Participants
Everyone in the record. Name spellings follow the official minutes and the packet documents; where the automatic transcript renders a name differently, the row says so. Rows marked listed, not heard appear on the agenda's central-office roster but do not speak on the recording.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Heather Whitney | Chair, Claremont School Board | Presided throughout, from the consent agenda at 0:01:01 to adjournment at 1:29:15. Welcomed the two new student representatives; handled a member's request to correct the previous meeting's attendance record; took the pre-K discussion to a landing — "So what I'm hoping is by January, we will have a timeline to say at this point in time, this will be our finalized plan" (0:58:28); introduced the city-council item herself and declared its outcome by consensus rather than motion (1:12:35); and put the clerk-compensation and tuition motions. She also named the difficulty the board had created for itself: "as a board we've asked to be kept be apprized of things and we don't want things being sprung upon us. But the flip side to that is we we don't have a whole picture as as they're developing" (0:57:19). Her written question about the New Hampshire Preschool Development Grant is answered in the packet. Voted No on the fifty-year seal. The transcript splits her voice across two diarizer clusters and renders her name Heather Whitman elsewhere in this corpus. Not to be confused with member Whitney Skillen. |
| Frank Sprague | Vice Chair; chair of the budget subcommittee, renamed the Finance Committee at this meeting | Brought the meeting's one structural change: "we'd like to change it to the finance committee. And sort of broaden the scope… it would become more of an ongoing rather than our role being just the budget" (1:20:41). Adopted by consensus with no motion and no vote. Drew on his own career in the pre-K discussion — "I'm thinking back to my my court liaison days back when I used to go to court and at the high school. So everyone who was adjudicated there was an automatic referral for special ed" (0:47:44) — and put the sharpest structural question of the night to the special-education director about agencies referring children to the district to shift cost off the State. His account of his own background differs across this corpus — guidance counselor (8/2/23), principal (11/15/23), director of student services (12/6/23); this page quotes only what he said here. Asked whether the clerk's compensation could be advertised in a newspaper voter guide (1:16:48). Moved the fifty-year seal. Seconded the motion to enter nonpublic session. The transcript renders him Spring. Sprague, Frank. Spray and, answering the seal roll, Yes, daddy. |
| Arlene Hawkins | Board member (elected March 14, 2023); Chair, SAU 6 Board | The dominant board voice of the meeting and the closest reader of the packet — 61 transcript rows, second only to the two presenters. Her questions submitted on October 17 fill the first page of the packet's written Q&A. On the recording she pressed the early-childhood case on six fronts: state standards and whether they could reach children already enrolled (0:35:08); supervision — "the supervision would have to be from a coordinator outside the building because principal certification is K to 12. They're not certified to supervise a pre-K program" (0:37:14); the four-day schedule; professional development; transportation, asked three times until she got an answer (0:43:05, 0:44:38, 0:47:33); and sequencing — "we really need to plan this out with great detail" (0:56:22). She also asked why the clerk had to be a registered voter, what happened to the compensation after the election, and whether the flyer carried contact information — the last of which produced a change to the document. Voted No on the fifty-year seal. Closed the meeting by thanking the music teachers who brought the Dallas Brass. The transcript renders her Barley. Hawkins in the roll. |
| Candace Crawford | Board member (appointed July 19, 2023); Finance Committee; SRVRTC Visioning Committee | Moved the paraprofessional-contract motion, in her own words: "I moved to the board. Support the administration. Approaching paraprofessionals to open reopen their contract for discussion of making it more competitive" (1:01:23). Gave the meeting's most experienced dissent on the city-council item — "I have participated in these meetings before, and I found them to be less than helpful… I've seen those joint meetings be awkward at best. Unless there's a very, very, very tight, specific agenda" (1:04:59) — and proposed the alternative the board adopted, quarterly superintendent-to-city-manager meetings, "to have the two CEOs, if you will" (1:06:03). Questioned Principal Pratt closely on IXL, returning three times to who writes the questions (0:23:25). Asked the pre-K enrolment figure. Voted Yes on the seal. The dialogue file also attributes the tech-centre visioning report to her; the minutes attribute it to Bonnie Miles — see flag 9. The transcript renders her Dennis Crawford and And is Crawford elsewhere in this corpus. |
| Jennifer Gallagher | Board member (elected March 14, 2023, one-year seat); chair, Ad Hoc Disruptive Behaviors subcommittee; curriculum-committee reporter | Moved the clerk-compensation increase — "I'll make a motion to accept the new compensation as on the flier" (1:18:21) — then asked to amend it when the discussion showed one figure was not enough: "can I amend my emotion, Heather?… Frank mentioned that we should mention both amounts" (1:19:15). Supported both city-council options: "I would love a round table… but then also have Mr. Tempesta meet with Mr. Manali [Manale] on a quarterly basis" (1:08:12). Reported that the curriculum committee was "still working on scheduling a meeting" and that the disruptive-behaviors committee's meeting that day had been cancelled for conflicts. Voted Yes on the seal. She answers the roll Present where the other members say Here — a signature this project has used to identify her, and one that bears on flag 9. |
| Bonnie Miles | Board member; chair, Capital Improvement subcommittee; SRVRTC Visioning Committee | Asked the question that forced the administration to state its case plainly: "We're moving. We want to move the pre-K into the buildings because it's better for the students. It's a more accepted model. I just want to know what the goal is" (0:51:04), and then the one nobody wanted to answer — "Is there a capacity at the elementary schools to house additional classrooms?… I know it's like the million dollar question. So we have to say out loud" (0:54:11). Seconded the clerk-compensation motion and, per the minutes, the fifty-year seal. Voted Yes on the seal. The minutes credit her with the tech-centre visioning report and with the request to correct the October 18 attendance record; the dialogue file assigns both passages to other members (flag 9). The transcript renders her Donnie miles and Only. Miles. |
| Whitney Skillen | Board member; chair, Policy subcommittee | Present, active, and omitted from the minutes' attendance list — see flag 3. She answers the opening roll (the transcript catches the roll-caller reading her name and an answer inside one segment, "Right here. Here with the skilling"), speaks at length on the city-council item — "it might be too soon to consider initiating an ongoing meeting or a standing meeting that's just on the calendar… but I would welcome. I do welcome their invitation" (1:07:00) — gives the policy subcommittee's report (1:22:09), answers "Yes" in both nonpublic roll calls, and is recorded by the minutes themselves as seconding the paraprofessional motion and voting Yes on the seal. The same minutes leave her out of the six names under Present. Her surname is the worst in this corpus for the transcriber: here it comes through as skilling, Skeleton and, from the chair, Miss Gillen. |
| Michael C. Tempesta | Superintendent of Schools, SAU 6 | Gave the superintendent's report — a New Hampshire Department of Education visit on October 24 led by "Joey Nichols" and a follow-up with River Valley Community College on the nursing programme and Running Start (0:03:55) — then led two of the night's three votes. Added two items to the early-childhood "punch list": "a process for admission to the program… The second would be a goal to apply for grants… I think we should be applying for those to take the burden off the taxpayers" (0:33:04). Made the case for reopening the paraprofessional contract a year early. Presented the clerk flyer and the compensation increase. In 2023 Michael Tempesta is the superintendent; he was dismissed by the SAU 6 board on January 11, 2024, ten weeks after this meeting. The transcript renders him Mike pesca in the chair's introduction of the paraprofessional item and, elsewhere in this corpus, Mr. Dempster, Mr. Thompson and Mister Tuesday — all of which read as ordinary surnames and none of which is a person. |
| Ben Nester | Director of Special Education, SAU 6; the board's de facto roll-caller | The meeting's principal presenter and the author of the early-childhood case: 55 rows and about half an hour, plus the five-page written Q&A in the packet. Laid out the five recommendations (0:30:02 onward), conceded the volume — "I apologize for the, large stack of information that's in your packets… there's a lot of new board members that didn't receive information or presentations that have been presented by the year" (0:32:20) — and undertook to bring "a strategic plan and timeline in January" (0:58:54). Reported the programme running two of its three classrooms on a rotating schedule for three weeks because of staffing, with a return to three classrooms and four half-days the coming Friday. Gave the sharpest sentence of the night on cost-shifting: "The state is often looking to offload expenses onto the, onto the local taxpayer, which is unfortunate in my view" (0:49:06). Called all three roll calls, the chair introducing him for the first as "the school clerk that's not getting compensated" (1:24:36). The transcript renders him Mr. Nestor. |
| Chris Pratt | Principal, Stevens High School | Gave the longest single presentation of the meeting — 52 rows, about twenty minutes, tracking the written report in the packet: the Ident-A-Kid visitor-screening system not yet live (0:09:22); Cardinal recognition cards now running in both directions between students and teachers; the October 17 community screening of the film Screenagers; faculty reading the Restorative Practices Playbook in professional learning communities; student restorative-justice panels in training, "3 or 4 students" per panel and "enough for 3 or 4 panels" (0:15:01); the 2022–23 department-by-department SWOT analysis; and a long account of IXL. In 2023 Chris Pratt is the high-school principal. He did not become interim superintendent until January 11, 2024. The transcript renders IXL as Excel and I excel roughly two dozen times, and Screenagers as screen ager and screen AJR. |
| Michael Koski | Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction, Innovation & Assessment | Explained the Teach United grant in two parts — "one for early educators. They provide virtual coaching support and instructional support for people who are in the first three years of becoming a teacher… the second version is they're providing coaching support for our new coaches" (0:07:15) — and gave the scale: "we have a, I think 14 teachers in the early teacher program… our two coaches plus the curriculum director in the coaching program" (0:08:07), against only two internal instructional coaches, so the grant "provides another 4 or 5 to help reach more of our staff." Then postponed his own agenda item, the academic-achievement indicator results: "We're going to put that off until our next meeting wasn't able to get it finished. So it'll help shorten tonight's agenda" (0:28:50). The transcript renders him Mr. Kosky, my Kosky and — in the superintendent's report — Mr. Cosby. |
| Nicole Bouchard | Student board representative, Stevens High School grade 10 — seated at this meeting | Gave the first student report of the 2023–24 year, and it was a substantive one. On the Yondr phone pouches she gave both sides: "One of the positive things that I see is how there isn't like a social like expectation. So I don't have the fear of being filmed by other students or being photographed without my consent" (0:02:09), against students "afraid of not being able to contact parents during an emergency." On bathroom vandalism she proposed remedies — "a hall monitor maybe, or checking bathrooms hourly" and making students "clean their own vandalism" (0:03:07). And she asked for a handbook change: that it say "specifically how tardiness, absences and detentions affect not only sports, but clubs." The chair: "It's valuable information." The minutes attribute the report to her; the diarizer does not separate the two student voices, so this page follows the minutes. |
| Kylee Plummer "Kylie Plummer" in the recording | Student board representative, Stevens High School grade 10 — seated at this meeting | Welcomed by the chair with Bouchard at 0:00:36 — "both from our 10th grade at Stevens High School. And they've been brave enough to volunteer" — and named by Principal Pratt as a panel member at the Screenagers community viewing (0:08:59). The minutes spell her Kylee; the recording gives Kylie. The agenda and the minutes both carry a masthead reading "Student Board Member- Nicole Bouchard and Alex Barney" — a name that appears nowhere else in the record; see flag 11. |
| Chelsea Weatherford | Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent; produced the district's minutes | Not a speaker, but the subject of an agenda item. The superintendent, urging the compensation increase: "Chelsea has been amazing at filling in, but she has a, you know, a lot of commitments in her life, young family. And it's it's it's been a lot. It's not like obviously she's a solid trooper. She's getting it done. But we need to really push this and promote it" (1:14:25). She signed these minutes and the retreat minutes. |
| Barrett Christina, Esq. | New Hampshire School Boards Association — facilitated the October 11, 2023 board self-evaluation retreat | Not at this meeting. Named in the retreat minutes approved here as the sixth person in the room on October 11: "B. Christina reviewed roles and responsibilities of school board members and discussed difference btw board goals and district goals." Five of the seven board members attended that retreat — a quorum. See flag 2. |
| Jeff Small | Director of Technology, SAU 6 | Listed, not heard. On the agenda's central-office roster. Named once, as the person Principal Pratt was "talking to… earlier" about the outstanding checks before the visitor-screening system goes live (0:09:49). |
| Mary Henry | Business Administrator, Claremont School District / SAU 6 | Listed, not heard. On the agenda's central-office roster. Named twice: by Sprague as the person he emailed about renaming the budget subcommittee (1:20:41), and by Tempesta as having joined a good meeting with the city manager (1:09:40). |
| Angela Vivian | Human Resource Director, SAU 6 | Listed, not heard. On the agenda's central-office roster. |
| Citizens' comments | Public comment period | Nobody spoke. The chair: "Moving on to comments. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak to the board this time? Seeing none" (0:01:35). The minutes record "Citizens Comments- None". Nobody was turned away and no time limit was announced. See flag 14 for how this page treats RSA 189:74's thirty-minute provision. |
Agenda
From the posted agenda, CSB Agenda 11.1.23.docx.pdf, uploaded to the district's Drive on October 25 — seven days ahead. Dispositions are from the official minutes, checked against the recording; where they differ the cell says so. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text. The agenda's own citation for the nonpublic session reads "RSA91-A:,II (k)" — the paragraph number is missing, and the minutes reproduce the error. See flag 10.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:16 | I. Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance | Agenda: "6:30 PM Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance." Minutes: "Meeting called to order by chair Heather Whitney." The recording opens mid-Pledge; no clock time is spoken and none is recorded. |
| 0:00:26 | II. General Business — Secretary Roll Call of Attendance | Agenda: "Secretary Roll Call of Attendance of Board Members (Board Members who arrive after the meeting begins will be noted as 'present' at the point in the agenda at which they arrive)." There is no secretary — the clerk's seat was vacant — so Ben Nester read the roll. The answers arrive pooled into two segments: "Right here. Here with the skilling," then "Present. Here. Here." Seven voices, one of them answering "Present" rather than "Here". The minutes list six members present and omit Whitney Skillen, who answers here and votes twice later in the same document (flag 3). |
