Claremont School Board — June 5, 2024 | By-laws adopted by a bare quorum

Participants

Every seat on the agenda masthead, marked present or absent per the approved minutes’ roll, plus the administrators, presenters and named non-attendees who appear in the record. Row counts are from the dialogue CSV (375 rows). Movers and seconders follow the approved minutes where the recording leaves a voice unidentified, and say so. Name spellings follow the district’s own documents; the automatic transcript’s rendering is given where it differs.
Name	Role	Participation
Heather Whitney	Board Chair (re-elected 20 March 2024); Finance Subcommittee member; SRVRTC Visioning attendee	Present. Presided, and did most of the talking: 112 of 375 rows, just under a third. Opened the meeting by announcing there was no quorum (0:00:06), disposed of the consent agenda on the absence of objection, moved the middle-school handbook herself and then added a friendly amendment to her own motion, moved to lay the Stevens handbook on the table, presented the by-laws, and gave the retreat and SRVRTC Visioning reports. Answers the roll here.
Frank Sprague	Board Vice Chair; chair of the Finance Subcommittee; NHSBA delegate; Capital Improvement member	Present, 46 rows. Raised the evening’s point of order on the quorum (0:00:33). Moved the elementary handbook. Pressed the assistant superintendent on why Earth and space science is tested in grade 11 when it is not a required course, and asked for released test items. Gave the one-line Finance report. Answers the roll here.
Bonnie Miles	Board member; chair of the Capital Improvement Subcommittee; SRVRTC Visioning representative	Present, 51 rows — her fullest showing in this stretch of the corpus, against the elimination-only presence the project has repeatedly recorded for her. Moved the CCTV reappointment; seconded the elementary handbook and the by-laws per the approved minutes. Brought the capital-improvement problem to the table and would not let it go, and caught the missing speaking-time limit in the by-laws at 0:40:25. Answers the roll Yeah.
Michael Petrin	Board member (returned to the board 20 March 2024); Policy Subcommittee; SRVRTC Visioning representative	Present, 5 rows — but they include the night’s largest motion. He moved adoption of the by-laws (0:41:37) and seconded the CCTV reappointment, which the chair confirms aloud: “Mike. Patron. Seconds.” No answer of his is audible in the roll call; the transcript renders his name there “Michael Keaton.” The recording places the Alex Herzog tribute in his voice; the approved minutes credit it to Patrick O’Hearn (flag 11).
Candace Crawford	Board member; Finance and Capital Improvement Subcommittees; SRVRTC Visioning representative; member of the strategic-planning Working Committee	Absent per the approved minutes. Her name is called first in the roll and no answer is audible. The chair names her while listing who attended the SRVRTC Visioning meeting (0:56:22), and at 1:06:51 the finance chair says he knows someone the transcript renders Candy is anxious for another meeting. Neither places her in the room, and neither is relied on here.
Arlene Hawkins	Board member; Curriculum Committee representative; Policy Subcommittee; chair of the SAU 6 board; member of the strategic-planning Working Committee	Absent, and the only absence explained on the record: “Miss Hawkins, who who’s not able to attend this evening, did want me to briefly mention, our saw retreat” (0:24:35). Her Curriculum Committee report was consequently not given.
Whitney Skillen	Board member; chair of the Policy Subcommittee	Absent per the approved minutes; her name in the roll comes through “Whitney skilling.” The Policy Subcommittee therefore gave no report at the meeting that adopted the board’s by-laws. Two people on this board answer to Whitney — Heather Whitney, who chaired, and Whitney Skillen, who was not there.
Noelle Kronberg	School Board Clerk	Present. Called the roll at the chair’s request — the transcript renders her name “Bromberg” — and signed the minutes. 2 rows, both of them the roll call. The by-laws adopted this night give her office the duties of a board secretary and cite two statutes about ballots for them (flag 2).
Christopher (Chris) Pratt	Superintendent of Schools, SAU 6	Present, 39 rows, and the masthead calls him Superintendent with no qualifier — the 15 May minutes, three weeks earlier, still print “Christopher Pratt, Interim Superintendent”. He speaks of the principalship in the past tense (“because the principal of high school, I wanted to go in”, 0:43:23) and, of the tech-centre director, “from being principal and superintendent from day one”. His longest passages are on the missing capital improvement plan and on embedding academic credit in CTE courses. The chair greets a late arrival at 0:19:42 and the assistant superintendent immediately defers to Chris; the record does not say who walked in.
Michael (Mike) Koski	Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction, Innovation and Assessment, SAU 6	Present, 39 rows. Presented the Stevens High School handbook in the superintendent’s place, explained the move to trimester grading in the elementary schools, and delivered the whole assessment report. The chair introduces him as Mr. Costa (0:25:35) and the transcript elsewhere renders him “Mr. Kosky”.
Mary Henry	Business Administrator, SAU 6; direct supervisor of the maintenance director	Present, 44 rows — almost all of them in the capital-improvement item. Stated the appropriation-lapse rule to the board correctly and said the district’s prior practice of rolling unspent supply lines forward was wrong (flag 13). Also disclosed that she had not sat down with the maintenance director all year (0:51:53).
Tess Nicholson-Powers	Director, District Management Group — the strategic-planning consultant	Present, 22 rows, the meeting’s single longest presentation. Supplied her own surname when the chair could not (“Nicholson Powers. Yes. Thank you.”, 0:03:04). Set out the workplan and disclosed that the Working Committee “just had our first meeting today” (0:10:24) — a committee with three sitting Claremont board members on it (flag 6). The packet deck spells her “Tess Nicholson Powers”; an earlier project note has Tessa, which is also how the chair addresses her.
Melissa Lewis	Principal, Disnard Elementary School — one of the three elementary principals named on the agenda for Exhibit A	Present, 6 rows. Presented the elementary handbook and its one-page change summary, and agreed on the spot to add a religious-headwear exception: “Always. Absolutely, absolutely.” (0:14:29). The motion that followed was to accept the handbook as presented (flag 7). Her school is fixed by two packet documents: the change sheet’s Disnard letterhead and the DMG deck’s committee roster.
Frank Romeo	Principal, Claremont Middle School	Present, 8 rows. Presented the middle-school handbook, described the alignment of its discipline rubric with the high school’s restorative practices, and then added that the phone pouches “also will be going into our handbook” — future tense, on a document the board approved four minutes later (flag 7). The transcript renders the item “the Claremont Middle School. Campbell.” at full confidence; it names nobody.
Christine Baker · Mark Blount	Elementary principals, Bluff and Maple Avenue	Named on the agenda as co-presenters of Exhibit A. Neither speaks on the recording and neither is mentioned in the minutes. Their schools are fixed by the DMG deck’s Working Committee roster in this packet: Baker at Bluff, Blount at Maple.
Ben Nester · Jeff Small · Patrick O’Hearn	Director of Special Education · Director of Technology · Human Resource Director	All three on the agenda masthead. None has an attributed row in the dialogue file. The approved minutes nevertheless record that O’Hearn gave the tribute to Dr. Herzog, which the recording places in Michael Petrin’s voice (flag 11). This is Nester’s second-to-last meeting on the masthead.
Dr. Alex Herzog	Director, Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center; Chair, CCTV Board of Directors	Not present. His resignation as tech-centre director was announced and thanked at 1:08:44. He also signs the attendance confirmation on the CCTV application the board acted on, which is Exhibit D. The tribute as transcribed thanks him “for all his hard work for the 60 years he’s been the director there” — a figure the recording gives at full confidence and which cannot be right; nothing in the record supplies the true number.
Joella Merchant	Seat 5, CCTV Board of Directors — a School Board appointment	Not present. Reappointed for one year effective immediately, on Bonnie Miles’s motion and Michael Petrin’s second, her previous term having expired on 31 May. The chair calls her “Miss Joelle Merchant”; the City’s memo and her own application spell it Joella.
Unidentified	—	One row of 375 (0.3%) is left unattributed — a single word at 0:53:17 inside the departed elementary principal’s diarized cluster. That is the cleanest attribution rate in this stretch of the corpus.

Agenda

Item numbering and wording from the posted agenda (CSB Agenda 6.5.24.docx.pdf), with dispositions from the approved minutes and the recording. The agenda carries scheduled clock times for every block; those are printed plain, while the “Taken up” column gives the moment in the recording. Two items were taken out of order — the DMG presentation, item III.2, ran before the handbooks, item III.1 — and the approved minutes narrate the evening in agenda order rather than in the order of business actually taken. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.

