Claremont School Board — August 21, 2024 | A position filled before the board created it

Participants

Everyone in the record. Attendance and the spelling of every board name come from the district’s **approved minutes of 21 August 2024**; roles come from the agenda masthead, which prints the seven board members, the school board clerk, an empty Student Board Members heading and six SAU 6 central-office administrators. Segment and word counts are from the dialogue file (696 rows, 14,148 words). Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell to read the full text.
Name	Role	Participation
Chris Pratt	Superintendent, SAU 6 — the agenda masthead and the minutes both print him as Superintendent, with no trace of the word interim	140 segments, 4,170 words, 29.5 per cent — the largest share of the night by a wide margin. He gives the superintendent’s report (0:01:52 onward), builds the 504 discussion out of a ten-year data series, and then carries the whole of the assistant tech-centre item from 0:41:31 to 1:19:44. He states the salary (0:43:47), confirms the post has been offered and accepted (0:45:37), answers the question the meeting turns on — “It does, but it was this is a time sensitive thing, and I had to make the decision” (0:50:26) — concedes the candidate has no technical-education experience (0:50:46), offers the board the option of refusing (0:57:04), and after the vote apologises on the record (1:19:22). The recognizer renders him `Mr. Pride`.
Heather Whitney	Chair, Claremont School Board; member, Finance Subcommittee	175 segments, 3,044 words, 21.5 per cent — more turns than anyone. With the clerk absent she opens, calls the roll herself, disposes of the consent agenda, opens and closes citizens’ comments and moves to the superintendent’s report in two utterances totalling under a minute (0:00:53, 0:01:23). She announces the nonpublic ground (0:34:32), runs both roll calls, dictates two summaries directly into the minutes (0:39:56, 1:25:04), assembles the amendment mechanics for the tech-centre motion, seconds the June meeting-date motion herself (1:24:56), and adjourns by consent (1:33:22). She voted against the amendment and for the main motion. She is not Whitney Skillen, a different member of this board whose first name is Whitney.
Bonnie Miles	Member; Capital Improvements Committee	76 segments, 1,081 words, 7.6 per cent. Hers is the questioning the evening turns on. She asks whether the arrangement keeps the technical centre in compliance with the State (0:48:23), and then puts the question nobody had put: “But we’ve already hired someone for a position that we have not approved. Is that correct?” (0:49:18). She supplies the word acting (0:50:55, 1:06:25) and moves the amendment that carried (1:12:21) — which the approved minutes credit to Arlene Hawkins instead (flag 6). She is also the member who keeps the record straight on what the board is actually voting on: “I don’t mean to be difficult. I thought we were approving the position, not a job description” (1:17:39). The recognizer calls her `Bonnie miles` and `miss Miles`.
Tina McCosker	Special educator and case manager, Bluff Elementary School — the only presenter from outside the central office. The agenda and the approved minutes both spell the surname McCosker; the dialogue file renders it McCusker and flags the spelling as unverified	16 segments, 964 words, 6.8 per cent — the fourth-largest share, in one continuous presentation. She asks the board for $1,500 to run a Girls on the Run programme for fifteen girls with two volunteer coaches (0:26:16 onward). Her case is made from her own building’s numbers: “We have 45% of our students who live at or below the poverty level” and “Poor, 33% are on an IEP” (0:27:47, 0:28:10), and from a refusal to give more: “And I won’t share the numbers because you’d probably be very upset”. She proposes to meet the cost of shoes and shirts by donation from named local retailers (0:29:46) and undertakes to return anything unspent. This project’s records carry the surname McCosker for a second, different person — the Director of Student Services, printed McCosker on the 7 August masthead and `McKosker` on this one — and the two must never be merged.
Michael Petrin	Member; chair, ad hoc Communications Subcommittee; Capital Improvements Committee	60 segments, 881 words, 6.2 per cent. He seconds the tech-centre motion (0:44:14), asks whether Newport is to be paid anything (0:47:27), and is the only member to vote No on the main motion — having announced it in advance: “I’ll declare that my vote is going to be no, because we don’t need the acting assistant director” (1:12:47). His objection is definitional and he argues it from the superintendency itself (1:13:29). On 504 plans he presses for coping skills over accommodations (0:21:53). He also names the missed meeting: “The meeting was missed. I think I’m probably one that missed that meeting” (0:57:33). The recognizer calls him `Patron`, `Mister patron`, `Mr. Peterson` and `Mr. Peter`.
Candace Crawford	Member; chair, Capital Improvements Committee; chair, SRVRTC Visioning Subcommittee; Finance Subcommittee	68 segments, 876 words, 6.2 per cent. She moves the Girls on the Run funding (0:33:07) and puts on the record that the district’s two consultants’ reports point opposite ways: “in the 2015 report, it did say a director for the two programs. However, in the 2024 report, it said that there should be a full time director at both the campuses. And so I just want that on the record” (0:46:39). She refuses to be told precedent settles it — “I think if we made the if we did that before, that can’t be a justified justification for going forward” (0:54:33) — and states the limit of what she will support: “I can support hiring this person to be on the job because somebody’s got to run the building tomorrow. However, I don’t want to approve this until we have a chance to improve this job description” (1:08:13). She reports for both her committees (1:27:00, 1:30:51).
Frank Sprague	Vice chair; chair, Finance Subcommittee; NHSBA delegate	44 segments, 866 words, 6.1 per cent. He moves both votes of the evening — the staff list (0:38:07) and the tech-centre position (0:44:02) — and then immediately argues against his own motion’s paperwork, from a credential he holds himself: “They certified me as a CD director because I have relevant experience in an associated field, and I don’t see anything about, experience, in machine tool or carpentry or culinary or health science or any of the fields” (0:44:37) the recognizer’s `CD director` and `CT director` are both CTE director. He asks the certification question on the staff list (0:38:21), gives the Finance Subcommittee’s report from its written cadence (1:27:41 onward), and on 504 plans supplies twenty years of a school counsellor’s practice (0:20:28, 0:24:24).
Whitney Skillen	Member; chair, Policy Subcommittee	28 segments, 770 words, 5.4 per cent. She moves the nonpublic session (0:34:50) and the permanent June date change (1:24:46). Her longest run is on managing the symptoms behind a 504 plan rather than only accommodating them (0:15:31, 0:16:02). She breaks the deadlock on the tech-centre motion by naming the procedure (1:12:03), asks the one question that reaches the second vacancy the hire creates (1:18:18) and then stops the answer going further: Can’t in public. (1:18:59). As Policy chair she reports nothing (1:29:24). The recognizer calls her `Miss Gillen`, `Miss Kellen`, `Skilling`, `miss going` and `still on`.
Arlene Hawkins	Member; Curriculum Subcommittee representative; Policy Subcommittee; the board’s member of the ad hoc committee on Unity’s withdrawal from SAU 6	22 segments, 547 words, 3.9 per cent. She seconds the Girls on the Run motion (0:33:32) after asking the only funding-history question anyone asks (0:32:07). On the tech centre she separates the person from the paperwork: “My issue is with the job description. I would really prefer that it did refer to CTE” (1:02:08). She then postpones her own Unity item because its document reached the board that day — “you guys got a very late copy today. We were able to meet this afternoon” (1:21:26) — and reports for the Curriculum Subcommittee (1:30:01). The dialogue file warns that this voice and Bonnie Miles are merged into one diarizer cluster; every row here rests on a chair recognition or a colleague’s direct address, and the approved minutes disagree with the file about which of the two women did what (flag 6).
Mike Koski	Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction, Innovation and Assessment	22 segments, 516 words, 3.6 per cent. He explains the artificial-intelligence framework the district introduced to teachers that same day (0:08:55), gives the answer that settles the cost question on 504 plans — “Burden of a of a 504 is totally on us” (0:12:56) against “And with special ed there is some state or federal reimbursements” (0:13:00) — and describes the self-regulation training being piloted at the middle school (0:18:26, 0:18:57). The approved minutes attribute the 504 cost answer to Mr. McKosker, the Director of Student Services, and the middle-school answer to Mr. Koski — the recording has one voice for both (flag 6). The recognizer calls him `Mr. Kosugi`.
Patrick O’Hearn	Human Resource Director, SAU 6 — in post since 15 April 2024	21 segments, 332 words, 2.3 per cent. He presents the professional staff list for ratification from a document that is in the board’s hands and in no public folder: “A three sheet paper on the front. It has a list of names and a column in the middle is the buildings and the title” (0:36:41). He explains that building administrators run the hiring and the central office posts the vacancy (0:37:46) his `the Dow building` is the SAU 6 central office, and supplies the certification arithmetic in three tries (0:38:26, 0:38:50, 0:39:21). Asked how many teachers the district employs he answers “178 teachers I believe so” (0:40:26).
Unidentified	Short interjections inside clusters the diarizer cannot separate — roll answers, one second, and two hand-offs	17 segments, 69 words, 0.5 per cent — well inside this corpus’s normal range. The category holds the hand-off that identifies the next speaker (“Help me. Go ahead Michael.”, 0:12:17), the single word answering the chair’s question whether anyone moved to seal the nonpublic minutes (0:35:59), an unattributed “We need to go into nonpublic” spoken while a member was describing the candidate (0:47:07), and the second on the staff-list motion, which the minutes credit to Whitney Skillen and the recording does not. This page names nobody from any of them.
Multiple	The room	7 segments, 32 words. The Pledge of Allegiance (0:00:15), the roll-call answers on both nonpublic votes, the roll-call answers on the tech-centre amendment and main motion, and the voice vote on the June meeting date (1:25:04). Not one roll-call answer on this recording can be tied to a named member; the minutes are the only source for who voted how (flag 18).
Noelle Kronberg	School Board Clerk — absent, and the author of record of these minutes	Zero rows. The chair opens by looking for her — “See our clerk present. Is there anyone that is willing on the administrative team to call roll call for this evening?” (0:00:29) the recognizer has dropped a negation; the chair’s next sentence supplies it — and then reads the roll herself “In the absence of our secretary of Clark” (0:00:43) `secretary of Clark` is secretary or clerk. She is referred to twice more as the person who will write things up (1:25:04, 1:25:41). The approved minutes are signed in her name (flag 6), and no motion was read back before any vote, which by-law 2.07 makes the clerk’s duty for a debated motion.
Mary Henry	Business Administrator, SAU 6 — printed on the masthead of both the agenda and the minutes	Zero rows. The chair refers to her once, in the third person, while answering her own question about special-education reimbursement: “Mary might be able to add and there’s some through adequacy aid” (0:13:13). No reply follows and the recording carries no other trace of her. There is no financial item on this agenda — no budget report, no year-end position, no revenue, and no mention of federal relief money six weeks before the deadline to obligate it (flag 16).
Student Board Members	None — the heading is printed on the agenda masthead and on the minutes masthead with no name under it	Zero rows, and zero names in either document. The 20 June agenda masthead printed two student board members; this one prints none, and none is seated anywhere in the record of this meeting. RSA 189:1-c provides that “the school board shall have at least one nonvoting student member from each public high school maintained by the local school board within its district” (flag 8).