| 0:01:01 | II. Consent Agenda — 1. Amendments and final approval of the agenda; 2. Minutes approval, 10.11.23 Retreat and 10.18.23 | Agenda: "Consent Agenda (vote required) 1. Amendments and Final Approval of board agenda 2. Minutes Approval- 10.11.23 Retreat, 10.18.23." The chair took it by unanimous consent instead: "if there is no objections, I will consider that consent, and we'll move." No motion, no mover, no seconder and no vote, on an item the agenda marked vote required (flag 7). One member interjected "I was absent two weeks ago" and the chair treated it as an amendment; the minutes record that member as Bonnie Miles, the dialogue file as Jennifer Gallagher (flag 9). Minutes: "Minutes approved." The chair's own description inverts the two documents — "approval of the minutes from ten, 11, 23 and the retreat minutes from ten 1823" — where the retreat was on 10/11 and the regular meeting on 10/18. |
| 0:01:35 | II. Citizens Comments | Agenda: "Citizens Comments." Chair: "Moving on to comments. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak to the board this time? Seeing none." Minutes: "Citizens Comments- None." No member of the public spoke at this meeting. |
| 0:00:36 | II. Student Board Member Report — Welcome | Agenda: "Student Board Member Report Welcome Nicole Bouchard and Alex Barney!" The chair welcomed Nicole Bouchard and Kylee Plummer, and the minutes' body names the same two; "Alex Barney" appears in the masthead of both agenda and minutes and nowhere else (flag 11). The welcome is at 0:00:36, before the consent agenda in the recording though after it on the agenda; the report itself runs from 0:02:09. Bouchard reported on the Yondr pouches, bathroom vandalism and a proposed handbook change. No board questions — chair: "Is there any questions from the board for our student reps? Seeing none." |
| 0:03:55 | III. Superintendent Report — Teach United visit update | Agenda: "6:45 PM Superintendent Report ● Teach United Visit Update." Two items in about four minutes: a New Hampshire Department of Education delegation on October 24 that toured the participating schools with student guides, and a River Valley Community College follow-up on nursing, Running Start credit and school-to-work. Koski then explained the grant's two coaching strands and its scale. Discussion only. Tempesta credits the grant to "Mr. Cosby and his team… with the SR three money" — Koski, and ESSER III funds. |
| 0:08:40 | IV.1. Stevens High School update — Christopher Pratt, Principal (Exhibit J) | Agenda: "Christopher Pratt, Principal to present an update on the current Stevens initiatives; including Yondr, Running Start with RVCC, & Program of Studies update." About twenty minutes of report plus ten of questions, tracking the written report in the packet. Ident-A-Kid, recognition cards, the Screenagers community night, restorative practices, student restorative-justice panels, the SWOT analysis, IXL data as of October 24, the marching band and enrolment. Discussion only; no motion. Neither Yondr nor the Program of Studies — two of the three subjects the agenda named — is taken up; the pouches are covered instead in the student report. |
| 0:28:44 | IV.2. Academic Achievement Indicator Results (i-Ready) / Summer Program — Assistant Superintendent Koski | Agenda: "Academic Achievement Presentation by Assistant Superintendent Koski." Postponed by the presenter, on the floor, in eleven seconds: "We're going to put that off until our next meeting wasn't able to get it finished. So it'll help shorten tonight's agenda." Minutes: "Will be discussed at one of the December board meetings." The chair noted it had been on the December agenda anyway and would come back broader. The i-Ready norms tables the item would have used are nonetheless in the packet as Exhibit C, cited in the early-childhood Q&A instead. |
| 0:29:19 | IV.3. Preschool Programs / SEL Goals — Ben Nester (Exhibits A–H) | Agenda: "Presentation by Ben Nester- Ability to meet academic achievement, proposed integration of preschool programs into each elementary school." The largest item of the meeting — about half an hour — and no vote was taken. Five recommendations for 2024–25 implementation; two more added by the superintendent from the floor; sustained questioning from four members. Minutes: "The school board would like to have an update in January with hopes of a timeline of when this final product will be presented." Nester: "I'd like to present a strategic plan and timeline in January." Disposition: received, with a direction to report back in January. See flag 8 and flag 15. |
| 0:59:29 | IV.4. Paraprofessional Contract (Discussion and Vote) | Agenda: "Led by Mike Tempesta, Superintendent and contributions by Ben Nester, Director of Special Education." The superintendent asked for authority to approach the union about reopening a contract with a year still to run. Motion by Candace Crawford; the recording preserves an unattributable Second at 1:01:37 and Hawkins asking "Did we have a second for that motion?" at 1:02:04; the minutes name Whitney Skillen as seconder. Chair at 1:02:10: "All opposed. None opposed. Motion passes unanimously." One condition emerged in discussion: Sprague asked whether a board representative would sit on the negotiating group and the superintendent answered "Absolutely. At least one." The condition is on the recording and not in the minutes. |
| 1:02:28 | IV.5. Initiating City Council Annual Meetings (Discussion) | Agenda: "5. Initiating City Council Annual Meetings (Discussion)." Twenty minutes. The chair framed it as the city council and city manager reopening a lapsed relationship, and named the reason plainly: "There is a feeling around the community that one of the things that's holding Claremont back is our school district." Crawford, Skillen, Gallagher, Sprague and Hawkins all spoke; three options were on the table and the board took all three in sequence — quarterly superintendent-to-city-manager contact, a chair-and-superintendent meeting with the mayor and city manager, and, if that goes well, a single facilitated roundtable, all after the November 7 city election. Chair at 1:12:35: "I don't think we need to have a motion or anything as long as I see board consensus moving forward with that after the next election." No motion, no vote. |
| 1:13:26 | IV.6. Claremont School Board Clerk Position (Discussion and Vote) (Exhibit I) | Agenda: "Discussion led by Mike Tempesta, Superintendent Barriers to filling position, consideration of increasing compensation." The superintendent presented the recruitment flyer and asked for approval of a rise from "somewhere around 250 or 275" to $300 a board meeting and $350 a special district meeting. Motion by Jennifer Gallagher, amended by her on the floor to name both figures rather than "as on the flier"; seconded by Bonnie Miles (the chair says so at 1:18:44; the minutes agree). Chair at 1:19:35: "a vote to increase the compensation for the Claremont School Board clerk position to $300 per school board meeting and threw up to 350 per district special district meeting. All in favor? I oppose motion passes unanimously." Two changes came out of the discussion: contact information to be added to the flyer, and the superintendent to check whether the compensation could be printed in a newspaper voter guide. See flag 1. |
| 1:20:20 | IV.7. School Board Sub-Committees (Discussion) | Agenda lists six: "a) Capital Improvement Committee SubCommittee Chair Bonnie Miles b) Budget Sub-Committee Subcommittee Chair Frank Sprague c) Policy Sub-Committee Subcommittee Chair Whitney Skillen d) Curriculum Committee Subcommittee Chair Jennifer Gallagher e) SRVRTC Visioning Committee Board Representatives F. Sprague, B. Miles, & C. Crawford f) Ad Hoc Disruptive Behaviors Committee- Chair Jennifer Gallagher." Capital Improvement: no meeting. Budget subcommittee renamed the Finance Committee by consensus — chair: "Do it by consensus? If there's nobody that objects to changing the title of the budget Committee to the Finance Committee." Policy: presenting an operational guide on December 6. Curriculum: still scheduling. Visioning: the SREB consultant has the labour-market data and is moving again. Disruptive behaviors: that day's meeting cancelled, next on December 6. A subcommittee of a school board is itself a public body under RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) and carries its own notice and minutes duties. |
| 1:24:03 | IV.8. Non-Public Session, "RSA91-A:,II (k)" | Agenda: "8. Non-Public Session RSA91-A:,II (k) Consideration of a school board of entering into a student or pupil contract authorized by RSA 194 or RSA 195-A." The chair read it aloud as "RSA 91-A colon, two k" — the correct citation is RSA 91-A:3, II(k). Motion by the chair, seconded by Sprague, roll call by Nester, all seven Yes (1:24:46). A second roll call at 1:25:34 — the minutes record it as the vote to return from nonpublic — is likewise all Yes and comes forty-eight seconds after the first, with continuous audio between them (flag 6). Sprague then moved to seal the minutes for fifty years; the roll at 1:26:10 runs Whitney No, Sprague Yes, Miles Yes, Skillen Yes, Gallagher Yes, Hawkins No, Crawford Yes — 5–2 on the recording, 4–2 in the minutes, which omit the mover's own vote. No statutory finding was stated. See flags 3, 4 and 5. |
| 1:26:35 | IV.9. Approval of Tuition Agreement Rate FY25 (Discussion and Vote) | Agenda: "9. Approval of Tuition Agreement Rate FY25 ( Discussion and Vote)." Motion by Arlene Hawkins: "I move that we approve the tuition rate at 16,000 for K-12 students for the year 24, 2024, 2025." Seconded by the chair — "Oh, I'll second the motion" — who then asked twice for discussion and got none. Chair at 1:26:55: "All in favor of setting our tuition rate for K through 51612 K through 12. Excuse me. K through 12. That's 16,000 per year for 2425. All in favor? Aye aye aye. Opposed. Same a." Carried on a voice vote with no count. The taking-up of a public money item immediately after a nonpublic session on the same subject is what RSA 91-A:3, II(k) contemplates; the discussion, however, ran to nothing on the public record. |
| 1:27:20 | V. Other Business | Agenda: "8:20 PM Other Business." Two items. Hawkins thanked the music teachers — the minutes render them "Thomas Smith-Knox at CMS, Taylor Webb at SHS, Unity & Newport music teachers" — for bringing the Dallas Brass, who ran clinics over several days and played an evening concert with band and choral members from the middle and high schools and Unity Elementary. She then asked whether the concert had been recorded for CCTV. The chair asked the superintendent for an update on the committee developing a teacher-evaluation tool under the SREA collective bargaining agreement: "I just want to put that on your radar" (1:28:58). |
| not reached as a discussion item | VI. Future Dates / Future Agenda Items | Agenda: "a) Presentation of Program of Studies 2024, Schedule and Preliminary Staffing Request 12.6.23 agenda item b) Budget Public Hearing 1/3/24 c) Budget Ratification 1/17/24 d) Deliberative Session 2/7/24 e) January 2024 Update on Alternative Program and Alternate Locations for next SY f) July 2024 Impact of New Cell Phone Policy on Academic Performance." The minutes reproduce the list; nothing on the recording takes it up separately. The projected deliberative session moved: the 2024 session was held on Saturday, February 3, 2024. |
| 1:29:02 | VII. Adjournment | Agenda: "8:30 PM Adjournment." Chair: "Is there any other business from the board? Seeing none, I'm going to assume that we want to be adjourned unless I hear otherwise." Minutes: "No objection from any board member to adjourn the meeting. Meeting adjourned." Adjourned by unanimous consent at 1:29:15, with no motion and no time recorded in the minutes. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological, from the dialogue transcript. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording. Quotations reproduce the automatic transcript exactly as recorded; square brackets mark this page's insertion or correction, and the garbled wording is left visible wherever the correction changes the sense. Quotations attributed to the agenda, the minutes, a packet exhibit or a statute are from those documents and are not speech from the recording.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:16 | Pledge, roll call, and two new student representatives | The recording opens mid-Pledge. Nester reads the roll and the answers arrive pooled — "Right here. Here with the skilling," then "Present. Here. Here." Seven members answer. The chair then welcomes the student representatives at 0:00:36: "And I'd like to, at this time, welcome to just say that correctly. Yes. And Kylie [Kylee] Plummer, who are going to be our school board representatives. So both from our 10th grade at Stevens High School. And they've been brave enough to volunteer and dedicate this time through this endeavor." The first student representatives of the 2023–24 year; the seat had been empty since Hannah Petrin's term ended, and on September 6 the vice chair had to ask the principal to find someone. | |
| 0:01:01 | Consent agenda taken by unanimous consent, and a member says the attendance record is wrong | Chair: "we have a consent agenda before us, and includes a request for any of the items that are on the consent agenda to be moved to the regular agenda and approval of the minutes from ten, 11, 23 and the retreat minutes from ten 1823. And if there is no objections, I will consider that consent, and we'll move." A member interrupts at 0:01:24: "I was absent two weeks ago." Chair: "You're documented as being on there, so you're requesting that we change the minutes to reflect that you are not." Member: "That was not here." Chair: "Okay. Thank you. Absent that, addendum, is there any, request to alter the consent agenda if not approved?" The agenda marked this item "vote required" and no vote was taken, and the two documents approved include the minutes of a board retreat held twenty-one days earlier. | HIGH MEDIUM MEDIUM |
| 0:02:09 | Student report: the phone pouches, from a student's side | "As this student school board representative, I just wanted to report on some things from a student body view. Some of the things are how the yonder [Yondr] patches are going for the student body, the positive and the negative aspects. One of the positive things that I see is how there isn't like a social like expectation. So I don't have the fear of being filmed by other students or being photographed without my consent." And the other side at 0:02:36: "the students are afraid of not being able to contact parents during an emergency or just during the school day." Then bathroom vandalism, with remedies proposed — "a hall monitor maybe, or checking bathrooms hourly" — and a request that the handbook say "specifically how tardiness, absences and detentions affect not only sports, but clubs." The board asked no questions. | |
| 0:03:55 | Superintendent's report: a state visit, and the community college | "we had visitors from the New Hampshire Department of Education led by Joey Nichols, come out on the 24th and for a teaching visit, they visited all of the currently participated schools." Student guides led the tour; the superintendent had lunch at Bluff. Then at 0:04:50: a follow-up with River Valley Community College on the nursing programme, "running start credit and also school to work initiatives," which he called "one of the most fruitful meetings I've had so far with them," plus two new buses and two drivers passing their tests. | |
| 0:06:47 | Teach United: fourteen new teachers, coaches for the coaches | Asked by the chair to "briefly remind the community what the Teachers United Teach Unite [Teach United] is about," the superintendent describes a grant "that we signed up for in all of the schools" — delayed at the high school because of other initiatives. Koski gives the structure at 0:07:15: "one for early educators. They provide virtual coaching support and instructional support for people who are in the first three years of becoming a teacher… the second version is they're providing coaching support for our new coaches." Scale at 0:08:07: "14 teachers in the early teacher program… our two coaches plus the curriculum director in the coaching program," and, with only two internal instructional coaches, the grant "provides another 4 or 5 to help reach more of our staff." The chair's summary: "we're helping our younger teachers be better teachers, and we're helping our older teachers be better mentors." | |
| 0:09:22 | Stevens High School: visitor screening not yet live | "On the first part we have identikit [Ident-A-Kid]… when we have visitors come in, we know who's coming into the building… They scanned the license and automatically what happens is it goes through identikit and they cross-reference it for anyone who may have be sexual offenders or, custody issues or anything like that." Not switched on: "there's still some areas that we want to check on before we go live with it… especially for people who come from like out of state. The process for checking IDs there is different than it is here." Asked later by the chair what it scans for, at 0:25:30: "It's just so we can identify in keeping kids safe in the building, because you never know who's coming into the building." The written report adds that the system issues "a highly visible CENTEGIX visitor badge with built-in real-time locating." | |
