| 0:00:01 | Call to order, Pledge, roll | Whitney: “I’d like to call the January 17th, 2024 Claremont School Board meeting to order.” She asks the clerk by name at 0:00:34 — “Noel, would you please call.” The roll comes through as three short fragments: “Heather Whitney here?”, “Here. Can you hear?”, and “Arlene Hawkins here and here” (0:00:47). Only two of the six members present are audible in it. The approved minutes supply the rest. | |
| 0:00:51 | The agenda is re-ordered so presenters can go home | Whitney: “We’re going to work off of the consent agenda. I do have one request. If anybody does not object to moving item number three on the agenda to item number one. Just so if the folks that are presenting would like to go home what they can.” Then, at 0:01:16: “Any objection to changing the agenda from item three? Moving to item one. Seeing no objection. Item three is moving to item one.” A courtesy to staff, and the reason the night’s business runs 3, 2, 1, 4 rather than in the printed order — which the approved minutes do not show, because they narrate the items in the agenda’s original numbering. | MEDIUM |
| 0:01:16 | The January 3 minutes are accepted without a vote | Whitney, in the same breath: “The consent agenda. Is there any request to alter or amend the minutes from January 3rd, 2024? Seeing none the minutes from the Claremont School Board meeting of January 3rd, 2024. Is is accepted.” The district’s own agenda heads this item “Consent Agenda (vote required)”. Nobody moves anything; nobody seconds; no vote is taken or declared. | MEDIUM |
| 0:01:50 | The rules for public comment, stated aloud | Whitney: “Thank you all so much for coming. We’re glad to see a lot of people here.” Then the rules: the subject is widened to “the budget for all items”; “If you could come to the podium and state your name and your ward, you have three minutes to speak”; and at 0:02:11, “You can speak once. Cannot allow your time to another member of the community.” She then invites the silent majority to be counted: “If folks are uncomfortable speaking and would like to just show support for whomever is speaking. So the board has a sense of what the community feels. Feel free to stand and just let us know by hand, raise or by standing that you support that.” At 0:02:32 the clerk is named as timekeeper. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:03:00 | The only citizen who speaks — on how to hire the next superintendent | “Good evening. I’m Sean McCarthy. First Ward here in Claremont. Just live a block over here.” He compares the departed superintendent to the seasonal residents of his Michigan hometown (0:03:22): “we referred to the people that were transient all the time as trunk slammers. And I think our last superintendent here was a trunk slammer that he packed his picnic basket, and he came to our community a few hours each week and did his job.” His proposal (0:04:02): “instead of paying a big chunk of money for some buddy to go find a superintendent for us at this time, we do it differently in look within our own community that, we got Pratt here, just got appointed.” He names two internal candidates by role and one by surname (0:04:45): “You got a special ed guy with all kinds of degrees. You got Herzog with a fancy degree.” Both men are in the room and both present later that night. Six days after the superintendent’s termination, this is the district’s entire public comment on the succession. | |
| 0:05:57 | The chair invites more comment and gets none | Whitney: “Anyone else? I would like to come to the podium and speak.” No response. The comment period closes about four minutes after it opened. The board’s own policy BEDH, adopted 6 September 2023, says both that the board “will provide a minimum of thirty minutes in total to hear all public comments” and that the chair “will close the public comment period after there is no response to the Board Chair’s vocal invitation” — the two clauses pull against each other, and this is the night that shows it. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:06:04 | The interim superintendent is welcomed — six days into the job | Whitney: “I would like to, on behalf of the board and the Claremont School community, welcome Mr. Pratt to his first school board meeting as interim superintendent. We’re very fortunate to have in our district an administrator who has been a superintendent for eight years and has the experience to lead us through this tumultuous time.” Neither the termination of his predecessor nor the reason for it is mentioned again on this recording; “this tumultuous time” is as close as the meeting comes. The eight years refers to a superintendency held before Claremont; on this recording he places his earlier district work in Bellows Falls, Vermont, and this page draws no further conclusion from it. | |
| 0:06:40 | The superintendent’s report corrects his predecessor’s numbers | Pratt: “I want to go back and and go through a few things that, Superintendent Tempesta had gone through before.” He had run the middle-school teaching-load report himself that day and found the previous figures low: “I know the numbers before were on the lower side. It was showing 65 and 70 for the year” against an actual average “a little past 100”, with unified-arts teachers at 230 to 249 because students rotate. Approved minutes: “average is just above 100 students over the course of the year (UA numbers appear higher because of the rotation)”. His stated basis: “I think it’s my second full day”. | |
| 0:09:57 | The seven-period schedule is deferred | Pratt: “I would like to hold off on a switch in the schedule up for next year for the middle school. Give us time for myself to work with, the principal and the teachers to actually find something going to work, because I think at this time, flicking the switch that quick, it’s going to really set back the education of the students with that kind of disruption.” And at 0:10:31: “I don’t want to build the plane as we’re flying it.” This reverses, in one paragraph, the schedule change his predecessor had defended at the 3 January budget hearing and the board had spent much of December arguing about. The chair disposes of it without a vote (0:11:02): “So we do not need to vote on this. We can give Mr. Pratt the executive authority to operate and make those schedule as he sees fit.” An unidentified voice asks the only question that follows (0:11:14): “Does this have budget implications?” Minutes: “Board does not need to vote on it; does not have budget implications”. | |
| 0:11:38 | Why the coach and the social worker were invited | Whitney states the purpose in one sentence: “The reason why we’re having Mr. Elliott and this quarter come is we are within this budget. We’re trying to add an additional social worker and an instructional coach. And so this is to give the board an opportunity to hear what those individuals have to contribute to the school community and how they are able to improve academic achievement.” “this quarter” is the recognizer’s rendering of “Ms. Porter”; the chair calls her “Miss border” a moment earlier Two positions, presented to justify two lines in a budget the same board will adopt two hours later. | |
| 0:12:22 | The school social worker introduces herself, and the packet she sent | Porter: “I’m pretty sure everyone knows who I am. But if you don’t know who I am, I’m Courtney Porter. I’m the school social worker. McKinney Vento liaison and DCF foster care.” On the packet: “I apologize that I, like, probably bombarded your packets and I apologize for the trees that Chelsea might have killed while I was printing things for you.” Chelsea is Chelsea Weatherford, the SAU 6 executive assistant She offers to make the material public: “I can send you hyperlinks, like, if you want to put them on the website so that anyone in the community can have access to all of this.” | |