Taken up	Item	Agenda text / disposition
0:00:59	I. 6:30 PM Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance	Reached about a minute late, after the chair announced there was no quorum and paused to make inquiries by text. The Pledge follows at 0:01:40.
0:01:54	II. 6:35 PM General Business — Secretary Roll Call of Attendance	The agenda’s own instruction, reproduced verbatim in the approved minutes: “Board Members who arrive after the meeting begins will be noted as ‘present’ at the point in the agenda at which they arrive”. The minutes then list four names flat under Present and three under Absent, with no arrival noted for anyone (flag 3). The roll is read in alphabetical order of surname; audible answers come only at Miles, Sprague and Whitney.
0:02:08	II. Consent Agenda (vote required) — 1. Amendments and Final Approval of board agenda; 2. Minutes Approval — May 11, 2024 Retreat, May 15, 2024, & May 22, 2024	No motion, no second, no vote. The chair: “Unless there is an objection. I will move forward to approve the two items on the consent agenda” and “seeing no objections.” The approved minutes reproduce the agenda text and record no disposition at all — so the district’s only narrative record does not say that the May minutes were approved. Among them are the 22 May minutes, which carry a nonpublic session and a ten-year seal. The chair reads the date as the 24th; every document says the 22nd (flag 4).
0:02:32	II. Citizens Comments	Opened and closed inside one sentence: “Are there any citizens in the audience this evening that would like to speak on non-agenda items? Seeing no citizens interested in speaking, we’re going to close citizens comments”. Minutes: “Citizens Comments- none”. That tracks the district’s own policy BEDH, and sits against the thirty minutes RSA 189:74 and BEDH both name (flag 10).
0:03:04	III.2 6:40 PM DMG presentation for the Strategic Planning Process (Discussion) (Exhibit F)	Taken first, out of agenda order. Discussion only — no vote, no contract, no dollar figure anywhere in the record. The chair closed it by telling the public the work was “funded by Esser funds” and “a completely budget neutral endeavor” (flag 5). The approved minutes mislabel the exhibit by omitting its letter.
0:13:14	III.1 Review of Handbooks for FY 24-25 (Discussion/Potential Vote) — Melissa Lewis, Christine Baker, Mark Blount, Elementary Principals (Exhibit A)	Presented by Lewis alone. Approved as presented on a voice vote at 0:15:35 — after the chair had asked for a religious-headwear exception and the principal had agreed to add one. Minutes: “Frank Sprague made a motion to accept the handbook as presented, Bonnie Miles seconded; voice vote taken, all present voting in favor, motion passed”. On the tape the motion and a second arrive inside one diarized segment (flag 7).
0:15:52	III.1 (cont.) Frank Romeo, Claremont Middle School Principal (Exhibit B)	Approved as amended at 0:18:35 on the chair’s own motion, seconded by Sprague, with a friendly amendment the chair added to her own motion after the second, to include a phone-pouch policy the principal had just said will be going into the handbook. Bonnie Miles’s request that religious head coverings be covered “to all these schools” is recorded in the minutes as discussion, not as part of the motion.
0:19:00	III.1 (cont.) Chris Pratt, Superintendent — Stevens High School (Exhibit C)	Presented by Assistant Superintendent Koski, not by the superintendent the agenda names. Laid on the table at 0:20:35 on the chair’s motion: the district’s counsel, named on the recording as Matt Upton, “wanted to hold on that until he discussed with the union any impact bargaining that may occur with change in work hours and expectations” (flag 12).
0:21:14	III.3 Announcement of CCTV Appointment Candidates (Discussion/Vote) (Exhibit D)	One candidate, not the plural the agenda promises: the reappointment of Joella Merchant to Seat 5 for one year, effective immediately, her term having expired 31 May. Moved by Miles, seconded by Petrin, voice vote, no count. Exhibit D is the City of Claremont’s memorandum, the CCTV board roster and the applicant’s signed re-appointment form.
0:22:06	III.4 Claremont Board Retreat (Discussion) — Heather Whitney, Chair	A report on the 11 May goal-setting retreat, “attended by, only board members” — five of seven, a quorum, with its own agenda and its own minutes in this packet. The chair set out three initiatives, an ad hoc communication committee by the last meeting in June, subcommittee purpose statements by the first meeting in August, and legacy folders; and reported the 29 May SAU 6 retreat in Hawkins’s absence.
0:25:35	III.5 NH SAS /SAT Scores (Discussion) (Exhibit G) — Mike Koski, Assistant Superintendent	Math and science only; the agenda promises SAT results and none were given, because, as Koski explained, English scores had not been released. The approved minutes call this Exhibit E; the agenda and the file in the folder both say Exhibit G (flag 11). Strand-level data promised for 20 June.
0:37:48	III.6 Approval of By-Laws (Vote) (Exhibit E) — Presentation by Chair Heather Whitney	Twenty-two pages adopted as presented in four minutes, on Petrin’s motion and Miles’s second, by an uncounted voice vote of four members. One question was asked, by Bonnie Miles, about speaking-time limits. The approved minutes call this Exhibit F; the agenda and the file both say Exhibit E. Flags 1 and 2.
0:41:59	III.7 School Board Sub-Committees (Discussion) — reports by subcommittee chairs if available	Two of five reported. Capital Improvement (Miles) ran fourteen minutes and produced the evening’s substantive exchange (flag 8). Finance (Sprague) ran about thirty seconds. Policy (Skillen) and Curriculum (Hawkins) were skipped for absence — “We do not have chairs from the policy subcommittee or the curriculum committee representatives this evening”. SRVRTC Visioning reported through Miles, Whitney and Pratt.
1:07:17	IV. 8:20 PM Other Business	The superintendent thanked Sprague for attending the senior breakfast; the resignation of the tech-centre director was recognised and echoed by the board and the superintendent; the chair congratulated the graduating class, noting that most of the board could not attend the ceremony.
1:09:43	V. 8:25 PM Future Dates/Future Agenda Items	20 June: the impact of the new Stevens cell-phone policy and the schedule change. A public forum on the district’s plan to improve academic achievement, to coincide with “the culmination of our strategic plan development”. And, at Sprague’s request, a summer schedule: “As it looks now July will be no meetings”, resuming the first or second week of August.
1:11:25	VI. 8:30 PM Adjournment	“Is there any objection to adjournment? Seeing. No objection. Meeting.” Minutes: “Consent adjournment 7:42” — forty-eight minutes ahead of the agenda’s scheduled time.

Discussion timeline

Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Output/Dialogue/15786 SchoolBoard060524.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording. Quotations reproduce the transcript verbatim, ASR errors included, with editorial insertions in square brackets; where a correction changes the sense the garbled wording is kept visible. Quotations from the agenda, the minutes, a board policy, the by-laws or a statute are attributed to that document. Recording position plus 6:30 p.m. gives clock time throughout.