Agenda

An official agenda was posted and is in the packet: CSB Agenda 8.21.24 (2).pdf, which reached Google Drive at 8:32 a.m. on Monday 19 August 2024, two days before the meeting. Quotations in the third column marked as agenda or minutes text are from those documents, not from the recording. Scheduled clock times are left as plain text; a timestamp is a link into the recording. Three things to read off this table. The Roman numerals run cleanly I to VII, which the 20 June agenda’s did not. Item IV.1 is headed “(Discussion)” and produced a $1,500 vote, exactly as item 5 did on 20 June. And of the nine numbered Discussion/Action items, two were never reached — including item 6, headed “(Discussion and Vote)” and carrying the words “Recommended action”. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell to read the full text.

Taken up	Item	Agenda text / disposition
6:30 p.m. 0:00:01	I. Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance	Agenda: “I. 6:30 PM Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance”. On tape, from the chair: “I would like to call to order the August 21st, 2024 meeting of the Claremont School Board on attendance, rise and drawing.” The room recites the Pledge at 0:00:15. The minutes record no time for this or for anything else except the return from nonpublic session.
6:35 p.m. 0:00:29	II. General Business — Secretary Roll Call of Attendance	Agenda: “Secretary Roll Call of Attendance of Board Members (Board Members who arrive after the meeting begins will be noted as ‘present’ at the point in the agenda at which they arrive)”. There was no secretary. The chair looks for her, gets Michael Petrin’s “She said she is. I guess.” (0:00:38), and calls the roll herself from 0:00:43: “We’ll be skilling present. Michael.” then “Bonnie miles here. Arlene hawkins. Candace Crawford here. Thanks for here. Are there witnesses here?” `Thanks for here` is Frank Sprague, here; the last sentence is not recoverable. Minutes: “all members present”. Seven seats, seven members.
0:00:53	II. Consent Agenda (vote required) — 1. Amendments and Final Approval of board agenda; 2. Minutes Approval, August 7, 2024	Agenda: “Consent Agenda (vote required) 1. Amendments and Final Approval of board agenda 2. Minutes Approval- August 7, 2024”. Chair: “Today, we have approval of our board agenda and a minute approval from August 7th of 2024. If there are no objections, you can just move this with silent consent”, then “Seeing none, we’re going to, accept the minutes and the agenda as written” (0:01:23). No motion, no second, no vote — which is what by-law 2.10 now provides and what the agenda heading still contradicts. The document approved is the 7 August draft minutes, of a meeting with no recording. Minutes: “Accepted as written”. No amendment to the agenda was proposed and none was needed; the two items that fell were dropped later, for time.
0:01:23	II. Citizens Comments	Agenda: “Citizens Comments”, with no rules printed. The whole of it is one clause inside the sentence that closes the consent agenda: “We’ll now open the floor to non-agenda items for citizen comments per policy DEDH. Is there anyone present motion to speak this evening? The citizens comments. Seeing none, we’re going to move on to our first order of business, which is superintendents report.” `policy DEDH` is policy BEDH; `anyone present motion` is not recoverable. The period opened and closed inside a single utterance running from 0:01:23 to 0:01:52, and nobody was present to answer. Minutes: “Citizens Comments- none”. No “Board Discussion Regarding Citizens Comments” step followed, which policy BEDH provides for. See flag 7.
6:40 p.m. 0:01:52	III. Superintendent’s Report	Agenda: “III. 6:40 PM Superintendent’s Report”, with no exhibit named. Pratt walks a written report he says he sent the board: “I’m just going to give you a brief overview of the superintendents report that I sent you”. That report is not in the packet folder. Content by his own account: the year’s focus on “a handsome instruction, practices and building strong family relationships” the minutes render this enhancing instructional practices; a ten-year series on 504 plans (0:04:53); new-teacher hiring falling from 42 two years ago to 36 to 21 (0:07:22); and the professional development running that week (0:07:41, 0:08:05). Board questions run to 0:25:34 — twenty-four minutes, the longest single stretch of board questioning of the night. Disposition: no vote. See flags 3 and 17.
7:00 p.m. 0:25:54	IV.1 Girls on the Run Program at Bluff Elementary School (Discussion)	Agenda: “1. Girls on the Run Program at Bluff Elementary School (Discussion) Tina McCosker, Bluff Elementary Special Educator”. Two packet documents support it, both from the national organisation and neither from the district: the 2023 New Hampshire site recruitment packet and a sample lesson. Presented from 0:26:16; moved by Candace Crawford at 0:33:07, seconded by Arlene Hawkins at 0:33:32, carried by voice with no tally at 0:34:14. An item headed Discussion produced the evening’s only appropriation of money, and no source of funds was named (flag 10).
0:34:32	IV.2 Nonpublic session — RSA 91-A:3, II (j) and (c)	The agenda prints both grounds in full, quoting the statute for II(j) and paraphrasing II(c). The chair announces only the first: “Our second item on the agenda is entering into a nonpublic session for a 91 dash, a three comma Roman numeral two, J.” Whitney Skillen’s motion states no ground at all: “I’d like to make a motion to move to a nonpublic session.” (0:34:50). Candace Crawford seconds (0:35:04); a roll call follows that the tape cannot resolve into names. The board is back at 0:35:27, Arlene Hawkins moving and Frank Sprague seconding the return; the chair asks twice for a motion to seal and gets one word, No. (0:35:59). No minutes of the nonpublic session exist in any district share (flag 2).
0:36:26	IV.3 Ratification of Professional Staff Nominations (Vote)	Agenda: “3. Ratification of Professional Staff Nominations (Vote) Christopher Pratt, Superintendent & Patrick O’Hearn, HR Director”. The list is in no public document. O’Hearn presents it from “A three sheet paper on the front” (0:36:41); Frank Sprague moves at 0:38:07; the second at 0:38:12 is unattributed on the tape and credited by the minutes to Whitney Skillen. The chair dictates the certification arithmetic into the minutes (0:39:56, 0:40:13) and carries it by voice at 0:41:04. See flags 3 and 11.
0:41:04	IV.4 Assistant Tech Center Director Position (SRVRTC) (Discussion/Vote)	Agenda: “4. Assistant Tech Center Director Position (SRVRTC) (Discussion/Vote) Christopher Pratt, Superintendent”. No exhibit is cited and the job description is in no public document. The chair frames it: “Because this is a change in position, the school board needs to approve the change of position.” Pratt gives the background from 0:41:31; Sprague moves and Petrin seconds (0:44:02, 0:44:14); thirty-five minutes of debate follow. An amendment changing the title to acting assistant CTE director carries on a roll call the minutes record as 5–2 (1:15:29), and the amended motion carries 6–1 (1:19:17). See flags 1, 3 and 14.
1:20:31	IV.5 Region 10 Agreement (Discussion) — not reached	Agenda: “5. Region 10 Agreement (Discussion) Christopher Pratt, Superintendent”. No document in the packet. Chair: “What about the region ten agreement? Is this something that we can move to September 2nd”; Pratt: “I think I mean, yeah, I think we can wait. With everything going on, we can wait till the next one. It’s there’s really no changes except for the dates” (1:20:40). Minutes: “Moved to next meeting”. The agreement appears as Exhibit B in the 4 September packet, published on 29 August.
1:21:26	IV.6 SAU Exploratory Subcommittee Update (Discussion and Vote) — not reached	Agenda: “6. SAU Exploratory Subcommittee Update (Discussion and Vote) Discussion of budgetary and administrative impacts of potential withdrawal of Unity from SAU 6. Recommended action. Arlene Hawkins and Chris Pratt”. No document in the packet. Hawkins: “you guys got a very late copy today. We were able to meet this afternoon, Mr. Pride and myself and Chelsea” `Mr. Pride` is Superintendent Pratt; the minutes name Chelsea Weatherford, and “you just got a packet tonight. Today to move, I mean to read” (1:21:46). Deferred with no vote. Minutes: “Moved to next meeting; Arlene Hawkins would like to be able to share it to the SAU Board on the 12th”. See flags 14 and 20.
1:22:17	IV.7 Permanently Changing 1st Meeting Date in June (Vote)	Agenda: “7. Discussion; Permanently Changing 1st Meeting Date in June (Vote) Scheduled CSB Meeting conflicts with yearly Senior Student Awards night. Heather Whitney, Chair”, with a starred note: “Inform board of January 2nd meeting date, moved from Wednesday to Thursday due to Federal Holiday.” Whitney Skillen moves at 1:24:46; the chair seconds her own item (1:24:56) and carries it by voice with no tally. She then dictates the result: “we are going to permanently change the first meeting in June for the Claremont School Board to in perpetuity, to be held on Tuesday” (1:25:04). See flag 9.
1:26:04	IV.8 Progress on Improving Sub-Committee Effectiveness (Discussion)	Agenda: “8. Progress on Improving Sub-Committee Effectiveness (Discussion led by Chairs of Sub-Committees or Designee) Status of Folder Development, Purpose Statements, Meeting Cadence, Identification of Critical Activities and Recurring Deadlines”. Chair: “Each subcommittee was charged with, providing the board with, what the mission of the subcommittee is going to be, what the cadence of the meetings and what the critical activities of those subcommittees, the expectations will be moving forward”, and “when we get the new, website up, we’re going to be able to present this to the public in our folder” (1:26:30). Run together with item 9. Disposition: no vote. This is the item that produced the packet’s three subcommittee documents, and the first sustained written account of what these bodies are for that the corpus holds.
1:27:00	IV.9 Sub-Committees (Discussion) — a) Capital Improvement b) Finance c) Policy d) Curriculum e) SRVRTC f) Ad Hoc Communications	Agenda: “9. Sub-Committees (Discussion) Reports by subcommittee chairs if available”, with Exhibits A, B and C against Capital Improvement, Finance and SRVRTC. Five of the six reported; two reported nothing. Crawford on Capital Improvements (1:27:00): “the Capital Committee has changed from the building committee”. Sprague on Finance (1:27:41): “We have some of our deadlines are actually by RSA and and statute and the, the rules of the,” / “Of revenue administration, the Dre” `the Dre` is the New Hampshire DRA, the Department of Revenue Administration. Skillen on Policy: nothing (1:29:24). Hawkins on Curriculum (1:30:01). Crawford on SRVRTC (1:30:51): “For missing committee. Yes, it’s in the back and same thing applies” `For missing committee` is for the Visioning committee. Petrin on ad hoc Communications: “Nothing yet. Can I find the time?” (1:31:04). See flag 4.
8:20 p.m. 1:31:08	V. Other Business	Agenda: “V. 8:20 PM Other Business”, with nothing under it. The chair reviews the next agenda — the revised job description, the Region 10 agreement and the exploratory subcommittee — and Petrin raises the strategic-planning invitations: “Just a clarification on the invite we get today, the D and G Strategic Planning Committee” (1:32:18). Pratt: “It’s a district management group. They’re the ones that are facilitating our work for creating the strategic plan” (1:32:48), invitations having gone that day to board members, the mayor, the city manager, “Some parents”. Disposition: no vote.
8:25 p.m. 1:31:50	VI. Future Dates / Future Agenda Items	Agenda: five future dates — a public forum on academic achievement (no date), the “Joint City Counsel and Claremont School Board Meeting- 9/30/2024” “City Counsel” is the district’s own spelling, four Finance Subcommittee meetings “1-3 PM at SRVRTC John Goodrich Community Room”, the “Claremont School Board FY26 Proposed Budget Public Hearing- 1/2/2025”, and the “Claremont School Board Deliberative Session- Saturday, February 1, 2025. Snow Date: Saturday, February 8, 2025”. On tape the chair reads the four finance dates and adds what is not on the agenda: “The finance subcommittee has set our dates to to be televised by CCTV”. See flag 19, where the budget-hearing and deliberative dates are checked against the statute.
8:30 p.m. 1:33:22	VII. Adjournment	Agenda: “VII. 8:30 PM Adjournment”. Chair: “Is there any objection to a during the meeting? You have no objection. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.” Minutes: “Consent adjournment”, with no time — where the 7 August minutes for the same clerk read “Consent adjournment, 8:49pm”. The last words on the recording are Whitney Skillen’s, at 1:33:29.

Discussion timeline

Chronological, from the dialogue file. Times are the transcript’s own start seconds, rendered from the same number the link seeks to, so text and link cannot disagree. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording. Quotations are reproduced exactly as the speech recognizer rendered them: square brackets mark an insertion or correction and the garbled wording is kept visible wherever the correction changes the sense; repeated stutters are sometimes condensed; nothing else has been smoothed and no missing word is supplied. Single-word transcript items are set in italic rather than quotation marks. Quotations from the agenda, the minutes, a packet document, the by-laws, a board policy or a statute are labelled as such in the sentence that carries them. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell to read the full text.