| 0:13:50 | Eleven years of school social work in Claremont, in four sentences | Porter: “in 2013, Elaine Arbor hired me. It was the first ever school social worker that came into this district.” Then the sequence the packet slide sets out as well: an elementary social worker in 2020, her own move to the high school in 2021, a new middle-school social worker the same year, and (0:14:58) “This fall, our elementary school social worker actually became the mental health counselor for the district, so that left all these amazing tiny humans without a school social worker.” That vacancy is the position the budget in front of the board would refill. At 0:15:58 she gives her standing: “not only am I the school social worker in our district, I’m actually the president of the New Hampshire School Social Workers Association”. | |
| 0:17:32 | Senate Bill 282 and the Building Suicide Prevention Liaison | Porter: “So Senate Bill 282 charged us as a district in every district in this state to create a process where we had a building suicide prevention liaison. So myself, along with Ray Curran and Paige McClay, created what we now call our BS packet.” “BS packet” is the recognizer; the packet document is headed “BSPL Packet” She dates it loosely at 0:17:10 — “back in 2020, Governor Chris Sununu had put out a Senate bill” — and again at 0:21:47, “the Senate bill 282 from Christine Nuno”, the recognizer’s rendering of the Governor’s name. The dating is loose but the substance is right: SB 282 passed in 2019, was signed 2 August 2019 and took effect 1 July 2020, and the NHDOE technical advisory reproducing it is document three in this packet. See flag 16. | POSITIVE |
| 0:18:32 | McKinney-Vento, stated correctly from the podium | Porter: “McKinney Vento is a federal law that requires that every school district in the United States provides immediate and automatic enrollment to students who are experiencing homelessness.” The federal text is narrower in form and the same in substance — 42 U.S.C. §11432(g)(3)(C)(i) requires the school to “immediately enroll the homeless child or youth, even if the child or youth…is unable to produce records normally required for enrollment”. Her working definition follows at 0:19:00, garbled by the recognizer in a way worth leaving visible: “you might think, oh, people living in a box under a bridge or like this whole like thing that we’ve all like, never lacked fixed, regular and adequate nighttime housing” — the statutory phrase, at 42 U.S.C. §11434a(2)(A), is “individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence”. | |
| 0:19:20 | The homelessness count, and why it fell | Porter: “so we’ve gone from 51 to 78 this year. We’re at 50.” The packet slide gives the three years the sentence compresses: 2021-2022, 51 students; 2022-2023, 78; 2023-2024, 50. She supplies the caution herself: “I think the reason that we’ve actually gone down this year is that last year we had several families who had multiple children who moved into our district and then actually found housing, which was fantastic” — and others who moved away. At 0:20:20: “doubled up is the hugest number of what we have for students who are experiencing homelessness in our district”, which is the category at 42 U.S.C. §11434a(2)(B)(i), “children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason”. The approved minutes carry the figure: “Claremont currently has 50 students experiencing homelessness”. | |
| 0:20:20 | Child-protection call data, broken down to single-digit cells | Porter: “So last year we had 161 calls and so I broke it all down for you.” She then read the breakdown aloud — by school, by reason and by whether the child has an individualized education programme — including a single-digit count for one named district programme, and characterised the reasons in terms this page will not repeat. The corresponding packet slide, in the district’s public Drive folder, is headed “2022- 2023 DATA: DCYF CALLS”. No student is named anywhere, and the presentation is plainly well-intentioned; the concern is the size of the cells, not the motive. See flag 7. | MEDIUM |
| 0:21:47 | The suicide-screening protocol, described in open session | Porter: “So we created the building suicide Prevention liaison. So we use something called the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale. This is one of the most vetted and the best screeners that you use.” She describes the training she gives, the district’s content-monitoring system (0:22:11), the response — “A school social worker goes to them” — and the escalation to New Hampshire Rapid Response and West Central Behavioral Health for a red result. All of it matches the blank protocol and forms in the packet’s BSPL Packet, which is dated 8/31/22 and 9/5/22 and contains no student data. The accompanying slide, which does carry a distribution of screening results, is the one this page does not reproduce. | MEDIUM |
| 0:25:26 | The Medicaid argument — the only place the position pays for itself | Porter: “School social workers can be written into IEPs in 504, which at the end of the day, can actually be a moneymaker for us as a district because we can build Medicaid for the services that we provide.” “build” is the recognizer’s rendering of “bill” The claim is the same one the packet’s SSWAA handout makes: “School social workers providing clinical services can generate revenue by billing Medicaid for mental health services provided”. No one on the board asked what that revenue is worth, and no revenue figure of any kind appears in the budget documents before them — see flag 1. | HIGH |
| 0:26:50 | The chair interrupts to ask the board’s actual question | Whitney: “Would you mind? I’m sorry to interrupt you, but, What I what I’m hoping we can communicate is we are trying to respond to the principals. The elementary school. Principals request for social workers at the elementary school level.” Then the question itself, in the same turn: “Can you speak specifically to how you would be relieving those burdens that are being weighed upon the administrators?” The answer is entirely anecdotal and entirely concrete — a named elementary principal, a family without transport, a child crying every Thursday lunchtime, a child with no coat (0:27:30–0:29:09). It is the most useful two minutes of the presentation and it took an interruption to get there. | |
| 0:30:06 | The board answers the presentation from the budget it has just built | Crawford: “This is fantastic. You did a terrific job, and you did a great job educating this board member. During the process of the budget, we heard from the principals. Indeed, they did need more help, more social work help. I think for the community. Many people don’t understand the reason for that. And you gave some very clear examples of why we need the social workers in the schools.” A board member then speaks from her own career (0:30:55): “Can I just add one thing, Courtney, as a retired educator, the social worker was my right hand person.” | |
