| 0:00:02 | The chair opens; nobody else is on the tape before the Pledge | Whitney: “I would like to call to order the May 15th, 2024 meeting of the Claremont School Board. On attendance, please rise and join Pledge of Allegiance.” the recognizer drops words from Please rise and join in the Pledge of Allegiance The recording starts on the gavel, two seconds in. | |
| 0:00:29 | The clerk is not there, and a member is deputised to read the roll | Whitney: “Our clerk is unable to be here at the start of this meeting. So Miss Crawford has agreed to call. Roll call for us.” No arrival is announced for the clerk at any later point in the recording, and neither set of minutes notes one — yet both are signed by her. An hour later the Director of Student Services opens his report with “I noticed I wasn’t asked to call roll today, but.” (1:00:56) and the chair explains that she had told him he was off the hook: “That the last time you did roll call was the last time you were going to be roll call. So that’s why I solicited Miss Crawford.” (1:01:02). This project’s records show a staff member reading the roll for both boards through 2023 and again in April 2024. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:00:42 | All seven answer — and one member’s only audible word in two hours | Crawford, reading: “Bonnie miles. Yes. Whitney skilling.” The Yes. is Bonnie Miles, and it is the only sound in the whole recording that the dialogue file cannot separate out and give to her. She is present, the approved minutes credit her with two seconds and a closing remark, and the file attributes her zero rows and zero words. The rest of the roll: “Heather Whitney, president. Frank Sprague.” / “Present.” / “Present.” / “Arlene Hawkins here. Michael. Patron here. Candace Crawford here.” The approved minutes reduce all of it to three words: “Present: all present”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:00:51 | The consent agenda is disposed of without a motion, a second or a vote | Whitney, in a single segment: “Is there any motion to move an item to off of the consent agenda to the regular agenda? Seeing none, we will consider the amendments and that there are no amendments to the board agenda and that the minutes from April 17th, 2024 have been approved.” The agenda heads the item “Consent Agenda (vote required)”. The approved minutes render the disposition as “Consent Approval”. This project’s pages for 20 December 2023, 17 January 2024 and 20 March 2024 record the same defect on the same heading. | MEDIUM |
| 0:01:19 | Citizens’ comments opened and closed inside eighteen seconds | Whitney: “We’ll now open the floor to non-agenda item citizens comments for policy BEDH. Is there anyone present who would like to speak to citizens? Comments? Seeing none, we will close citizens comments.” The whole period is inside one segment that also contains the call for the superintendent’s report. Nobody was turned away — and a State Representative sitting in the room was later invited to speak from the floor on a substantive item. RSA 189:74 says the period “shall be for no less than 30 minutes”; whether that is a floor on elapsed time or on the opportunity is not settled by the text. | MEDIUM |
| 0:02:24 | A second phase of the technical-centre study, paid for with federal relief money | Pratt, at 0:02:04: “as a lot of you know, is that SRF, the the Southern Regional Education Board did conducted a study for the tech center.” “SRF” is the recognizer’s rendering of SREB Then, twenty seconds later: “So we through Esser grants, we added a phase two. And what is going to happen during that phase two is that the Southern Regional Education Board is going to provide training and staff development on implementing programs of study”. And at 0:05:47: “that’s that’s grant funded through Essa.” This is a new commitment of federal relief money four and a half months before the obligation deadline. | MEDIUM |
| 0:06:06 | An SAU with no strategic plan hires a firm to write one | Pratt: “The second one is when I was a superintendent in Vermont, we used a company out of Boston called the District Management Group, and they’re out of Boston. And what we’re looking at is they’re going to come in because as most of you know, we currently don’t have a strategic plan for SO6.” “SO6”, “Sussex”, “Saw six” and “SA six” are all the recognizer rendering SAU 6; the Vermont superintendency is Bellows Falls, before Claremont He reads the firm’s own summary aloud rather than paraphrase it — “I’m just going to read it off some of the executive summary. So I’m not getting it wrong” (0:06:29). No cost is stated and no document is in the packet. The approved minutes of 5 June record the firm as “Funded by ESSER and is a budget neutral endeavor”. | MEDIUM |
| 0:10:15 | Who counts as a stakeholder | Skillen: “when we’re talk, when we’re identifying stakeholders, I hope that there will be a representative from pretty much every area of the school function operations from like food service, maintenance, paras, teachers, like anyone that’s involved in the function of the school, like not just the board and the administrators”. Pratt: “it’s a very inclusive process. They’ll they’ll talk to whoever we ask them to have focused study groups with and stuff, whether it’s custodial, whether it’s nurses, paras, parents, city officials.” (0:11:00). | |
| 0:11:42 | Hawkins ties the plan to the budget calendar | Hawkins: “Is there a time frame that that they’re, you know, they usually work within? Like how long does this process take?” Pratt gives two months for preliminary analysis, three to four to develop the plan, and “we’re hoping to get, work throughout the summer on this and hopefully, fall, winter, we’d start to see something that we can actually start working on to help us develop budget” (0:12:34). Hawkins: “That’s what I was thinking. Budgetary implications for it.” | |
| 0:13:04 | The price of phase two, given from memory | Crawford: “Just what was the price tag for the phase two for, s.” Pratt: “the we right now we have phase for phase two at or is it? I have just lost my page.” then “Because around 28,000.” and “Thank you. A little over 28, I believe.” No document in the packet carries the figure, and the approved minutes reduce the exchange to “Candace Crawford asked about SREB funding (was ESSER funded)” without recording the amount at all. | MEDIUM |
| 0:13:29 | Petrin: will the plan reopen moving eighth grade to the high school? | Petrin: “In the in the past, the last year before there was discussion, of possibly moving eighth grade to the high school. So I’m not sure if that’s part of their focus to see which grades should be housed at the high school”. Pratt: “when and if we could incorporate the eighth grade eighth graders at the high school, that all should be part of the discussion” (0:14:05). This is the only reference at this meeting to the elementary and middle-school reconfiguration question that runs through this corpus. | |
| 0:15:02 | Youth and Government: the advisor, and fifteen years of it | Chastenay: “I and social studies teacher at Stephens. I’m also the advisor for these in government. I’ve been in the position a little over almost 15 years now”. “these in government” is Youth and Government; “Stephens” is Stevens High School On the delegation: “We have a relatively small delegation compared to many schools in youth and government. We had around ten kids this year. We had more success getting bills on the floor this year than I’ve ever seen in all my years in the program.” (0:15:27). Her slideshow was displayed to the board and is not in the packet. | |