Time	Topic	What was said	Flags
0:00:01	The chair opens, and the clerk is not there	Whitney: “I would like to call to order the August 21st, 2024 meeting of the Claremont School Board on attendance, rise and drawing.” Then, after the Pledge: “See our clerk present. Is there anyone that is willing on the administrative team to call roll call for this evening?” (0:00:29) the recognizer has dropped the negation; nothing on the tape supplies it and this page does not supply it either — the chair’s next sentence is what establishes the clerk’s absence. Petrin: “She said she is. I guess.” Whitney then calls it herself: “I’m going to call. Roll call. In the absence of our secretary of Clark.” (0:00:43).	MEDIUM
0:00:53	The consent agenda approves the minutes of a meeting nobody can watch	Whitney: “First order of business is the consent agenda on our consent agenda. Today, we have approval of our board agenda and a minute approval from August 7th of 2024. If there are no objections, you can just move this with silent consent.” Then “Seeing none, we’re going to, accept the minutes and the agenda as written” (0:01:23). The 7 August meeting was a full regular session with a counsel presentation, a nonpublic session and the creation of a new committee, and there is no recording of it. Its draft minutes reached the public share on 19 August 2024 — the eighth business day after the meeting, where RSA 91-A:2, II allows five.	MEDIUM
0:01:23	Citizens’ comments open and close inside one sentence	Whitney, in a single utterance that also disposes of the consent agenda and introduces the superintendent: “We’ll now open the floor to non-agenda items for citizen comments per policy DEDH. Is there anyone present motion to speak this evening? The citizens comments. Seeing none, we’re going to move on to our first order of business, which is superintendents report.” The invitation and its closure are separated by three words, and the next voice on the recording is the superintendent’s at 0:01:52. Nobody was turned away, because nobody was there.	MEDIUM
0:01:52	The superintendent’s report, from a document the public does not have	Pratt: “I’m just going to give you a brief overview of the superintendents report that I sent you.” No superintendent’s report is in the packet folder, and the agenda names no exhibit for the item. He gives the year’s framing — “This year we are dedicated to in our kind of motto. This year is meeting minds and shaping lives, one student at a time” (0:02:18) — and the recovery framing: “we’re still seeing the aftermath from the, the pandemic and the challenges and students performance in math and Ela is improving thanks to targeted inventions in the summer program” (0:02:44) `targeted inventions` is targeted interventions; `Ela` is ELA.	HIGH
0:04:53	A ten-year series on 504 plans, and where the increase sits	Pratt: “if you look into your report under the 504, you can see the the increase of Bible fours over the ten years. And if you notice the year, the pandemic, it really jumped up a lot, you know, to 100. And then it steadily continues to grow from there based on the needs we’re seeing from loss of learning” `Bible fours`, `five or fours` and `500 for` are all 504s throughout this recording. And: “The number of students with 504 cans and special needs has increased the notable rise in those with ADHD, anxiety and depression” (0:06:06). He breaks the count out by building and by reason. This page reproduces no figure from that report, which was not published and whose building-level counts could be identifying.
0:07:41	An artificial-intelligence framework goes to grades 5–12, the same day, with nothing in writing	Pratt: “on Wednesday, August 21st, which was today, we had K-5 teachers engaging in a session of accountable talk at the in the tech Center, and grade six through 12 were introduced to kind of ego, which is an AI framework that be using on 5 to 12.” Koski explains it (0:08:55): “It’s an artificial artificial intelligence program. Okay. So students are using it already to write essays.” and “we’ve got to change our instructional practice so that we can make sure students are doing what we think they’re telling us they know” (0:09:22). The recognizer never carries the product’s name usably — `MeeGo`, `kind of ego`, `kind of me go` — and neither the packet nor the minutes name it. The minutes say only “the AI professional development that teachers are participating in”.	OBSERVATION
0:11:20	The chair asks who pays for a 504 plan, and gets the answer	Whitney: “with the 504, it looks like it’s almost a 3 to 4 times increase in ten years in a lot of areas. First with IEP. Is there any reimbursement or any kind of, state or federal assistance that we get to implement these plans”, and “Does the cost burden for the IEP fall on the district exclusively” (0:11:51). Koski: “On the IEP side of the special education side, yes, there can be some money that come back in terms of Medicaid reimbursement” (0:12:23), then “Burden of a of a 504 is totally on us” (0:12:56) and “And with special ed there is some state or federal reimbursements” (0:13:00). The minutes give this answer to a different man — “Mr. McKosker explained that 504 don’t usually include services and the burden of a 504 falls on the district” — while giving the next answer, in the same voice, to Mr. Koski.	MEDIUM
0:15:31	Skillen asks whether children are taught to manage the condition, not only accommodated for it	Skillen: “Are there any, like, emerging trends in the industry on helping the students and possibly the family?” and “Are there like emerging things happening in public elementary schools, for example, to help children and families learn how to manage symptoms and still be successful at whatever you’re trying to achieve” (0:16:02). Koski: “it’s not the elementary school, but we’ve targeted the middle school this year for that training… the teachers will then train the other staff to teach students how to pause and just reset themselves” (0:18:26), naming the outside trainer as “John Wharton, and he lives locally. He’s an author on the subject” (0:18:57) the surname is the recognizer’s and appears in no district document; this page does not treat it as settled. And: “A lot of it is due to screen time” (0:19:22).
0:20:28	The vice chair explains what a 504 plan is for, from twenty years of doing it	Sprague: “when I would explain what a 504 plan was, I would say it answers the teachers question before they ask it” (0:20:03), then the worked example: “the student may have a kidney issue or some some physical issue, whereas the teacher gets the plan ahead of time. This student will be allowed to go to the bathroom without question when they ask”, and “I’ve had kids with cystic fibrosis, kids with migraines different and typically the migraines was we had a very restrictive attendance policy, Stevens High School when I first started there”. Later he names the failure mode: “often 504 plans were given as a consolation prize for someone not getting an IEP” (0:24:24) and “it really should be an actual disability. That entitles.” (0:24:48).
0:21:33	Petrin: coping skills rather than crutches	Petrin: “I hope we are doing these sorts of training, some coping skills, not just giving the kids crutches for the rest of their life. We need to be training these kids on coping skills and how they got, because if head is working at her job, she can’t go take a walk in the middle of a surgery” (0:21:53) `if head is` is if Heather is — the recognizer renders the chair’s first name as a common noun, which hides a reference to her. And: “Frank retired. You can go take a while. I can’t” (0:22:13). Pratt agrees: “it’s more about teaching them how to manage it”, and Petrin concedes the limit: “there are some accommodations that are going to be needed for the rest of their life” (0:22:37).
0:26:16	A Bluff Elementary special educator asks the board for $1,500	McCosker: “This is my third year at bluff as a special educator in case manager”, and the case: “bluff, as you probably know, is a very poor school support in the district. We have 45% of our students who live at or below the poverty level” (0:27:47); “And I won’t share the numbers because you’d probably be very upset. But come from shelters” and “Poor, 33% are on an IEP” (0:28:10); “teaching them how to give back when you are poor, many things are given to you” (0:28:37). The ask: “So I’m looking at 15 girls, two coaches. It is for the coaches. It’s all volunteer. So the monies are just to be used for the registration fee” (0:29:25).
0:29:46	The money is asked for out of last year, and voted out of this year	McCosker: “It is a total of 1500 that I’m asking for. And that’s from monies left over from last year. I understand that this year’s monies are most likely all budgeted… Any monies that are not used for registration, I would certainly give back”, with shoes and shirts to come from donations by named local retailers her “Many of our teachers have crickets” at 0:30:26 is a cutting machine, not an insect. Hawkins asks the only funding-history question: “How has this been funded in the past?” (0:32:07); the answer is “It has not. This is the first year” (0:32:13).
0:33:07	The motion directs the administration to find the money, and names no line	Crawford: “I make a motion that, we support this program and, have the finance person for intendant find $1,500 in the current budget to to cover the cost of.” `the finance person for intendant` is the finance person or superintendent Whitney immediately fixes the year: “Yeah, it can’t come from last year, so we’ll have to come. Yes.” (0:33:24). Hawkins: “I’ll second the motion.” Petrin asks the precedent question: “bluff is one of three many schools in the district. And I’m not against, you know, 1500. But if it’s bluff, you know, these numbers can start piling up” (0:33:37). Carried by voice with no tally: “All in favor of the as of the motion, as stated by Miss Crawford. Say I any opposed seeing? No. Opposed. The motion passes.” (0:34:14).	MEDIUM