| 0:12:36 | Restorative practice, from the faculty room to student panels | Faculty are reading the Restorative Practices Playbook in professional learning communities: "it shouldn't just happen outside the classroom, but what does it look like if there's all sudden there's an altercation or a disruption in the classroom, given the teachers the tools they need to resolve that problem, circle up in the class to do that." Students are being trained for panels at 0:15:01: "students are currently being trained on the student panels to meet with students on very low level situations, on the proactive approach to resolve conflict… Each panel is made up of 3 or 4 students, and we have enough for 3 or 4 panels." The qualities sought: "compassion for every member of our community. Trustworthiness. The able to keep confidence, patience and want to listen and understand." | |
| 0:16:24 | The SWOT analysis, and the rule that produced it | "the Swat [SWOT] protocol is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that we see within Stevens High School… first we did it all as as a department. Each department did their own slot [SWOT]… Once they had that, I took all that information and I compiled it into the document you see here." The netting rule, at 0:16:47: "if one department had freedom to choose curriculum as a strength and another had it as a weakness, it didn't make the list. We wanted to be consistent." The written report puts it the same way: any item one department called a strength and another a weakness "crossed each other out, and it was not added to the final document." | |
| 0:17:17 | IXL: 143,832 questions, and a room for students who fall behind on it | "all the work that we're doing with, Excel [IXL]… it's an online program. And once a week at least… students come in on a Monday and advisory and they take the diagnostic, whether they take it in English and math for all students, whether or not they're currently enrolled in an English or math class." The numbers, at 0:18:32 and 0:20:08: a goal of 60 "questions answered per student per week"; "we have 143,832 questions answered by the student body"; "723 hours spent on learning outside of the classroom"; "3115 skills mastered since the beginning of the year, 3442 skills that they're proficient… 5213 skills that have been practiced"; a daily goal of 30 questions against a peak of "80 questions a day." At 0:19:40 the hours figure comes through as "100, 722 hours"; the written report and the earlier sentence give 723. The enforcement, at 0:21:18: students not keeping up are put in "the restorative school day room for advisory, where we can monitor and make sure that they're now that they are working in their Excel" and at 0:21:44: "we have the proof. We can show that out of 100 questions you've answered two, and you've spent five minutes instead of the two hours that you're supposed to." | |
| 0:22:41 | Crawford presses on who writes the questions | Three times, and she does not let it go. "Tell me a little bit more about the Excel. Do all students, all students participate in this?… And it's a program that we've purchased." Pratt: "Yep. It was grant funded." Crawford at 0:23:40: "who develops the questions that are asked as part of the testing?" — "The system does it automatically." — "Who develops the questions." — "The Excel it's based on state. And" — "Oh I." — "See it's based on MCAS [the Massachusetts assessment]. Okay… They, they they generate these questions… Very standardized kind of type questions." A New Hampshire district's daily individualised learning plans, generated by a vendor from another state's assessment standards, and nobody at the table pursues it further. | |
| 0:28:50 | The academic-achievement item is postponed by its own presenter | Chair: "Mr. Kosky or Assistant superintendent, it's going to give a presentation on this this evening. But." Koski: "Right. We're going to put that off until our next meeting wasn't able to get it finished. So it'll help shorten tonight's agenda." Chair: "Luckily we actually it was going to be it was part of our pre-populated agenda for December anyway… And so the December agenda item will be a little bit more comprehensive and talk about globally, not just the summer program." Eleven seconds, no motion, no objection. The i-Ready results and the summer-programme evaluation had been carried on the future-agenda list since October 18. | |
| 0:30:02 | The five early-childhood recommendations | Nester: "we have five main recommendations as we plan for next year." One, "contracting with a qualified agency or an individual… to conduct an independent study of the early childhood program." Two, at 0:30:11, "investigate, with the help of a of a consultant, a… comprehensive, research based early childhood curriculum and assessment and instructional package, something that would include training for personnel as well." Three, at 0:30:38, "consider relocating the early childhood program to the elementary schools or, or target one school in particular, and embed it there, which is standard practice for, for preschools." Four, at 0:31:07, "we do recommend that we stick with the early childhood model." Five, at 0:31:31 running into 0:32:20, "another thing that's not typical of our pre-K is that we don't charge a fee, even a nominal fee for regular ed students. So that's another thing that we'd recommend exploring and implementing for the 2425 school year." The written sheet in the packet is terser and firmer than the presentation: it says relocate, not consider relocating, and adds "Consider embedding in the schools and/or purchasing modules if necessary." | MEDIUM |
| 0:31:31 | Why the integrated model stays: a state that approves what it penalises | "That's the model where you have 50% special ed students and 50% typically developing students, versus a special ed only or self-contained model. There's an interesting fact with that to the while the state while the Department of editor [Education] will approve self-contained programs at the pre-K level. If a district has a self-contained program at the preschool pre-K level, it counts as a mark against you in the the annual audits… that paints a very clear picture of the departments, you know, respective [perspective] on the matter." The written answer in the packet is blunter: "while the NHDOE will approve a EC level self contained special education program, if you implement one, the district will be 'dinged' during annual compliance and improvement monitoring… The directors in the region are very concerned about the state's conflicting position on this indicator." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:33:04 | The superintendent adds two items, one of them the money | "Can I make you [two] recommendations for the punch list? The first being, a process for admission to the program. So how do you know? Do we take everybody? Do we? Is there. How do kids get accepted there? The second would be a goal to apply for grants… There are grants out there. And, so I think we should be applying for those to take the burden off the taxpayers." The grant answer comes back negative within two minutes. Nester at 0:33:46: "it's a grant that, funds planning and structuring of pre-K. It's not a grant that allows us to fund positions, I don't think," and at 0:34:04: "it seems like it's geared toward helping early childhood centers program and plan versus funding positions… It's more like a consultant type model." Hawkins immediately redirects it at 0:34:37: "So good. So that we will be applying for that grant." The grant is identified in the packet, in the chair's written question, as the New Hampshire Preschool Development Grant. | MEDIUM |
| 0:35:08 | Hawkins: are there standards, and can they reach the children already enrolled? | "The Department of Ed has, as you know, the thick, thick, listing of benchmarks and standards for students. And if we can implement those standards even at this point, start working to for our children that are there now… do we look at where our students are in relation to those benchmarks and then have that drive and continued instruction?" Nester at 0:35:55: "Totally agree… we need to look pre-K into the fold as we as we target curriculum and scope and sequence for the district at large. I think it's time to do that and time to put standards in front of people so that we have our teachers have a goal and know what they're going to be teaching roughly at a given time." His written answer had already conceded the position: the programme's two curriculums "are standard practice in NH EC centers. Regardless, I believe it is time to reassess the curriculum and align it with kindergarten standards at the very least." | |
| 0:37:14 | The supervision problem: a principal cannot supervise a pre-K | Hawkins, on the relocation recommendation: "the supervision would have to be from a coordinator outside the building because principal certification is K to 12. They're not certified to supervise a pre-K program so that before we move kids, we need to make sure that I would think I would hope that we would have the standards in place." And the sequence, at 0:37:44: "We would have the assessments in place, we would have a coordinator in place, the teachers would be ready, and having them not move until that's that's solid." This is the meeting's clearest condition on the relocation, and it is the one the administration's own written case had identified as a benefit — Nester's packet answer says a reason to move is "increased supervision and support for all staff in the program. The stand alone model at the tech is atypical and oversight prohibitive." | POSITIVE |
| 0:40:52 | Two classrooms out of three, and families told week by week | Asked how many days children attend, Nester describes the intended model — "a four day, half day, half day session" — and then what was actually running at 0:41:00: "we're not doing that. We're running running two classrooms out of the three. And we're doing a rotating schedule. And there's been some shifts at the pre-K with staffing. And so what what we've done for the past, and it's been three weeks now, is we've updated families on Friday what the structure would look like for the following week, because there's been a lot of moving parts recently." The fix, that week: "This Friday, however, we are going to have a plan rolled out and communicated to parents that will that will stay in place the remainder of the year… we will be able to do is to go back to the three classrooms and run a four day, four day, a half day session program… parents are going to be very happy to hear that those that are listening so that they don't have to change their work schedules and daycare arrangements." The restored schedule, at 0:42:03: "all three year old students attend in the morning Monday through Thursday. And then the four year old students will attend in the afternoon Monday through Thursday." | MEDIUM |
| 0:43:05 | Transportation, asked three times | Hawkins: "the idea of having services provided outside of the early childhood environment is something that is discussed… If we go into the model or, or really think about a model where we are pushing outside services, do we lose the chance that some or do we have the chance that some of our students will not be able to get those services because of transportation issues from families." Reframed at 0:44:38: "for students who whose families have medical coverage and can get services outside of our school environment, would we lose some students getting those services because of a lack of transportation by their families?" And at 0:45:02, reduced to its simplest form: "In other words, if somebody doesn't have a car." The answer, at 0:46:11: "the services that the district is responsible for is if the child goes through the valuation [evaluation] process and the child is determined eligible, then then that's where the obligation lands on the district to to get the child to the services if that's a barrier." The chair confirms it at 0:46:37 — "it is incumbent upon the district to make sure that the child received those services" — and Hawkins closes it at 0:47:33: "so that no child will lose services because of transportation… because we are required to provide that by law." | POSITIVE |
| 0:47:44 | Sprague on referrals that move cost from the State to the district | "I'm thinking back to my my court liaison days back when I used to go to court and at the high school. So everyone who was adjudicated there was an automatic referral for special ed… I remember talking to Jodi Varney one time, she was one of the probation officers, and she was begging me… to identify the student. And their motivation is if we identify the student a special ed, it becomes the school district's responsibility to to provide the services rather than the state." His question at 0:48:31: "You had said a while back that we get a lot of referrals from outside agencies… Are those referrals similar to what I just described, possibly ever?" And when Nester hedged — "special ed is so complex, it's almost always hard to give you a two line answer" — Sprague at 0:49:02: "Well, they're pretty direct with me. I mean, they yeah. Jodi was pretty plain. We want you to pay for it." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:49:06 | Nester on the State "looking to offload expenses… onto the local taxpayer" | Nester answers Sprague directly: "there is an element of that I, we still experience. Right. The state is often looking to offload expenses onto the, onto the local taxpayer, which is unfortunate in my view. You know, pre-K in particular, we received the bulk of our, our referrals or the most referrals that we that we see district wide from agencies are at the pre-K level." The mechanism, at 0:49:31: "it's because of the early supports and services or pathways there… their obligation under the law is is birth to three. And so if they identify a child is eligible, then then similar to the court process… their legally obligated to refer the kid to us at age 27 months. And so then we have to respond to the referral and determine if we, you know, evaluate or not." Federal law does require the handoff: an IEP must be developed and being implemented by a child's third birthday. | |
| 0:49:57 | A new referral gate, and one referral all year | "this year we instituted a right, instituted a new process for in district special ed referrals. We adopted a new form that requires administration signature at the building level. And then my signature. So that has to come across my desk." The result, at 0:50:16: "I want to give credit to our teachers, to those that are, you know, working to provide RTI in the schools. So far, we've seen one special ed referral from our buildings this year, which is which is a success. And I think it's because our staff are working so hard to meet the students needs pre referral." Presented as a success and unexamined by the board. A referral process that routes every request through the special-education director's own signature, producing one referral from all district buildings in two months, is a change that a reviewer would want to see measured against the district's child-find duty — and nobody at the table asked. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:50:43 | Sixty-two children | Crawford: "How many students are in the pre-K program 6060." Nester: "Two right now okay." — sixty-two. It is the only number anybody puts to the programme all evening. No cost, no per-pupil figure, no staffing count, no fee level and no budget line is stated on the recording for a programme the board is being asked to restructure, relocate and start charging for. | MEDIUM |
| 0:51:04 | Miles: "I just want to know what the goal is" | "We're moving. We want to move the pre-K into the buildings because it's better for the students. It's a more accepted model. I just want to know what the goal is." Tempesta's answer at 0:51:16 names capacity first — "In a perfect world, you'd have we'd have enough capacity at the schools, both in terms of rooms and teaching staff… We don't know that that's going to be the case" — then what the standalone centre lacks: "we don't have, you know, administrative support. We don't have specials. We don't have the experience to integrate a kid earlier into the school environment." And at 0:51:49: "interventions in early literacy would be more controlled if we had that. And that's, that's the driver for it… we could effectively have a director of that program within the schools, or if it was in two schools going back and forth as an additional administrator." Nester adds four more at 0:52:48: specials such as PE, "that will allow us to go to a five day model, which I think we desperately need"; existing secretarial infrastructure, because at present "we will have paraprofessionals doing some of that work is they're not really trained to do, but it's how we're making it work"; substitutes, because "if pre-K staff were out due to illness, we have very few to know [no] substitutes in the district"; and less travel time for specialists. | |
| 0:54:11 | The million-dollar question, asked and not answered | Miles: "Is there a capacity at the elementary schools to house additional classrooms?" Nester: "We think there is. But that's going to be a big, we." Miles: "I know it's like the million dollar question. So we have to say out loud." Tempesta's answer at 0:54:18 does not resolve it and instead opens the wider restructuring: "We're already shifting, you know the the model in bluff with the multi grade. We've already moved kids out of some students out of different catchments. And we we need to get after that. And we need to look at the the the certain catchment and for, for each school as well as there's there's been a big shift also in the in enrollment… bluff has gone up. The enrollment this year in Maple has gone down dramatically." And at 0:55:17: "if we have to increase class size or do other types of things, we need to make sure we can get all of this done, and that's what we're projecting." The written recommendation sheet has its own answer to the capacity question that nobody reads aloud: "purchasing modules if necessary." | MEDIUM |