| 0:21:19 | The Youth Governor-elect addresses the board | Aubree Herzog: “Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today about youth in government.” She describes the programme, her campaign, the committee she chaired, and the bill she carried, and closes with what she will do in office. She and the other student presenter are named on this page because the district names them on its own public agenda as presenters to the board. The other pupils she and her advisor mention — bill sponsors, award winners, delegates — are not named here. | |
| 0:23:45 | A senior on four years of it | Gage Morin: “I am Gage Moran. I’m a senior from Stevens. So unfortunately, to my chagrin, this is my last year in this program.” the agenda and both sets of minutes spell the surname Morin; he says Moran Then: “when I first got started in this, I was admittedly very shy. I didn’t want to do it at all, but my mom said either a sport or this club” (0:24:14) and “It’s just it is a very good experience for everyone who needs confidence and wants to have their voice heard” (0:25:13). | |
| 0:26:17 | The one thing asked of the board all evening — and it drew no motion | Asked by the chair “What what more can we do to support you as a board?” (0:25:59), Chastenay answers: “The program costs 200 and.” then “220 right now. For a student to participate in the program, which goes toward hotel and the bill books”, and “it certainly wouldn’t hurt if we had a slush fund for students, you know, that are afraid that they can’t do the program because of the cost.” She adds, of paying herself: “I’ll take money out of my pocket if a kid can’t afford it. And I’m like, I got it. And it’s hard for them because this town, we have a lot of pride” (0:29:01). No member moved anything, no referral to a subcommittee was made, and the approved minutes record only the answer. Forty minutes later the same board voted $50,000 that was not in the budget. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:31:51 | What the students say would actually help | Morin: “If there was just a little bit more, I guess, for lack of a better term, promotion. So, like, if it was on, like, more websites or newsletters or whatever the district puts out in terms of school info”. Chastenay proposes using the high school’s advisory period, working “with Doctor Harrington” (0:31:04) Michael Herrington, principal of Stevens High School — not Michelle Herrington, a different person in this corpus and says the pupils would carry the message better than she could. | |
| 0:32:21 | The superintendent describes his own title, and it is not the one on the masthead | Pratt: “I just want to say, as your former principal and now the superintendent. How proud I am of the students and the advisors of this group.” The agenda and both sets of minutes for this meeting print “Christopher Pratt, Interim Superintendent”. The approved minutes of 5 June 2024 print “Christopher Pratt, Superintendent”. See flag 17. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:33:58 | The assistant superintendent gives up his slot | Koski: “And I am going to cede my time. Give her a little FaceTime at the podium.” McLaughlin, taking it: “I have the pleasure of going after that presentation.” (0:34:09). | |
| 0:34:18 | “the district has never been aligned to the standards” | McLaughlin: “The current situation is that math and focus is not aligned to the standards. We’ve had it for about, I think, five years. Prior to that, we had everyday math, which is also not aligned to the standards.” Then, at 0:34:43: “So that means that the district has never been aligned to the standards. Which has also made it difficult to ensure that students have the learning experiences that they need to have from kindergarten all the way up through 12th grade”. And at 0:35:06: “The results, I think, speak for themselves. I personally believe that we can do substantially better and that our kids are capable of a lot more.” Exhibit A puts the same finding in writing and adds a fact nobody says aloud: “The Bluff Elementary School CSI status has created a sense of urgency and a need to align to the standards.” See flags 10 and 11. | MEDIUM MEDIUM |
| 0:37:16 | Nobody would pilot a mathematics programme, and the reason is capacity | McLaughlin: “And when offered a chance to pilot the one of two programs either Eureka or Eureka Squared and into math. We didn’t have any teachers who are willing to try the into math materials.” Koski supplies the reason: “That lack of teacher participation was was really a signal of capacity. It was not a anything against the teachers willingness, the wit and wisdom. New program has just really been taxing. And so nobody had time.” (0:37:44). Exhibit A is blunter than either of them: “Only 2 K-5 teachers volunteered for a Math Committee” and “A math pilot was offered, but no one was willing to participate.” | |
| 0:39:31 | Why the free option is not free | McLaughlin on printing the free version from PDFs: “It’s often difficult for math instruction to happen if the copy machines aren’t working. And my all my other concern is that if we ever had a cyber attack and all of our PDFs for a math program are online, we might be in a situation where we couldn’t access those files for like, what, a week or two?” On lesson counts: “The old version had 180 lessons. I have never seen a school with 180 days in a school year that had 180 instructional days.” (0:40:24). | |
| 0:42:43 | The claim that aligned core instruction will lower special-education identification | McLaughlin: “I would like to think that the Sass scores would begin to increase, and this percentage of special kids would begin to stabilize and eventually decrease. The reason why is that if I our destruction is aligned to the standards, we should have fewer students being identified as needing special ed support.” “Sass” is the NHSAS state assessment; “destruction” is instruction Then: “So in the long term, that could actually be a benefit and a cost savings to the district.” (0:43:07). The Director of Student Services says the same thing from the other side twenty-five minutes later (1:08:47). | MEDIUM |
| 0:43:37 | The cost, to the cent — and it checks against the exhibit exactly | McLaughlin: “The grand total for purchasing both programs would be $85,729.28, but, we have $120,000 allocated right now, and about $8,400 could be pulled out of that. We could use grant funding for the PD. Always good to do because you use it or lose it with grant funds.” Every figure is in Exhibit A and the arithmetic is right: Eureka2 at $44,985.43 plus $7,820.00 of teachers’ editions plus $4,200.00 of professional development is $57,005.43; Into Math at $22,033.85 plus $990.00 plus $1,500.00 of coaching plus $4,200.00 is $28,723.85; the two total $85,729.28, and the two professional-development lines she offers to move to grant funds total exactly $8,400. Against 2023–24 Math in Focus at $76,741.00. Exhibits B, C and D go further than anything said aloud: three grade-level curriculum documents already written around the programme, each promising that “Beginning in October, AMC data will be reported to the School Board on a regular basis” against a goal that “90% of students will be proficient or above on these assessments by the end of the school year”. Neither commitment is mentioned on tape or minuted, so the board approved the purchase without noticing it had been handed a measure and a reporting schedule. | GOOD PRACTICE |