0:34:32	The nonpublic ground is announced from the chair, and the motion states none	Whitney: “Our second item on the agenda is entering into a nonpublic session for a 91 dash, a three comma Roman numeral two, J. Can I have a motion to go into nonpublic and roll call? Yes, Miss Gillen.” Skillen: “I’d like to make a motion to move to a nonpublic session.” (0:34:50). Whitney: “I’m going to do a roll call. Vote. Miss going. Are you approving your second? Is anybody else second?” (0:34:54), and Crawford seconds. RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires that “Any motion to enter nonpublic session shall state on its face the specific exemption under paragraph II which is relied upon”. The agenda’s second ground, II(c), is never spoken.	HIGH
0:35:27	Ninety recording-seconds later, the board is back — and declines to seal	Whitney: “Can I have a motion to leave public?” then “Motion has been made to leave now in public. Arlene made the motion, Frank seconded.” (0:35:34). At 0:35:53: “Is there any motion to seal the minutes? No. Motion to seal the minutes?”, answered by one unattributed word, No. Then: “Motion passes to come back into the public and reenter nonpublic at enter the public session at 730. Exactly.” (0:36:02). The recording carries no gap at all across the nonpublic session — 0.08 seconds between the last row before it and the first row after — against a largest inter-row interval of 3.44 seconds anywhere in the file. Whether that means a ninety-second session or a spliced broadcast is at flag 15.	HIGH OBSERVATION
0:36:26	Thirty-one teachers are elected off a sheet of paper nobody outside the room can see	O’Hearn: “A three sheet paper on the front. It has a list of names and a column in the middle is the buildings and the title. So I’d like to present for ratification. This is all the professional staff, credentialed teaching positions this year for your ratification.” He explains who does the hiring: “at the Dow building we post the position. But really reaching out to candidates, reviewing the resumé, setting up the interviews, it’s all on the building administrators” (0:37:46). Crawford asks why one school has so many: “Why is Maple 13th?”, and is told “So Maple had a lot of vacancies… some of these vacancies actually go farther back than just the school year” (0:37:20). No such list is in the packet folder, and none appears in any later packet.	HIGH
0:38:21	How many of them hold a credential, in three answers	Sprague: “So how many of these folks are head for. So there are.” `head for`, `on all four` and `that’s all for` are the recognizer’s Alt IV, the alternative certification route; the minutes print it correctly. O’Hearn: “Three staff on on all four” (0:38:26), then “there’s more folks that are we are working on certification. I think it’s probably about ten staff that are working on the certification” (0:38:50), then “It’s it’s about 12 of these are so so 20 I think it’s 31 folks in here. So I think about 1920 them are fully certified” (0:39:21). Pratt adds the district-wide figure: “We’re around 33” (0:39:12), out of “178 teachers I believe so” (0:40:26).	MEDIUM
0:39:56	The chair dictates the arithmetic into minutes she knows nobody present will write	Whitney: “So just for the minutes that, we have 19 people on the current list that are fully certified, we have roughly three people on this list that are or up to ten working on their certification.” Then “And we have roughly 33 staff in the district that are also working towards certification just for the minutes” (0:40:13). Crawford proposes the alternative — “rather than have him answer right now, maybe give him the opportunity to get that information out to us” (0:40:42) — and the chair asks whether the board is content to vote anyway (0:40:52). It was: “All in favor of approving the list of nominations as presented by doctor, Doctor Pratt. Mr. Pratt say I not opposed. Motion passes.” (0:41:04).	MEDIUM
0:41:31	The tech-centre item opens on a nine-year-old recommendation	Pratt: “back in the 2015 sRGB, it was strongly recommended that Newport and Newport and Claremont have one director that oversees both with, you know, assistance. And so based on that in the current CB and just talking to different board members, you know, I looked in exploring the a position of an assistant director of the tech center.” `sRGB`, `the s Reb` and `Astro` are all SREB, the Southern Regional Education Board, whose 2024 review this board heard on 20 June; `the current CB` is the current CBA He describes the shared arrangement (0:42:28) and the trial year: “using this year to say, okay, this is if it seems to be working, we want to create a long term plan”.
0:42:54	The cost: a salary saved, a job description nobody outside the room has, and a figure spoken once	Pratt: “So we created this job description and I think everyone got a copy of the job description… we’re able to, you know, hire this position for less than, we’re currently paying Doctor Herzog.” Then: “there’s no increase to the budget. Figured out a salary for this position. We’re Patrick and I looked at it, and because it’s really assistant director is not in the current CBA for administrators, we kind of put it between a principal and…” (0:43:25), and “she would be making the same as, like an assistant principal would be making that we see around 80,000” (0:43:47). That sentence is the only cost figure in the whole record of this decision. The minutes reduce it to “No increase to the budget, lower pay than administrator”.	MEDIUM
0:44:02	The mover argues against his own motion’s paperwork	Sprague: “I’ll make a motion to approve this.” Petrin seconds (0:44:14); the chair opens debate and gives Sprague the floor first (0:44:15). He then says: “the reason I got that certification was because I have a master’s in education and administration, but I also owned a restaurant for ten years… They certified me as a CD director because I have relevant experience in an associated field, and I don’t see anything about, experience, in machine tool or carpentry or culinary or health science or any of the fields” (0:44:37), and “I really think the qualifications should also mention something about experience in a relevant field. I mean, it says related role, but I’m not sure what that means” (0:45:13). The board is quoting a document the public cannot read.	HIGH
0:45:30	The post has already been offered and accepted	Skillen: “Are we currently do we have any candidates in the pool at this time? Has this job been posted?” Pratt: “Yep. It’s been posted. And we actually had someone accepted today. Yesterday and accepted. And she, I walked around the building, she met with staff, she met with her administrative assistant, and she’s got a master’s in counseling and a master’s in education. And she has the skill set” (0:45:37). This is the first the public record knows that the position the board is being asked to create has been filled. Crawford follows it immediately: “The it is the person that you hired today, the person we interviewed” (0:46:39), and an unattributed voice says “We need to go into nonpublic” (0:47:07). The board did not.	HIGH
0:46:39	The district’s own two consultants’ reports point in opposite directions	Crawford: “in the 2015 report, it did say a director for the two programs. However, in the 2024 report, it said that there should be a full time director at both the campuses. And so I just want that on the record.” She returns to it: “it concerns me that we refer to the 2015, when in fact we have a more updated report, 2024” (0:54:33). The 2024 review is the SREB Career Pathway Review the board heard on 20 June and which sits in the 20 June packet; this page reports the two characterisations rather than re-reading the report to adjudicate between them. Asked later whether the consultant had been consulted, Pratt says: “I haven’t talked I haven’t talked to Astro about this. Okay. No.” (0:53:47).
0:47:27	What Newport is paid, and where the money is	Petrin: “for the Newport director is I’m sure there’s he’s an agreement. And is there any financial compensation from us, from us.” Pratt: “That conversation. But we we have the money that we saved based on Alex’s salary that in we’ll be able to make it work” (0:47:36). No agreement with Newport is in any packet, no sum is named, and the minutes record only “the savings in salary compensation will be applied towards that”. The salary being spent is that of Alex Herzog, whose departure this board marked on 20 June without naming a successor.	MEDIUM
0:48:23	Miles asks whether the arrangement keeps the centre in compliance	Miles: “So my question is, has this been run by sRGB? To be sure that was still in compliance.” She corrects herself to the right body a moment later — “Compliance with business or sorry. Department of” / “The state line. Yes. The state. That’s right.” (0:48:36, 0:48:43). Pratt’s answer is a fragment the recognizer loses: “The the happened on.” Miles takes it as a yes: “So that still counts. Yes. So we’re not going to lose any accreditation” (0:48:52). The minutes record it as settled: “there will still be a director, so it will still be in compliance”.