| 0:55:54 | Hawkins sets the condition, and the board lands on January | "it's important for my perspective, for me to have a real plan laid out that addresses all of the things that we've been asking about… so that we're not at the last minute, moving young children into a situation that might not be in their best interest, and having the staffing that's there." The staffing point, at 0:56:22: "We have powers [paras] that are at the elementary level. We have Paris [paras] at the pre-K. Their skill sets are very, very different for young children versus a fourth or fifth grader. So I think in order to have a successful program for our youngest children, we really need to plan this out with great detail." Tempesta: "Couldn't agree more." Hawkins at 0:57:14: "So I think that the January update is is it really important." The chair converts it to a deliverable at 0:58:28 — "by January, we will have a timeline to say at this point in time, this will be our finalized plan" — and Nester commits at 0:58:54: "I'd like to present a strategic plan and timeline in January." Hawkins closes at 0:59:07: "thank you for getting information to us well in advance so that we could read it, reflect as questions and have more questions come at you." No motion was made and no vote was taken on any of the five recommendations. | MEDIUM POSITIVE |
| 0:59:47 | Reopening the paraprofessional contract a year early | Tempesta: "we know the the contract of the power professionals [paraprofessionals] isn't up until for another year, but we feel strongly that we we want to reach out to them… I want to reach out to them with board approval." The reason, at 1:00:17: "to begin conversations about opening up the contract to see if, to to just start and if they're ready to come to the table sooner. Our goal being to have a very competitive contract to look at some areas where we see, you know, without that have been problematic… we've been looking at comparative communities in other contracts." And at 1:00:55: "It's not because we only know negotiating two contracts right now. We just need a third. It's because we really want to be ahead of the game and attract with our benefits." Motion by Crawford at 1:01:23; Sprague asks at 1:01:41 "would there be a school board rep as part of that group?" and gets "Absolutely. At least one." Carried unanimously on a voice vote at 1:02:10. | MEDIUM |
| 1:02:28 | Meeting the city council: the chair names the problem out loud | "the Claremont School Board used to meet with the Claremont City Council, I believe, biannually. And that those meetings tended not to be very fruitful or productive, fell by the wayside." Why it is back, at 1:03:06: "there is been a extension from the the city council and the city manager to kind of reopen that relationship… My impression of that is, is to understand more about what the barriers are for the school, not, doing better. There is a feeling around the community that one of the things that's holding Claremont back is our school district, and that we are kind of at an inflection point." What she wants from it, at 1:04:18: "the social pressures that our school, our schools face and an explanation of some of the barriers to success and some of the reasons why our budget tends to be very aggressive. I know that the city's seems to struggle with the tax burden that we have." | |
| 1:04:59 | Crawford's experience, and the alternative the board adopts | "I have participated in these meetings before, and I found them to be less than helpful. I think that, the city council has much on its agenda, and I don't think they are generally aware of some of the issues regarding school." Her diagnosis, at 1:05:25: "I've seen those joint meetings be awkward at best. Unless there's a very, very, very tight, specific agenda. With questions ahead of time for all participants and a clear goal for the meeting. Not much happens." Her proposal: "I really see the opportunity for our superintendent to meet on a quarterly basis with the city manager… to have the two CEOs, if you will. Meet and and review what's happening in our schools and, and what's happening with the budget and why." Skillen at 1:07:00 adds a second option — "maybe just like a one time meeting for us with an agenda about a round table kind of thing" — and Gallagher at 1:07:53 takes both. Sprague at 1:08:52 recalls three city managers by name and says the chair-and-superintendent format "was actually fairly productive… there wasn't a lot of background noise. It was pretty direct." Tempesta confirms at 1:09:40 that he has already had "a good meeting with Yoshi [Manale] and also with Mary." | |
| 1:09:59 | Three options, no motion, and a chair uneasy about speaking for the board | The chair sums the options and then hesitates over the one that involves her: "there's another option that I think Bonnie was alluding to, that perhaps a representative of the board, such as myself… Act as the agent of the board? Yes. My only. Yeah, it would have to be like I you have to trust me to do that… I want to make sure that if everybody's comfortable with me representing the position of the board" (1:11:04), and at 1:11:25: "you [are] all elected officials. So it makes me somewhat uncomfortable." Her safeguard, at 1:11:38: "I could report back in open session… What was discussed." Hawkins at 1:12:04 prefers the sequence: "I heard Frank talk about the city manager, the mayor, yourself and the superintendent meeting as a as a group. And I like that idea because that opens up the communication to begin. And then maybe we reach a point where we do have a joint meeting." Chair at 1:12:35: "I don't think we need to have a motion or anything as long as I see board consensus moving forward with that after the next election." | MEDIUM |
| 1:13:30 | The clerk's seat: empty since March, and what it pays | Tempesta: "we've put out the advertising and it's a good suggestions to we're ready to push this out. We needed your approval to increase the compensation." The figures, at 1:14:48: "we've had a couple of conversations about Congress about the compensation before, as I remember, that we're somewhere around 250 or 275 the, the this flier, as you see in front of you, is exactly what we want to put out 300 for board meeting in the minutes to be, you know, done and distributed." And the duty attached to the money, at 1:15:11: "you have to be at the meeting and hopefully have a, have a draft of the, the meeting, the draft stuff out within five days like we're supposed to, and $350 for the special district meeting." The overall cost, at 1:13:53, comes through garbled: "the overall increase is about it would be approximately five, 7000 more a year if we continue to have the two meetings per month and at this clip." Whether that is $5,700 or a range is not recoverable from the recording, and this page does not choose between them. | HIGH |
| 1:15:33 | Elected, appointed, and a year of no takers | Hawkins: "why does it have to be a registered voter?" Tempesta at 1:15:39: "It's elected. We can." — then, at 1:15:41, "a we can appoint. Now I want everyone at home to know as well as you. We've been advertising forever for this and we've had a few people, come in and we, I mean, we have chased them as they come and answer it all, we call back and I don't know if it was, you know, tire kicking or whatever, they would just test the waters." His pitch at 1:15:59: "any competent clerical person to do this for a few hours. It's it's a nice side good side gig." Crawford at 1:16:12: "So this would be an appointment until the election." Gallagher, on why the seat is empty: "No one ran." Tempesta: "The state for what, decades." Hawkins confirms the horizon at 1:17:29: "this compensation would be for and hopefully an appointed person until the election. And then the compensation would stay at this rate." A clerk was in fact appointed eight days later — Noelle Kronberg, taken on as SAU 6 board clerk on November 9 and as Claremont board clerk on November 15, 2023. | HIGH |
| 1:16:48 | Two changes to the flyer, made on the floor | Sprague at 1:16:48: "if the eagle times [Eagle Times] or whatever puts out a voter guide… is it inappropriate to say that this position. Is compensated?" — and at 1:17:05: "I'm not sure if you can legally do that." Tempesta: "I'll find out." Hawkins at 1:17:40: "if this is going to be the flier… I'm wondering about contact information being included on the flier. I don't know if it's the website. I don't know if it's coming into the office. What is the the procedure for someone who says, oh, yeah, I'd like to do that. What did I do next?" Tempesta agrees to add a phone number and email. The flyer in the packet has no contact information of any kind — the version circulated to the board lists responsibilities, requirements and pay, and gives the reader nowhere to apply. | |
| 1:18:15 | The compensation vote, amended by its own mover | Gallagher at 1:18:21: "I'll make a motion to accept the new compensation as on the flier." Seconded by Bonnie Miles (1:18:44). Sprague at 1:18:52: "the only thing I would say is that I think it's a different amount for the public meeting" — Tempesta: "That's right… that's what the town pays as well. So I think that's where we came up with the three cities [$350]." Gallagher at 1:19:15: "can I amend my emotion [motion], Heather?… I think you said I said as per the flier. But then Arlene said maybe it should be more specific… And then Frank mentioned that we should mention both amounts." The chair puts the amended motion at 1:19:35: "to increase the compensation for the Claremont School Board clerk position to $300 per school board meeting and threw up to 350 per district special district meeting. All in favor? I oppose motion passes unanimously." Hawkins then establishes at 1:20:04 that "unity has their own clerk. And this this person has done. Say [SAU] you and Claremont" — the flyer advertises one clerk for both boards. | HIGH |
| 1:20:34 | The budget subcommittee becomes the Finance Committee | Sprague: "We do have there I discussed this, and we're, we'd like to change it to the finance committee. And sort of broaden the scope. I, emailed Mary Henry about this and let her know that we want to change it. And the purpose being, it would become more of an ongoing rather than our role being just the budget. We have an ongoing role during the course of the year as well." Hawkins: "Do you need a motion to do that or does it." Chair at 1:21:11: "Do it by consensus? If there's nobody that objects to changing the title of the budget Committee to the Finance Committee." Adopted by consensus. No motion, no vote. The minutes record it — "Consensus from the board to change the name to finance committee" — and print the new name in the same breath: "Budget Finance Sub-Committee." The renamed committee is the body whose separate meetings fill much of the rest of this corpus from November 30, 2023 onward. | |
| 1:21:56 | Subcommittee round: policy, curriculum, tech centre, disruptive behaviors | Policy — Skillen at 1:22:09: "We're on the agenda for December 6th. That's when we're going to present the our new operational guide and very many [very brief?] training on how to help the committee with keeping the policy manual up to date. And so the board can be more collaborative in that effort." Chair: "that's a huge deal." Curriculum — Gallagher: "We are still working on scheduling a meeting." Tech centre — the report at 1:22:43: "I did speak with Andy Lafreniere today. And, you know, we were waiting for the consultant to respond. And so that was the delay. And he was waiting for the labor market data to to arrive. Now they got it. It's being reviewed. And they are going to work with some workforce professionals. It will be Nancy Merrill and I think Andy and someone else that's going to be a zoom meeting," with community members next month. The minutes credit this report to Bonnie Miles and add that it concerned "the SREB Study"; the dialogue file attributes the voice to Candace Crawford — see flag 9. Disruptive behaviors — Gallagher at 1:23:41: that day's meeting "needed to be canceled, just due to a lot of conflicts," next on December 6. | MEDIUM |
| 1:24:03 | Into nonpublic session, on a citation that is wrong in three places | Chair: "Next item on the agenda is a hopefully a brief nonpublic session for current. And it's, RSA 91-A colon, two k consideration of a school board of entering of a school board entering into a student or pupil contract authorized by RSA 119 [194] or RSA 195-9 [195-A]." The exemption is at RSA 91-A:3, II(k), not 91-A:2; the agenda and minutes both write it "RSA91-A:,II (k)" with the paragraph number missing altogether. Sprague at 1:24:35: "I'll second." Chair at 1:24:36: "can the school clerk that's not getting compensated, please do a roll." Nester's roll at 1:24:46: "Heather. Whitney. Yes. Spring. Sprague. Yes. Bonnie. Miles. Yes. Whitney. Skilling," then "Gallagher. Yes. Barley. Hawkins. Yes. Candace. Crawford" — all seven Yes. The motion did state the exemption on its face and was carried by a roll call in public session, which is what the statute requires. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:25:04 | Forty-eight seconds, and the roll is called again | The recording does not break. Chair at 1:25:04: "We will turn [return] after the call." Tempesta says only Mary. Then unattributed room noise — "Yeah. Yeah, yeah," "A couple," "So in this room" — and the chair at 1:25:25: "We have a roll call from somebody." Gallagher at 1:25:28: "Oh. Did who seconded that. I'm sorry." Chair: "I'm moving right to roll call. I'll second. Okay." Nester's second roll at 1:25:34: "Heather. Whitney? Yes. Frank. Spray. [Yes] Donnie miles. [Yes] Whitney. Skilling. Yes. Jennifer Gallagher. Yes. Arlene Hawkins. Yes. Candace Crawford. Yes." The minutes identify this as the vote to return from nonpublic: "Frank Sprague makes a motion to return from non-public; roll call vote; all board members voting yes." Forty-eight seconds separate the two roll calls on the published recording, with unbroken audio between them. | MEDIUM MEDIUM |
| 1:25:50 | Fifty years, on no stated finding, 5–2 | Sprague: "Let's make a motion to seal the minutes of the nonpublic for 50 years." An unidentified voice seconds; the minutes name Bonnie Miles. The chair calls for discussion and there is none. A member asks at 1:26:03 "do we need a roll call? We have the roll call. That vote." Nester's roll at 1:26:10: "Heather Whitney." — "No, thanks." — Sprague: "Yes, daddy [yes]." — "Miles. Yes. Whitney. Skeleton [Skillen]. Yes. Jennifer Gallagher." — "Sure." — "Arlene. Hawkins. No. Candace. Crawford. Yes. Motion passes." On the recording that is five Yes and two No, with the chair and Hawkins against. The minutes record six votes, 4–2, and leave the mover's own vote out. Nothing in either record states which of the three circumstances in RSA 91-A:3, III the two-thirds finding rested on. | HIGH MEDIUM MEDIUM |
| 1:26:35 | The FY25 tuition rate: $16,000, no discussion | Hawkins: "Item number nine, the approval of tuition. Yes. I move that we approve the tuition rate at 16,000 for K-12 students for the year 24, 2024, 2025." The chair seconds her own item — "Is there any discussion? Oh, I'll second the motion" — then at 1:26:55: "And notice any discussion. No discussion. All in favor of setting our tuition rate for K through 51612 K through 12. Excuse me. K through 12. That's 16,000 per year for 2425. All in favor? Aye aye aye. Opposed. Same a." Carried on a voice vote with no count and no discussion whatever in public session. The rate is what Claremont charges other districts to educate their children; the October 18 minutes record the board looking for volunteers to attend "the Goshen school district meeting on December 18, 2023 to discuss the tuition agreement." | MEDIUM |
| 1:27:20 | Other business: the Dallas Brass, and an evaluation tool | Hawkins: "I just would like to thank. Send out a thank you to Thomas Smith Knox [Smith-Knox] at Claremont Middle School and Taylor Webb at Stephens [Stevens] High School, and the unity music teacher and the Newport Music teachers for bringing in the Dallas Brass Group. They conducted clinics and workshops for our middle school and high school kids over a period of days." And at 1:27:45: "there was a wonderful evening concert where all the band and choral members from those middle and high schools and Unity Elementary performed with that Dallas brass… the audience etiquette was absolutely phenomenal." She asks whether it was recorded for CCTV and is told it was taped. The chair closes at 1:28:38 with a request that goes nowhere: "we had on our collective bargaining agreement with the SR e [SREA] that there was a teacher we're going to do to, we're going to create a committee to develop an evaluation tool. Is there any way we can get an update on that?… I just want to put that on your radar." | |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the state and federal law in force on November 1, 2023. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. Fifteen flags follow, ordered by severity.