| 0:45:21 | Petrin and Hawkins on what happens to pupils who are ahead | Petrin: “Is there opportunity for if a fifth grader is excelling for them to get into, into math instead of if they’re excelling in?” McLaughlin says no, and why: “I wouldn’t recommend having a fifth grader take an advanced course like that for the simple reason that our teachers, I think, would have difficulty with that level of differentiation.” (0:45:31). Hawkins presses the same point on the programmes rather than the teachers: “are there tiers that will provide opportunities for teachers to go deeper with students who are more accelerated” (0:46:10), and gets a yes. | |
| 0:47:26 | Sprague on data teams, and on coverage against mastery | Sprague: “is this easily consumable for the data teams that schools might have so that they can get together as groups and figure out gaps?” and later “there’s always that question of, of coverage versus mastery” (0:48:19). McLaughlin answers with her own background — “my background is as a middle school math teacher and then an instructional coach for mathematics. And I’ve done this work now for 8 to 10 years” (0:49:05) — and Sprague closes it: “We used to call that the must haves and the nice to knows.” (0:50:36). | |
| 0:50:51 | The dollar figure is deliberately kept out of the motion | Whitney: “About budgetary standpoint or how we’re going to make a motion to approve this?” McLaughlin: “Already in the budget. You guys just need to.” Whitney: “Program itself. So we don’t need to attach the dollar number to our motion. No, because you had already budgeted to do something. Just wanted to make sure we have our motion chosen appropriately.” The motion that follows names the two programmes and no amount. That is defensible where the money is already appropriated — and it is the exact opposite of what happens on the next item, where an unbudgeted amount is voted and the minutes get it wrong. | |
| 0:51:29 | The mover and the seconder are not separable on the tape | Whitney: “So is there anyone who would like to second approval of the Eureka two and into math program for the 2425 school year? So so moved. Is there any further discussion or questions for Catlin?” The call for the motion, the call for the second and the words “So so moved” all fall inside the chair’s own segments. The one separable answer is at 0:51:24: “Representative. Good, good. I so more. Okay.” “I so more” is the recognizer’s rendering of I so move; “Representative” is the chair naming the Curriculum Committee representative, which is the office Arlene Hawkins holds The approved minutes supply what the tape cannot: “Arlene Hawkins made a motion… Candace Crawford seconded the motion”. The chair later calls it “the motion as articulated by Miss Hawkins”, which corroborates the mover but not the seconder. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:53:12 | The mathematics purchase carries on an uncounted voice vote | Whitney: “All in favor of the motion as articulated by Miss Hawkins? Say, I. I opposed. Motion passes. Thank you.” No count, no roll, no announced tally. Approved minutes: “Voice vote taken: all voting in favor, motion passed”. Before the vote the chair had told the presenter “we’ve heard nothing but good things about your activities in the school from teachers” (0:52:54). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:53:56 | “The actual amount is for $50,000” — against an agenda that says $54,000 | Alex Herzog: “this is the LaValley resident architects that we came to, and we’ve asked them for a proposal to see what that looks like. The actual amount is for $50,000.” “LaValley resident” is Lavallee Brensinger, the Manchester firm whose letter is Exhibit H He goes on: “They will look at the infrastructure, they will look at safety concerns. And we have some real safety concerns from 30 years ago where it was different then, you know, doors access and easy access to the buildings.” (0:54:27). Exhibit H itemises seven services — $15,000, $5,000, $8,000, $8,000, $7,500, $500 and $6,000 — which sum to exactly $50,000. The agenda says “Contract estimate $54,000, unbudgeted”. See flag 1. | HIGH |
| 0:54:48 | The consultants’ report exists, and the board has not seen it | Herzog: “Now, we received the draft copy of it as our be asked us to sit on it because they’re still working through the communication piece on it. And so we are doing that. A copy has gone to myself and to Andre Lafont, and we’re looking at over and asking some more questions. And then we have scheduled for May 30th, the unpacking”. “as our be” is SREB; “the shrub report” and “Shreve” elsewhere in the same passage are the same body; “Andre Lafont” is a fourth rendering in this corpus of a name also heard as Bernier, LaFrance and Lafreniere, and this project has not settled it Two people have the draft; the board has not been given it, and no member asks for it. The 17 April approved minutes had promised “a detailed report expected by May 1st”. | MEDIUM |
| 0:55:50 | Where the money is not: not the budget, and not the federal relief funds | Crawford: “Would this be in this year’s budget or next year’s budget?” (0:55:47). Herzog: “I’ve already communicated with Mary a bit about this. I sent a sent this off and it’s not in this year’s budget on it. So I wasn’t aware if there was any, any year monies available. It can’t be in the Esser because that’s kind of that window has passed.” Crawford: “I understand that there may be some monies at the end of the year, and I think this would be a great way to, you know, I don’t know what the right word is, allocate some of those monies.” (0:56:05). That is the whole of the discussion of where the $50,000 comes from. No line, no transfer, no fund is named by anybody, and the minutes name none either. | HIGH MEDIUM |
| 0:57:03 | The state share is 75 per cent by precedent and 50 per cent by statute | Petrin: “Renovation is 75 state funding and 25% local.” Herzog: “So, yes. So that has been the precedent. But legislative law says 50%, 50%. But in the past, every renovation was 75%. So that’s what I just want to make sure you have that caveat.” Then, on why the $50,000 matters: “The 25% part. The money we spend now to prepare as we go forward with that gets covered in that 25%.” (0:57:55). The chair confirms she has understood: “So this 50,000 would be part would be our part of our 20.” (0:58:04). This page does not name a statute for the split. This project has established that RSA 188-E:9-a, sometimes cited for it, is not the career-and-technical construction-funding provision; the figures are reported as the director’s characterisation. Exhibit H is explicit that the object is “the March 2025 bond vote”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:58:17 | The motion: $50,000 | The chair invites it by name — “Do we have a member who would like to make a motion, Miss Crawford?” (0:58:13) — and Crawford moves: “I make a motion that we approve of the expenditure of the $50,000 to go forward with the assessment by the architectural firm.” The second falls inside the chair’s own segment: “Is there anyone who would like to second the motion? I like to second that.” (0:58:28) — two sentences the diarizer did not separate. Approved minutes: “Candace Crawford made a motion to approve the spending of the $54,000 as presented…, Bonnie Miles seconded the motion”. See flags 1 and 15. | HIGH |
| 0:58:35 | Carried, uncounted, at fifty thousand | Whitney: “Seeing none are ready for a vote. All in favor of approving $50,000 for the retirement of architectural services for potential renovation. Well said. Say I. I none opposed. Seeing none opposed. Passes.” “the retirement of architectural services” is the recognizer’s rendering of the retaining of; the approved minutes write “retainment” Four separate statements of the amount on the recording — the presenter’s, the mover’s, the chair’s clarification and the chair’s question — and every one of them is $50,000. | HIGH |