0:49:18	The question the meeting turns on	Miles: “But we’ve already hired someone for a position that we have not approved. Is that correct?” Pratt: “Yeah, it was going to go in the last agenda, but that we there was a meeting that was going to go to it. There was we didn’t have a quorum” (0:49:26). Miles: “We didn’t have a quorum for a Claremont meeting” (0:49:38), and “I must have been out because I was out for one” (0:49:44). She then states the rule as she understands it: “I’m just wondering about a new position that’s already been filled, and the person has agreed to take it when it hasn’t come before the board as an approval, which is what I understand needs to happen for a new position” (0:50:12).	HIGH MEDIUM
0:50:26	The superintendent’s answer	Pratt: “It does, but it was this is a time sensitive thing, and I had to make the decision because we have a school year starting, we have we had no other applicants that were even close. And we needed to get this, this building up and going. And I think, you know, the person who’s doing this, does she have the tech experience?” and, answering himself, “She does not. But she has the skill set to move this, this building forward in the direction that we need to see it” (0:50:46). *The word does* that opens the answer concedes the rule.** The board’s attorney had stated it on 7 August, and the minutes of that meeting record it: “Mr. Upton stated that the Board has to approve any new positions, even if it is within the budget”.	HIGH
0:50:55	The word acting arrives, and the contract turns out to be a letter of agreement	Miles: “So would there be an opportunity to have this person and I don’t know anything to be an acting, assistant director until we finalize all the pieces.” Pratt: “It has to be renewed every year. So, you know, this is we can revisit it at the end of the year… It’s only for a year” (0:51:15); “This is an administrative position. It is a director… it’s like the director here is like a principal at a high school” (0:51:33); “Thing to note is it’s not part of the collective bargaining unit” (0:51:50); and “it would be a letter of agreement for, for a year” (0:52:29). Miles asks about supervision: “It says this job description says that this person reports to the director and the principal. Do we have people who report to two evaluators?” (0:52:02).
0:52:32	The chair sets out what the board can still do, and what refusing would cost	Whitney: “this is essentially an agreement for one year because it’s a one year contract. It’s a letter of agreement. We can choose as a board at the end of the school year to modify this position, remove this position. We can choose today to modify it, but if we do so, it may exclude our current applicant who has been essentially hired.” Then the comparison she rests on: “the director that we had before had no experience in technical education at all, nor any experience in the high school setting. So, I’m not sure if I can say no to an assistant position without those qualifications when as a board, we accepted a director not having those qualifications” (0:53:55). Crawford answers it: “I think if we made the if we did that before, that can’t be a justified justification for going forward” (0:54:33).
0:55:00	Crawford states the substantive objection: three years of work, and now two half posts	Crawford: “I have to say I’m very, very concerned that over the past three years, we have worked very hard to enhance and grow this program, and we’re to a part time person director and a part time assistance.” The board corrects her on the facts — both posts are full time (0:55:39) — and Pratt gives the arrangement: “Technically the director is employed by Newport. I person will be employed by Claremont” (0:56:01), “Full time position, 260 days a year” (0:55:48). Miles reads the document back at him: “So then under location it says Claremont and Newport” (0:56:08) — and the job description published eight days later does say exactly that.	HIGH
0:56:12	The superintendent names the problem himself, twice	Pratt: “I understand where you’re coming from is that you kind of put the the capital of horse. Technically she didn’t sign a contract yet because it’s moving that quick. Okay. She hasn’t signed it. So you guys have every right to say no, we’re not approving this job description.” And later: “it wasn’t my intention to put the cotton for the horse. It was like. We’re days away from, you know, teachers coming back” (1:00:54) `the capital of horse` and `the cotton for the horse` are both the cart before the horse. He also puts the alternative squarely: “Say we don’t we don’t we don’t approve. Assistant director. We want a full time director. Just a director. And, you know, and that’s fine” (0:57:04).	HIGH
0:57:33	Petrin puts the missed meeting on the board’s side of the ledger	Petrin: “I guess I support this because I see what happened with Chris and this is on another agenda which got at our fault. The meeting was missed. I think I’m probably one that missed that meeting. But. So he had good intentions of bringing this forward to us before, hiring someone.” And: “I think not doing this is a bigger is a bigger shot to this, to this building than doing this. Because if we don’t do this, we don’t have anybody” (0:58:24). Three members refer to a Claremont School Board meeting that failed for want of a quorum; no notice, agenda, minute or folder for it exists in the district’s 2024 share.	MEDIUM
0:58:45	Who, if anyone, checked this with the State	Miles: “you probably want the gentleman who who from the s Reb who came up and spoke to everybody. I would feel better if you personally spoke with him just to be extra sure… I’m thinking of, not losing that funding that we worked so hard to get” (0:59:22). Crawford: “they have a different agenda and a different purpose than what?” (0:59:13), then names a different person: “it was Jeff. Jeff beard. Good. That’s. It doesn’t work. Right. He’s with the Department of Education for.” (0:59:35) this project’s records carry that surname as Baird; no district document in this packet prints it, and this page does not settle it. Pratt: “Eric told me that you know talking to him because he did the legwork for us is that he thought it was it was it was a great model to be doing” (0:59:48) Eric is the technical-centre director at Newport; no surname is spoken anywhere on this recording. Nothing in writing records any of these consultations.
1:00:03	The posting, and the one applicant	Whitney: “We did post for a full time director position. Correct. My understanding is that we did post for a full time position and we got no applicants.” Crawford: “Do we do more than just post? I mean, do we make phone calls? Do we go to campuses” (1:00:11). Pratt: “we’re using more ways to post positions and and try to go after people than we than we have in the past. There we the applicants we got you know, there was one but they they bounced around everywhere. I think it was in Georgia or something. We just weren’t getting applicants this late in the game” (1:00:17). The posting itself, its dates and the applicant count appear in no document before the board.	HIGH
1:01:43	Hawkins separates the person from the paperwork, and the certification condition moves into a contract	Hawkins: “you’re not trying to do anything other than have to fulfill. I’ll have to fill a position with the person that was interviewed and did well on the interview”, then “My issue is with the job description. I would really prefer that it did refer to CTE. We made a commitment to support the tech center” (1:02:08) and “I’d like to see more reference to it performing the job in relation to CTE” (1:03:49). Whitney proposes the fix (1:02:45); Pratt agrees to put it in the contract rather than the job description: “when we issued the letter of agreement, that language would be very specific in their regards to it’s expected that you’re working towards with the state to get certified as a CTE director” (1:04:09). No letter of agreement is in any packet. The revised job description published on 29 August does carry the certification requirement.	HIGH
1:04:50	Why the board has to vote at all, in the chair’s words	Whitney: “we have to approve this position period. So we can fund it because it’s a new position… But we do need to a approve something, a position, because we have to have it in the budget.” She then walks through the options — amend now, make it contingent, require a revised description “within 3 to 6 months for us to review or within a week next meeting” (1:05:18). Pratt floats a different word: “It’s about wording, but it might put people at ease rather than an assistant. You could say it’s an associate director” (1:06:01). Miles declines it (1:06:25): “I really would support the acting assistant director. And then this can be changed once that certification has gotten.”
1:07:28	What relevant experience would mean	Sprague: “you have a background in nursing that’s relevant experience. I have a background in restaurant business that’s relevant. Mike has a background in physical therapy that’s relevant, technology that’s relevant. So I think that some they need to have a background in some some type of CTE field, even real estate banking.” An unattributed voice adds “No, education doesn’t do it. It’s got to be more than that” (1:07:55). Crawford states her limit: “I can support hiring this person to be on the job because somebody’s got to run the building tomorrow. However, I don’t want to approve this until we have a chance to improve this job description” (1:08:13). Petrin: “Oh she’s been hired” (1:08:33); Pratt: “Well technique. She hasn’t signed her contract” (1:08:35).	HIGH
1:12:03	A member names the procedure, and the amendment is moved	Skillen: “I think what Heather is asking is for that the people who have a problem with approving this as is according to the original motion, that they should speak up and make an amendment so that we can move on.” Miles then moves it: “Like to make some to the motion that is on the floor, that we accept that we modify the job title to Assistant Acting assistant CTE, director of the SR. The artsy.” (1:12:21) `the SR. The artsy` is SRVRTC. The approved minutes credit this motion to Arlene Hawkins and the second to Bonnie Miles; the recording has it the other way round in the only respect it can resolve, and the dialogue file warns that these two voices are merged into one diarizer cluster.	MEDIUM