HIGH The board voted to set the district clerk's pay, and RSA 194:10 gives that decision to the district's annual meeting
Agenda item IV.6 was "Claremont School Board Clerk Position (Discussion and Vote)… Barriers to filling position, consideration of increasing compensation." The superintendent put it to the board in those terms at 1:13:30: "We needed your approval to increase the compensation." The board gave it. The chair's declaration at 1:19:35: "a vote to increase the compensation for the Claremont School Board clerk position to $300 per school board meeting and threw up to 350 per district special district meeting. All in favor? I oppose motion passes unanimously." The minutes record the motion by Jennifer Gallagher, seconded by Bonnie Miles, "all in favor via voice vote."
The school district clerk is an elected district officer, not an employee. RSA 671:6 provides that "at each school district election, each school district which is not a cooperative school district as defined in RSA 195:1 shall elect a school district clerk, moderator, treasurer, and such optional officers" as the district has voted to elect. The office carries statutory duties — under RSA 197:20 the clerk "shall keep a true record of all the doings of each meeting; shall make an attested copy of any record of the district for any person upon request and tender of legal fees therefor; shall act as moderator of any meeting until a moderator pro tempore shall be chosen… and shall have the same power to administer oaths which the moderator has." The recruitment flyer in this packet advertises exactly that office: it requires the applicant to be "a registered voter in the City of Claremont" and lists the election duties — overseeing the ballot process, assisting the moderator, coordinating recounts, certifying election results and administering oaths. The superintendent said as much on the record at 1:15:39: "It's elected. We can… a we can appoint."
And the statute on salaries is short and unambiguous. RSA 194:10: "At its annual meeting each school district shall determine the salaries of its school board and other district officers, and the district clerk shall certify the same to the selectmen." The section has not been touched since 1927, so there is no vintage question about it: this is the text that governed on November 1, 2023, and it assigns the determination to the district — the voters — not to the board. Claremont operates under the official-ballot procedure of RSA 40:13, so its "annual meeting" comprises a deliberative session and a ballot; a salary determination would reach the voters as a warrant article. No public record in the district's shares shows the Claremont School District's annual meeting setting or delegating the clerk's rate.
The board plainly understood the new rate to be durable, not a one-off payment to an interim helper. Arlene Hawkins asked precisely that at 1:17:29: "this compensation would be for and hopefully an appointed person until the election. And then the compensation would stay at this rate." The superintendent: "Absolutely." Frank Sprague went further at 1:16:48, asking whether the compensation could be advertised in a newspaper voter guide alongside the office on the ballot. A rate the board set for itself is therefore expected to attach to the elected officer chosen in March 2024.
What cuts the other way, stated fairly. The seat had drawn no candidate in March 2023 and had been unfilled for eight months; the sums are small; the discussion and the vote were entirely in open session, in a meeting whose packet had been public for a week; the administration was solving a real problem, since the person doing the work was the superintendent's own assistant on top of a full job; and a person appointed to a vacancy under RSA 197:26 — "The school board shall fill vacancies occurring on the board, and in other district offices, except that of moderator, until the next annual meeting of the district" — is not obviously in the same position as an elected officer whose salary the district has fixed. RSA 671:6 itself contemplates the arrangement, closing: "The school district may, by vote, determine to elect a temporary officer or authorize the school board to appoint a temporary officer to serve until the next annual district election" — though note that even there it is the district that does the authorising. Nothing here suggests concealment or self-dealing. What would resolve it is ordinary and public: a warrant article, or a district-meeting record showing the salary set or the setting of it delegated. This page has not found one, and the board did not refer to one.
Sources: RSA 194:10 (at its annual meeting each school district shall determine the salaries of its school board and other district officers); RSA 671:6 (each non-cooperative school district shall elect a school district clerk, moderator and treasurer); RSA 197:20 (duties of the clerk); RSA 197:26 (the school board fills vacancies in district offices, except moderator, until the next annual meeting); RSA 40:13 (official ballot procedure; unamended since 2019, 192:2); Exhibit I- School Board Clerk Flyer 11.1.23.pdf; 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23, item IV.6.
HIGH The board's October 11 self-evaluation retreat was a quorum meeting: its minutes were published fourteen days later, and no notice for it appears anywhere in the district's records
The consent agenda approved here included "Minutes Approval- 10.11.23 Retreat, 10.18.23." The retreat minutes are in this packet, one page, and they establish the facts that matter. Attendance: "Barrett Christina, Esq. NHSBA , H. Whitney, W. Skillen, A. Hawkins, F. Sprague, J. Gallagher (arrived at 5:30pm)." That is five of the seven members of the Claremont School Board — a quorum — plus the New Hampshire School Boards Association's counsel as facilitator. Time: "Start 5pm- End 7:30pm." Subject matter: "B. Christina reviewed roles and responsibilities of school board members and discussed difference btw board goals and district goals"; the board "self-evaluated using 2 evaluation tools (see attached) and reviewed board goals developed at the . May 16, 2023"; it identified five self-evaluation outliers and reviewed progress on five board goals; and it set two dated commitments — a mentoring process for new board members "by March 1st 2024" and "Board members bios and photos on website by January 10th 2024."
That is a meeting. RSA 91-A:2, I defines one as the convening of a quorum of a public body to discuss or act upon matters over which it has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power. Its exclusions do not obviously reach this: the excluded categories are chance and social encounters not planned for discussing business, collective-bargaining strategy or negotiations, consultation with legal counsel, single-party caucuses, and the circulation of draft documents formalising decisions already made. The presence of an attorney is not what makes a session a legal consultation, and the recorded subject matter here — the board's own goals, its mission statement, its mentoring process, its members' web biographies — is board business, discussed by five of seven members for two and a half hours, producing dated commitments.
The minutes were late, and the dates are documentary. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be "promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting"; a draft satisfies it. October 11, 2023 was a Wednesday, so the fifth business day was Wednesday October 18. The retreat minutes were uploaded to the district's Drive on October 25, 2023 — fourteen calendar days after the retreat and seven after the deadline — as part of this meeting's packet. They are not in the October 18 packet folder, which was created on October 12 and last modified on October 16, and the October 18 agenda does not list them for approval. The board approved them on November 1, twenty-one days after the retreat.
Which limb, and why. This project grades a minutes failure HIGH where the absence is unmitigated and MEDIUM where the record mitigates it. The mitigating limb does not reach this. The body had a quorum; it did not merely socialise but produced dated commitments; nobody on the record says the minutes were delayed for a reason; and the delay is not a matter of inference but of the district's own file dates. That the minutes exist at all, are legible, and record start and end times is genuinely to the district's credit (flag 14) — but existing late is a missed statutory deadline, and this is the second board retreat in 2023 to which that applies.
Notice: not established either way, and this page does not assert a violation. RSA 91-A:2, II requires notice posted at least 24 hours in advance, excluding Sundays and holidays, "in 2 appropriate places or… on the public body's Internet website." No notice or agenda for the October 11, 2023 retreat appears anywhere in the district's public shares — not in the October 18 packet, not in this one, and not in the 2023 Meeting Minutes folder; title and full-text searches on "10.11.23", "Self-Evaluation Retreat" and "Retreat" across the shares this project can reach returned nothing (verified 2026-08-29). The statute permits physical posting at two locations, which no document search can confirm or refute, so the honest statement is that the record contains no evidence the retreat was noticed and no evidence it was not. What is on the record is that the district reliably posts an agenda to Drive for every regular meeting, seven days ahead, and posted none for this one.
The same pattern appears earlier in the year. The board goals reviewed at the October retreat were, in its own words, "developed at the . May 16, 2023" retreat — a session this project has previously found to have been attended by six of the seven members, again a quorum, with no notice located and with district minutes mis-dated "May 16, 2020" in the file name.
Sources: Claremont School Board Self-Evaluation Retreat Meeting minutes 10.11.23 (1).pdf (uploaded to the district's Drive 2023-10-25); RSA 91-A:2, I (definition of a meeting and its exclusions) and II (24-hour notice; minutes open to public inspection within 5 business days); RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) ("public body" includes any board of a school district "or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto"); 24. CSB 10.18.23 packet folder (9 documents, no retreat notice and no retreat minutes); CSB Agenda 11.1.23.
HIGH Across the two meetings this packet documents, the official record of who was present and how they voted is wrong in three specific ways
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to include "the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions," and separately that "the names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes." Three failures of that requirement are visible in documents that are both in this packet.
One: this meeting's minutes omit a member who was present, seconded a motion and cast a recorded vote — in the same document. The attendance line reads "Present: Frank Sprague, Heather Whitney, Arlene Hawkins, Bonnie Miles, Candace Crawford, Jennifer Gallagher." Six names on a seven-member board, with no absentee named. Whitney Skillen is missing. She is not absent: her name is read in the opening roll at 0:00:26; she speaks at length on the city-council item at 1:07:00; she gives the policy subcommittee's report at 1:22:09; she answers Yes in both nonpublic roll calls; and the very same minutes record her seconding the paraprofessional motion ("seconded by Whitney Skillen") and voting on the seal ("Whitney Skillen- Yes"). A reader of the official record cannot tell from it whether six or seven members were in the room.
Two: the seal vote is recorded as 4–2 on a seven-member board, with the mover's own vote missing. The minutes: "Frank Sprague makes a motion to seal the meeting minutes for 50 years; seconded by Bonnie Miles; roll call vote; Candace Crawford- Yes, Arlene Hawkins-No, Heather Whitney- No, Bonnie Miles- Yes, Whitney Skillen- Yes, Jennifer Gallagher- Yes. Motion passes." Six votes are recorded; Frank Sprague's is not. On the recording an answer in his voice falls between the chair's and Bonnie Miles's, rendered "Yes, daddy" — the dialogue file assigns that row to him as his roll answer, and this corpus separately catalogues "Yes, daddy" as one of the transcriber's renderings of his name, so the row is read here as an affirmative and not as a name. On that reading the tally on the recording is 5–2. The consequence is not cosmetic. RSA 91-A:3, III permits a seal only "by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session." With seven members present, two-thirds requires five affirmative votes. The recording shows five. The official record shows four. As written, the minutes do not document the majority the statute requires for the action they record.
Three: the October 18 minutes, approved here, account for only five of seven members. They read "Present: Heather Whitney, Frank Sprague, Candace Crawford, Arlene Hawkins / Absent: Jennifer Gallagher." Neither Bonnie Miles nor Whitney Skillen appears in either list — and Skillen speaks nineteen times on the October 18 recording, so she was demonstrably there. That document is the reason a member rose at 0:01:24 on November 1 to say "I was absent two weeks ago," and the chair's reply — "You're documented as being on there, so you're requesting that we change the minutes to reflect that you are not" — is only true of a member the October 18 minutes did not list as absent. The correction was accepted into the November 1 minutes rather than into the October 18 document, which remains in the district's share in its original form.
None of this is a close question of interpretation. The mover-and-seconder clause has been in force since 2018, 244:1, effective January 1, 2019, and the requirement to record members' names is older still. What is not asserted here: RSA 91-A:2, II's start-time, end-time and minutes-producer requirements were added by 2025, 112:1 and did not apply in 2023, so the absence of times from these minutes is not a defect.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (names of members; movers and seconders; minutes open within 5 business days); RSA 91-A:3, III (seal requires a recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present, taken in public session; nonpublic minutes must record actions "in such a manner that the vote of each member is ascertained and recorded"); 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23; draft CSB Meeting Minutes 10.18.23.docx.pdf.