| 0:59:46 | The summer camp, and a Perkins-funded student job | Herzog: “It’s only $25. And we do have scholarships available for students that can’t.” And: “this year, we had a student that took one of our electives and came to me and said, can I work the summer camp? And because it’s Perkins funded, we can hire our students from here to work for that week and be a part of that.” (1:00:11). the federal Carl D. Perkins career and technical education grant The 17 April approved minutes had recorded the camp as “funded from outside sources, including support from Kiwanis”. | |
| 1:01:50 | The identification rate: about 25 per cent | Nester: “You can see the state average, versus the Claremont Historical average. And the third column from the left one back of 2014. And then the our identification rate currently is right around 25%, a little bit under, there.” Crawford restates it for the public at 1:05:30: “So and and the state average is 18%. So we are.” then “Up 7 or 8 percentage higher than the average for the state.” (1:05:37). Approved minutes: “Candace Crawford noted that the district has a higher percentage of students identified compared to the state” — without either number. | MEDIUM |
| 1:03:25 | The category comparison, and a figure that cannot be right | Nester: “These are our most cognitively impaired students. State averages 2.7%. Claremont’s a bit higher at 5.1. And then another one that’s a bit discrepant is a motion disturbance with Claremont coming in at 10.2% with the state average being 55.7.” “a motion disturbance” is emotional disturbance, a category defined at 34 CFR 300.8(c)(4) “the state average being 55.7” cannot be a state average for a single disability category, and nobody in the room queries it. Crawford immediately reads the comparison the other way — “So twice the state average.” (1:03:43) — which is consistent with 10.2 against roughly 5, not against 55.7. This page reports the transcript as it stands and does not supply the number the speaker probably said. The exhibit’s own tables are images and carry no extractable text. | MEDIUM |
| 1:03:59 | Developmental delay, and the age at which it stops | Hawkins: “Help me if I’m more developmentally delayed. Goes up to an age. There’s an age cap. Correct. And then those same students are identified as intellectually. Just.” Nester: “Age nine is where that disability aged nine and beyond that disability no longer applies. And then from there, the the team at that point would have a more specific idea as to what is the driver for that delay.” (1:04:14). That matches the federal rule: 34 CFR 300.8(b) makes developmental delay available only “for children aged three through nine (or any subset of that age range…)”, at the State’s option. It is the most technically exact exchange of the evening. | GOOD PRACTICE |
| 1:07:24 | The self-contained programmes, and three recommendations | Nester: “The table on the third page shows each of the self-contained programs, as they’re called, meaning they’re not students are not in the general population.” His recommendations: behavioural programming at the middle school and high school, the Academy, and multi-tiered systems of support — “a comprehensive district wide MTSS committee needs to be established to guide this work”, in the words of Exhibit E. Exhibit E also records that two pupils returned to the district from out-of-district placement in 2023–24 because of the Academy, and that staff turnover across the district runs at “30% annually on average”. Neither set of minutes carries the turnover figure. | |
| 1:08:47 | The Director of Student Services makes the same argument as the curriculum director | Nester: “when you when you address curriculum and programing before a child is referred to special ed, your special ed implication rates will go down. And so it just gets back to the old adage of, you know, the rising tide brings up all boats.” “implication” is identification Then: “I think the most important thing we can do for our special education students is to address the base curriculum and instruction needs for the whole district.” (1:09:08). Two administrators, thirty-five minutes apart, tell the board that the district’s special-education rate is a function of its core instruction — which the curriculum director has just said has never been aligned to the standards. See flag 11. | MEDIUM |
| 1:09:20 | Life skills against behaviour: which programmes a pupil can leave | Whitney: “Can you explain the difference between a behavioral program at the middle school and high school level versus like at the life skill programs that we have”. Nester: “students that are in what you might call life skills program or students that are typically intellectually disabled, they’re non diploma earners. These are students that will likely, you know, attend high school perhaps until age 22.” (1:09:35). And, of the other kind: “And then when we generally refer to a behavior program, these are students with average level intellect that do have the capacity.” (1:10:02), continuing “You know, academically and intellectually to earn a diploma that they have, you know, pretty serious behaviors, usually driven by an emotional disturbance that really get in the way of their ability to access the curriculum.” (1:10:28). On the elementary behaviour programme: “this year in particular, the program has absolutely gelled and become like a real, a real positive, very positive thing” (1:11:01). Asked for a transition rate he declines to give one (1:11:32). | |
| 1:12:57 | The board is told twice to disregard the exhibit in front of it | Hawkins asks about a grade range on the chart; a member answers “The typo I think.” and “A typo. Yeah.” Nester, on the next one: “Oh my gosh I am sorry. That’s another typo.” (1:13:26), then “Sorry. There’s there’s a number of typos in the grade level column, so I’d ignore that for now.” (1:13:41). Approved minutes: “Ben Nester noted that those are typos- one is at Bluff now and the CMS one is for middle school students, not K-2”. Exhibit E in the public folder still carries them. See flag 14. | MEDIUM |
| 1:13:50 | Least restrictive environment, asked properly | Hawkins: “when students are transitioning back into their regular classroom, that’s where least restrictive environment comes in. So do they go with support when they go? Is that is their time for that classroom teacher and that special educator and para to collaborate on that transition?” Nester: “it’s case by case, right. Some kids need a very slow fade in, so they might attend morning meeting, you know, or they might start by attending the specials.” (1:14:15), then “And then some kids do better when it’s a band aid type scenario. You pulled a band aid off and they just start fresh in the new program.” (1:14:36). This is the only reference at the meeting to the requirement at 34 CFR 300.114. | GOOD PRACTICE |
| 1:15:48 | What a contracted paraprofessional costs | Sprague, reading from the exhibit at 1:15:17: “the very last sentence on that page, it says in the absence of paraprofessionals to fill positions of district contract selectively with the agencies such as Easter Seals.” Then the question: “So what does it cost to have an Easter Seals para educator?” Nester: “they bill out at an hourly rate of maybe around 30 an hour, depending on depending on the agency. I don’t have the total comp on it, but we don’t pay health. You know, health benefits or retirement or anything.” (1:15:54). Exhibit E puts numbers on it that nobody reads aloud: “Total cost of contracted related service providers projected FY 25: $515,000” and “Total cost of ALL related service providers projected FY 25:$1,092,500”. | |