Time	Topic	What was said	Flags
0:00:06	The meeting opens without a quorum	The chair’s third sentence on the tape is “We don’t have a quorum.” Then, at 0:00:15: “So I would I would like to welcome everybody to the June 5th Claremont school board meeting, but apparently we do not have a quorum. So we’re going to go on pause. I’m going to make a couple little inquiries via text and see if anyone, if we will have a quorum to move forward tonight.” The 15 May minutes record why the room was thin: Stevens High School’s Class Night was “the same time as the June 5th meeting” and graduation was the next morning.	MEDIUM
0:00:33	The vice chair’s point of order, and the right answer	Sprague: “So point. Point of order. Yes. So can we have a meeting anyway? And if and if we don’t vote on things. We can’t vote without a quorum. But can we have a board? Can we listen to presentations without a quorum? No. Okay.” The chair, at 0:00:48: “We cannot hold a meeting without a quorum.” Sprague, at 0:00:51: “That’s too bad, since we have people here.” That is the correct answer. RSA 91-A:2, I defines a meeting as “The convening of a quorum of the membership of a public body…for the purpose of discussing or acting upon a matter or matters”; without a quorum there is no meeting to hold and nothing can be transacted.	POSITIVE
0:00:59	Forty-five seconds later, the meeting begins	“I think we got an 85 degree flu. Maybe, I don’t know, it happened. June 5th, 2024 Claremont school board meeting.” Nothing on the recording says what changed between 0:00:06 and here, and nothing in the minutes says either. Forty-five recording seconds is forty-five real seconds: the tape tracks clock time all evening and contains no splice.	MEDIUM
0:01:54	The roll: seven names called, three answers audible	“Bromberg [Kronberg], would you please call attendance? Yes. Candace. Crawford, Arlene. Hawkins. Bonnie. Miles. Yeah. Michael Keaton [Petrin].” and, at 0:02:02, “Whitney skilling [Skillen]. Frank Sprague here. Heather Whitney here.” Alphabetical by surname. Audible answers at Miles, Sprague and Whitney only — three, one short of the quorum. The approved minutes record four present, and Petrin is unmistakably in the room by 0:21:32. Nothing establishes when he arrived, and the agenda’s own late-arrival instruction was not applied.	MEDIUM
0:02:08	Three sets of minutes approved without a vote — on an agenda that says a vote is required	“Unless there is an objection. I will move forward to approve the two items on the consent agenda, which are the amendments and the. Excuse me, which are the minutes from the May 11th retreat and the May 15th and 24th school board minutes, seeing no objections.” The posted agenda heads the item “Consent Agenda (vote required)”; the approved minutes reproduce that heading and record no motion, no second, no vote and no result. The date is wrong on the tape as well — the packet file, the agenda and the minutes all say 22 May.	MEDIUM
0:02:32	Citizens’ comments, opened and closed in one breath	“Are there any citizens in the audience this evening that would like to speak on non-agenda items? Seeing no citizens interested in speaking, we’re going to close citizens comments”. Board policy BEDH tells the chair to do exactly that — “The Board Chair will close the public comment period after there is no response to the Board Chair’s vocal invitation” — and, two paragraphs earlier, that “The Board will provide a minimum of thirty minutes in total to hear all public comments under RSA 189:74.”	OBSERVATION
0:03:04	The strategic-planning consultant introduces herself, and her own surname	The chair: “Tessa, I’m sorry I don’t have your last name, but welcome to.” The answer: “Nicholson Powers. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Good evening. It’s great to see you all.” She is a director at District Management Group, has done the work “in over 60 school districts across the country”, and leads the firm’s strategic-planning and special-education practices. The packet deck is headed “School Administrative Unit 6 – Board Presentation” — an SAU-wide engagement, presented to one of the SAU’s two district boards.
0:08:51	The workplan: analysis to July, plan to September, implementation after that	“this design piece we’ve already started talking to folks collecting quantitative data to conduct a needs assessment”, and at 0:09:17: “We’ll wrap that up at the end of July once we’ve talked to stakeholders… And then in the fall, when everyone comes back to school, will bring that draft to the communities so that they have a second chance to give that input and feedback, and that will create the finalization of the strategic plan as you move into implementation.” Exhibit F puts the same thing in dates: Perform Preliminary Analysis (May – July 2024), Develop Strategic Plan (July – September 2024), then an undated Implementation phase.	MEDIUM
0:10:24	“We just had our first meeting today”	Of the Working Committee that will draft the plan: “We just had our first meeting today. But I know we’ve gone quickly. So we’ll bring some people up to speed who were not able to attend.” And at 0:08:51: “We were in this group today, or we were in this room today with a group starting this work to inform our analysis.” Exhibit F names the fifteen members. Four are sitting school board members — Candace Crawford, Arlene Hawkins and Frank Sprague of this board, and Marjorie Erickson of Unity’s. No notice, agenda or minutes for that meeting exists in any district share, and no vote of this board created the committee.	MEDIUM
0:12:35	“funded by Esser funds… a completely budget neutral endeavor”	The chair closed the item without a single board question: “Anyone from the board have any questions? We want to thank you for coming and just make make the public aware that this was funded by Esser funds. And this is a completely budget neutral endeavor, and we hope it bears a great deal of fruit.” The approved minutes carry the same sentence: “Funded by ESSER and is a budget neutral endeavor”. No contract, no dollar amount, no obligation date and no period of performance appears anywhere in the record, and nobody mentioned that ARP ESSER money must be obligated by 30 September 2024.	MEDIUM
0:13:14	The elementary handbook: dress code, and a religious exception agreed but not moved	Principal Lewis: “maybe we called it a crop top, but we explained a little bit that bare midriff is really the piece that we’re not looking for there” and “So it used to be, you know, hats and sunglasses inside. We added hoods so that we could further explain kind of what we’re not looking for inside.” The chair, at 0:14:20: “The only question that I had or and I think this will be with almost all the handbooks, is just to if we could include an exception for religious headwear.” Lewis: “Always. Absolutely, absolutely.” and “We can certainly make that addition as well.” The packet’s own change summary lists the hats-hoods-sunglasses revision and no religious exception.	MEDIUM
0:15:25	Approved “as presented”, with the motion and a second inside one segment	Chair: “Do we have a motion to accept the handbook as presented?” The transcript gives the answer as a single utterance: “I make that motion to accept the, applicants presented. I’ll second that.” Then “Any discussion? Seeing? No discussion. All in favor, say aye. A none oppose handbook is approved.” The approved minutes supply what the tape cannot: “Frank Sprague made a motion to accept the handbook as presented, Bonnie Miles seconded”. RSA 91-A:2, II requires that “The names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes”, and here they are.	MEDIUM
0:15:52	The middle school aligns its discipline rubric with the high school’s	Principal Romeo: “we are trying to model and echo what is happening at the high school in regards to their Arc program and restorative practices. So that has been added to our handbook.” And at 0:17:08: “Mr. Pratt shared what they had been doing. So we are moving that as long as it’s age appropriate for us as well… middle schoolers, that’s a little tougher. So we want to work with them to get to that point.” He also reported a same-day presentation on a referral system, which the transcript renders “branching minds”.
0:17:36	The chair moves, then amends her own motion after the second	“Then I will make a motion to approve the Claremont Middle School Handbook, as amended, with the new restorative justice rubric alignment. Is there any a second?” Sprague seconds. Miles, at 0:17:58: “The religious head? Where to all these schools?” The chair: “My assumption is that would be an exception. That would be made, is what I heard.” Romeo then adds, at 0:18:10, that the phone pouches “also will be going into our handbook” — future tense — and the chair, at 0:18:24: “I will add that as a friendly amendment to include the new policy of, cell phone limitations with yonder pouches.” Approved at 0:18:35 with no count. The by-laws adopted forty minutes later set out a friendly-amendment procedure at 2.09; none of it was used.	MEDIUM
0:19:00	The Stevens handbook, presented by the wrong officer — and someone arrives	The agenda assigns Exhibit C to the superintendent; Koski presented it: “The updates are on the change page. Employees have been updated. The calendar for next school year has been added. Schedules have been updated to be based on periods.” And then, on the schedule: “my understanding now is that is still in discussion. Depending upon several factors, one being the union contract and possible change in works.” At 0:19:42 the chair says “Oh, good. Thanks. You made it.” and Koski immediately answers “I’m sure Chris will maybe be able to answer that.” The record never says who walked in.
0:19:49	Laid on the table because counsel wants the union consulted first	“I did reach out to Matt Upton, and he he wanted to hold on that until he discussed with the union any impact bargaining that may occur with change in work hours and expectations. So my recommendation would to be to lay the handbook on the table for until that occurs.” The motion, at 0:20:19: “So I would like to make a motion to, lay on the table the approval of the Stephen High School Handbook until we have had legal review. Second.” Hours of work are “terms and conditions of employment” under RSA 273-A:1, XI, and refusing to negotiate over them in good faith is an unfair labor practice under RSA 273-A:5, I(e). The board stopped rather than impose the change.	POSITIVE
0:21:14	A CCTV seat reappointed five days after it expired	“She has served on the board faithfully and would like to be reinstated. And all we need to do is have a motion to reinstate Miss Merchant.” Miles moves, Petrin seconds, and the chair confirms it aloud: “Mike. Patron. Seconds. And her new term will be for one year. And her current term has expired as of May 31st.” Exhibit D is the City’s memorandum, the full CCTV board roster and the applicant’s signed form; the attendance confirmation on it is signed by the CCTV chair, Dr. Alex Herzog, whose own resignation from the tech centre the board marks an hour later.
0:22:06	The board retreat: a quorum, an agenda, minutes — and three initiatives	“a brief review of the Claremont School Board retreat. We had a very robust discussion that, and the meeting was attended by, only board members.” Five of seven attended on 11 May, which is a quorum; the packet carries its agenda and its minutes. The chair, at 0:22:35: “initiatives that we are proposing were to be a burden on board members and not to be transferred to administrative team.” Three followed — an ad hoc communication committee “at the last meeting of this month”, subcommittee purpose statements by the first August meeting, and legacy folders. The retreat minutes add a fourth the board did not mention on camera: a standing practice of meeting in “a non-meeting or non-public meeting” before collective bargaining, which RSA 91-A:2, I(a) permits and which produces no minutes.
0:24:35	The one absence explained, and the SAU retreat reported second-hand	“Miss Hawkins, who who’s not able to attend this evening, did want me to briefly mention, our saw [SAU] retreat, which included Unity and Claremont school board members.” The SAU 6 retreat of 29 May produced a SWOT analysis “provided. To our consulting team and to the administration” — the same consultant who had presented an hour earlier, and who confirmed at 0:12:11 that her firm had already reviewed it.
0:26:21	The assessment results: math at about half the state rate	“the the state average for math was 43% and the English average was 51%. We won’t we won’t be able to compare English scores tonight. But that was from last year. So math 43% and then science 37% moving from left to right.” At 0:26:52: “we have about half of our students for proficient than the state average does. And when you look overall now that isn’t encouraging. It shows us we have work to do.” Grade 6 at 0:28:59: “Here we have the grade six results, 24% proficient.” Grade 11 science at 0:31:29: “And then grade 1,121% [grade 11, 21%] compared to the 37% state average.”	OBSERVATION
0:29:53	One class in five did not sit the test	“For this year, for both seventh and eighth grade, we also had a situation where 20% of our seventh grade opted out, opted not to take the test after. I think it’s 5%. The State Council [counts] those scores is zeros. And so the students opting out of taking the test really impacted the school scores. Particularly for math. So the state expects 95% participation and we only had 80%.” Exhibit G carries the same note in the district’s own words: only 80% of the class participated in the test. 20% opted out. His account of the mechanism is accurate; the 95% requirement is federal, and New Hampshire law simultaneously forbids the State to penalise a district for a low participation rate.	OBSERVATION
0:33:21	The counterweight: a year of growth in every elementary school	“At all three elementary schools, each school achieved 100%. Growth in their reading tests this year and and in math. So the K to five all students have made a year’s worth of growth. Now, for a student who is a year behind, that still leaves them behind, but it doesn’t leave them further behind.” And at 0:33:56: “We have a lot of classes where students made 140. Some classes made 200% growth, where they’ve gone from below grade level to above grade level in a year.” These are local benchmark measures, not the state assessment, and the presentation said so.
0:34:38	Sprague: we are tested on a course we do not teach	“I’m looking at these strands on 11th grade science. And I’m seeing that earthen space science is listed there. Yes. Which is interesting because I don’t think we even teach that at Stevens High School as a as a discrete course.” Koski conceded the point and defended the design: “But it’s being tested in 11th grade. You’re right… So I don’t think we’re really putting our students at a disadvantage by not requiring the Earth science course.” Sprague asked for released items; Koski agreed to bring them.
0:36:09	The chair: “we do not have a actual math and science updated math and science curriculum in place at this time”	“My question is, is our curriculum aligned with or our future curriculum? I think it’s important that the public knows that we do not have a actual math and science updated math and science curriculum in place at this time, so that we can probably lay some of the disappointing numbers at the feet of a lack of curriculum.” Koski confirmed it: “Math? No. And by not aligned, it wasn’t that we were teaching non math items. Correct. But they were math topics that weren’t tested in that grade level.” And “So our new math curriculum will align itself by grade level to the New Hampshire standards.” The replacement programmes had been bought three weeks earlier, on 15 May.	OBSERVATION
0:37:48	The by-laws reach a vote	“So next item on the agenda is the approval of the Claremont School Board bylaws. We reviewed these bylaws at previous meeting meetings, and there have been amendments that have been made and suggestions that have been incorporated into the bylaws.” And at 0:38:18: “I sent out an email to board members, explaining that I had highlighted areas within the bylaws that I believed would be possibly contentious items”. That e-mail is not in the packet and is not described further.	HIGH
0:38:47	The two-year chair term, and a removal threshold that moved	“The, the larger issues that we were debated at previous meetings was the extension of the chair term to two years. That term could be ended either by an election or by removal of two thirds of the board vote.” Sprague, at 0:39:47: “And we heard this from the administration as well. How important continuity is. So I’m I support the two year chair term.” The March draft, Exhibit H to the 20 March packet, made removal turn on a “2/3 majority (5 of 7) vote”. The text adopted here reads “removed by 2/3 vote of those present and voting” — which on this night’s attendance would have been three members, not five. Nobody mentioned the change.	MEDIUM
0:39:17	A new two-thirds rule for the board’s own resolutions	“There was another item that was a newly added item, which is any resolution that was presented by the board to the New Hampshire School Board. Assembly would require a two thirds approval from the board. But any resolutions that we wanted to support that came from other schools would be a simple majority. Are there any questions about any of the items in the document?” That is by-law 1.05(6): the NHSBA delegate “may solicit and develop, with 2/3 vote, resolutions for submission to the Annual Delegate Assembly”. The delegate is Sprague, who spoke for the document.
0:40:25	The one substantive question asked about the by-laws — and it was right	Miles: “I did on one different topic. Something that I picked up and that was on page six, item 2.04 about the public comment section. And I don’t see anything mentioned there about limiting the time. I believe they had three minutes.” She had it exactly: by-law 2.04 ends by vesting the chair with authority to terminate remarks “as to content or time limitation” while stating no time limitation anywhere. The chair’s answer, at 0:40:48, is also right: “Not not all specific policy language will be in the, the bylaws, but we will have to defer to policy… But this will not change our policy.” Policy BEDH sets three minutes.	POSITIVE
0:41:13	The by-law that legitimises the way the night began — adopted forty minutes after it was used	“Also, I did want to note that we did add the consent agenda, portion within this document, how to conduct a consent agenda and also accepting motions by consent when it appears to the chair that there is overwhelming, like there’s unanimous consent, just so we do not have to go through the machinations and take up time during a board meeting.” By-law 2.10 provides that consent items “will be moved,en masse, by consent (absence of objection)”. The consent agenda had been disposed of that way at 0:02:08, thirty-nine minutes before the by-law existed, under an agenda heading that said a vote was required.	MEDIUM
0:41:37	Adopted: twenty-two pages, four voices, no count	Petrin: “Make the motion to approve the Claremont School Board bylaws as presented.” Miles: “A second.” The chair, at 0:41:44: “Any further discussion? All in approval. All in agreement, say I.” and at 0:41:52: “Okay. The bylaws pass.” From motion to gavel is fifteen seconds. The document the board had just adopted provides, at 2.11(a), that “A 2/3rds vote of CSB members shall be required to amend or suspend the CSBL”. Two thirds of a seven-member board is five — the March draft said “(5 out of 7)” in terms, and the adopted text drops the figure. It was adopted by four.	HIGH MEDIUM
0:42:14	“He is he’s not aware of what his budget is and what he has to spend”	The Capital Improvement chair opened her report with it: “I have one question, and that is regarding, Mr. Holt. He is he’s not aware of what his budget is and what he has to spend. So that’s what I was hoping we could discuss tonight with Mrs. Henry. Because I don’t know what to tell him.” The business administrator’s first three words are a flat contradiction: “He knows his budget.” Steven Holt is the district’s maintenance director. Twenty-five days remained in the fiscal year.	OBSERVATION
0:42:53	What a monthly budget statement used to look like	Sprague translated: “when I worked at the Stephens, I would get a statement. I would get a budget every month that told me every line that I had budgeted for or what I had spent, what I had left. And I had that every month.” Henry: “He has access to it online. So he gets in and looks at it online.” The superintendent, at 0:43:23, from his own time as a principal: “when Mary started, that was one of the things all the administration was happy about was like, wow, we have access to visions to we can keep an eye on our own budget.”	OBSERVATION
0:43:50	The business administrator states the lapse rule, and says the old practice was wrong	“I’m going to say that it’s not acceptable that you have purchase.” — “From fiscal year 22 or 21, and you’re still carrying them forward to use in 23, which you can’t do. So the expectation was if you didn’t spend something and it’s not just him, it’s others too, that if you didn’t spend a supply line that you could carry that over into the next year. And I’m like, no, you can’t do that.” And the exception, at 0:45:09: “the only way you can do that is if you have a quote or you have something that you’re purchasing and you know it’s not coming in.” That is RSA 32:7 — appropriations lapse at the end of the fiscal year unless encumbered by a legally-enforceable obligation before it closes.	POSITIVE
0:47:00	“we’re down to a couple of weeks. And if there’s money he can make these repairs”	Miles: “So we really we need to get moving because we’re down to a couple of weeks. And if there’s money he can make these repairs.” Henry: “I’m going to say this. He needs to come have a conversation with me.” The superintendent then disclosed the reporting line, at 0:47:13: “Mary, just so you guys know, and I, I wasn’t aware of it until I started here. So Mary’s his direct supervisor, right? Yeah.” Miles, at 0:47:19: “Yeah, I just read that today. I didn’t know that.” Henry had e-mailed him the FY25 budget on 9 May, at his request.	OBSERVATION
0:47:37	“you have a capital improvement plan which we don’t have”	The superintendent, on what the subcommittee is supposed to be working from: “Typically what happens with some of the subcommittees for this one you have a capital improvement plan which we don’t have.” And at 0:47:54: “But right now we’re just in limbo.” The chair’s answer looked outward and forward, at 0:48:10: “the finance committee is very much committed to incorporating, into our budget process, replenishing our capital reserve funds for long term planning on large projects that so we do not have to love [levy] our taxpayers unexpectedly out of nowhere for something that we knew was coming all along.”	OBSERVATION
0:49:19	A September practice, and a June deadline	Henry described how she had done it elsewhere: “In the past, I’ve created with the director of maintenance or facilities a plan. I bring it to the board in September and we go over that plan”, with big-ticket items dated and estimated and minor repairs kept under a limit — “you know, $25,000 maybe, and under would be a limit depending on what it is.” And, at 0:50:02: “your trust fund should really drive or should be driven with your capital improvements, right? Meaning your roofs, your big ticket items”. Then the admission, at 0:51:53: “Like I said, it’s just that I have not had an opportunity to sit down with him. I, I admit I have it’s been a very busy year.”	OBSERVATION
0:54:19	Where the item landed	Miles: “Well, this is much better. At least now we know that you’ll connect with him and then somebody can be spent before the end of this year.” Henry: “what my plan was, is that the next meeting, I will come to you with the projects that he’s talking about, like the roofs and things like that” — that is 20 June, ten days before the fiscal year closes — and “Because I can’t do anything unless I have a quote and an acceptance of a quote. Which he does have.” The board took no vote and gave no direction; the item was left between the business administrator and her subordinate.	OBSERVATION
0:56:02	Two subcommittees do not report, because their chairs are not there	“We do not have chairs from the policy subcommittee or the curriculum committee representatives this evening.” The Policy chair is Whitney Skillen and the Curriculum representative is Arlene Hawkins, both absent. The by-laws adopted forty minutes earlier require the Policy Committee to “hold at least one regular monthly meeting” and to “report to the full Board monthly”. On 15 May the Policy chair had reported that she had no report.
0:56:27	SRVRTC Visioning: the gallery walk, and a proposal to make the committee permanent	Miles: “Mr. Winkler, the senior vice president of the Southern Regional Education Board, went through with all his dad [data] and his statistics, and he gave us copies of everything.” And the recommendation, at 0:56:53: “what was suggested that the capital, I mean, the, the, visioning Committee become a regular regular subcommittee of a committee, not a subcommittee committee.” The chair completed it: “An ad hoc. That is permanent fixture of the Claremont School Board Committee.” No motion followed, and the by-laws adopted that evening make ad hoc committees dissolve “upon providing a final report to the CSB”.
0:58:25	Embedded credit, and what it would cost	The chair: “Doctor Beard from the state of New Hampshire, he’s the CTE director, was present and was very much engaged and involved in the process”, and the substance at 0:58:53: “the issues that we have with kids not being able to have access to CTE, courses because they are busy making up academic requirements”. Then the price, at 0:59:24: “The challenge with that is that there’s going to be budgetary, attachments. Because we need math teachers to be able to support the curriculum development and the implementation of those kind of courses within the tech.”
1:01:05	Sprague dates the constraint, and the chair dates the remedy	“So that’s all. That’s all residual from no No Child Left Behind highly qualified teachers all the way back to 2000… we could we could give credit if someone was doing a welding class. There’s a certain amount of metallurgy involved with that”, and at 1:01:28: “Give them a half credit. You can’t do that anymore.” The chair, at 1:01:31: “with the revisiting of the 306, although to the dismay of some, the way the 306 is being manipulated, there are going to be opportunities for more flexibility that did not exist before.” No Child Left Behind was enacted 8 January 2002, and its “highly qualified” teacher definition was struck from federal law by the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. Ed 306 was in fact under revision as she spoke; the readoption took effect 13 December 2024.
1:03:47	River Valley Community College, at no cost	“There was a representative from River Valley Community College that was there, and they are so ready to embrace everything that we’re I mean.” The chair listed what was offered — professors, space, transport — “And in particular, this would be great for kids who do not thrive in a traditional high school environment.” And at 1:04:21: “So it could open a lot of doors that have really no cost to the district.” The superintendent named a contact and the aim: “maybe there’s an opportunity to take the academy and move it over to the community college.”
1:06:42	The Finance Committee report, in full	“Finance committee. Finance committee. I’m waiting for things to calm down before I schedule another meeting.” and “we had some questions around the district placement, and we’re going to be talking a little bit more about that kind of small clarification. Other items to be announced.” About thirty seconds, at the last full meeting before the fiscal year closed, from the chair of the committee the by-laws adopted that night require to “hold at least one regular monthly meeting” and to “report to the full Board monthly”.	OBSERVATION
1:08:44	The tech-centre director’s resignation — and a name the minutes and the tape disagree about	“I’d also like to recognize Doctor Alex Herzog’s, resignation as director of the Tech center and thank him for all his hard work for the 60 years he’s been the director there.” The chair echoed it, at 1:08:57, thanking him for “his professionalism and running his by the river and giving a voice for school board, candidates”, and the superintendent, at 1:09:25: “from being principal and superintendent from day one, he was very supportive and we worked well together.” The approved minutes credit the tribute to Patrick O’Hearn; the recording places it in the same diarized voice as Michael Petrin’s by-laws motion.	OBSERVATION
1:09:43	A cell-phone policy the board will review but never adopted	“Future agenda items will include a discussion about the new cell phone policy that was implemented at Stevens High School, and to review the impact of that”, and “we need to also schedule a public forum to discuss the district’s plan to improve academic achievement, which will most likely coincide with the culmination of our strategic plan development.” The phone policy is described as already implemented; no adoption of it appears in the records read for this page — the 11 May, 15 May, 22 May and 5 June minutes and the 5 June agenda.
1:10:40	No meetings in July	Sprague asked for a summer schedule and got one on the spot: “As it looks now July will be no meetings.” Then, at 1:10:59: “And we’ll resume meetings the first week of August. Hopefully… we will be doing work this summer, just so the public knows, the subcommittee still work even though we’re not having board meetings.” Appendix A of the by-laws adopted that night, quoting Ed 303, requires the board to “hold meetings for the transaction of business at least once a month (except the month of July)”. The next board meeting on the record is 21 August.