| 0:32:56 | The instructional coach is a plaintiff in the case that funds the school | Elliott: “I’m named in the Claremont lawsuit against the funding of education.” He describes being recruited for it as a Stevens junior in 1991, testifying at the State House as a Keene State senior, and being asked by a reporter whether he would take a Stevens teaching job (0:33:46): “if the walls were still falling down because in 91 the walls were falling down. If the lab was leaking, if the books were from the 1950s, if they didn’t have graphing calculators, I would find it very difficult to meet the needs of the kids.” The consequence (0:34:13): “next day, front page Concord monitor x Stevens grad says no thank you to hometown. So they hired me at Fall Mountain for 26 years.” The board hearing this is about to adopt a budget whose largest single revenue driver is the adequacy aid that litigation produced — the business administrator returns to the point at 2:09:39. | |
| 0:34:59 | What an instructional coach actually does, in numbers | Elliott: “We have 41 instructors at Stevens High School. I meet with 38 of them every week for at least 30 minutes. That time has been so valuable. We have worked on everything from can you please get me a cord so that my smart board works to how do you deal specifically with this behavior issue.” His stated target (0:35:46): “By the time I walk away from you folks, I want us above the state average in the math SATs, the English SATs, and the essay the sass and science.” “the essay the sass” is the recognizer struggling with the state assessment; the district calls it NHSAS And the reason he gives for coaching at all (0:36:33): “Some of these kids haven’t eaten all week, and some of these kids are protecting their siblings from predators in their homes, and they wonder why the kids are falling asleep in class.” | |
| 0:42:39 | The chair tells him why he was there | After a live coaching demonstration in which board members and staff were asked arithmetic questions, the chair supplies the purpose: “Just so you know, the reason you were asked to be here is that we are the finance subcommittee. It was supporting adding an additional instructor for the entire district so that the elementary schools can get the coaching that they deserve as well.” The packet document confirms the gap: the Curriculum Update lists “Instructional Coaches - 6-12” among the 2023-24 initiatives, so the elementary schools have none. | |
| 0:43:38 | Curriculum: a cycle to 2030, and a document nobody could see | Whitney hands over: “moving on to an update from Mr. Kosky on student achievement. And, before you get up, we do want to thank you very much for being the captain of our curriculum ship and for shepherding us in the right direction.” Koski opens on a packet document the room cannot display (0:44:35): “there is a new document, a curriculum cycle, overview, which unfortunately, we don’t have up on the, on the, television right now, but, just this is to show you that there is a renewal cycle plan for curriculum.” That document is the packet’s Claremont Curriculum Cycle 2022-2030, an eight-year rotation with ELA renewed in 2022-23, mathematics in 2023-24 and the high-school CTE courses in 2024-25. | |
| 0:46:41 | The poster, the consultant and the grant that paid for both | Koski: “The poster that Rick was holding is in every classroom in Claremont. It came out of our math professional development this past summer with Derek Staves. And we we realized that those techniques needed to be visible for teachers, and they were common across content areas. And so we created the posters use grant money, and we put that poster in every classroom for teachers to be able to see.” The technique itself: “We call that a countable talk, where the person doing the speaking is the person doing the thinking” “a countable talk” is the recognizer; the packet document calls it “Accountable Talk”. Grant money paid for a district-wide instructional initiative, and no grant appears in any budget document in the packet — flag 1. | HIGH |
| 0:49:15 | The curriculum director makes the case for the second coach | Koski: “if I could ask Kat to come up, we are working the plan this year. I just want to give you a quick update on that. Cat is our curriculum director.” She opens (0:50:12) on her own background — “I’ve actually been an instructional coach, and I’ve worked in several districts” — then puts the problem plainly: a teacher returns from a workshop and “it’s really difficult for teachers to take what they learned in a workshop and then take that information and implement it in the classroom.” The ask, at 0:52:12: “So I just want you to know that’s that’s what you would be paying for. That’s why that investment is so important.” | |
| 0:53:32 | The consultants, named | McLaughlin: “Polly Bathurst helping us with our classroom management strategies, which we know that we have a lot of high needs kids in this in this district.” the surname is the recognizer’s. The packet’s own Curriculum Update spells the consultant Polly Bath, and lists her alongside Derek Staves under “Ongoing Instructional and classroom management training from outside consultants”. The speaker also says “Polly Barth” and “Polly Beth” within the next three minutes Her other named initiatives — Teach United, Wit and Wisdom, accountable talk, the K-5 report-card review and a curriculum newsletter — are the packet document’s list, item for item. | |
| 0:57:18 | The chair’s theory of the budget | Whitney: “one of the reasons why the finance subcommittee was in support of additional instructional assistance for our teachers is, for me, personally, I think the most fiscally responsible thing that we can do is maximize the resources that we have. And so if we have engaged teachers and we can teach them how to teach better, and we can have them feel a sense of community, we’re ahead.” The same sentence, wordsmithed, turns up twelve days later in the minutes of the board’s working session as the language for the deliberative-session slide: “maximize the resources that we have ‘and’ look for efficiencies”. | |
| 0:58:37 | Two years to results — the expectation the board is asked to hold | Koski: “these initiatives and things we’re putting in place, I hope this doesn’t come across sounding like an excuse, but it’s two years to see results. It’s a year to put it into place. And at a very minimum, the next year of students get the full program and that’s when you see results.” Then the benchmark data: strong in kindergarten and grade one, declining by grade (0:59:01–1:00:52). His statement of what the red band means (1:00:24): “When we have students who are in the red. Those students and their teachers need to get that student more than a year’s worth of growth.” The packet’s Curriculum Update makes the same point in a line the district wrote for itself: “Trend Analysis: Note the decline in the % on grade level each year.” | |
| 1:02:13 | The board names the reason it wants the data | Crawford: “I think there was some bad publicity a couple of months ago about our scores in our elementary schools. And I know the community is concerned about that. I think having this data come regularly to the board is very helpful for the community to see that we are focusing on achievement of the kids, and that it is beginning to look better.” The board’s own agenda item (g) under Future Dates names what lies behind that publicity: a public forum on “Response to Comprehensive Support Designations and Title 1 implications” — the federal identification at 20 U.S.C. §6311(c)(4)(D)(i) of schools in “not less than the lowest-performing 5 percent of all schools receiving funds under this part in the State”. That forum is never scheduled anywhere in this record. | |
