky told the board that existing district policy already conflicts with informal handling of gifts: "there's policies that conflict with with a lot of this, because of requiring for board votes on X amount of donations". No policy number was named and none is in the packet, so this page does not assert what that policy says.

One limit on this flag. Paragraph I of RSA 198:20-b makes the whole mechanism conditional on the district having adopted the enabling article at an annual meeting, and nothing in this packet shows when Claremont did so. The flag therefore records that the board's handling departed from what the statute requires of a district operating under the section, without asserting the underlying adoption.

Sources: RSA 198:20-b as in force on April 19, 2023 (III(a), prior public hearing at $5,000 or more with 7 days' published notice; III(b), below that, notice in the agenda and in the minutes, acceptance in public session) and the current text (threshold raised to $20,000 by 2023, 38:1, eff. July 18, 2023 — after this meeting); 4.19.23 CSB Agenda (no donation item); minutes of April 19, 2023; minutes of April 5, 2023 (the two gifts handled on notice and by separate votes).