Items flagged for review

Flags are a reviewer’s aid produced by comparing what happened at this meeting against state and federal law as it stood on 5 June 2024. They are not findings of violation, they are not legal advice, and they may be incomplete or wrong. Every rule-based flag names and links the provision it rests on and gives the date from which that provision was in force; where no verified rule reaches a concern it is labelled an observation and says so. Positives are included because an evenhanded record is the point.

HIGH The by-laws adopted at this meeting misstate the Right-to-Know Law three times, and one of the misstatements is an operative instruction to subcommittee chairs

The notice rule is wrong, and it is the one that will be followed. By-law 1.05(c), governing every school board subcommittee, provides: “Notice of the meeting including place and time must be posted at least 24 hours in advance on the SAU 6 website. RSA 91-A:II”. RSA 91-A:2, II requires that notice “shall be posted in 2 appropriate places”, “one of which may be the public body’s Internet website, if such exists”, “or shall be printed in a newspaper of general circulation in the city or town”, “at least 24 hours, excluding Sundays and legal holidays, prior to such meetings”. The by-law authorises one posting where the statute requires two, and it drops the Sundays-and-holidays exclusion from the 24 hours. A subcommittee chair who follows the board’s own manual will under-notice every meeting. The by-laws themselves put subcommittees inside the statute — 1.05(b): “Subcommittees are meetings open to the public and are subject to New Hampshire’s Right to Know Law” — and so does RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d), whose operative clause reaches “any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto.”