| 1:02:49 | The one benchmark question from the board table — and who asked it | A board member: “Grade two and the different schools and the, the numbers are different. They’re not similar. And I thought there would be. I thought they’d be closer together.” Koski (1:03:00): “we were talking about two groups, two classrooms of students in most of the schools. So you’re talking about 24 students. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I’m sorry. Closer to 40 students. It’s very easy, depending on which students you have in front of you, to have variation on those test scores, because we’re really talking about pretty small numbers.” The approved minutes attribute the question to Bonnie Miles; the dialogue file attributes the voice to Arlene Hawkins. Nobody names the speaker on the recording. See flag 2. | MEDIUM |
| 1:03:31 | What the board thinks it has bought | A board member: “Thank you for the work that you’re doing. As a district, we are now coordinated moving forward in a well-researched a curriculum is not sitting on a shelf. It’s being implemented with instruction and assessment. And the accountable talk is not only happening for students with coaching, it’s happening for adults as well. And so everyone is speaking a common language based on instructional strategies.” It is the clearest statement anyone makes all night of the theory behind the two positions the budget adds. | |
| 1:04:38 | The Academy: twelve students, and the data that carried the vote | “Lee Malloy, lead teacher at what we are calling the academy. We’re trying to move away from the term alternative as best that we possibly can.” The numbers (1:05:32): “we have currently 12 students…our past fail rates last year we were at a 65% of fail and rate, now were at a 3% fail on courses.” At 1:05:55: “as of right now we have 56 courses have been passed so far this year and two have been failed.” Suspensions (1:07:19): “last year there was 59 suspensions. And this year there has been three. And none of those suspensions have happened since the students have joined.” Behaviour logs (1:07:45): “Last year there was 137. This year there has been 18…the academy has only had to put in one log entry so far.” Class standing (1:09:20): “Three juniors. Read your. And yours, and the rest are sophomores. No, we did no freshmen.” The approved minutes convert the last into “2 seniors now on track to graduate, 3 juniors, 7 sophomores (no freshmen)”. | |
| 1:09:43 | The interim superintendent, speaking as the high-school principal | Pratt: “The opportunity just to expand on it more as being the principal at the high school. And what we’re seeing from, from this program is a bunch of things we’re seeing, you know, a lot of these students, it’s not that they couldn’t learn, it’s just that the environment that they were at the high school was just too much.” And at 1:11:03: “I’ve never seen so much progress in a program in such a short time.” He is superintendent and principal in the same sentence, six days after the first appointment and with no successor named for the second. | |
| 1:13:47 | Six places to put the programme, priced | Nester walks the options. River Valley Community College is willing: the packet’s Exhibit A records “They are interested in more of a partnership with SAU 6 meaning no cost or menial cost.” Riverview Charter School is not (1:14:12): “they have no space available in that, in that building.” Then the commercial rentals, added to the slide that day — “We added those in just today” — and priced aloud: “the first one is a cost of $56,000 annually to rent the space” (1:14:49), “a property on Washington Street” (1:15:13), one at “300 a month” for a single office, “I think if you want the whole building, it’s about $3,500” (1:16:33). The programme’s current footprint, from its own teacher (1:17:00): “I think it was 800ft². And then we do have the kitchen that’s out there. There’s a bathroom, and then I have a little office space that’s pretty tiny.” Board members are pricing properties from a slide they have not seen. | |
| 1:19:24 | The superintendent’s warning about commercial leases | Pratt, from his previous district: “a few few years back, we were looking for for space, over in Bellows Falls and we fought, finding commercial space that we’re looking at was the way to go. But what I found is astronomical hidden costs.” The costs (1:19:48): “it’s thousands of dollars for if there’s asbestos, lead paint, you have to have Ada compliant.” And the safety point: a shared building means “you still have people coming and going”. His conclusion (1:21:10): “if you use the the Esser funds to see that now, you’re not tying, you know, fiscally being fiscally responsible to the taxpayers. Now you’re using the upfront cost for the money to, to to get that building. Now you’re not tying into those future costs of leased property.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:23:13 | The word that governs the whole question: exclusively | Whitney, thinking aloud about siting a modular on the technical centre’s land: “just thinking if it were on that property back here with that conflict, with the guidance, the rules that we need to follow to improve the text. Seminole, how it says must be used for technical classes exclusively. This doesn’t matter because it’s outside the building.” “improve the text. Seminole” is the recognizer’s rendering of improve the tech center Herzog answers (1:23:35): “given what I’ve read and understand and what Mr. Upton talk to us about, being outside the building would not be in conflict.” Matt Upton is the board’s attorney The rule they are circling is real, and it is the 2023 text of RSA 188-E:3, II — see flag 10. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:23:50 | Five recommendations, one of which the board did not take | Nester: “we do recommend maintaining the funding and supporting the program. The data speaks for itself. That’s pretty straightforward. The second recommendation, I believe, still stands. The Academy should stay here for one more year while we work with Doctor Herzog and the Visioning Committee to planning for a long term location for the program.” The packet’s Exhibit A puts the same five in writing, including “A proposal will be submitted to the school board for consideration by Dec. 1st of 2024” — which he gives aloud at 1:25:06 as “a proposal be submitted to the board by December of next year”. His fourth recommendation, a standing committee on students at risk of dropping out, drew no motion and appears in the minutes only as “Also recommended a committee to address student needs who are at risk of dropping out”. The board took recommendation 1 and replaced recommendation 2 with a modular. | |
| 1:27:00 | The space arithmetic nobody could close | Crawford: “In the budget, we have plans for a health science program coming into the tech center. And I want to make sure that we have enough space in the tech center for that program. You know, besides the academy.” Herzog (1:27:28): “as of right now know we wouldn’t have space. I would have to look at either. Reducing the size of what adult Ed currently uses. The academy is taking one classroom upstairs as well as some other space, so we’d have to really evaluate that.” Everything turns on the pre-K move, which Whitney confirms is already assumed (1:28:14): “Moving the pre-K out of the tech center, embedding them in the elementary schools is in the budget. Yes, yes, that’s where the budget right now is structured.” Three programmes, one building, and the budget assumes the outcome of a decision not yet taken. | |