1:12:47	Two members declare their votes before the vote	Petrin: “I’ll declare that my vote is going to be no, because we don’t need the acting assistant director. We need an assistant director position.” Crawford: “I will vote yes for this motion because I really want it stated that it’s acting, and I am not prepared to do wordsmithing on the job description tonight. I’m willing to say agree to acting and give the administration until the next board meeting to come back with a revised job description” (1:12:57). Petrin argues the word from the superintendency: “We have superintendent Chris was the acting superintendent because someone left mid-term and he wasn’t officially he was filling in that role” (1:13:29), and “None of our other positions are titled as an acting. That’s my problem with the wording” (1:14:31). Miles adds the correction: “But Mr. Pratt was an interim superintendent before you became the superintendent” (1:17:57).
1:15:29	The amendment carries, and the chair restates a motion nobody reads back	Whitney: “No lies. Have it. So the amendment is the motion is amended.” `No lies. Have it.` is the ayes have it Minutes: “Voting yes: Whitney Skillen, Bonnie Miles, Arlene Hawkins, Candace Crawford, Frank Sprague / Voting no: Michael Petrin, Heather Whitney” — 5–2. She then restates the amended motion twice from the chair (1:16:06, 1:16:54), correcting the date of the next meeting from September 2nd to the fourth. By-law 2.07 provides that “If a motion on the floor is debated, the clerk shall read the motion back prior to the official vote”; there was no clerk. Miles pushes back on what is being approved: “I don’t mean to be difficult. I thought we were approving the position, not a job description” (1:17:39), answered “The position has to come with a job description” (1:17:45).	MEDIUM
1:18:18	The hire creates a second vacancy, and the answer is stopped mid-sentence	Skillen: “Is the person currently, preparing to accept the offer for the acting assistant CTE director? Be currently employed at a different Claremont School. And if that if the answer to that question is yes. How is what is the status on backfilling that position?” Pratt: “So yes, there, take the position. And the position that should be vacating will be posted as soon as the contract signed” (1:18:40), then names it: “Counseling position” (1:18:54). Skillen stops it there: Can’t in public. (1:18:59). A second post therefore fell vacant on this vote, with no cost, no timetable and no coverage plan anywhere in the record.
1:19:04	The main motion carries 6–1, and the superintendent apologises	Whitney: “Is there any objection to doing a quick little roll call? Vote here. No objection, Miss Gillen.” Petrin: No. (1:19:13); the rest of the roll reaches the transcript as one merged “Yes yes yes” (1:19:14). Minutes: yes — Skillen, Miles, Hawkins, Crawford, Sprague, Whitney; no — Petrin. Pratt then apologises on the record: “I just want to apologize. It really wasn’t my intention to cause the lost that ensued. It was just that I needed to make a good decision. With school a week away, in the guise of what I thought was going to be best for the students” (1:19:22). Miles answers him: “You were put in a tough spot and your intention was to have that voted on and not having to see it. That’s not your fault” (1:19:50).	HIGH
1:20:02	Fifteen minutes left, and the board decides what not to do	Whitney: “We we have 15 minutes left to get our business done. So the question is is what do we want to not do this evening.” The Region 10 agreement goes first (1:20:31). Then Hawkins’s Unity item, because its document arrived that day: “you guys got a very late copy today. We were able to meet this afternoon, Mr. Pride and myself and Chelsea. So if we want to postpone this until the September 4th meeting, I would like to have it ready for the Saw meeting on the 12th of September” (1:21:26) `the Saw meeting` is the SAU 6 board, and “you just got a packet tonight. Today to move, I mean to read. I’m not asking for a motion” (1:21:46). An item headed “(Discussion and Vote)” on the withdrawal of a member district from the SAU fell, unvoted, for want of a quarter of an hour.	OBSERVATION MEDIUM
1:22:44	A regular meeting date is changed in perpetuity, by voice vote, in five minutes	Whitney: “the Claremont School Board meeting conflicts every single year with the senior student night board, which is the Wednesday before graduation. So the question before the board is, do we want to permanently change our date to be two day for the first week of June?” Crawford proposes the second week; the chair rules it out: “the reason why we can’t go to the second week is it’s in conflict with the city council” (1:23:33). Skillen moves “the permanent adjustment of the first week. The 1st of June meeting to a Tuesday” (1:24:46); the chair seconds it herself and puts it: “To Tuesday. I’ll second. Is there any further discussion on the board? All in favor, say aye.” (1:24:56). Then the dictation: “we are going to permanently change the first meeting in June for the Claremont School Board to in perpetuity, to be held on Tuesday” (1:25:04). By-law 2.01 fixes regular meetings for the first and third Wednesdays.	MEDIUM
1:25:41	And a second date moves, this one by announcement	Whitney: “I want to know why. The board, the administrative team and the public that January 2nd would be the first week of January. It’s going to be a federal holiday this year. So we’re going to move the meeting to Thursday the first week. So that has to be reflected in the minutes as well for Noel and for Chelsea to know.” `I want to know why` is I want to notify The agenda’s own starred note is the accurate version: “Inform board of January 2nd meeting date, moved from Wednesday to Thursday due to Federal Holiday.” 1 January 2025 was a Wednesday and is a legal holiday in New Hampshire under RSA 288:1; 2 January was not. No vote was taken on this change, and policy BEA requires only that a change from a normal date be advertised 24 hours in advance.
1:26:04	The subcommittees, in writing, for the first time in this corpus	Whitney: “we’re going to quickly review the progress of improving our subcommittee’s effectiveness. Each subcommittee was charged with, providing the board with, what the mission of the subcommittee is going to be, what the cadence of the meetings and what the critical activities of those subcommittees”. Crawford, for Capital Improvements: “I’m hoping that you all read the proposal in the packet about what the intent of this is to develop a 3 to 5 year, two to 3 to 5 year plan” (1:27:00). Sprague, for Finance, reads from the written cadence: “responsible viewing a district wide hiring status and setting budget timeline and meeting dates in September… Discuss recommendations for disposition of end of year budget balance, and then share the summary of that meeting with the board and open meeting” (1:27:55, 1:28:25), with “the next meeting with of this committee would be September 18th, 10 to 11, pending administrative team approval”.	POSITIVE
1:29:24	Two subcommittees report nothing, and one adds a member	Skillen, for Policy, which by-law 1.05(2) requires to meet monthly and report monthly: “No, but I, starting this fall, my. I’m shifting my weekend days to Mondays and Tuesdays… So more to come as like as soon as school starts”. Petrin, for the ad hoc Communications committee: “Nothing yet. Can I find the time?” (1:31:04). Hawkins, for Curriculum: “Mr. Kosugi and I met. We’re adding Kat McLaughlin to the subcommittee, and our purpose is to be the liaison between the curriculum area committees and the board” (1:30:01) `Mr. Kosugi` is Assistant Superintendent Koski; the packet’s Curriculum proposal prints “Kat McLaughlin, Curriculum Director”, a fourth spelling of a name this project’s records also carry as Cat and Catlin, and “Ela was begun first. Now they’re working in math… We do have a math update that’s ready for the board” (1:30:26).	MEDIUM
1:31:08	The next agenda, four televised finance meetings, and the strategic-plan invitations	Whitney: “We are going to have, the revised job description from Mr. Pratt. We are going to have discussion of the region ten agreement. We’re going to have a discussion of the exploratory subcommittee… we’re going to be meeting with the city council and the school board, a joint meeting that’s going to be on September 30th.” Then: “The finance subcommittee has set our dates to to be televised by CCTV. It’s going to be November 12th, November 19th, December 4th, December 18th” (1:31:50) — the decision recorded in the Finance Subcommittee’s 22 July minutes as “These meetings shall be televised for transparency.” Petrin raises the consultant’s invitations and Pratt explains them (1:32:34): “they sent out invites today to to board members to get additional feedback in regards to the strategic planning. They also sent it out to, the the mayor in the town manager.”	POSITIVE
1:33:22	Adjournment, with no time recorded	Whitney: “Is there any objection to a during the meeting? You have no objection. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.” No motion, no second, no vote — consistent with this board’s settled practice and with by-law 2.07’s no-objection shortcut. The minutes record “Consent adjournment” and no time. The last words on the recording belong to Whitney Skillen at 1:33:29, and concern where to put material for shredding.	OBSERVATION