MEDIUM Minutes were sealed for fifty years with no statutory finding stated, and no list of withheld minutes exists
The motion, in full, at 1:25:50: "Let's make a motion to seal the minutes of the nonpublic for 50 years." The minutes record it in the same terms. There was no discussion — the chair called for it and got none. Nothing was said about why.
RSA 91-A:3, III does not treat a seal as a matter of preference. Minutes and decisions of a nonpublic session "shall be publicly disclosed within 72 hours of the meeting, unless, by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session, it is determined that divulgence of the information likely would affect adversely the reputation of any person other than a member of the public body itself, or render the proposed action ineffective, or pertain to terrorism." The vote is the vehicle for a determination; the determination is the condition. Neither the recording nor the minutes records which of the three circumstances the board found, and the subject matter — a student tuition contract taken up under paragraph II(k) — does not announce one on its face. It may well be that the board had the second circumstance in mind, since a tuition rate under negotiation with another district is a plausible candidate for "render the proposed action ineffective," but that is this page's speculation and not the record's.
The same paragraph imposes a second duty that appears nowhere in Claremont's public shares. "For all meetings held in nonpublic session, where the minutes or decisions were determined to not be subject to full public disclosure, a list of such minutes or decisions shall be kept and this list shall be made available as soon as practicable for public disclosure." And: "This list shall identify the public body and include the date and time of the meeting in nonpublic session, the specific exemption under paragraph II on its face which is relied upon as foundation for the nonpublic session, the date of the decision to withhold the minutes or decisions from public disclosure, and the date of any subsequent decision, if any, to make the minutes or decisions available for public disclosure." No such list exists in any Claremont share this project can reach — the district maintains an "Unsealed Minutes" folder, which serves the opposite function, recording what has been released rather than what is being withheld.
The fifty-year term now has a statutory horizon, and this meeting is one of the first to which it applies. RSA 91-A:3, IV was added by 2023, 189:1 and took effect on October 3, 2023 — twenty-nine days before this meeting, so unlike the board's earlier 2023 seals it does govern this one. Absent an adopted review procedure, the board "shall review and determine by majority vote whether the circumstances that justified keeping meeting minutes from the public under RSA 91-A:3, III no longer apply," and "this review shall occur no more than 10 years from the last time the public body voted to prevent the minutes from being subject to public disclosure." The board voted on November 1, 2023. A review is therefore due by November 1, 2033, whatever the fifty-year figure says, unless the board adopts a review procedure under paragraph IV(a). No such procedure appears in the district's public shares.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, III (72-hour disclosure; seal only on a recorded 2/3 vote determining one of three circumstances; list of withheld minutes) and IV (added 2023, 189:1, eff. October 3, 2023; review no more than 10 years from the vote); 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23, item IV.8; Claremont "Unsealed Minutes" folder.
MEDIUM The exemption the board invoked carries its own publication duty, which a fifty-year seal sits awkwardly beside
RSA 91-A:3, II(k) is unusual among the nonpublic exemptions: it comes with an express disclosure obligation attached. In full, it permits nonpublic session for "Consideration by a school board of entering into a student or pupil tuition contract authorized by RSA 194 or RSA 195-A, which, if discussed in public, would likely benefit a party or parties whose interests are adverse to those of the general public or the school district that is considering a contract, including any meeting between the school boards, or committees thereof, involved in the negotiations." Then: "A contract negotiated by a school board shall be made public prior to its consideration for approval by a school district, together with minutes of all meetings held in nonpublic session, any proposals or records related to the contract, and any proposal or records involving a school district that did not become a party to the contract, shall be made public. Approval of a contract by a school district shall occur only at a meeting open to the public at which, or after which, the public has had an opportunity to participate."
So the paragraph the board used to close the door also says the door reopens: the nonpublic minutes are among the things that "shall be made public" before the contract goes to the school district for approval. On the face of the record the board did the opposite, sealing them for fifty years within a minute of leaving the session. The tension is real but conditional, which is why this is MEDIUM rather than HIGH. The duty in (k) is keyed to consideration for approval "by a school district" — the district's legislative body — and a board-set tuition rate may never reach that stage; on this record nothing shows it did. What the board did next is also on the right side of the paragraph's other requirement: the FY25 rate was moved, seconded and voted in open session at 1:26:35, which is what "Approval of a contract by a school district shall occur only at a meeting open to the public" contemplates.
Two further observations. The public part of the tuition item was almost content-free: the chair asked for discussion twice and recorded "No discussion," so the entire deliberation behind a $16,000 per-pupil rate for 2024–25 sits inside the sealed minutes. And the exemption is written for a contract with an identified counterparty; the October 18 minutes show the board looking for volunteers to attend "the Goshen school district meeting on December 18, 2023 to discuss the tuition agreement," which is consistent with a live negotiation — but no counterparty is named anywhere in the public record of this meeting.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, II(k) (student or pupil tuition contract; contract and nonpublic minutes made public prior to consideration for approval; approval only at a public meeting); RSA 194:22 (Contracts With Schools) and RSA 194:27 (Tuition); RSA ch. 195-A (authorized regional enrollment area schools); draft CSB Meeting Minutes 10.18.23 (Goshen tuition agreement).
MEDIUM On the published recording the nonpublic session occupies forty-eight seconds of unbroken audio
The minutes describe a complete nonpublic sequence: a motion to enter under II(k), a roll call, a motion by Frank Sprague "to return from non-public," a second roll call, then the seal. The recording carries both roll calls — the first beginning at 1:24:46, the second at 1:25:34 — and the audio between them is continuous and mundane: the chair saying "We will turn [return] after the call," the superintendent saying Mary, some unattributable room noise, and Jennifer Gallagher asking at 1:25:28 "Oh. Did who seconded that. I'm sorry," to which the chair replies "I'm moving right to roll call. I'll second."
Forty-eight seconds separate the two votes. Either the session was extraordinarily brief, or the broadcast recording does not reflect a break that occurred, or the second roll call was something other than a return vote — for instance a re-run of the first after the confusion about the seconder, which is what the exchange at 1:25:28 sounds like. This page cannot choose between those readings and does not.
Nothing in the Right-to-Know Law requires a public body to record or broadcast anything, so a recording that does not show a break is not itself a violation — which is why this is MEDIUM. Its significance is evidentiary. A citizen watching the archived show sees a body vote to go into nonpublic session and, without any visible interruption, vote again and then seal fifty years of minutes about a session that appears on the tape to have lasted less than a minute. RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires the motion to state the specific exemption on its face and to be carried by roll call in public session, and both roll calls here are audible and complete, which is to the board's credit. What is not established from any public source is what happened in the session, how long it lasted, or whether the public was asked to leave.
Sources: Cablecast show 15385, 1:24:46 to 1:25:50; Output/Dialogue/15385 SchoolBoard110123.mp4.CSV rows 497–515; RSA 91-A:3, I(b) (motion stating the specific exemption; roll-call vote); 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23, item IV.8.
MEDIUM Four decisions were taken with no motion, no seconder or no vote, one of them on an item the agenda marked "vote required"
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to record "final decisions" and "the names of the members who made or seconded each motion." Four items at this meeting produce a decision the statute would expect to see attributed, and the record cannot supply the attribution.
The consent agenda. The agenda reads "Consent Agenda (vote required) 1. Amendments and Final Approval of board agenda 2. Minutes Approval- 10.11.23 Retreat, 10.18.23." The chair took it by unanimous consent instead at 0:01:01: "if there is no objections, I will consider that consent, and we'll move." The minutes record the outcome — "Minutes approved" — with no motion, no mover, no seconder and no vote. Unanimous consent is a normal parliamentary device, but here it disposed of two sets of minutes including those of the retreat at flag 2, and the board's own agenda said a vote was required.
The return from nonpublic session. The minutes: "Frank Sprague makes a motion to return from non-public; roll call vote; all board members voting yes." No seconder is recorded, and none is audible.
The seconder of the paraprofessional motion. The recording preserves an unattributable Second at 1:01:37, and Arlene Hawkins asking at 1:02:04 "Did we have a second for that motion?" — a question the chair answered "Yes. Yes." without naming anyone. The minutes supply the name (Whitney Skillen), which is the system working; but the same minutes leave Skillen out of the attendance list (flag 3), so the document that fixes the seconder simultaneously reports she was not there.
The renaming of the budget subcommittee. Adopted by consensus at 1:21:11 — "Do it by consensus? If there's nobody that objects" — with no motion and no vote. The change is real and durable: from this night forward the body is the Finance Committee, and it meets separately and frequently through the FY25 budget season. A structural change to a standing subcommittee is exactly the sort of "final decision" the statute expects a body to record with a mover and a vote.
To be clear about what is not being said: none of these is a concealed decision. All four happened in open session on a broadcast recording, and three of the four are recorded in the minutes in some form. The defect is in attribution and in the treatment of a vote the board's own agenda called for.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes record final decisions; "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes" — in force from 2018, 244:1, eff. January 1, 2019); CSB Agenda 11.1.23; 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23.
MEDIUM A five-part restructuring of the pre-K programme, targeted for next school year and including a new fee for families, reached the board with no cost, no funding source and no vote
The written recommendation sheet in the packet is titled "CSD Early Childhood Program / Recommendations of the Administrative Team / Implementation Target 2024-2025." Its five bullets are: contract for an independent study; "Investigate and adopt a comprehensive research based early childhood curriculum, assessment and instructional package. Package will include training for personnel"; "Relocate the Early Childhood Program to the elementary schools. Consider embedding in the schools and/or purchasing modules if necessary"; maintain the integrated model; and "Implement a reasonable fee structure for regular education students attending the program(note data from other districts in the region)." The superintendent added two more from the floor at 0:33:04: an admissions process and a grant strategy.
Not one dollar figure attaches to any of it, anywhere in the packet or on the recording. An independent study by the sheet's "qualified agency or individual" has a price; a research-based curriculum package with in-person training for staff has a price; relocating three classrooms into elementary buildings has a price, and the recommendation sheet itself contemplates "purchasing modules" — portable classrooms — "if necessary"; and a fee structure has a revenue estimate and a distributional effect on families. None of the four is quantified. The only number stated all evening is enrolment: sixty-two children (0:50:43). The board asked about capacity (0:54:11), supervision (0:37:14), standards (0:35:08), transportation (0:43:05), staffing skill-sets (0:56:22) and the schedule (0:40:52) — and no member asked what any of it would cost, or what a fee would be, or who would pay it.
The funding question was asked and came back negative. The superintendent's second punch-list item was "a goal to apply for grants… I think we should be applying for those to take the burden off the taxpayers." Within two minutes the director reported that the one grant identified — the New Hampshire Preschool Development Grant, raised in the chair's written question in the packet as "a federally funded $26.8 million collaboration between UNH and NHDHHS and NHDOE" — "funds planning and structuring of pre-K. It's not a grant that allows us to fund positions" (0:33:46). The written answer to that question says only "We are investigating this and hope to have an update shortly." The document the question links is the state's Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five renewal, $26.8 million over three years covering 2020 to 2023 — a grant period ending in the same year the board was being urged to apply for grants. So the stated route to keeping this off the taxpayer was, on the night, a grant that cannot pay for staff.
And the same relocation has been a budget measure in this district before. On February 1, 2023 the administration proposed moving pre-K into the elementary schools as part of a reconfiguration meant to absorb a $1,000,000 cut, with roughly sixty percent of the savings shifted onto grant funds and the assistant superintendent noting that universal pre-K "would require additional funds." Nine months later the same relocation returns framed as programme quality, in a month when the superintendent tells the board twice that the budget is being modelled right now — "we're looking at budget requests and everything that's going to be front and center in just a few weeks" (0:39:09) and "we have to have a, a framework in a roadmap ready before Thanksgiving" (0:40:06).
The disposition was direction, not decision, and that is a defensible choice. No motion was made on any recommendation; the board asked for "a strategic plan and timeline in January." The flag is not that the board failed to vote — it is that a programme change with an implementation target eight months out, touching sixty-two children and proposing to charge their families for the first time, was received on a public record that contains no cost, no revenue estimate, no staffing plan and no funding source. Anyone reading the district's records to find out what this would cost cannot.
Sources: Early Childhood Recommendations 11.1.23 (1).pdf; Questions/Responses for Special Education Director.pdf (updated 10.27.23); 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23, item IV.3; New Hampshire Preschool Development Grant announcement (the link the chair's written question supplies). No legal rule is cited for this flag: nothing in New Hampshire law requires a cost estimate to accompany a programme proposal at the discussion stage, and this is recorded as a governance and transparency concern, not a violation.
MEDIUM The minutes and the recording disagree about which member said two things, and one of the two disagreements changes who was absent from a previous meeting
The attendance correction. At 0:01:24 a member tells the chair "I was absent two weeks ago," and at 0:01:34 "That was not here." The minutes record it as "a. Bonnie Miles was not present at the last board meeting on 10.18.23." The project's dialogue file labels that voice Jennifer Gallagher, on the strength of a distinctive roll-call habit — she answers Present where every other member answers Here, and the voice at 0:00:30 answers Present.
Three things bear on it, and they do not all point the same way. First, the chair's own reply — "You're documented as being on there" — is only true of a member the October 18 minutes did not record as absent, and those minutes say in terms "Absent: Jennifer Gallagher." Second, they list neither Bonnie Miles nor Whitney Skillen at all, so Miles is documented as present only by omission, which fits the chair's sentence exactly. Third, Bonnie Miles does not speak once on the October 18 recording, while Skillen speaks nineteen times — consistent with Miles having been absent and unrecorded. On the balance of the record the minutes appear to be right and the speaker to be Bonnie Miles, and this page follows the minutes as the project's convention requires, while recording the dialogue file's contrary label so a reader can check both. This also corrects a note in the project's own attribution briefing, which had concluded from this exchange that Gallagher was the October 18 absentee and that "the 10/18 minutes wrongly recorded her present." Those minutes record her absent.