| 1:29:19 | The deadline that shaped the decision | Whitney: “I’m hearing about a modular and that’s Esser funded. And the Esser funding goes through till the end of September of 24. So by put it, why would we keep the academy at the tech center if we have an opportunity?” Then the risks she names herself: “quite frankly, of supply chain issue, we could potentially have a supply chain issue. We also have to get approval. Well, whether or not the modules are immediately available and whether or not we are able to connect them to, water, sewer services, electric.” Crawford asks the allowability question directly at 1:30:15: “When you use Esser funds to pay for that those connections.” Whitney: “Oh yeah. Yeah we pay for the building. Yes.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:30:34 | The motion | Crawford: “I make a motion that we use Esser funds to, to purchase a modular unit for the use of the for the academy, and located perhaps at the technical center, but, location to be determined by the administration.” The chair immediately flags what is still outstanding (1:30:56): “we still need to get everything approved through SR and things of that nature. I don’t think it would be an issue given what we’re using it for. I know construction projects, they’re they’re really scrutinizing construction projects.” And at 1:31:16: “Correct. But I have written activities yet within the Esser funds to do so.” “SR” is the recognizer’s rendering of ESSER throughout this recording The chair then seconds her own board’s motion (1:31:29): “Can I get a second for the motion? I’ll second the motion open for discussion.” The approved minutes record it: “Candace Crawford made a motion to utilize ESSER funds to purchase a modular classroom for The Academy, Heather Whitney seconded the motion”. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:31:37 | Why now: the money expires | Crawford: “The SR funds are only available until September 24th. And and if we I can understand having the academy at the technical center for one more year. However, at the end of that year, we hope to grow that program at the technical center if we buy the modular center modular unit.” And at 1:32:08: “Now with the Esser funds, we have that unit available so that we have it. So we have we’ve used the funds to make the connection and buy the unit so that we have them for in perpetuity.” “September 24th” is the recognizer’s rendering of “September ’24”; the whole room uses the month, not the date The approved minutes record the point: “Candace Crawford noted that the ESSER funds are only available until September of 2024”. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:32:34 | The counter-proposal: the community college | Gallagher: “the first location option that we had listed was RVC, and that they do rent out classrooms and have a nonprofit rate and an application process, and it looks like they are interested in more of a partnership with six meaning no cost or very low cost. So if we do need to buy modular for the pre-K, and we do want to leave space for the health sciences program…it sounds like the best option on the table is actually to locate the academy at RVC.” She presses the distance point at 1:34:19: “I feel like the distance is negligible from, like, the Dow and the high school and support staff, I mean, is just right up the road.” The programme’s own teacher then argues against her, from two years of working in that building (1:35:25–1:36:58): the community bus worked, but “having it be that far away, we’re really removing them”, and services written into an IEP or a 504 would have to travel. Her verdict: “It wouldn’t be my first pick, to be honest.” | |
| 1:39:58 | The amendment — and the record’s sharpest disagreement | “Can I make the amendment?” Then (1:40:01): “Candy’s motion to put in the, the caveat that if the modular unit for the Academy cannot be made ready in time for the new school year to start the 2425 school year, that we continue to program for one more year in the tech and revisit what the 25 no. 2526 school year will look like at the end of 2425.” An unidentified voice seconds (1:40:28): “Second that amended motion.” On the recording the mover is the voice the chair twice addresses by name as Jennifer. The approved minutes read: “Whitney Skillen amended the motion…Jennifer Gallagher seconded the motion.” The two cannot both be right. See flag 2. | MEDIUM |
| 1:41:05 | The technical centre’s director will not say the risk is zero | Herzog: “if we remember what Mr. Upton said when he was here, he was not sure that it would affect. But he couldn’t say either way. Right. I saw that she posted that there’s no quantifiable, problem with the funding, but we don’t know. The state could say, no, you’re not using this section in this section for CTE purposes. So we’re going to reduce that funding if we want to go for the renovation.” He adds: “I’ve watched that video a couple of times, Mr. Upton, and he was very in the middle of road on it so it could affect us.” The packet says the opposite in one clause: Exhibit A lists the tech-centre option as “remains at the tech center for one more year 24.25(no impact on renovation funding”. Gallagher reads the packet back at him (1:40:54): “According to this, according to the report, there’s no impact.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:42:16 | Herzog answers the accusation nobody made out loud | “I’ve heard Doctor Herzog doesn’t want this program in the tech center. I’ve heard students ask my teachers that, and that’s not the case at all. I think it’s a great program. And we’re seeing some successes. And, you know, Lee and I are working together closer on that. And we want to see what we could do to get them into CTE.” Then the statement of the rule (1:42:32): “I’m I’m just a letter of the law kind of guy. And the and the statement for the RSA specifically it should be exclusively for CTE. I don’t want to see us get hurt down the road if we’re ready for that.” He then distinguishes the room they are sitting in: “This is a community room that we opened up for CTE purposes, but it’s also for school board meetings and such, too. But that was already built in.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:45:01 | A memorandum of understanding the last superintendent refused | Herzog: “originally the state, Jeff Beard told me that if we were going to have a program and we had a life skills program upstairs for a little bit, Sarah Goddard was the instructor at the time. And what I, the state told me to talk to Mr. Tempesta at the time about getting a memo of understanding that we could have that agreement for one year, that it would be a temporary.” And then (1:45:25): “that was two years ago. But Mr. Tempesta said, this is my building. We’re not doing that. I’m not doing a memo. Understanding that was his view on it. And so that’s where the conflict kind of arose.” Six days after the board that employed him removed him, the former superintendent’s only appearance in this record is as the reason a compliance document does not exist. The board’s answer is to make one: the minutes record “Will draw up an MOU”. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:46:23 | The chair reframes the choice as a budget question | Whitney: “The key point here is that we have one option on the table that plan B would have budget implications, which we have not accounted for. Plan B as modular or keeping it here is budget neutral.” That is the sentence that ends the debate — and it is asserted, not costed. The packet contains prices for the commercial rentals and none for a modular, for the connections, or for transport to the community college; the community college option is the one described in the packet as “no cost or menial cost”. | |