The count of nonpublic grounds is wrong twice over. Appendix D of the adopted by-laws opens: “RSA 91 -A:3 sets forth eight grounds upon which Board of School Committees may enter nonpublic session” and then enumerates nine. RSA 91-A:3, II runs (a) through (m) — thirteen lettered subparagraphs with (f) repealed, so twelve live grounds. The appendix omits (g) security-related issues at correctional facilities, (h) business finance authority applications, and (j) confidential, commercial or financial information exempt under RSA 91-A:5, IV; and its rendering of (d) drops the statute’s qualifier that disclosure “would likely benefit a party or parties” adverse to the general community. The same appendix repeats the error in its compliance guidance — “A proper motion must be made to enter a non-public session, clearly stating one of eight reasons” — and its checklist then lists six. A board that treats its own appendix as the list will fail to find a ground the statute gives it, or state one it does not.

And the minutes deadline is misquoted. By-law 1.05(d): “Minutes must be recorded and available for public inspection on the SAU 6 website within 5 days of the meeting”; by-law 1.11 repeats “ensure they are posted within 5 days”. RSA 91-A:2, II says 5 business days. Five calendar days is the stricter reading, so following the by-law cannot breach the statute — but the board’s manual states the law incorrectly, and it does so while citing it.

These are not leftovers — the notice paragraph is new. The draft this board debated on 20 March, Exhibit H- Claremont School Board By-Laws - Google Docs.pdf, has no subcommittee Right-to-Know provisions at all: its ¶1.05 runs straight into the list of standing committees. Paragraphs 1.05(a) through 1.05(d), including the single-posting notice rule and the five-days minutes rule, were written between 20 March and 29 May and adopted here, with no discussion of any of them on the record. The “eight grounds” error in Appendix D, by contrast, was in the March draft word for word and survived into the adopted text unchanged.

Why this is graded HIGH. The 20 March 2024 page graded the Appendix D defect in the draft as an observation, because a draft binds nobody. Ten weeks later the document was adopted as presented, on an uncounted voice vote by four of seven members, after four minutes of discussion in which none of these points was raised. The mitigation the board can claim is real but thin: by-law 2.15 provides that “All laws of the State of New Hampshire and all rules of the State Board of Education shall take precedence over these rules and regulations”, so a subcommittee chair is still bound by the statute whatever the manual says. That is an argument about legal effect, not about what the manual will cause people to do.

Sources: Exhibit E- Claremont School Board By-Laws .pdf — ¶¶1.05(b), 1.05(c), 1.05(d), 1.11, 2.15 and Appendix D, as adopted; RSA 91-A:2, II (notice in 2 appropriate places; minutes within 5 business days) — in force in this form from 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023, the 2025, 112:1 additions post-dating this meeting; RSA 91-A:3, II(a)–(m) — in force in this form from 2023, 189:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023; RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); approved minutes of 5 June 2024.

MEDIUM The by-laws contradict two policies the board has adopted — in a document whose own opening forbids exactly that

The rule the by-laws set for themselves. Under the heading AUTHORITY OF THE BOARD, the adopted text provides: “Nothing in this document shall violate New Hampshire law or the policies of the CSB.” Two of its provisions do, and a third set of changes moved the board’s own vote thresholds without anyone saying so.

Officers. By-law 1.03: the board “shall elect the chair and vice-chair, by open ballot, voice vote or general consensus at the organizational meeting… and shall hold their respective positions for a term of two years unless the term is interrupted by election results, resignation or officer removed by 2/3 vote of those present and voting.” Board policy BDB, Board Officers, adopted 2 January 2019 and never rescinded, provides: “Board officers will include a chairperson, vice-chairperson and secretary… Board officers will serve a one-year term, concluding at the re-organizational meeting the following year.” Two conflicts in one paragraph: the number of offices and the length of the term. Chapter 4 of the by-laws runs 4.01 Chair, 4.02 Vice-Chair, 4.03 Clerk — there is no secretary anywhere in the document. No motion to amend BDB was made at this meeting or at any meeting in this packet.

Three vote thresholds moved between March and June, and none was mentioned. Read against Exhibit H- Claremont School Board By-Laws - Google Docs.pdf, the March draft, the adopted text weakens every one of them. Removal of an officer: the draft said “2/3 majority (5 of 7) vote”; the adopted text says “2/3 vote of those present and voting”. Amendment of the by-laws themselves: the draft said “A 2/3rds majority (5 out of 7) of the whole CSB”; the adopted text drops the parenthetical and says “A 2/3rds vote of CSB members”. And the general rule for the board’s most consequential acts — appointing or removing an employee, modifying salaries, appropriating or transferring money — moved from “An affirmative vote of the majority of the whole CSB” in the draft to “An affirmative vote of the majority of members present and voting” in the text adopted here. On a bare quorum of four that is three votes rather than four, and with two abstentions it is two. The chair described the removal clause on the record at 0:38:47 — “removal of two thirds of the board vote” — which is the March formulation, not the one in front of her.

Who appoints special committees. By-law 1.08: “The vice-chair shall appoint all special committees and shall designate their chairs, unless otherwise ordered by the CSB by a simple majority.” Board policy BDE, Committees and Delegates, adopted 2 June 2004 and reviewed 19 December 2018: “Standing and special committees and delegations shall be appointed by the Chairperson of the Board and approved by vote of a majority of the Board.” The by-law moves the power from the chair to the vice chair and drops the requirement of a board vote.

Two other defects on the face of the adopted text. The document contains two paragraphs numbered 2.09 — one on amendments, one on agenda preparation. And its account of when it may be changed is self-contradictory: the preamble says “Revisions of these rules are permitted by 2/3 vote annually at the first meeting following elections”, while 2.11(b) says amendment “shall occur, by motion, and voted upon at the next regularly scheduled CSB meeting”. By-law 1.02 also provides that “The board shall adopt The Claremont School By-Laws (CSBL) at the organizational meeting” — and this adoption happened at a regular June meeting, not the organizational meeting of 20 March.

Graded MEDIUM, not HIGH. These are conflicts between two sets of the board’s own rules, not between a rule and a statute; a board may amend its policies, and nothing here shows a decision taken under the wrong rule. What it shows is that no one checked.

Sources: Exhibit E- Claremont School Board By-Laws .pdf — preamble and ¶¶1.02, 1.03, 1.08, 2.09 (both), 2.11, ch. 4; board policy BDB — Board Officers (first reading 19 December 2018, adopted 2 January 2019); board policy BDE — Committees and Delegates (adopted 2 June 2004, reviewed 19 December 2018); the March draft, Exhibit H- Claremont School Board By-Laws - Google Docs.pdf, in the packet folder 6. CSB 3.20.24, read in full for this page and compared paragraph by paragraph with the adopted text.

MEDIUM The meeting opened with no quorum, and the record never shows when it got one

What happened. The chair’s first substantive statements are “We don’t have a quorum.” (0:00:06) and “apparently we do not have a quorum. So we’re going to go on pause. I’m going to make a couple little inquiries via text” (0:00:15). Forty-five seconds later the meeting was called to order. The roll at 0:01:54 produces audible answers at three names only — Miles, Sprague, Whitney. The fourth member, Michael Petrin, is unmistakably present by 0:21:32, twenty minutes in, when he seconds the CCTV motion and the chair names him aloud. Nothing on the tape or in the minutes says when he arrived.

Why that matters here and not everywhere. The posted agenda carries the district’s own instruction, and the approved minutes reproduce it word for word: “Board Members who arrive after the meeting begins will be noted as ‘present’ at the point in the agenda at which they arrive”. The minutes then list “Present: Bonnie Miles, Michael Petrin, Frank Sprague, Heather Whitney” flat, with no arrival point for anyone — at the one meeting in this stretch of the corpus that opened without a quorum and where the convention would have done real work. Between the call to order and Petrin’s first audible act the board disposed of the consent agenda, approved the elementary handbook, approved the middle-school handbook and laid the Stevens High School handbook on the table — four of the evening’s six dispositions. On the minutes as written, no reader can verify that four members were in the room for any of them. By-law 2.01, adopted later the same evening, is explicit that four is the floor: “A quorum of members (4 of 7) must be present for the meeting to proceed.”

What the law does and does not require. RSA 91-A:2, I defines a meeting as “The convening of a quorum of the membership of a public body…for the purpose of discussing or acting upon a matter or matters”, and RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to include “the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description” of the subject matter and final decisions. It did not in 2024 require arrival times; the start-time and end-time requirements were added by 2025, 112:1, effective 22 August 2025, and are not applied here. This flag therefore rests on the district’s own printed convention, not on the statute — which is why it is MEDIUM and not HIGH, and why the mitigating limb of the corpus severity rule applies: the minutes exist, they are timely, and they name who was there.

The board handled the underlying question correctly. See flag 12.

Sources: CSB Agenda 6.5.24 (item II, the late-arrival instruction); approved minutes of 5 June 2024; RSA 91-A:2, I and II, 2023 codification — in force from 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023; by-law 2.01; 5.15.24 draft CSB meeting minutes (1).pdf, in this packet (the Class Night conflict, and the change of the superintendent’s title).

MEDIUM Three sets of minutes — one of them sealing a nonpublic session for ten years — approved with no vote, and the approved minutes record no disposition at all

The agenda said a vote was required. The posted agenda heads the item “Consent Agenda (vote required)” and lists two contents: “1. Amendments and Final Approval of board agenda 2. Minutes Approval- May 11, 2024 Retreat, May 15, 2024, & May 22, 2024”. What happened instead, at 0:02:08: “Unless there is an objection. I will move forward to approve the two items on the consent agenda… seeing no objections.”

The minutes do not record that anything was approved. The approved 5 June minutes reproduce the agenda heading and the two numbered items and then move straight to “Citizens Comments- none”. There is no motion, no mover, no seconder, no vote and no result. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to carry “a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions”; the approval of three sets of prior minutes is a final decision, and it is not in them. The district’s only narrative record of 5 June does not establish that the May minutes were ever approved.

What went through in the packet. The 22 May minutes record a nonpublic session under RSA 91-A:3, II(c), a roll-call vote in and out, and “Heather Whitney made a motion to seal the minutes for 10 years, Frank Sprague seconded… Roll call vote taken; all members voting yes”, followed by “Discussion regarding policy of sealing minutes”. They give no adjournment time. The 11 May retreat minutes record a two-hour session of five of seven members with no roll call and no votes. All three were adopted by the absence of an objection.