Items flagged for review

Flags are a reviewer’s aid, produced by reading the recording and the district’s eight-document packet against the New Hampshire and federal law in force on 21 August 2024, and against the board’s own adopted by-laws and policies. They are not findings of violation and they are not legal advice. Each card names the rule it rests on, and says plainly where the rule is a board rule rather than a statute. Four vintages matter here. RSA 91-A:2 is applied in its 2023 codification (2023, 188:1, effective 3 October 2023); the 2025, 112:1 additions — start time, end time and the name of the person who produced the minutes — are not applied, which matters twice on this page. RSA 91-A:3 is applied as amended by 2023, 189:1, effective 3 October 2023, under which paragraph II runs (a) to (m) with (f) repealed. RSA 194:23-f is applied as amended by 2024, 69:1, which took effect on 13 August 2024 — eight days before this meeting, not in the 2022 text earlier pages in this project use. And RSA 91-A:4 is applied as amended by 2024, 49:1–2, effective 13 August 2024. Where no verified rule supports a concern it is graded OBSERVATION and labelled as such. Severity tracks legal grounding, not importance.

HIGH A new administrative post was created and filled in the wrong order — two weeks after the board’s own attorney told it that could not be done

What happened. Item IV.4 asked the board to create an Assistant Tech Center Director post at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center. Four and a half minutes into the item, in answer to a question from Whitney Skillen, the superintendent said the post had been offered and taken: “Yep. It’s been posted. And we actually had someone accepted today. Yesterday and accepted” (0:45:37). Bonnie Miles put the consequence: “But we’ve already hired someone for a position that we have not approved. Is that correct?” (0:49:18). The superintendent’s answer begins by conceding the rule: “It does, but it was this is a time sensitive thing, and I had to make the decision because we have a school year starting” (0:50:26). After the vote he apologised (1:19:22).

The rule, in the board’s own by-laws. Rule 5.03: “No Claremont School District employee shall begin employment without the approval of the CSB unless authorized by Section 5.04, below.” Rule 5.04 is the only exception, and it is narrow: it recites the State Board’s rule that the superintendent “shall provide for temporary staff to fill vacancies and provide for supplies needed immediately for the operation of schools”, adds that “This authority allows the superintendent to fill Claremont vacancies that may arise between CSB meetings”, and requires that “The CSB shall be informed of any temporary appointments at its next scheduled meeting.” What was filled here was not a vacancy but a post that did not yet exist, on a one-year letter of agreement described by the superintendent as an administrative position “like an assistant principal” (0:51:45). Rule 5.04’s temporary-staff route does not reach it.