| 1:16:54 | “don’t completely take that to the bank” | Nester: “my figures are pretty close estimates, I went into to visions and tallied up the budget lines myself. I didn’t have Mary review those, so don’t completely take that to the bank.” “visions” is the district’s financial system The staffing and cost tables the Finance Sub-Committee had specifically asked for were compiled by a programme director from the ledger without the business office checking them, and he says so on the record before any member relies on them. Neither set of minutes carries the caveat. | MEDIUM |
| 1:19:21 | What comes back: catastrophic aid and Medicaid | Nester: “Then there is sped aid or what was used to be called catastrophic aid. And these are for students that are very, very costly to the district. And we’ve we usually get around, 600 to 700,000 a year in reimbursements there. And then and then Medicaid is, is Medicaid dollars that that come into for for students that are Medicaid eligible.” Then: “And that’s, that’s been around 500, 600,000 as well.” (1:19:50). Crawford converts it: “we by law have to educate these students at a certain level. And we’re only reimbursed at a 15 to 20% level. So the local costs are 80 to 85% of federal funded mandates.” (1:20:02). The approved minutes render her figure as “15-25%”. The statutory formula is at RSA 186-C:18, III — in the text in force in May 2024, which contained no floor at all on the appropriation and expressly provided that it “shall be prorated proportionally based on entitlement”. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:21:07 | A State Representative answers from the floor, an hour after comments closed | Hawkins asks about “that legislation that we heard about at the last meeting, the tiered legislation based on the needs of special education students that went to the Senate” (1:20:48). The chair calls on a member of the public: “Thank you. Can you refresh, David? Oh, Miss David is here.” “Miss David” is Representative Hope Damon, so named in the district’s approved minutes of both 17 April and 15 May Damon: “I don’t think that legislation replaces catastrophic eight. It creates three categories of need for special ed students, distinct from the 13 categories that are sort of diagnostic” (1:21:19), and “That Bill is in trouble. It did not get a favorable committee report from Senate Education. It has not been voted on by the full Senate yet unless they did it today.” (1:21:46). The 17 April approved minutes name the two bills she is talking about: “HB1583 (raises base adequacy rate and improves differentiated aid) and HB1656 (special education funding bill that creates three tiers of funding based on student needs)”. See flag 6. | MEDIUM |
| 1:23:07 | The 403(b) side letter: one channel instead of seven | Henry’s account arrives in a dozen short fragments the diarizer scattered across the chair’s cluster; the one that carries the practice everywhere else is “One avenue that we send the money to who then disperses” (1:23:17). The substance, at 1:23:23: “In this case, we’ve been sending it out so we may have five, six, seven different avenues we have to disperse money to after payroll. This is streamlining that through one place, which makes it easier on us.” Pratt adds “Lowers the liability on our.” and she takes it up: “right, and lowers the liability on our end, which is something I definitely want to stay away from” (1:24:13). | |
| 1:25:47 | Asked what it will cost, the board is told nobody knows | Petrin: “What is the cost to the district of this.” Henry: “We right now? Good question. I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head, but I know it’s very minimal because we already pay fees anyways. Through the other ones, I would have to check into that.” Pressed by Petrin, she puts it at “usually like a dollar or two account” annually (1:27:17) and, to Hawkins, “if you take into account the time it takes for us to do the checks, go through all that process, this is going to be cheaper” (1:27:46). Exhibit F provides that “Any fees associated with using the third-party administrator shall be paid for by the District”, and the board voted three minutes later without the number. See flag 12. | MEDIUM |
| 1:26:12 | The vice chair discloses a personal account with the district | Sprague: “it’s interesting that Valak is on there. I’ve got. When I first started working with the district, I was participating in the 403 B, so I made, I don’t know, just a very few contributions into the district, discontinued it”. “Valak” is VALIC, one of the five vendors Exhibit F names He asks whether holders can liquidate, and adds “It’s silly for me to do it. I mean I don’t for the district anymore, but I mean it would be for people because I’ve had this little Valak account sitting there for 25 years.” (1:26:52). A member observes “That’s a personal question.” (1:26:48). He disclosed it, in open session, before the vote — which is the right thing to do. Neither set of minutes records the disclosure, and because the vote was an uncounted voice vote the record cannot show whether he voted on it. See flag 16. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:28:19 | The board authorises its chair to sign a collective-bargaining amendment | Crawford: “I’ll make the motion to have Miss Whitney sign for on behalf of the Clements School Board to agree to this side by letter of agreement.” “Clements” is Claremont; “side by letter” is sidebar letter The chair asks for a second and the answer — “I’ll second that. Is there.” — falls into a different diarized cluster from the chair’s own voice on either side of it (1:28:33). Approved minutes: “Bonnie Miles seconded the motion”. Petrin asks whether the administration has reservations; Pratt says no. Carried at 1:29:09: “All in favor of the motion as prescribed by Miss Crawford, say I.” — and a single separable syllable answers. See flags 12 and 15. | MEDIUM |
| 1:29:30 | An unexpected $205,210.46 of catastrophic aid, under a 2022 session law | Henry: “we did receive some more adequacy aid. Not advocacy, but the as part of the catastrophic aid, it’s chapter law 264, which basically because they raised the limit to 22 as how long you have to educate students”. Then: “So it’s for students that are 21 to 22… We received $205,210.46. So that to me was kind of unexpected and kind of nice.” (1:30:00), and “that brought our revenue up to for cat aid. And this money brought us up to $772,000 this year” (1:30:30). She has the citation right. 2022 N.H. Laws ch. 264 (HB 1513), effective 24 June 2022, provides funding for special-education costs for students over age 21 until their twenty-second birthday. She also explains the lag: “it’s from the previous year’s expenditures”, so a big year is reimbursed a year late. | GOOD PRACTICE |
| 1:31:17 | The bottom line is corrected on air, twice | Henry: “As you can see, the bottom line said 576,000. Of course, while I was sitting here, I found a spot that I did not fix, and I meant to I had to go in and fix a purchase order in the system of $25,000 under the school board, district wide, the the administrative fees.” Then: “I need to add that back into our bottom line. So we would be at 601,000.” (1:31:43). Both figures check against Exhibit G: the report’s Grand Total line gives a budget of $34,880,311.92 and a budget balance of $576,529.59; adding the $25,000 purchase order gives $601,529.59. She takes responsibility for the error in the same breath: “that was me. I, I went through and I said, oh, I meant to do that before I ran this report and I didn’t. My bad.” (1:31:58). | GOOD PRACTICE |