| 1:49:20 | The clerk assembles the motion the board is about to pass | Asked to read back what she has written, the clerk supplies the operative text: “the caveat if the modular unit is not ready for the start of the 2425 school year, the academy will will utilize the space at the tech for an interim period of one school year. While options and decisions decisions are made for the 2526 school year.” Crawford asks for one word more (1:49:41): “Can we add the word only for one school year only?” Whitney: “Good idea. Yeah, I think I think it’s implicit in the motion, but I agree.” The word was not added. The clerk reads the whole motion at 1:50:28 and it is not in it; neither set of minutes carries it. | |
| 1:49:57 | Two voice votes, neither counted | On the amendment: “Do we have any more discussion on the amendment? All in favor say aye. Aye aye. Any any opposed? Now we can move forward.” On the motion as amended (1:50:53): “Is there any further discussion on the motion as amended at the time of war? Seeing none, I’d like to call for a vote. All in favor, say aye. I posed. Motion passes unanimously.” “at the time of war” and “I posed” are the recognizer’s renderings of “at this time” and “opposed” No count is taken and none is announced. Six members were in the room; the minutes record both votes as “unanimously approved”. A voice vote is lawful, and RSA 91-A:2, II requires an individual record only of a roll call — but the district’s own practice a month later, on 21 February, was to name every member voting in favour and the one who abstained. | |
| 1:51:20 | The budget item opens without the man the agenda named | Whitney: “Unfortunately, Mr. Sprague, who is the chair of the finance subcommittee, whom Miss Crawford and myself were also members of, was unable to attend due to illness this evening. So, unfortunately, we’re punting, aren’t we, candy? Yes. We’re punting.” The printed agenda reads “Presentation by Finance Subcommittee Chair Frank Sprague and Administrative Team”. Two of the committee’s three members and the business administrator presented instead, and the approved minutes record only “Absent: Frank Sprague” without the reason the chair gave the public. | |
| 1:51:47 | The board’s own account of how it built this budget | Whitney: “I just want to kind of overview of what we how we approach this process this year and effort to be completely transparent. Our finance subcommittee meetings were videotaped and televised live. So, the, the, the community and the board members could view them. So there is nobody that’s out of the loop of what was discussed. We had a lot of, very keep not heated, but we were very poor in our questions were spirited. We were very we were very rigorous in reviewing the numbers.” “we were very poor in our questions” is the recognizer; the sense is “pointed” Then the conclusion (1:52:18): “we feel today that our our numbers are what they should be. And we are confident in the budget that we are proposing.” | POSITIVE MEDIUM |
| 1:52:18 | Three additions, and the one the board refused | Whitney: “The three items that we’re really looking to add into our budget. Our instructional coach, which will be district wide, we’ll be able to have enough people to meet all the needs of our schools. There was a request for three social workers, one for each of the elementary schools.” And the refusal (1:52:46): “We did not feel that was something that was sustainable, and we also felt that the instructional coaches could aid teachers in learning how to manage classrooms and student behaviors better. And we also approved the Help Science program at the technical center with the associated startup costs.” “Help Science” is the recognizer; the programme is Health Science Three elementary social workers were asked for; one district-wide post is in the budget. The packet’s summary page shows the line: function 2113 Social Worker rises from $72,500.47 to $302,466.20. | |
| 1:53:14 | The board thanks the television operator by name | Crawford: “I’d like to thank, the CCTV and Josh Nelson for being so helpful. Yes, yes. We had I think we had 5 or 6 meetings. 2 to 3 hours each just for the public to be aware of that. We have spent a lot of time on, on this budget going over it.” And at 1:53:40: “thanks to, Heather for her suggestion to have the air. I think that was terrific. The public can see any of those. It’s pretty boring, but it’s there for a review. If if you want it. And and Josh Nelson was great when we were running over on time. He said no problem. Keep going.” Between ten and eighteen hours of budget deliberation, broadcast live — and no minutes of any of it exist in any district share. See flags 15 and 5. | POSITIVE MEDIUM |
| 1:54:14 | The first budget in three years with no federal relief money | Crawford: “this coming year is the first year, after three years, that we will not have Esser funding. For the past three years we’ve had Esser funding and that’s provided a number of dollars to the district.” And the consequence (1:54:39): “There are some positions that will end because Esser funding ends. There are some, some positions that will be added to the budget because we have seen that they are effective…you’ll see that there are some positions that are in the budget that were paid for by Esser before and now have to be paid by the school district.” The packet’s summary page carries the largest of those moves in one line: function 2210, professional development support, from nothing in FY24 to $309,131.85 in FY25. | |
| 1:55:43 | What the money buys, in the committee’s words | Crawford: “One of the things you will see in the budget is, the adoption of about $20,000. And Mary will show us the actuals, but for the implementation of the, English language language arts curriculum in the elementary schools. And as you saw from Rick, it will be in there is additional money for a coaching to facilitate that.” On the social worker (1:56:16): “each school requested their own. After much hand-wringing. This budget has one for the elementary school.” Whitney corrects the framing at 1:56:36: “It’s going to be district wide. Right? So they can flex according to the caseload.” Crawford also flags the tech centre’s career counsellor, which Whitney then corrects (1:58:40): “the career counselor was in the budget last year. It was it was an unfilled position. So that’s not an additional position. It’s just being put where it should be.” | |
| 1:58:58 | The default gap: $210,633 | Henry: “First I’m going to start off just talking about default real quick. The default budget currently with the current budget we’re at is $210,000, 210, $633. Over. So our budget is 210,633 over default.” That subtracts to a default of $35,906,773.87, which is the $35,906,774 the district put on the March ballot — and it is $196,000 tighter than the $406,634 gap disclosed at the 3 January hearing, because the proposed side came down and the default did not move. The default budget is defined at RSA 40:13, IX(b) and had to be “disclosed and presented for questions and discussion at the first budget hearing” under ¶XI(a) — which it was, on 3 January. No default-budget document appears in this packet either. | POSITIVE |
| 1:59:58 | 3.55 per cent, $1.2 million — and why the tax bill is smaller than both | Henry: “our budget is 3.55% over last year’s, or that is roughly 1.2 million. Now I want to I’m trying to think of the easiest way to explain this. We are 1.2 million up, but we are not raising 1.2 million in additional taxes. And here’s why. Because our revenues went up.” Then the number that matters (2:00:34): “852,000 of that would be added on to the tax rate. But that is without any fund balance on it.” The whole difference between $1.2 million and $852,000 is revenue, and revenue appears in no document the board or the public had in front of them. The packet’s summary page shows the $1,237,095.15 increase; nothing anywhere shows the offset. See flag 1. | HIGH |