The by-law that would have authorised this was adopted thirty-nine minutes later. By-law 2.10 provides that consent items “will be moved,en masse, by consent (absence of objection)”, and 2.07 lets the chair say “If there is no objection, we will adopt the motion to…”. Both were adopted at 0:41:37. At 0:02:08 the only governing document was the agenda, and the agenda required a vote. This is the same defect the 20 March page flagged on the same board’s consent agenda. The label the district puts on the item is itself unstable: the 5 June agenda heads it “Consent Agenda (vote required)”, while the 15 May draft minutes in this same packet record the disposition of the identical item as “Consent Approval”.

Sources: CSB Agenda 6.5.24; approved minutes of 5 June 2024; 5.22.24 draft CSB minutes (1).pdf; draft CSB retreat meeting minutes 5.11.24.pdf; RSA 91-A:2, II, 2023 codification; by-laws ¶¶2.07 and 2.10.

MEDIUM An ESSER-funded engagement called “completely budget neutral”, whose design phase ends at the federal obligation deadline and whose implementation phase lies beyond it

What the board was told. The chair closed the item at 0:12:35 without a single board question: “just make make the public aware that this was funded by Esser funds. And this is a completely budget neutral endeavor”. The approved minutes repeat it: “Funded by ESSER and is a budget neutral endeavor”.

What the schedule is. Exhibit F sets out the workplan in three blocks: Perform Preliminary Analysis (May – July 2024); Develop Strategic Plan (July – September 2024); and an Implementation block with no dates at all, whose contents include Create detailed action steps for implementation and Track and monitor progress of the implementation effort. The consultant said the same thing in her own words at 0:09:17: the draft goes to the communities “in the fall, when everyone comes back to school… and that will create the finalization of the strategic plan as you move into implementation.” The deck’s own sample goals are written to 2029.

The deadline nobody mentioned. ARP ESSER funds had to be obligated by 30 September 2024, and under 2 CFR 200.344(b), as it stood in the 2023 annual edition that governed this period, a recipient “must liquidate all financial obligations incurred under the Federal award no later than 120 calendar days after the end date of the period of performance” — which the U.S. Department of Education’s own January 2024 guidance computes as 28 January 2025. 2 CFR 200.403(h) is the allowability rule that bites: “Cost must be incurred during the approved budget period.” The design phase ends in the last month of the obligation period; the implementation support runs past it. No contract, no dollar amount, no obligation date and no period of performance appears anywhere in the packet, the recording or the minutes, so nothing in the public record shows whether the fall and implementation work is inside the award or outside it.

And “budget neutral” has a shelf life. FY2025 began three weeks after this meeting and ESSER stopped three months after that. The board already knew the constraint: at its 15 May meeting the technology director told it that “many costs were covered by ESSER”, the superintendent that “ESSER funds are also delayed”, and the chair that classroom furniture “was funded by ESSER, so ESSER funds cannot be used to replace it”. On 5 June none of that was connected to the engagement in front of them.

A second, narrower question the record does not answer. Exhibit F is headed “School Administrative Unit 6 – Board Presentation” and its Working Committee includes Unity’s board chair and Unity’s elementary principal. ESSER is allocated to local education agencies, and Claremont and Unity are two of them. 2 CFR 200.405(a) requires that a cost be “chargeable or assignable to that Federal award or cost objective in accordance with relative benefits received.” Which district’s ESSER allocation is paying, and how a two-district benefit is being allocated, is not stated anywhere in this record.

Graded MEDIUM. No rule is shown to have been broken. The risk is prospective, the terms of the award are not in the record, and the district may well have obligated the whole engagement before 30 September. The flag is that a board was told a federally funded, multi-year initiative was “completely budget neutral” four months before the funding ended, and asked nothing.

Sources: Exhibit F- DMGroup_SAU6_Strategic Planning Board Introduction (1).pdf (workplan and Working Committee roster); approved minutes of 5 June 2024; 2 CFR 200.344(b) (2023 annual edition — 120 calendar days to liquidate; the 2024 Uniform Guidance revision moved this to (c)); 2 CFR 200.403(h) (2023 annual edition); 2 CFR 200.405(a) and (c) (2023 annual edition); 20 U.S.C. §1225(b) (the Tydings extension that carries formula funds one additional fiscal year); U.S. Department of Education, Technical FAQs for Liquidation Extension Requests, 9 January 2024 — “For the ARP ESSER and ARP EANS programs, the final obligation date is September 30, 2024” and “January 28, 2025, is the regulatory liquidation date for the ARP Act funds”; 5.15.24 draft CSB meeting minutes.

MEDIUM A fifteen-member committee with three sitting board members on it met the day of this meeting, created by no board vote, with no notice, agenda or minutes anywhere

What the record establishes. The consultant told the board at 0:10:24: “We just had our first meeting today.” and at 0:08:51 that “We were in this group today, or we were in this room today with a group starting this work”. Exhibit F names fifteen members under the heading “Working Committee Members”. Four are sitting school board members: Candace Crawford, Arlene Hawkins and Frank Sprague of the Claremont board, and Marjorie Erickson of Unity’s. The remaining eleven are the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, the business administrator, the human-resources director, the incoming director of student services, four elementary principals (Claremont’s three and Unity’s), the middle-school principal and the high-school principal — whom this deck, posted 4 June 2024, names as Michael Herrington. The committee’s stated function is to “Champion the effort of drafting and implementing a long-term strategic plan”.

What is missing. No notice, agenda or minutes for that 5 June meeting appears in the district’s public share, in this packet, or in the Claremont minutes share. No vote of the Claremont School Board creating the committee or appointing its members appears in the 11 May, 15 May, 22 May or 5 June minutes, and none is mentioned on the recording. Board policy BDE requires that committees and delegations “shall be appointed by the Chairperson of the Board and approved by vote of a majority of the Board”; by-law 1.08, adopted later the same evening, requires that “All special committees or ad hoc committees shall be created at the direction of the CSB”.

Where the argument is genuinely two-sided. RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) reaches a school district’s bodies “or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto”, which is broad enough to capture an advisory committee to a school board. Against that: this committee was assembled by the administration and its consultant for an SAU-wide project rather than constituted by either district board; it is not a committee of the Claremont board on any document; three of seven Claremont members is not a quorum of this board, so its meeting was not a meeting of this board; and the board was told about it openly, on camera, the same evening. That is why this is graded MEDIUM under the mitigated limb rather than HIGH. What is not two-sided is the policy point: three members of this board sit on a committee that no vote of this board created.

Sources: Exhibit F (Working Committee roster and role); RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, II (notice and minutes); board policy BDE; by-law 1.08; the packet folder 10. CSB 6.5.24 and the district’s Meeting Minutes share, both enumerated for this page.

MEDIUM Two student handbooks approved with content that was not in the documents, and one of them with content that did not yet exist

The elementary handbook. The chair asked, at 0:14:20, “if we could include an exception for religious headwear”; the principal answered “Always. Absolutely, absolutely.” and “We can certainly make that addition as well.” The motion put four minutes later, and carried, was “to accept the handbook as presented” — unamended. The packet’s own one-page change summary lists the dress-code revisions in detail (“under DRESS CODE section, added language to half shirts… revised language of ‘Hats, hoods and sunglasses may be worn outside Only’”) and lists no religious exception.

The middle-school handbook. Bonnie Miles asked at 0:17:58 “The religious head? Where to all these schools?” and the chair answered “My assumption is that would be an exception. That would be made, is what I heard.” — an assumption, not an amendment; the approved minutes record it as discussion. Then the principal said, at 0:18:10, that the phone pouches “also will be going into our handbook”, and the chair added that as a friendly amendment to her own motion. On the principal’s own account the provision was not in the document being voted on. The by-laws adopted forty minutes later set out a procedure for friendly amendments at 2.09; none of it — acceptance by the mover, or a seconded amendment voted separately — was used, and the mover was the chair herself.

Why it matters. A student handbook is the district’s published statement of the rules students are disciplined under. After 5 June the public record does not fix what was approved: the elementary handbook as it stands in the packet, or that handbook plus an exception the principal agreed to on camera; the middle-school handbook as drafted, or that draft plus a phone policy nobody had written. On the substance, a dress code that bars head coverings and carries no religious exception engages RSA 193:38, which barred discrimination in public schools on the basis of religion — the version in force on this date being 2019, 282:1, eff. Sept. 17, 2019, the 2024, 117:1 amendment having taken effect 1 September 2024. This page does not assert that either handbook lacks such an exception: it asserts only that the packet does not show one and that neither vote added one. The chair and two principals plainly intended the exception; the vote did not carry it.

Sources: Exhibit A- 24-25 Elementary Handbook Changes.pdf; Exhibit A- 24-25 elementary student handbook-DRAFT.pdf; Exhibit B- DRAFT CMS Parent-Student Handbook 24-25 (3).pdf; approved minutes of 5 June 2024; by-law 2.09 (amendments); RSA 193:38 (vintage: use the 2019 text for any meeting before 1 September 2024).

OBSERVATION Twenty-five days before appropriations lapse, the board learns that the maintenance director says he does not know his budget, that his supervisor has not met with him all year, and that there is no capital improvement plan

The facts, in the order they came out. The Capital Improvement chair, at 0:42:14: “I have one question, and that is regarding, Mr. Holt. He is he’s not aware of what his budget is and what he has to spend.” The business administrator: “He knows his budget.” and, at 0:46:42, “I did send him his budget back on. I sent him fiscal year 25 budget back on May 9th.” The chair of the subcommittee, at 0:45:47: “He’s still waiting. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what his budget is or what’s left.” The superintendent disclosed the reporting line at 0:47:13 — “Mary’s his direct supervisor” — and the subcommittee chair replied that she had learned it that day. The business administrator, at 0:51:53: “I have not had an opportunity to sit down with him. I, I admit I have it’s been a very busy year.” And the superintendent, at 0:47:37: “you have a capital improvement plan which we don’t have… But right now we’re just in limbo.”

Why the date matters. The district’s fiscal year ends 30 June. RSA 32:7 provides that “Annual meeting appropriations shall cover anticipated expenditures for one fiscal year” and lapse at its close unless one of six exceptions applies, the first being that “The amount has, prior to the end of that fiscal year, become encumbered by a legally-enforceable obligation”. RSA 32:1 puts school districts inside the chapter. Bonnie Miles was pressing exactly the right point when she said, at 0:47:00, “we’re down to a couple of weeks. And if there’s money he can make these repairs”, and at 0:54:19, “somebody can be spent before the end of this year”. The business administrator’s plan was to bring the roof projects to the 20 June meeting — ten days before the close.