The tech-centre report. At 1:22:43 a member reports "I did speak with Andy Lafreniere today," relays that the consultant now has the labour-market data and names Nancy Merrill as a participant in a forthcoming Zoom meeting. The minutes attribute this to Bonnie Miles — "Bonnie spoke with Andy Lafrienere today regarding the SREB Study" — and the dialogue file to Candace Crawford. Both are members of the SRVRTC Visioning Committee (with Frank Sprague), so either is possible from the agenda alone, and the diarizer places the passage in a cluster it shares with two other members. This page does not resolve it and attributes the report to the committee rather than to a person. The substance — an SREB career-pathways study unblocked after a delay waiting on labour-market data — is not in dispute.
Why this is a flag and not a footnote: the minutes are the record the public and the board itself rely on, and the first disagreement determines whose attendance record at a previous meeting was wrong. It is also a reminder that where the district's minutes omit members from attendance lists (flag 3), the resulting ambiguity propagates into later meetings.
Sources: 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23; draft CSB Meeting Minutes 10.18.23.docx.pdf; Output/Dialogue/15385 SchoolBoard110123.mp4.CSV; Output/Dialogue/15357 SchoolBoard101823.mp4.CSV; RSA 91-A:2, II (names of members).
OBSERVATION The nonpublic exemption is miscited in every place it appears
The correct citation is RSA 91-A:3, II(k). It appears three times in this meeting's record and is wrong in all three.
- The agenda: "8. Non-Public Session RSA91-A:,II (k) Consideration of a school board of entering into a student or pupil contract authorized by RSA 194 or RSA 195-A." The paragraph number is simply missing — "RSA91-A:,II" — and the phrase "of entering" is a stray.
- The minutes: reproduce the agenda's error verbatim, then record the motion as being "to enter non-public meeting session RSA 91-A:, II (k)" — the same missing paragraph.
- The chair, aloud at 1:24:03: "RSA 91-A colon, two k consideration of a school board of entering of a school board entering into a student or pupil contract authorized by RSA 119 or RSA 195-9."
RSA 91-A:2 is the open-meetings section, not the exemption list. "RSA 119" and "RSA 195-9" are the transcriber's renderings of RSA 194 and RSA 195-A, which the agenda gives correctly; those two are not the chair's error.
RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires the motion to "state on its face the specific exemption under paragraph II which is relied upon as foundation for the nonpublic session." The substance was stated — subparagraph (k) was named and its subject matter read out — so this is recorded as an observation rather than a defect in the motion. It matters because the same numbering error also enters the district's permanent record of what was sealed and why (flag 4), and because a citizen following the citation as printed lands in the wrong section of the statute.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b) and II(k); RSA 91-A:2 (the section the printed citation actually points to); CSB Agenda 11.1.23; 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23.
OBSERVATION The agenda and the minutes name a student board member who is not one
Both documents carry the same masthead line: "Student Board Member- Nicole Bouchard and Alex Barney." The agenda repeats it under general business: "Student Board Member Report Welcome Nicole Bouchard and Alex Barney!" But the chair welcomed Nicole Bouchard and Kylee Plummer at 0:00:36; the minutes' own body says so twice — "Chair Heather Whitney welcomes the two new school board student members- Nicole Bouchard and Kylee Plummer"; Principal Pratt names Kylie [Kylee] and Nicole in his report at 0:08:59; and the two served through the 2023–24 year. The name "Alex Barney" appears nowhere else in this meeting's record, and nowhere in this project's corpus.
The masthead error survived into the approved minutes, which is how a district's standing template propagates a mistake: the same block was carried forward from the agenda into the minutes without being read. It is graded an observation because nothing turns on it legally — student representatives are not voting members and RSA 91-A:2, II's "names of members" requirement is not engaged — but it is the kind of small error that makes a public record unreliable to a reader who has no other source.
A second, smaller one in the same family: the recording gives the student member's given name as Kylie, the district's own documents as Kylee. This page follows the documents and notes the recording's rendering. Kylee Plummer is the spelling the district uses throughout — the mastheads of the 6 December and 20 December 2023 minutes, and both the masthead and the Student Board Member Report item of the 17 January 2024 agenda. The October 18 minutes, in this same packet, carry the masthead heading "Student Board Member" with no name at all — the seat was genuinely empty until this meeting.
Sources: CSB Agenda 11.1.23; 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23; draft CSB Meeting Minutes 10.18.23.docx.pdf.
OBSERVATION Three things in the early-childhood packet a reviewer should not pass over: a dead federal citation, a referral gate, and a state indicator the district says it is judged both ways on
A regulation removed in 2016. Exhibit E is the memorandum of understanding between SAU 6 and Southwestern Community Services Head Start, running August 1, 2023 to July 31, 2024 and signed on July 5, 2023 by Ben Nester for the district with Bagdat Caglar and Gabriela Nelson for Head Start. It obliges Head Start to "Ensure that children with disabilities receive all of the services to which they are entitled under Head Start Program Performance Standards for Children with Disabilities (CFR 45 Part 1308)." 45 CFR Part 1308 no longer exists — it was superseded when the 2016 Head Start Program Performance Standards restructured the chapter, and the disability provisions now sit at 45 CFR part 1302, subpart F (§§ 1302.60–1302.63). The MOU's substantive 10 percent enrolment obligation is sound and independently grounded in statute — 42 U.S.C. §9835(d)(1) requires that not less than 10 percent of enrolment opportunities be available to children with disabilities — but the regulation the agreement points to has been gone for seven years, and the document was executed in 2023 and reviewed, by its own terms, "at least once annually."
One special-education referral, all year, presented as a success. At 0:49:57 the special-education director describes a new gate: "we instituted a right, instituted a new process for in district special ed referrals. We adopted a new form that requires administration signature at the building level. And then my signature. So that has to come across my desk." The result at 0:50:16: "So far, we've seen one special ed referral from our buildings this year, which is which is a success." He credits response-to-intervention work by teachers, and that may be exactly right. But a referral process routed through a single administrator's signature, producing one referral from all district buildings in two months of school, is a change a reviewer would want measured against the district's child-find duty under IDEA, and no member asked how the two relate. Recorded as an observation, not a finding: nothing in the record shows a child denied evaluation, and a district is entitled to run pre-referral intervention.
A state indicator the district says cuts both ways. The fourth recommendation — keep the integrated model — rests on a claim the director made twice. On the recording at 0:31:31: "while the Department of editor [Education] will approve self-contained programs at the pre-K level. If a district has a self-contained program at the preschool pre-K level, it counts as a mark against you in the the annual audits." In writing: "while the NHDOE will approve a EC level self contained special education program, if you implement one, the district will be 'dinged' during annual compliance and improvement monitoring… The directors in the region are very concerned about the state's conflicting position on this indicator." That is the district's characterization of state practice, not a verified rule, and this page does not adopt it. What is verifiable is the underlying framework: IDEA requires states to make annual determinations on each district's implementation (34 CFR 300.600), the least-restrictive-environment rule at 34 CFR 300.114(a)(2) requires that "to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities… are educated with children who are nondisabled," and Exhibit D in this packet records the New Hampshire targets the director was describing — Indicator 6A, children receiving the majority of services in a regular early-childhood programme, "60% or more required"; Indicator 6B, children in separate settings, "Less than 12.48% required in NH." A district that meets the LRE preference by running an integrated programme is doing what the federal rule prefers; the tension the director describes is between that preference and a separate state approval pathway, and it is worth a reader's attention.
Sources: Exhibit E-SAU 6-Claremont 2023-24.doc.pdf (the Head Start MOU); 45 CFR part 1302, subpart F (§§ 1302.60–1302.63, additional services for children with disabilities) — 45 CFR part 1308 returns no content on eCFR (checked 2026-08-29); 42 U.S.C. §9835(d)(1) (not less than 10 percent of Head Start enrolment opportunities available to children with disabilities); 34 CFR 300.114(a)(2) (least restrictive environment); 34 CFR 300.600 (State monitoring and annual determinations); Exhibit D- Preschool Environments 1_6_22.pdf.
POSITIVE Seventeen documents posted a week ahead, and written board questions answered in writing before the meeting
RSA 91-A:2, II requires notice at least 24 hours before a meeting. The agenda and the entire seventeen-document packet went up on October 25 — seven days early. That is the district's practice for regular board meetings and it is worth saying plainly, because it is the single practice that makes the rest of this page possible.
What it bought at this meeting is visible in the record. Three board members submitted written questions on the early-childhood material — Arlene Hawkins on October 17, Frank Sprague on October 23, Heather Whitney on October 23 — and the special-education director answered them in writing in a five-page document updated on October 27 and published with the packet, four days before the meeting. The questions are specific and the answers are not evasive: they concede that the district's Preschool Outcome Measurement System data "generally shows that Claremont students do not on average meet the state targets for growth in similar fashion to state assessment results k-12"; that a longitudinal social-emotional study "was not completed in 5.22" and should be; that earlier improvement work "has largely collapsed in recent years with the loss of 2 EC directors in 2 years and the state ending their financial support"; and that "the district needs to reassess and restructure the EC model giving teachers additional PD and coaching." The document closes: "The suggestions offered in this document and at board meetings are welcome and much appreciated!"
Hawkins named the effect at 0:59:07: "thank you for getting information to us well in advance so that we could read it, reflect as questions and have more questions come at you." Nester's own apology for the volume at 0:32:20 — "I apologize for the, large stack of information that's in your packets… there's a lot of new board members that didn't receive information or presentations that have been presented by the year" — describes the opposite of a problem: an administration front-loading the record for members who joined in 2023. Compare the position elsewhere in this corpus, where a board has taken a six-year municipal licence or a policy second reading with no exhibit tied to any agenda item.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (24-hour notice minimum); 25. CSB 11.1.23 packet folder (17 documents, created 2023-10-25); Questions/Responses for Special Education Director.pdf.
POSITIVE These minutes were filed on the fourth business day, and the retreat minutes recorded start and end times two years before the law asked for them
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be "promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting." The minutes of this meeting were uploaded to the district's Drive on Tuesday, November 7, 2023 — the fourth business day after a Wednesday meeting, and inside the deadline. The identical text sits in this meeting's own packet, so the district published the same document twice, in the two places a citizen would look. Against the rest of this corpus that is not a given: two 2023 Claremont board meetings have no minutes in any share at all.
The superintendent also stated the standard correctly, unprompted, while describing what the clerk's $300 buys, at 1:15:11: "you have to be at the meeting and hopefully have a, have a draft of the, the meeting, the draft stuff out within five days like we're supposed to." A public body whose administration recites the five-day rule from the table as a job requirement is a public body that knows the rule.
The October 11 retreat minutes carry one further point in the district's favour, and it should be set beside flag 2 rather than lost in it. They open "Start 5pm- End 7:30pm" and record the exact time a late member arrived. New Hampshire did not require start and end times in minutes until 2025, 112:1, effective August 22, 2025 — nearly two years later. The district recorded them anyway, and did the same for the retreat's attendance, which is what allowed this page to establish that a quorum was present.
One more, on the public-comment period. Nobody appeared, and the chair's invitation at 0:01:35 — "Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak to the board this time?" — turned nobody away and imposed no time limit. RSA 189:74 requires a school board to "provide the opportunity for the public to comment on school district matters" and says "The public comment period shall be for no less than 30 minutes." Whether that thirty minutes is a floor on the opportunity or on elapsed time is not settled by the statutory text, and this page asserts no violation where no speaker was refused. It is recorded here so that a reader comparing meetings across this corpus sees the question treated the same way each time.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes open to public inspection within 5 business days; start-time and end-time requirements added by 2025, 112:1, eff. August 22, 2025 and not applied to this meeting); RSA 189:74 (school board public comment period; 2022, 333:1, eff. September 6, 2022); 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23 (uploaded 2023-11-07); Claremont School Board Self-Evaluation Retreat Meeting minutes 10.11.23 (1).pdf.
POSITIVE The board refused to move three-year-olds before standards, assessment, supervision and staffing were in place — and got a date for the plan
The administration came with a recommendation to relocate the early-childhood programme into the elementary schools for 2024–25. The board did not refuse it and did not approve it. What it did instead is the most substantive governance act of the meeting.
Arlene Hawkins identified a real regulatory obstacle nobody else had raised, at 0:37:14: "the supervision would have to be from a coordinator outside the building because principal certification is K to 12. They're not certified to supervise a pre-K program so that before we move kids, we need to make sure that I would think I would hope that we would have the standards in place," and set the order of operations at 0:37:44: "We would have the assessments in place, we would have a coordinator in place, the teachers would be ready, and having them not move until that's that's solid." She returned to it at 0:56:22 on staffing: "We have powers [paras] that are at the elementary level. We have Paris [paras] at the pre-K. Their skill sets are very, very different for young children versus a fourth or fifth grader." The certification point is the district's own; this page has not independently verified New Hampshire's principal-endorsement grade range and does not assert it as law.
Bonnie Miles forced the administration to state its rationale rather than assert it — "I just want to know what the goal is" (0:51:04) — which produced the fullest account of the case on the record, and then asked the capacity question directly, naming it as such: "I know it's like the million dollar question. So we have to say out loud" (0:54:11).
And the chair converted a diffuse discussion into a dated deliverable. At 0:58:28: "by January, we will have a timeline to say at this point in time, this will be our finalized plan to make our final adjustments to know where we are with staffing." Nester committed at 0:58:54: "I'd like to present a strategic plan and timeline in January." The minutes record it: "The school board would like to have an update in January with hopes of a timeline of when this final product will be presented."