| 2:00:34 | The retained fund balance, and why it was held | Henry: “every year we have fund balance the past two years. In 23 we had 1.7 million in fund balance. Last year we had 736. Now, out of that 1.7, the board chose to hold 426,000. This year they’ve chosen to hold 420,000.” Asked why (2:01:30): “past years we weren’t as comfortable with our fund balance that had been returned. Only because we’re still in the process of being audited. That’s why we held that money. Now, I did the Doe 25 this year. I’ve got the financials straightened out for fiscal year 23.” And the caveat she volunteers (2:01:53): “I feel comfortable in my number in 23. I will say I still think that 22 and 21st May fall.” “Doe 25” is the DOE-25, the annual financial report; “21st May fall” is the recognizer for “21 may fall” The business administrator is telling the board, in open session, that two prior fiscal years may not stand. | |
| 2:03:07 | Sixty-nine cents on the thousand | Henry, after a correction sequence the board works through aloud: “looking at that right now with the 852,000, that would be $0.69 on the tax rate, or $69.39 per 100,000 of evaluation.” Crawford confirms what that means at 2:03:40: “Which is what this budget proposes.” The approved minutes print this figure as “$69.33 per $100,000”. The recording says $69.39, twice. Both sets of minutes carry the same wrong digit, so the error was in the draft and survived approval. | MEDIUM |
| 2:04:02 | The revaluation moved the burden onto houses | Henry: “we’ve talked about this before about the evaluation process that happened within your community. Your property values went up. Which doesn’t mean we’re raising any more money fiscally right now. We’re not raising any more money. Even those property values went up. But the distribution of how that money is, is obtained to pay the bills has been redistributed.” The figures (2:04:32): “residential went up by 42%, the values average whereas commercial only went up 23%. So that means residential is getting hit a little bit harder than commercial.” And her own boundary: “I’m not saying that’s right. I’m not saying it’s wrong. It’s the reality of it.” This is a city revaluation, not a school decision, and it is the largest single thing happening to a Claremont tax bill that year. | |
| 2:06:02 | The $420,000, and the hearing it would take to use it | Henry: “I would suggest that the board look at that 420,000 and having a public hearing, which is what you need to do to be able to use that money that you held from fiscal year 23 to help offset the tax rate this year.” A board member asks the question directly (2:06:50): “are you recommending to us that we utilize that 420,000 to offset because we’ve had the revaluation this year that is really hitting very hard? Yes. So by using that 420,000, that helps.” Henry, on the alternative (2:07:29): “even if we don’t do it, it’s going to go back to them in November because you can’t hold it for more than that year”, and (2:07:58) “But if you do it now, you can do it when you’re doing the budget season and show the difference that for the deliberative.” The statutory step she names is real — RSA 198:4-b, II(a). See flag 17. | POSITIVE |
| 2:09:15 | Thirty-five cents instead of sixty-nine | Henry, answering Gallagher’s request for the number: “that changes it down to $0.35 or $35.21 on the tax rate, instead of 69 per 100,000.” An unidentified board voice: “Excuse me. That’s big. That is big.” Henry: “It is. Well, it’s half.” Halving the year’s tax increase turns on a hearing the board did not schedule that night; the minutes record only “Money held from FY23 could be potentially used to offset for this year- will have to hold a public hearing”. Crawford had also used the interval to note that the business administrator “came into a position in July, and she did not construct the current year’s budget…Mary’s done a heck of a job” (2:08:35). | POSITIVE |
| 2:09:39 | Adequacy aid, the court case, and $10,000 a child | Henry: “adequacy aid could change. You know, the the court case happened. The judge did rule in our favor on that. I know there’s bills right now that are in the house that’s talking about making it $10,000 per kid. There’s a lot of things floating around right now that’s out of the 800 bills that are in the house.” Then the revenue that actually moved (2:10:05–2:10:31): “The other thing that’s driving our revenues this year is our increase inadequacy aid. We had an increase of about 3.8%. But overall, under the state’s state sources, between catastrophic aid, which is on our outer districts placements and things of that nature. We’re up about $519,000. So that is really what’s driving our revenue.” “inadequacy aid” is the recognizer running “in adequacy aid” together $519,000 of new state revenue, spoken once, in no document. | HIGH |
| 2:11:01 | What was not optional | Henry: “The benefit increases for health insurance rates, health insurance rates for parents, maintenance and secretaries were 8.8%. Teachers were 5.7%. There are two separate groups that we can’t put together because they’re two separate CBA’s…The dental insurance rate went up by 4.7% for all employees.” “parents” is the recognizer’s rendering of “paras”, paraprofessionals — a garble that recurs across this corpus The contracts (2:11:55): “the year two contract for the teachers, which is 573,000. Year three of the Claremont Administration Association, which is 51,000. And the third year of the paraprofessional contract of 109,000. So that alone makes up a good portion of the amount of money that is in that increase.” $733,000 of the $1,237,095 increase is three collective-bargaining agreements already signed. | |
| 2:12:29 | The positions that go, and the ones that come back | Henry: “we have removed any behavioral support specialists that are in the district, because most of those are funded through SR. But I think we’re going a little bit in paraprofessional direction.” Then the line she wants the public to hear (2:12:55): “any paraprofessional that is in this district is here because there’s an IEP. We don’t have general paraprofessionals anymore. They just don’t. You know, that classroom assistant isn’t there. They are tied to an IEP.” The middle school (2:13:25): “I see 25 FTE meaning teachers and in the middle school with the new or the way we are looking at doing this, there’s 24…there’s three openings. So in theory someone will move into those three openings.” And on the ESSER-funded posts (2:15:14): “That is like the student liaison. There’s there was like an English teacher that was in there. Academic deans, things of that nature are no longer in the budget.” The acronym she cannot retrieve is supplied from the table by the special-education director (2:15:43): “Board certified behavior analyst.” | OBSERVATION |