What the board did not do. It took no vote, gave no direction, set no dollar limit and asked for no list. The item was left to be settled between the business administrator and the employee she supervises. If any of the year-end spending required moving money between purposes of appropriation, RSA 32:10 puts that decision with the governing body — the board — and requires that records be kept of it; nothing on this record engages that.

What is not a finding. Nothing here shows an unlawful expenditure. Steven Holt is not on this recording and his account of the matter is not in it; the business administrator says she sent him the FY25 budget on 9 May and that he has access to the accounting system; and the whole exchange ended constructively, with a meeting arranged and a report promised. A district may also lawfully have no multi-year capital plan — but on the by-laws adopted an hour earlier the Capital Improvement Committee is “responsible for advising the Board in matters of priority and planning as it pertains to capital improvement, projection of anticipated costs, and development of a facilities plan”, and it has none of the three to work from.

Sources: RSA 32:7 (Lapse of Appropriations), 2023 codification — in force from 1993, 332:1, as amended 2017, 127:3, eff. Aug. 15, 2017; RSA 32:1; RSA 32:10 (Transfer of Appropriations) — last amended 2017, 127:4, eff. Aug. 15, 2017; by-law 1.05(3); approved minutes of 5 June 2024.

OBSERVATION One class in five did not sit the state test, and the two rules that govern that point in opposite directions

The number, from the district’s own exhibit. Exhibit G carries the note beside the grade 7 math chart: Due to a teacher shortage, students had ½ year with online Math. Also,only 80% of the class participated in the test. 20% opted out. The assistant superintendent put the same thing on the record at 0:29:53, and his account of the mechanism is right: “the state expects 95% participation and we only had 80%.”

The federal rule. 20 U.S.C. §6311(c)(4)(E)(i) requires each State plan to “Annually measure the achievement of not less than 95 percent of all students, and 95 percent of all students in each subgroup of students, who are enrolled in public schools”, and clause (ii) requires the accountability denominator to be “the greater of—(I) 95 percent of all such students… or (II) the number of students participating in the assessments”. That is precisely the arithmetic Koski described.

The state rule, which cuts the other way. RSA 193-C:6, in the text in force on this date, provides that “All public school students in the designated grades shall participate in the assessment, unless such student is exempted from taking the test by his or her parent or legal guardian”, and then that “A school district shall not penalize any exempted student nor shall the department of education or the state board of education penalize any school district for a lower participation rate.” New Hampshire gives parents an unconditional opt-out and forbids the State to penalise the district for the resulting rate; federal law requires the State to build the 95 per cent floor into the accountability determination anyway. The board was told about the consequence and not about the tension.

Two district duties the same section imposes, which the record does not reach. RSA 193-C:6 also requires that “A school district shall develop a form to be signed by the parent or legal guardian of any student exempted from the assessment” and that the district “shall provide an appropriate alternative educational activity for the time period during which the assessment is administered”, agreed with the parent. With a fifth of a grade opting out, both duties were engaged at scale. Nothing in this packet or on this recording shows the form or the alternative activity; nothing shows their absence either.

The related admission. At 0:36:09 the chair told the public that the district has no updated math or science curriculum in place, “so that we can probably lay some of the disappointing numbers at the feet of a lack of curriculum”, and the assistant superintendent confirmed that the outgoing programme was not aligned to the tested grade-level standards. The replacement programmes had been purchased three weeks earlier, on 15 May. That is a candid account from the chair, and it belongs beside the scores.

Sources: Exhibit G- 2024 Claremont NH SAS Results.pdf; 20 U.S.C. §6311(c)(4)(E)(i)–(ii); RSA 193-C:6, 2023 codification — in force in this form from 2018, 91:1, eff. July 24, 2018; the 2024, 350:3 amendment took effect 1 October 2024 and is not applied here; 5.15.24 draft CSB meeting minutes (the math programme purchase).

OBSERVATION Citizens’ comments opened and closed inside one sentence — exactly as the board’s own policy directs, and against the thirty minutes the same policy promises

What happened. At 0:02:32: “Are there any citizens in the audience this evening that would like to speak on non-agenda items? Seeing no citizens interested in speaking, we’re going to close citizens comments”. The approved minutes: “Citizens Comments- none”. People were in the room — the vice chair said so at 0:00:51 — but they were the evening’s presenters.

The statute. RSA 189:74, in force from 2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022, requires a school board to “provide the opportunity for the public to comment on school district matters at a meeting of the school board held under RSA 91-A:2” and provides that “The public comment period shall be for no less than 30 minutes.” Whether that is a floor on elapsed time or a floor on the opportunity is not settled by the text, and this page does not assert a violation where nobody was turned away.

The district’s own policy says both things. Policy BEDH, adopted 6 September 2023, states in section B that “The Board will provide a minimum of thirty minutes in total to hear all public comments under RSA 189:74”, and four paragraphs later instructs the chair to do what she did: “The Board Chair will close the public comment period after there is no response to the Board Chair’s vocal invitation to the audience to make a public comment during the specified comment period.” The chair followed the operative sentence. Two further provisions of BEDH went unused and unmentioned: the requirement that the board “provide opportunity for written public comment for persons unable to attend the meeting”, on 24 hours’ notice and 300 words, and the three-minute speaking limit that Bonnie Miles later looked for in the by-laws and could not find.

One narrowing worth recording. The invitation was limited to “non-agenda items”. BEDH paragraph 2 does limit the General Business comment period that way, so the chair was following policy; but BEDH section B also says an individual “may offer comments on agenda items or any other District matters”, and paragraph 3 leaves comment on specific agenda items to the board’s discretion. This agenda scheduled none. So on a night that adopted the board’s governing by-laws and approved two student handbooks, the public had no noticed opportunity to speak to any of it.

Sources: RSA 189:74; board policy BEDH — Public Participation at Board Meetings (first reading 17 May 2023, second reading and adopted 6 September 2023), read in full from the district’s live policy index; CSB Agenda 6.5.24; approved minutes of 5 June 2024.

OBSERVATION The approved minutes credit a tribute to a person the recording does not put in that voice, and mislabel two of the packet’s exhibits

The attribution. The approved minutes record, under Other Business: “Patrick O’Hearn recognized Dr. Herzog, his resignation, and appreciation for his work in the district; this was echoed by the Board and Mr. Pratt.” On the recording that tribute (1:08:44) falls in a diarized voice with exactly four utterances in the whole meeting, and one of the other three is the motion to adopt the by-laws — which the same set of minutes attributes to Mike Petrin. Both attributions cannot be right. The dialogue file labels all four as Michael Petrin. Patrick O’Hearn is on the agenda masthead as Human Resource Director and has no other attributed word all evening. This page reports both and asserts neither; a reader who needs the point settled will need the video, not the transcript.

The exhibit letters. The posted agenda assigns Exhibit E to the by-laws, Exhibit F to the DMG presentation and Exhibit G to the assessment results, and the three files in the packet folder are named accordingly. The approved minutes call the assessment results “(Exhibit E)” and the by-laws “(Exhibit F)”, and drop the letter from the DMG item altogether. Two of the district’s three presentation exhibits are cited by the wrong letter in the only approved narrative record of the meeting.

Two smaller slips in the same family. The chair read the third set of consent-agenda minutes as the 24th of May; the agenda, the packet file name and the minutes all say the 22nd. And the transcribed tribute thanks the tech-centre director “for all his hard work for the 60 years he’s been the director there” — a figure the automatic transcript gives at full confidence and which cannot be right. Neither is corrected here; both are recorded so a reader knows the record disagrees with itself.

Sources: approved minutes of 5 June 2024; CSB Agenda 6.5.24; the packet folder 10. CSB 6.5.24; the diarized transcript Input/Transcripts/15786 SchoolBoard060524.mp4.json and the dialogue file.

POSITIVE Three things this board got right: the quorum question, the union question, and the by-law question nobody else asked

The quorum. The vice chair raised it as a point of order before anything was transacted (0:00:33): “can we have a meeting anyway? And if and if we don’t vote on things. We can’t vote without a quorum. But can we have a board? Can we listen to presentations without a quorum? No. Okay.” The chair’s answer was the correct one: “We cannot hold a meeting without a quorum.” RSA 91-A:2, I defines a meeting as the convening of a quorum for the purpose of discussing or acting on a matter within the body’s jurisdiction; without one there is nothing to convene and nothing to transact, presentations included. The board paused rather than proceed.

The union. The Stevens High School handbook proposed a period-based schedule. The chair had taken it to the district’s counsel and came back with a stop (0:19:49): he “wanted to hold on that until he discussed with the union any impact bargaining that may occur with change in work hours and expectations.” The board laid the handbook on the table rather than adopt it. Hours of work are “terms and conditions of employment” within RSA 273-A:1, XI, and refusing to negotiate in good faith over them is an unfair labor practice under RSA 273-A:5, I(e). Deferring was the conservative and correct course, and it cost the board the item it had scheduled.

The by-laws. In four minutes of discussion of a twenty-two-page governing document, one member found a real defect. Bonnie Miles, at 0:40:25: “that was on page six, item 2.04 about the public comment section. And I don’t see anything mentioned there about limiting the time. I believe they had three minutes.” By-law 2.04 does end by vesting the chair with authority to terminate remarks “as to content or time limitation” while stating no time limitation anywhere in the paragraph. The chair’s answer was also right: the by-laws defer to policy, and policy BEDH sets the three minutes. She was the only member to ask a substantive question about the document, and she was correct.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I, 2023 codification; RSA 273-A:1, XI — in force from 2014, 13:1, 2, eff. July 13, 2014; RSA 273-A:5, I(e) — in force from 1979, 374:4, eff. Aug. 22, 1979, never since amended; by-law 2.04; board policy BEDH.

POSITIVE The minutes reached the public on the fifth business day — and the business administrator stated the appropriation-lapse rule to the board correctly

Timeliness, measured. RSA 91-A:2, II requires that minutes “shall be promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting”, and a draft satisfies it. Five business days after Wednesday 5 June 2024 is Wednesday 12 June. The draft, draft CSB meeting minutes 6.5.24.pdf, carries a Drive modification time of 12 June 2024, 3:28 p.m. Eastern and reached the public packet share at 3:53 p.m. the same afternoon, sixteen seconds after the folder that holds it was created. Inside the window, with about eight hours to spare. That is a marked change from this board’s recent record: the 20 March draft did not reach the share until the nineteenth business day. The approved copy was posted to the district’s separate minutes share on 25 June, five days after the 20 June meeting.