| 1:32:24 | And the $420,000 that is not in the report at all | Henry: “remember we also have $420,000, which I have not gone in and put against this budget.” then “So that brings us up to a little over $1 million right now on our bottom line, the 420,000 that you guys voted to put back in that is not here yet. So again, that puts us up to close to $1 million right now.” Approved minutes: “the funds the Board voted on retaining is not in there yet”. This is the retained FY23 fund balance this project has followed since January. On 3 January 2024 the district held it without telling the budget hearing; on 17 January the same business administrator told the board “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”. Four months later it is still unspent, and no such hearing appears anywhere in the record. Six minutes earlier the board had voted $50,000 out of money it did not identify. See flag 2. | HIGH |
| 1:33:11 | Two hundred thousand of unspent technology money | Sprague: “each page 21, there’s district wide contractual services. What I’m looking at is about 200,000 in unexpected technology money. And so one is the contract contracted services for 40. And then you’ve also got technology equipment for 150,000. Unexpected.” “unexpected” is the recognizer’s rendering of unexpended The technology director answers in fragments, of which the last is “That were in budget lines. There’s just delays in getting pieces, but a lot of the hardware that was budgeted, we got the rest of” (1:33:43). Sprague: “So that’s real money.” (1:33:54). | |
| 1:34:26 | “are you able to encumber those funds?” | Hawkins: “Jeff, are you able to encumber those funds? You said there are things that.” Small: “They will be definitely, within this week or within this month. So, I’ve just been really tied up with the state plan.” (1:34:29). Hawkins: “We just want to make sure you get the funds you need. All set. So you’ve got it.” (1:34:41), and Crawford: “Well, we do have the money, so let’s.” (1:34:48). The question is the right one. Under RSA 32:7 an appropriation lapses at the close of the fiscal year unless, before it closes, “The amount has, prior to the end of that fiscal year, become encumbered by a legally-enforceable obligation, created by contract or otherwise”. Six weeks remained. | GOOD PRACTICE |
| 1:35:19 | The vocational tuition line, and bills that have not come | Crawford: “on page 15. The.” then “Vocational tuition for 42,000, I don’t understand, I don’t have remember what? That’s what that means.” Henry: “Pay to send some of our kids out to the company, bought and stuff like that.” (1:35:34) “the company, bought” is the recognizer’s rendering of a place name; the approved minutes give it as the Newport vocational centre and “Haven’t gotten any bills yet, so I don’t know.” (1:35:42). Exhibit G confirms it exactly: account 100.35.1300.561.5.00000, SRVRTC-Vocational Tuition, budget $42,000.00, expended $0.00, encumbered $0.00 — 100 per cent of the line unspent with six weeks to go. Crawford presses: “some of that should be encumbered because we do have students who go” (1:35:45). | GOOD PRACTICE |
| 1:36:20 | Half a million on the district-wide instructional salary lines | Sprague: “So Mary page 18. You’ve got district wide instructional salaries. Yep. And I’m looking at about 500,000 here. That’s unencumbered.” Crawford: “you’ve got salaries, you’ve got substitutes at 114 unencumbered and and. Yeah. Tutoring 315.” (1:36:47). Henry answers about a different line: “The the retiree portion of it. I’ve got a journal entry some moneys from other places because I, they weren’t allocated right” (1:37:00). Exhibit G explains why: on that page the $315,000 sits on Dist. Wide-Reg. Inst. Retiree, immediately below Dist. Wide-Reg. Inst. Tutoring, and carries $0.00 spent and $0.00 encumbered. Henry on the substitutes line: “the 114 000 for substitutes right now, I don’t feel that’ll be spent” (1:37:14), and on the rest: “It is a wash, but I’m I haven’t journal entry the money to move it there for you to see the differences.” (1:37:53). | |
| 1:38:28 | A member went to the business office unannounced to get answers | Hawkins: “I met with Mary today because I had questions and I just walked in. And thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I did not have an appointment.” Neither set of minutes records that this happened; the minutes attribute the answers that follow to “a previous question from Arlene Hawkins”. Two of the three questions she brought are answered on the record in the next four minutes. | |
| 1:38:52 | The contract that does not say ESSER | Henry: “One was at CMS and it was for the, remind me, social worker, that you had in there. We didn’t have a social worker in the budget, but it’s in there now. I went back on that and I looked at Richard’s spreadsheets and it said Esser funds.” Richard Seaman, her predecessor, who retired in April 2023 Then: “But then I asked Patrick to go back and pull the contract because I can’t move the money unless the contract says S on it. The contract does not say Esser on it. So I need to keep that in the general budget, even though it was supposed to be earmarked for Esser.” (1:39:14), and: “if the if we get out, not if when we get audited. I need to have that back up to say that that person was truly an Esser funded position” (1:39:34). She is describing exactly what 2 CFR 200.302(b) requires and the district cannot produce — and she takes the conservative course. See flag 9. | MEDIUM |
| 1:40:27 | Classroom furniture, and what relief money cannot replace | Hawkins: “The furniture that’s currently in place is cumbersome and not easily moved into grouping opportunities. And I’ve heard that from a variety. And when Mary said there was excess funds or possibly Esser funds could be used, I brought up furniture.” Pratt: “I know we can use Esser funds for furniture, but as I we talked about earlier, with the way Esser forms. How would you say they’re not frozen.” (1:40:50) and “They’re just they’re delayed.” (1:41:08). Nobody explains what “delayed” means, and no member asks. Four and a half months later the obligation period closed. See flag 9. | MEDIUM |
| 1:41:20 | The chair supplies the answer: bought with relief money, so not replaceable with it | Whitney: “a lot of the elementary schools are a number of the elementary schools had requested moneys for furniture. We didn’t feel at the time that we could do that because the, the clarity of the budget was, was not crystal… we did bring this up in our, finance meeting when we were looking whether or not we could use Esser funds, but because that furniture was bought with Esser funds or funds associated with Covid relief, we cannot use Esser funds to replace that furniture.” And: “the furniture was purchased by the schools with the funding, that was provided by the state and federal government, and they didn’t think it through quite enough.” (1:41:59). Pratt: “thank you for sharing that because I didn’t know that it’s. Yeah. Thank you. It sounds like so we can’t replace Esser furniture.” (1:42:17); Hawkins: “We can’t double dip.” (1:42:31). The chair is telling the superintendent something he says he did not know, and she is relying on a Finance Sub-Committee discussion that is not in any public record before the board. See flag 8. | MEDIUM MEDIUM |