| 2:16:19 | Two account corrections, both checkable in the packet | Henry: “The ESL teacher, you will see. Now there’s a line in there. It’s 1260 currently. It was under 1100 for which is regular education instruction, which is not where that belongs. The state requires it be in 1260, which is the proper account number for it. So I’ve moved that out of there. That is currently not a field position, but still a position that we need to have.” “not a field position” is the recognizer’s rendering of not a filled position The packet proves both halves: account 100.40.1100.320 “Dist Wide-Reg. Inst. ESL Curriculum” falls to zero and a new 100.40.1260 group appears carrying $54,302 of salary. And at 2:16:47: “I did drop down the district wide substitute line by 125,000 based on expenditures year to date” — account 100.40.1100.115 moves from $300,000 to $175,000, exactly $125,000. See flag 19. | POSITIVE |
| 2:17:41 | Two members ask the other four to say yes out loud | Crawford: “I think the other school board members who are not on the finance committee, I, we, Frank and Heather and I have have made, recommendations. Thoughts? And we really need you to confirm that you agree with assumptions that we’ve made to be put in the budget.” She then lists them: the health-science programme at the tech centre, the career counsellor’s reassignment, the district-wide social worker, the middle-school staffing, and (2:18:43) “The, the preschool, going into the modular units at two of the elementary schools. That’s in the budget. We want to make sure you agree with that.” And the reason (2:18:43): “Do you support that? We do, but we want to make sure that we don’t want to speak for everyone. We want to make sure you have by in for that as well.” The only member who answers is Gallagher (2:19:31): “I don’t have any objection to any of it…Honestly, I don’t have any questions. I asked all my questions last time.” The two members present who never speak are not heard to answer. | |
| 2:19:56 | How the business administrator checked her own predecessor’s numbers | Henry: “I did go through every line item. And I’m not kidding. Every line item…More than once.” And the method (2:19:56): “what I did is I looked at fiscal year 24 hours. I went into the system because I couldn’t necessarily rely on what I felt was in the budget number. So I went in to make sure that what had populated in for 25 was in 24, and that it was accurate.” “fiscal year 24 hours” is the recognizer running “fiscal year 24” into “ours” This is the same work that produced the $688,426.17 misallocation she reported to the board on 3 January. | |
| 2:21:39 | Is there enough ESSER money for the modular? | Gallagher: “Is there enough money of Esser funds for the proposed like. Yes, modular. We have enough. And for those one time expenditures, because we don’t have enough in Esser to fund salaries for the school.” Henry (2:21:54): “Well, we can’t fund salaries because they end in September of 24.” Whitney explains the grant condition (2:21:59): “whatever we use the SR funds for had to be related to as far as personnel. Helping to overcome the learning deficits that occurred in the response to Covid.” Henry closes it (2:22:38): “as they call it, the financial cliff that we were all talking about in the business administrator’s things is that it’s real.” An answer given from memory, on the night the board committed the money. Nothing in the packet states the ESSER balance. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:23:10 | The motion that fixed the number | Crawford: “I’d like to make a motion. The school board approve a budget for fiscal year 25 of $36,117,406.87.” No second is audible on the recording. The chair goes straight to “Do any discussion”; the approved minutes record “Heather Whitney seconded the motion”. A board member asks the last question (2:23:35): “Where would the 420 pay that’s going to be applied against that bottom line? When would that be reflected?” Henry (2:23:47): “That’ll be in your revenues? It won’t be part of the budget is still going to remain at 36 million.” Whitney (2:23:58): “It’ll it’ll impact the tax rate, but not the budget.” | MEDIUM |
| 2:24:31 | The last word before the vote | Gallagher: “I also wanted to thank everybody for their hard work. I know that making tough decisions with a limited amount of resources that we have available to us, and the way that the state funded funds are education and we’re doing the absolute best that we can. So I just want to thank everybody for putting in the real hard work behind the scenes and televising it.” Henry adds the pitch for the archive: “You can still watch it until…On demand.” An unidentified voice: “there as she said. Get your popcorn.” | POSITIVE |
| 2:25:07 | The vote: $36,117,406.87 | Whitney, in full: “Yeah. Okay. All in favor? I any opposed? Budget passes. Budget is approved.” Eleven words to adopt thirty-six million dollars. No count, no roll, no names. The approved minutes: “Vote taken, unanimously approved”. The figure is $196,001.10 below the $36,313,407.97 the board took into the 3 January hearing, and that reduction is exactly what RSA 32:5, I contemplates when it says the body “after the conclusion of public testimony shall finalize the budget to be submitted to the legislative body”. See flag 14. | POSITIVE |
| 2:25:34 | An extra meeting, arranged in the last four minutes | Whitney: “We had discussed briefly the finance committee and the admin team having an additional meeting. Board meeting between. Right. In this meeting and the deliberative, which means next week.” Its purpose (2:25:47): “To kind of put our heads together and develop questions that we think that the public will have and a list of questions from the public so we can be prepared to answer them and to also discuss who wants to contribute to the budget presentation or the deliberative presentation.” The invitation is to the whole board (2:26:22): “So I’m looking for, consensus to do that. Not everybody that needs to attend. If you don’t want to attend, you don’t have to. But it would if you want to contribute in a like in a in the presentation process, I would encourage you to attend.” | MEDIUM |
| 2:27:25 | A member offers to attend by telephone, and the chair reframes the meeting | Gallagher: “I’m not able to attend. I’ll be out of town the 23rd to the 31st.” Then (2:27:37): “Okay. Or I can call in if that’s all right.” Whitney (2:27:39): “Oh we could do that. We could do that would be a work session. We wouldn’t need to do it in this formal setting. We would have, Well, could take minutes for us.” And (2:27:51): “There be no votes taken or anything like that.” The date is fixed at 2:27:55 — “So we’re saying the 24th” — the hour at 2:28:16, and the place at 2:28:55: “We can do it at the Dow if if that’s okay with you guys.” Every element of a public meeting is present, and the chair is describing it as something else. See flag 6. | MEDIUM |
| 2:29:06 | The statutory calendar, read out correctly | Whitney: “the first day to declare candidacy for school board is January 24th.” Then (2:29:14): “the last day to declare candidacy for the school board is February 2nd. On January 29th is the last day for us to post warrant and budget and to remind folks again that the deliberative session is, February 3rd, 9 a.m.. It’s going to be held at Stevens High School. The snow date will be the 10th.” Every one of those dates is right under the statutes that fix it — the filing window under RSA 669:19 as applied to school districts by RSA 671:19, and both Saturdays under RSA 40:13, III. See flag 18. | POSITIVE |
| 2:29:40 | Adjournment, by consensus | Crawford: “I’m looking for a motion.” Whitney: “No. Does anybody object.” Then (2:29:42): “A journey? Seeing. No objection. Meeting is adjourned.” A member of the board asked for a motion and the chair declined to take one. The approved minutes: “IX. 8:59 PM Adjournment Consus for adjournment”. The last words on the tape are the assistant superintendent’s (2:29:48): “Good job.” | MEDIUM |