The accounting. Asked why a director could not carry an unspent supply line into the next year, the business administrator gave the board the rule and told it the district’s prior practice had been wrong (0:43:50, 0:44:02, 0:45:09): purchase orders “From fiscal year 22 or 21, and you’re still carrying them forward to use in 23, which you can’t do… if you didn’t spend a supply line that you could carry that over into the next year. And I’m like, no, you can’t do that… the only way you can do that is if you have a quote or you have something that you’re purchasing and you know it’s not coming in.” That is RSA 32:7: appropriations lapse at the close of the fiscal year unless, among five other exceptions, “The amount has, prior to the end of that fiscal year, become encumbered by a legally-enforceable obligation”. A commitment supported by an accepted quote is such an obligation; an unspent line is not. She also described what a rolled purchase order does to the books — it expenses the money into the year it left rather than the year it is spent — which is the reason the practice matters. Her account of the timing is loosely put on the tape; the statutory test is the existence of the obligation before 30 June, not the arrival of the goods.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II; Google Drive file metadata for draft CSB meeting minutes 6.5.24.pdf (modified 12 June 2024 at 19:28 UTC, created 12 June 2024 at 19:53 UTC) and for the folder 11. CSB 6.20.24 (created 12 June 2024 at 19:53 UTC), read 2026-08-29; RSA 32:7.

Appendix — source files

Official and public sources

Remote video: Claremont School Board 6/5/24 (Cablecast show 15786), in the Claremont Community TV gallery CLAREMONT SCHOOLS. The archive gives a total run time of 4,325 seconds and an event date of 5 June 2024; the dialogue file spans 0.5 to 4,295 seconds, so the recording covers the whole meeting with about thirty seconds of tail.
Packet folder: 10. CSB 6.5.24 — 13 documents, all thirteen opened for this page, in the Claremont School Board packet share. Folder created 29 May 2024 at 17:12 UTC.
Approved minutes: 12. approved CSB minutes 6.5.24, in the district’s separate Meeting Minutes share; created there 25 June 2024 at 15:12 UTC.
Draft minutes, and the evidence for flag 13: draft CSB meeting minutes 6.5.24.pdf, filed in the following meeting’s packet folder 11. CSB 6.20.24. Drive createdTime measures when a document reached the public share, not when it was written: this folder was created at 19:53 UTC and the draft appears in it sixteen seconds later. Its modifiedTime, twenty-five minutes earlier at 19:28 UTC, proves the document existed before the folder did. Both times fall on 12 June, the fifth business day.
Explicit negatives, established for this page by opening every document in the packet folder and both minutes shares: no notice, agenda or minutes exists anywhere for the strategic-planning Working Committee meeting of 5 June 2024 (flag 6); no board vote creating that committee appears in the 11 May, 15 May, 22 May or 5 June minutes; no contract, cost or period of performance for the DMG engagement appears in any document in this packet (flag 5); no adoption of the Stevens High School cell-phone policy appears in any of those four sets of minutes, though the chair describes it as already implemented; and there is no change summary for the middle-school handbook, though the elementary and high-school handbooks each have one.

Packet documents (exact Drive file names, district typographical errors included)

CSB Agenda 6.5.24.docx.pdf — the posted agenda used throughout this page. Created 29 May, modified 31 May.
Exhibit E- Claremont School Board By-Laws .pdf — twenty-two pages, adopted as presented; flags 1 and 2. Posted 29 May with the folder.
Exhibit F- DMGroup_SAU6_Strategic Planning Board Introduction (1).pdf — 25 slides; the workplan and the Working Committee roster; flags 5 and 6. Posted 4 June, the day before the meeting.
Exhibit G- 2024 Claremont NH SAS Results.pdf — the assessment charts and the grade 7 participation note; flag 9. Posted 4 June.
Exhibit A- 24-25 elementary student handbook-DRAFT.pdf and Exhibit A- 24-25 Elementary Handbook Changes.pdf — approved as presented; flag 7. The change sheet is on Disnard Elementary School letterhead over Melissa Lewis’s name, which is how this page fixes her school.
Exhibit B- DRAFT CMS Parent-Student Handbook 24-25 (3).pdf — approved as amended; no change summary accompanies it.
Exhibit C-24-25 SHS Student Handbook .docx (1).pdf and Exhibit C-Stevens High School Handbook Changes.pdf — laid on the table; flag 12. The change sheet records that the dress-code wording “was changed/adapted by the Women in Literature class.”
Exhibit D- CCTV Board Application_ Joella Merchant.pdf — the City of Claremont’s memorandum, the full CCTV Board of Directors roster and the applicant’s signed re-appointment form. The roster carries home addresses, personal telephone numbers and personal e-mail addresses for nine named individuals. None of that is reproduced on this page.
Not in this packet, but read in full for this page and compared with the adopted text paragraph by paragraph: Exhibit H- Claremont School Board By-Laws - Google Docs.pdf, the 20 March 2024 draft, in the packet folder 6. CSB 3.20.24 — posted 18 March 2024. Flags 1 and 2 rest on the differences.
draft CSB retreat meeting minutes 5.11.24.pdf, 5.15.24 draft CSB meeting minutes (1).pdf and 5.22.24 draft CSB minutes (1).pdf — the three sets approved on the consent agenda; flag 4. The 15 May draft is also the source for the Class Night conflict and for the change in the superintendent’s title.

Board policies, read in full from the district’s live policy index on 2026-08-29 — adoption dates from each policy’s own history block

BDB — Board Officers. First reading 19 December 2018, second reading and adopted 2 January 2019. Three officers, one-year terms; also “The Superintendent is an ex-officio, non-voting member of the Board.” The source of flag 2.
BDE — Committees and Delegates. First reading 7 April 2004, adopted 2 June 2004, reviewed 19 December 2018. The source of the majority-vote requirement at flags 2, 4 and 6.
BEDH — Public Participation at Board Meetings. First reading 17 May 2023, second reading and adopted 6 September 2023. The source of flag 10, and internally contradictory on its face.
BDA — Board Organizational Meeting. First reading 7 April 2004, adopted 2 June 2004, reviewed 19 December 2018. Cited by by-law 1.01 for the organizational meeting.

Project files (relative links work when this page is opened from Output/HTML/)

Dialogue transcript: Output/Dialogue/15786 SchoolBoard060524.mp4.CSV — 375 rows, 11 named speakers, 1 row left Unidentified (0.3%).
Diarized transcript: Input/Transcripts/15786 SchoolBoard060524.mp4.json — 377 segments across 11 diarized speakers.
Video: Input/Videos/15786 SchoolBoard060524.mp4
Meeting/document map: Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md (§48)
Companion pages: Claremont School Board — March 20, 2024, the organizational meeting at which these by-laws were debated in draft and postponed; and SAU 6 Board — April 11, 2024, the joint board whose strategic plan this engagement is.

Laws, rules and federal guidance cited on this page

New Hampshire Right-to-Know Law. RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (“public body” includes a school district’s bodies “or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto”); RSA 91-A:2, I and II (definition of a meeting and its four exclusions; notice in 2 appropriate places or a newspaper; minutes contents, mover and seconder, 5 business days) — the 2023 codification, in force from 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023. The 2025, 112:1 additions — start time, end time, who produced the minutes — took effect 22 August 2025 and are not applied. RSA 91-A:3, II(a)–(m) (thirteen lettered subparagraphs, (f) repealed, twelve live grounds) — in force from 2023, 189:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023.
Municipal Budget Act. RSA 32:1 (the chapter reaches school districts); RSA 32:7 (appropriations cover one fiscal year and lapse unless encumbered by a legally-enforceable obligation before it closes, or within five other exceptions) — 1993, 332:1, as amended 2017, 127:3, eff. Aug. 15, 2017; RSA 32:10 (transfers between purposes of appropriation are the governing body’s, with records kept) — last amended 2017, 127:4.
Schools. RSA 189:74 (school board public comment period of no less than 30 minutes) — 2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022; RSA 193-C:6 (statewide assessment required; parental exemption; no penalty to district for a lower participation rate; exemption form and alternative activity) — 2023 codification, in force from 2018, 91:1, eff. July 24, 2018, the 2024, 350:3 amendment post-dating this meeting; RSA 193:38 (discrimination in public schools) — cited in its 2019, 282:1 form, the 2024, 117:1 amendment having taken effect 1 September 2024.
Public employee labor relations. RSA 273-A:1, XI (“terms and conditions of employment” means “wages, hours and other conditions of employment other than managerial policy”) — last amended 2014, 13:1, 2, eff. July 13, 2014; RSA 273-A:5, I(e) (refusal to negotiate in good faith is an unfair labor practice) — 1979, 374:4, eff. Aug. 22, 1979, never since amended.
Federal — Uniform Guidance, cited in the 2023 annual edition that governed this period, not the current eCFR. 2 CFR 200.344(b) (liquidate all financial obligations no later than 120 calendar days after the end of the period of performance — the 2024 Uniform Guidance revision moved this to (c)); 2 CFR 200.403(h) (cost must be incurred during the approved budget period); 2 CFR 200.405(a), (c) (allocable in accordance with relative benefits received).
Federal — statute and guidance. 20 U.S.C. §6311(c)(4)(E)(i)–(ii) (annually measure not less than 95 percent of all students; the accountability denominator); 20 U.S.C. §1225(b) (Tydings — formula funds available one additional fiscal year); 20 U.S.C. §7801 — cited only to record that the “highly qualified” teacher definition Frank Sprague refers to at 1:01:05 was struck from federal law by Pub. L. 114-95, §8002 (Every Student Succeeds Act), 10 December 2015; U.S. Department of Education, Technical FAQs for Liquidation Extension Requests (9 January 2024) — the ARP ESSER final obligation date of 30 September 2024 and the regulatory liquidation date of 28 January 2025.
State Board rules. Ed 300 — Ed 302 (duties of superintendents), Ed 303 (duties of school boards) and Ed 304 (duties of principals), which the by-laws reproduce in Appendices A, B and C. Part Ed 306, the minimum standards the chair discusses at 1:01:31, was under revision as she spoke; the readoption took effect 13 December 2024 and renumbered several sections, so no Ed 306 subsection number is asserted here.
Board policies BDA, BDB, BDE and BEDH, listed above with their adoption dates, and the Claremont School Board By-Laws adopted at this meeting. These are the district’s own rules, not state law, and every flag that rests on one says so.