| 1:42:53 | Twenty thousand a school, and a plan to spend surplus on it | Hawkins: “So roughly, to do all the classrooms in that school was $20,000.” Whitney and Crawford confirm it was a budget request from specific elementary schools. Henry sets out what happens next: “Reach out to the principals and Chris and I will get together with them and see what they need… And then we can come back with a more solid number for you so that we could you guys could decide if you wanted to use some of this money” (1:43:22) and “Still within a time frame to be able to do that.” (1:43:58). This is a second unbudgeted use of year-end money contemplated in the same twenty minutes as the first, and again no appropriation is named. See flag 2. | HIGH |
| 1:44:26 | A member thanks the business administrator, who answers about the tax rate | Skillen: “Just a comment and a thank you. You continue to inspire confidence with your diligence, transparency, professionalism. So thank you.” Henry: “I’m going through everything now almost the end of the year. And I want to be in good shape to make sure you have your tax rate. Well before we did last year.” (1:44:34). Hawkins adds the qualification: “we all are aware of that. You did not build this budget” (1:44:46), and Henry declines the exemption: “But I take responsibility for where things have been posted within it. So if there are things that aren’t in the right spot I need to correct it.” (1:44:54). | |
| 1:45:14 | The retiree list — voted on, and nowhere in the public record | Pratt: “this is the list here that For document purposes we just need to these are the list of the people who are retiring. So we can show in the minutes that the board accepts the list of retirees for retirement purposes, but on their end.” and “You just need a motion that you accept. The retirees.” (1:45:38). Sprague: “I make a motion. We accept the retiree list as presented.” A second, in one word, at 1:45:46; the chair names it: “Second. By Miss Gillen, is there any discussion? Thank you, Miss Damon. I’m seeing no discussion. I’m asking for a voice vote. All in favor, say aye.” “Miss Gillen” is Whitney Skillen, the spelling this recognizer produces for her most often The agenda cites Exhibit I; the packet folder has no Exhibit I. No number of retirees is stated and neither set of minutes gives one. See flag 7. | MEDIUM |
| 1:46:06 | What the district does for a retiring teacher: nothing, above the building | Skillen: “What is the tradition for honoring the service and celebrating the retirement of the retirees in this district?” The chair answers with a joke — “They never have to come back.” (1:46:16) — and then three people answer seriously. Pratt: “I haven’t seen anything that’s been put in place. Like in most districts I’ve been in. They’ve had almost like almost like a celebration… I don’t think there’s anything in place at right now.” (1:46:32). Crawford: “I think there’s celebrations on the building level.” (1:47:11). Hawkins: “That’s been my experience. It’s done at the building level.” (1:47:17), then “That doesn’t mean we can’t do something right.” (1:47:21). Nothing was referred anywhere and the approved minutes close the subject in one line. | |
| 1:47:25 | Subcommittees, in the chair’s “normal order” — and the Capital Improvement report | Whitney: “So moving on to item number eight, school board, subcommittee updates, if any. We’ll start in our normal order, which is the capital improvements.” The report that follows, at 1:47:37, is one sentence: “Well, today I sent an email to Mr. Sprague and Miss Crawford to get together so we can begin with our vision and what we’re going to do.” The dialogue file gives that sentence to the chair. The agenda, the approved minutes of this meeting and the approved minutes of 17 April all give the chair of the Capital Improvement Sub-Committee as Bonnie Miles, whose two colleagues on it are Crawford and Sprague — exactly the two people the sentence names. See flag 15. A member replies “I know that’s the thing that when can we do it? We can even go to my house and do it, I don’t care.” (1:47:52), and Sprague, who is on two of the committees: “So that’s a busy another committee meetings.” (1:47:49). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:47:59 | A capital improvement plan, promised for September | Whitney: “I do think that Miss Henry mentioned today in our finance committee that she was going to start working with Mr. Holt on developing a capital improvement strategic plan.” Steven Holt, the district’s maintenance director Henry: “also a plan that includes, other things that will go in the budget as well… Hopefully by September I got to get talked to Steve. He doesn’t know that deadline yet.” (1:48:11). The 17 April minutes record the Capital Improvement Sub-Committee inspecting bathrooms with the same maintenance director; the 5 June minutes record its chair reporting that he “does not know his budget and what he has to spend”. | |
| 1:48:36 | The Finance Sub-Committee met that same afternoon | Sprague: “Yeah, we met at length today. Candy. Heather and I met with the whole administrative team just about. And, talked about how to district placements and, and the costs there. Quite a learning experience” “how to district placements” is out-of-district placements; “Candy” is Candace Crawford and “Heather” the chair — the committee’s three members and “one of the contributing factors is, effective interventions at the schools. Tier one, tier two interventions that we need to work on. And, we heard more about that with the curriculum tonight.” (1:49:04). A three-member subcommittee of a seven-member board met the administration on the day of the board meeting. It is a public body under RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d). Two separate decisions taken later in this meeting rest on what was said there. See flag 8. | MEDIUM |
| 1:49:31 | Policies the auditors keep flagging | Sprague: “We talked about the getting the policies that are noted as deficient in the audits, making sure those are ready to be given over to the policy committee so that they don’t appear as keep appearing on audits as our recommendation.” Hawkins: “Are their staple policies already ready for those?” (1:49:49). Henry: “I have them written, I think I dumped, not dumped, but I think I put them in. Yeah, just double check because I, I’m not an expert at Google Drive… I think it dropped in two of them. I have one more that I wanted to review over” (1:49:52). Repeat audit findings against district policy, three years running in this corpus, are being handled by a business administrator dropping draft policies into a shared folder. No policy number is named and neither set of minutes names one. | MEDIUM |
| 1:50:23 | Where the subcommittee’s minutes go, and in what order | Sprague: “So you did the minutes and I’m going to be are you going to be sharing those.” Whitney: “They’re all shared.” (1:50:25). Sprague: “Already shared on the drive. So if you want to see what we.” (1:50:26). Whitney: “I just shared it with our group to approve them and make sure that my minutes were accurate. And then we’ll send them out to the rest of the.” (1:50:33). Hawkins: “Go on the website. I’m sorry they go on the website under committees.” (1:50:41). The chair of the board keeps the Finance Sub-Committee’s minutes; they go to the committee for approval, then to the rest of the board, then to the website. The public is third in a queue that RSA 91-A:2, II gives five business days from the meeting. Sprague adds “we’re meeting monthly” and “our whole purpose I think is really gearing up for the budget process” (1:50:46). See flag 8. | MEDIUM |