Two further exchanges belong here. The board pinned down a legal obligation rather than leaving it ambiguous: pressed three times by Hawkins on whether pushing services outside the centre would strand children whose families lack transport, the director confirmed at 0:46:11 that where a child is found eligible "that's where the obligation lands on the district to to get the child to the services if that's a barrier," and Hawkins closed it at 0:47:33: "so that no child will lose services because of transportation… because we are required to provide that by law." That is right: under 34 CFR 300.101 a free appropriate public education must be available to all children residing in the State between the ages of 3 and 21, inclusive, and transportation is a related service where a child needs it to benefit from special education. And the board declined to let a schedule disruption pass unexamined — Hawkins's questioning at 0:40:52 is what put on the public record that two of three classrooms had been running on a rotating schedule for three weeks, and that families had been told week by week.
Sources: 34 CFR 300.101 (FAPE available to all children residing in the State between the ages of 3 and 21, inclusive); 34 CFR 300.124(b) (an IEP developed and being implemented by the child's third birthday); 34 CFR 300.114(a)(2) (least restrictive environment); Early Childhood Recommendations 11.1.23 (1).pdf; 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23, item IV.3.
Appendix — source files
Official and public sources
- Remote video: Claremont School Board 11/1/23 (Cablecast show 15385) — the project's archived copy runs 1:29:48 and covers the meeting end to end, opening on the Pledge and closing on "We adjourned."
- Packet folder: 25. CSB 11.1.23 — 17 documents, created in the district's Drive on October 25, 2023, seven days before the meeting.
- Minutes: 17. CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23, in the 2023 Meeting Minutes folder, uploaded November 7, 2023. The same text is also in this meeting's packet as draft CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23.docx.pdf; the two files are word-for-word identical, so no separately amended, board-approved version exists in the district's shares.
- Not located: any notice or agenda for the October 11, 2023 board retreat. Verified 2026-08-29 by a search in three stages: this meeting's own packet folder (17 documents — it holds the retreat minutes and nothing else about the retreat); the October 18 packet folder 24. CSB 10.18.23 (9 documents, none of them a retreat notice, minutes or agenda); and Drive-wide title and full-text searches on "10.11.23", "Self-Evaluation Retreat", "Self Evaluation Retreat" and "Retreat", which returned no matching document. RSA 91-A:2, II also permits notice by physical posting at two locations, which no document search can test. See flag 2.
- Adjacent meetings on this project: Claremont School Board — September 6, 2023 (the meeting with no minutes, at which the vice chair asked the principal to find a student representative — the seat filled here) and Claremont School Board — September 20, 2023. The two meetings whose minutes were approved here — the October 11, 2023 retreat and October 18, 2023 (Cablecast show 15357) — do not yet have pages on this project; their documents are linked individually below. The earlier meeting at which this district first proposed moving pre-K into the elementary schools is Claremont School Board — February 1, 2023.
Packet documents
Names are reproduced exactly as they appear in the district's Drive folder, including the (1) suffixes, the doubled extensions .docx.pdf, the trailing space in Exhibit A- Early Childhood .pdf and the 2022 date in a file whose contents are dated 2023. The oddities are the district's, not this page's.
- CSB Agenda 11.1.23.docx.pdf — location, the 6:30 p.m. start, the seven-member board roster, the central-office roster, the item structure used above, and the future-dates list. Carries the "Alex Barney" masthead error (flag 11) and the truncated nonpublic citation (flag 10).
- Early Childhood Recommendations 11.1.23 (1).pdf — one page, five bullets, headed "Implementation Target 2024-2025". The operative document of the meeting. Its wording is firmer than the presentation: "Relocate the Early Childhood Program to the elementary schools. Consider embedding in the schools and/or purchasing modules if necessary," and "Implement a reasonable fee structure for regular education students attending the program(note data from other districts in the region)." See flag 8.
- Questions/Responses for Special Education Director.pdf — five pages, "UPDATED 10.27.23". Written questions from Arlene Hawkins (10.17.23), Frank Sprague (10.23.23) and Heather Whitney (10.23.23) with the director's written answers. The most candid document in the packet: POMS data showing Claremont students below state growth targets; a 2022 longitudinal study that covered only one of five developmental domains; improvement work that "has largely collapsed in recent years with the loss of 2 EC directors in 2 years"; a staffing inventory by role and years of experience; Head Start's three Claremont classrooms, two of them full; and a question from Sprague about why a district must fund services obtainable in the private sector and billable to insurance. No individual student is named, identified or counted in this document.
- Exhibit A- Early Childhood .pdf — the May 4, 2022 cohort analysis presented to a previous board, republished here for members elected in 2023. Its central finding is stated on its own slide: "Overall students that attended CSD Early Childhood performed poorer on standardized tests than their non attending counterparts," followed by five pages of candidate explanations, among them that 47.5% of early-childhood students qualified for free or reduced lunch against 34.8% district-wide. Nobody raised this finding on the recording.
- Exhibit B- EC Curriculum Overview.pdf — dated 10.23. Three links and nine lines: the Pyramid Model framework for social-emotional development, Creative Curriculum, and PEAK. Sprague's written comment on it is the sharpest in the packet: "Links to three programs in no way describe specifically what we do in the district."
- Exhibit C- iready-norms-tables-K-8.pdf — the vendor's national scale-score placement tables for kindergarten through grade 8. National norms, not Claremont results: the document contains no district data and no student data of any kind. Hawkins's written question — "the iReady norms that were as part of the packet included begin in kindergarten, there are no norms for pre-kgn" — drew the answer "Correct, iready is not administered to pre-k students," and Sprague's drew "Unfortunately Iready does not offer a module for prek students at this time." The tables are in the packet because they were an appendix to the 2022 presentation.
- Exhibit D- Preschool Environments 1_6_22.pdf — a West Central regional coordinators' presentation on the IDEA State Performance Plan indicators for preschool: Indicator 6 (environments), 7 (outcomes) and 12 (early transitions), with the New Hampshire thresholds — 6A "60% or more required", 6B "Less than 12.48% required in NH". Its worked examples are generic, labelled "Provider: Any School District"; the director's written answer says so too — "This appears to be a cut and paste for the 'Any School' preschool environments as envisioned by the State." The file name says 1/6/22; the document's own first line says "1/6/23 changed to 2/3/23".
- Exhibit E-SAU 6-Claremont 2023-24.doc.pdf — the SAU 6 / Southwestern Community Services Head Start memorandum of understanding, August 1, 2023 to July 31, 2024, signed July 5, 2023. Child-find, evaluation, multi-disciplinary conferences, IEP development, placement and service delivery; Head Start's six sites including "Claremont HS, 6 Kinney Place (3 classes)"; a 10 percent disability-enrolment floor; and a confidentiality clause requiring written parental consent for all screenings and evaluations. Cites a federal Part removed in 2016 — flag 12.
- Exhibit F- Prek.pdf — the programme's own history, 2014 to 2022, and the document that explains why the board was being asked to rebuild it. A five-year State Systemic Improvement Plan begun in 2014-15 "due to poor POMS scores"; relocation to the tech centre in 2016-17, where "Preschool became its own school"; an implementation year in 2017-18 with three early-childhood classrooms, universal transportation and a purchased curriculum; then "2019-20: Director position and full time admin. assistant position cut"; then a proposed 2022-23 structure that "reverts to 18-19 model" with "reduction of 1 teacher/classroom". Its final bullets are the origin of recommendation four: "Remain in Early Childhood model so as to meet students needs and avoid increased NHDOE oversight and audit risk(note POMS data that invoked audit)."
- Exhibit G- Autism Eligibility.docx.pdf — a blank SAU 6 eligibility-determination form, not a completed record. Every identifying field is an empty line. It sets out the definition drawn from Ed 1102.01(t)(1) incorporating 34 CFR 300.8(c)(1), the ten eligibility questions and the rule that "A child who requires only related services, but not special education, does not qualify." This project flags packets that expose identifying student information; this one does not. Checked field by field 2026-08-29.
- Exhibit H-Advancing Investments in the Early Years_ Opportunities for Strategic Investments in Evidence-Based Early Childhood Programs in New Hampshire _ RAND.pdf — the 2017 RAND Corporation study of early-childhood investment in New Hampshire. Sprague's three written questions about it are the most demanding in the packet: how is Claremont's programming "evidence-based" as the report defines it; how does "strategic" manifest in the programme; and "Please describe how we have used the data and recommendations in the Rand article to improve our program since 2017 when the article was written." The answer to the third recounts the staffing model adopted at the time — a director, a special-education coordinator, a full-time administrative assistant, three dual-certified teachers, nine paraprofessionals, a speech-language assistant and an occupational-therapy assistant — and notes "The structure has changed since."
- Exhibit I- School Board Clerk Flyer 11.1.23.pdf — headed "School Board Clerk Flyer 10.11.23". Advertises one clerk for "The SAU#6 & Claremont School Board", lists eight responsibilities including "Oversees and facilitates the ballot/election process", "Certifies Election Results" and "Administers oaths of office as needed", requires "a registered voter in the City of Claremont", and states the compensation the board voted here: "$300.00 per board meeting attended and minutes distributed. $350.00 per special district meeting attended and minutes distributed." It contains no contact information — the omission Hawkins caught at 1:17:40. See flag 1.
- Exhibit J- SHS Principal's Report 11.1.23.pdf — the November/December 2023 Stevens High School report, whose underlying template name survives in the PDF's own first line ("Copy of Yellow Blue Simple Bussiness Monthly Cover Report Cover"). Ident-A-Kid and CENTEGIX badges; Cardinal recognition cards; the October 17 Screenagers screening with YouthCan; the Restorative Practice Playbook; the Dallas Brass performance of October 25; the marching band of October 20; the student restorative-justice panel charter; the 2022-23 SWOT analysis and the netting rule behind it; IXL reports "As of October 24, 2023"; a Teacher of the Month, John Usher; and the November calendar, which gives voting day as November 7 and parent-teacher conferences as November 9.
- SB-Self-Assessment-Tool (1).pdf — one of the two instruments the board used at the October 11 retreat, published here with the minutes it supports.
- Claremont School Board Self-Evaluation Retreat Meeting minutes 10.11.23 (1).pdf — one page. Start 5 p.m., end 7:30 p.m.; five of seven members plus NHSBA counsel Barrett Christina; two evaluation tools; five identified "Self-Evaluation Outliers"; progress against five board goals; and two dated commitments — a mentoring process by March 1, 2024 and member biographies and photographs on the website by January 10, 2024. Approved on the consent agenda here. See flag 2.
- draft CSB Meeting Minutes 10.18.23.docx.pdf — approved on the consent agenda here. A $6,000 Schwab Charitable Fund donation accepted after a public hearing; a two-year athletic-fields licence with the City replacing a six-year term; a motion to retain up to $424,000 in fund balance; a letter of support for the tech centre; and the future-agenda list that put four of this meeting's items on this meeting's agenda. Its attendance line accounts for only five of seven members — see flag 3.
- draft CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23.docx.pdf — this meeting's own minutes, filed in its own packet. Word-for-word identical to the copy in the 2023 Meeting Minutes folder.
Project files (relative links work when this page is opened from Output/HTML/)
Laws and rules cited on this page
- Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (a school district board "or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto" is a public body); RSA 91-A:2 (I, definition of a meeting and its exclusions; II, 24-hour notice, and minutes recording members, persons appearing, subject matter, final decisions and the names of movers and seconders, open to inspection within 5 business days); RSA 91-A:3 (I(b), motion stating the specific exemption on its face and roll-call vote; II(k), student or pupil tuition contract, with its own publication duty; III, 72-hour disclosure unless sealed by recorded 2/3 vote of the members present on a stated finding, plus the required list of withheld minutes; IV, review of sealed minutes no more than 10 years after the vote — added by 2023, 189:1, eff. October 3, 2023, and therefore in force for this meeting)
- School district officers and money: RSA 194:10 (the district at its annual meeting determines the salaries of the school board and other district officers); RSA 671:6 (a non-cooperative school district elects a clerk, moderator and treasurer); RSA 197:20 (duties of the clerk: a true record of all the doings of each meeting, attested copies, moderator pro tempore, oaths); RSA 197:26 (the school board fills vacancies in district offices, except moderator, until the next annual meeting); RSA 40:13 (official-ballot procedure — unamended since 2019, 192:2, so its current text governs every meeting in this corpus)
- Tuition: RSA 194:22 (contracts with schools) and RSA 194:27 (tuition; liability measured by the receiving district's current expenses of operation, except under a RSA 194:22 contract); RSA ch. 195-A (authorized regional enrollment area schools) — the two chapters named in RSA 91-A:3, II(k)
- Public comment: RSA 189:74 (school board public comment period, no less than 30 minutes; 2022, 333:1, eff. September 6, 2022) — cited for how this page treats a meeting at which nobody asked to speak, not as the basis of any finding
- Bargaining: RSA ch. 273-A (public employee labor relations) — context for the vote to approach the paraprofessionals' union about reopening an unexpired agreement; no provision of it is applied as a rule on this page
- Federal — special education and early childhood: 34 CFR 300.101 (FAPE available to all children residing in the State between the ages of 3 and 21, inclusive); 34 CFR 300.114(a)(2) (least restrictive environment); 34 CFR 300.124(b) (an IEP developed and being implemented by the child's third birthday — the Part C to Part B handoff behind the "27 months" referral); 34 CFR 300.600 (State monitoring and annual determinations — the framework behind the State Performance Plan indicators); 45 CFR part 1302, subpart F (Head Start additional services for children with disabilities, §§ 1302.60–1302.63) and 42 U.S.C. §9835(d)(1) (not less than 10 percent of Head Start enrolment opportunities for children with disabilities)
- Expressly NOT applied, for vintage: the start-time, end-time and minutes-producer requirements added to RSA 91-A:2, II by 2025, 112:1, eff. August 22, 2025 — the absence of times from these minutes is therefore not treated as a defect; 45 CFR part 1308, the Head Start disability standards the 2023 memorandum cites, which no longer exists and is therefore discussed as a stale citation rather than applied.