| 1:51:45 | Policy: nothing yet, and a summer schedule | Skillen: “There’s a report at this time and I today, actually, I got a deeper understanding of what my summer work schedule is going to look like. And so I hope to be able to put meetings on the calendar for June, July and August for this, for this committee.” the recognizer drops the negation from what the minutes render as “No report at this time”; the sense is plainly the minutes’, and this page does not supply the missing word inside the quotation The chair explains the board had discussed her availability that day: “we actually spoke about this today. We were like, you’re such a juggernaut and we’ve appreciated everything that you’ve done. And we’re like, her work schedule is getting worse. I hope she doesn’t like, bail out.” (1:52:02) — a second reference to a discussion held out of public session about a member of the board. | MEDIUM |
| 1:52:36 | Curriculum: no meeting, but a vote that night | Hawkins: “We have not yet had a meeting, but we had a wonderful presentation tonight on curriculum.” The Curriculum Committee representative had not met once since the March organizational meeting, and the board’s only curriculum decision of the year had been taken ninety minutes earlier on her own motion. Crawford, drily: “And you’re taking credit.” (1:52:44). | |
| 1:53:03 | Visioning: a stakeholders meeting on 30 May, and a June report | Hawkins: “There is a state, stakeholders meeting to be.” then “That’s going to be the Teal Lantern room at 6:00.” (1:53:11). Crawford: “in my hope is that they will be presenting to the board, I hope the second meeting in June, I that’s what I’m working on okay. Because we’re not meeting in July.” (1:53:19) and “this would be a remote presentation by Ezra, you know, online. But I think that it’s important to have that to the full board” (1:53:51). “Ezra” is another of this recognizer’s renderings of SREB The chair notes she is already building both June agendas with a member of staff (1:53:45). | |
| 1:54:25 | A typo in the approved school calendar | Koski: “There was a typo and the recently approved calendar. Nothing has to be changed other than the date of the last grading period when grades close.” Then: “You talked to the union? That’s fixed. Just wanted to update everybody that that got changed on the calendar. So it was grades were closing before the end of school that changed.” (1:54:36). A calendar the board had adopted by vote was altered after adoption, and reported to the board as an update rather than put to it for amendment. Neither set of minutes records a vote on the change. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:54:51 | Elected officials talking to elected officials | Whitney: “After we had the group meeting with the city manager and the mayor, the mayor and I sat down for a while after that, and the plan is for us to reconvene in June or July to kind of fix an agenda for a meeting in September or October. And the real focus is going to be elected officials talking to elected officials.” And: “This is not an executive kind of activity. It’s not city manager and the superintendent that is driving the bus. It’s the it’s the elected officials.” (1:55:20), and “we want to have these conversations in public. So it’s seen as a collaborative endeavor” (1:56:36). She asks members to tell her what they want from it (1:57:03). A meeting of two elected bodies is being planned; if a quorum of this board attends, it is a meeting of this board. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:57:23 | What is coming: the phone policy and the bell schedule | Whitney: “a heads up for the upcoming big ticket items on our agendas is a discussion about the efficacy of our new cell phone policy on academic performance. And also, we’re going to have a discussion on the proposed bill schedule change.” “bill schedule” is bell schedule On the risk: “the assignments of classes happens between the student and the guidance counselor, and the parents may not even be really aware that there is a potential bell schedule change. And I’m going to try to create space within that meeting for there to be more time for community comments and community discussion.” (1:57:51). The chair is planning, in advance, to lengthen a public comment period for a contested item — and the period at this meeting had lasted eighteen seconds. | GOOD PRACTICE |
| 1:58:16 | Are any bonds about to be retired? | Hawkins: “I just have a question about the question that actually Frank brought up at the last meeting about any bonds being retired this year before we go out for a bond.” Henry: “Not not yet. We’re not done with our bond payments.” (1:58:30) and “I have to go back and look, I don’t remember. I know it’s a few years out. Oh, 20, 27, I think was your last bond payment.” (1:58:39). Asked at the 17 April meeting, promised then, and still unanswered a month later — the approved minutes record “Mary Henry will find out definitively for next meeting”. The relevance is direct: Exhibit H is preparation for a bond vote in March 2025. | MEDIUM |
| 1:59:33 | The SAU retreat of 29 May, and a self-evaluation survey | Hawkins, who chairs the SAU 6 board: “A 29th is the say retreat 630 at the in here, actually. And a self-evaluation form was sent out to every essay board member if people could complete that prior to the retreat, so that that information will be compiled”. “the say retreat” and “essay board” are the recognizer rendering SAU Then: “So that’s May 29th, I believe it’s a Wednesday night and the June 5th. Again, we have a conflict with the class night… and the second year in a row. We’re in conflict.” (1:59:56). This is the only meeting of any board announced at this meeting. The Claremont board’s own retreat, held four days earlier, is not mentioned by anybody. See flag 3. | HIGH |
| 2:00:15 | A district calendar exists and nobody uses it | Whitney: “apparently there has been a district wide calendar that has been out but has not been utilized. So it has been in the district calendar that the school board meetings are on these dates, and they should not be scheduling.” Crawford then asks the question the board cannot answer: “I was wondering when graduation and what the protocol is for school board members to attend graduation.” (2:00:35) and “I don’t know what time graduation is.” (2:01:07). Hawkins: “maybe an invitation can go out to us for graduation. Or maybe we. I haven’t seen one.” (2:00:57). The chair notes the city council has moved its own budget meetings to Wednesdays “every Wednesday for the next three weeks” (2:01:55). | |
| 2:02:16 | Thanks for the teacher-appreciation brunch — and who gave them | A member: “Thank you, Mrs. Crawford.” / “Putting a breakfast together for.” / “And we got it all done and out there in time. And you should have seen the smiles. Thank you. They were very it was a huge lift.” (2:02:24). Crawford: “And thanks to Bonnie and Frank for their tremendous help.” (2:02:31). The approved minutes attribute the thanks to Bonnie Miles — “Bonnie Miles shared her appreciation for Candace Crawford putting together the teacher appreciation brunch” — and the dialogue file puts the words in a cluster labelled for a different member. Crawford’s reply, thanking “Bonnie and Frank”, is consistent with the minutes. See flag 15. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:02:43 | Adjourned by consent, with no time recorded | Whitney: “Is there any opposition.” / “To attorney? No.” “To attorney” is the recognizer’s rendering of to adjourn Crawford: “None whatsoever.” The recording ends five seconds later. Approved minutes: “Consent adjournment”, with no time and no vote — where the same clerk’s minutes of 5 June print “Consent adjournment 7:42” and of 22 May record roll-call votes on every motion. | OBSERVATION |