The State Board’s rule the by-law is quoting. Ed 302.02(i) reads “Provide for temporary staff to fill vacancies and provide supplies immediately needed for the operation of the schools” (New #8583, eff. 3-15-06; ss by #10649, eff. 7-26-14). The by-law’s version is a paraphrase, not the rule’s text — one of several in this document (flag 13).

What makes this different from an ordinary procedural slip: the board had just been told. On 7 August 2024, at the meeting this project has no recording of, district counsel Matthew Upton spent the evening on board roles and responsibilities. The draft minutes of that meeting, approved on the consent agenda at the start of this one, record: “Superintendent Pratt asked about new positions” — “Mr. Upton stated that the Board has to approve any new positions, even if it is within the budget”. Fourteen days later the board was told a new position had been filled.

What the record does not contain. Any posting, with its dates; the number of applicants; the interview panel’s composition, though the superintendent refers to “a committee” (1:03:00) and Arlene Hawkins to “the committee and yourself” (1:01:43); the letter of agreement; any agreement with Newport; or any written cost. The one figure spoken is “around 80,000”.

What the board did about it. It amended the title to acting assistant CTE director by 5–2 and approved the post 6–1, on the understanding that a revised job description would come back on 4 September. It did. Michael Petrin was the only vote against the substance, on the word acting rather than on the sequence of events; every other member voted for the post, several while saying on the record that the order of events was wrong.

Sources: Claremont School Board By-Laws, rules 2.11, 5.01, 5.03 and 5.04; N.H. Code Admin. Rules Ed 302.02(i); 7 August 2024 draft CSB minutes, item III.1; approved minutes, 21 August 2024, item IV.4; Exhibit C, Acting Assistant CTE Director job description, published 29 August 2024 in the 4 September packet.

HIGH The board entered nonpublic session on a motion that stated no exemption, under a ground reserved for adjudicative proceedings, and no minutes of it exist anywhere

What the statute requires. RSA 91-A:3, as amended by 2023, 189:1, effective 3 October 2023. Paragraph I(a): “Public bodies shall not meet in nonpublic session, except for one of the purposes set out in paragraph II.” I(b): “Any motion to enter nonpublic session shall state on its face the specific exemption under paragraph II which is relied upon.” I(c): “All discussions held and decisions made during nonpublic session shall be confined to the matters set out in the motion.” Paragraph III: “Minutes of meetings in nonpublic session shall be kept and the record of all actions shall be promptly made available for public inspection… Minutes and decisions reached in nonpublic session shall be publicly disclosed within 72 hours of the meeting, unless, by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session” they are sealed.

Three problems, in ascending order.

The motion stated no ground. The chair announced one from the chair — “entering into a nonpublic session for a 91 dash, a three comma Roman numeral two, J” (0:34:32) — and the motion that followed was “I’d like to make a motion to move to a nonpublic session” (0:34:50). Paragraph I(b) puts the duty on the motion, not on the chair’s introduction. The second ground the agenda prints, II(c), is never spoken at all.
The ground itself does not fit. RSA 91-A:3, II(j) reads in full: “Consideration of confidential, commercial, or financial information that is exempt from public disclosure under RSA 91-A:5, IV in an adjudicative proceeding pursuant to RSA 541 or RSA 541-A.” The agenda quotes it accurately. Nothing in the agenda, the minutes or the recording identifies an adjudicative proceeding under either chapter, and no such proceeding appears anywhere in this project’s records of this district. The board had personnel grounds available to it — II(a) and II(b) — and used neither.
There are no nonpublic minutes. The chair asked twice for a motion to seal and received one word, No. (0:35:53). Unsealed, paragraph III required the minutes and any decisions to be publicly disclosed within 72 hours. No minutes of this nonpublic session exist in the 21 August packet folder, in the district’s 2024 minutes folder, or in the 4 September packet, and the approved minutes of the meeting record no subject, no attendance, no action and no decision for the session — only the two motions in and out. The same is true of the 7 August nonpublic session, which the minutes date 8:10 p.m. to 8:40 p.m. and close with “No need to seal minutes”.

Which limb of the severity rule. The unmitigated one. A public body sat in nonpublic session, decided not to seal, and produced no record that the public share holds. Nothing on the record explains the absence, and the board’s own governing document tells it in terms what those minutes must contain: Appendix D of the by-laws lists nine minimum contents, from “names of all CSB members present” to “the manner in which each member voted with respect to each action.”

What this page does not say. It does not say what was discussed. The item sat immediately before the ratification of professional staff nominations and immediately before the assistant-director item, and an unattributed voice later said “We need to go into nonpublic” when a member began describing the successful candidate (0:47:07) — but a gap in the record is a gap, not evidence of what filled it.

Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(a)–(c), II(a)–(m) and III (source note ends 2023, 189:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023); CSB Agenda 8.21.24, item IV.2; approved minutes, 21 August 2024; Claremont School Board By-Laws, Appendix D; the companion page Claremont School Board — June 20, 2024, which first recorded the by-laws’ misstatement of this statute.

HIGH Both documents the board voted on are in no public packet, and a third arrived on the day of the meeting

What the packet contains. Eight documents: the agenda; the 7 August draft minutes; three subcommittee papers (Capital Improvements minutes, Finance Subcommittee minutes, a Visioning Sub-Committee proposal); a Curriculum Sub-Committee proposal; and two publications of the Girls on the Run organisation. Every one of the eight was uploaded on Monday 19 August 2024, seven at 8:32 a.m. and the Curriculum proposal at 3:31 p.m.

What the board acted on that is not among them.

The list of professional staff nominations, ratified by voice vote at 0:41:04. It is described on tape as “A three sheet paper on the front. It has a list of names and a column in the middle is the buildings and the title” with “a pivot table” on the second page. It is in no packet folder in the district’s 2024 share.
The Assistant Tech Center Director job description, quoted from the table repeatedly — its qualifications by Frank Sprague (0:45:13), its reporting line and its location field by Bonnie Miles (0:52:02, 0:56:08) — and approved with a one-word amendment. It reached the public share on 29 August 2024, eight days after the vote, as Exhibit C of the 4 September packet, in its revised form.
The superintendent’s written report, the subject of twenty-four minutes of board questioning. “the superintendents report that I sent you” is in no public folder, and the agenda names no exhibit for the item.
The Region 10 agreement and the SAU exploratory subcommittee document, both agenda items, neither in the packet. The second reached board members on the day: “you just got a packet tonight. Today to move, I mean to read” (1:21:46).

The board’s own rules on all of this. By-law 2.09: “Any and all presentations by the administration to the board or any committee shall be contained in the agenda and made available to the public in its original format online so the public may download or access the information prior to or during board meetings.” By-law 1.09: supporting documentation “shall be submitted in writing with the agenda… no later than the Wednesday prior to the regular scheduled meeting” — which for a 21 August meeting was 14 August; the packet went up on the 19th. By-law 5.01: “Notice of the nominations of new teachers shall be submitted to all board members, with credentials and qualifications, at least seven days before the meeting.”

What the statute does and does not require. RSA 91-A:4 gives any citizen the right to inspect governmental records on request; it does not require a district to publish a board packet at all. The finding rests on the board’s own rules, not on the Right-to-Know Law, and on the plain fact that a member of the public following this meeting could not read either document the board voted on.

Which limb of the severity rule. The unmitigated one: nothing on the record explains the omission, and two of the documents were never published at all. This page grades it as the 20 June page graded the absence of subcommittee paper.

Sources: packet folder 2. CSB 8.21.24, enumerated and read in full 2026-08-29, with Google Drive createdTime and modifiedTime for each file; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rules 1.09, 2.09 and 5.01; RSA 91-A:4 (as amended 2024, 49:1–2, eff. 13 August 2024); Exhibit C, Acting Assistant CTE Director job description.

MEDIUM Two subcommittees met during the summer recess; their minutes reached the public on the fifteenth and twentieth business days, and no notice for either was found

The two meetings. The Finance Subcommittee met on 22 July 2024, 10:00–11:00, with all three of its members present — the minutes list “Attendees: Candace Crawford Frank Sprague Heather Whitney” — and adopted a purpose statement and meeting cadence, with the note “Consider adding to By-Laws in the March 2025 meeting.” The Capital Improvements Committee met on 29 July 2024: “Chair Crawford called the meeting to order with all three members present at the SAU Office at 3:30 pm”, members “Candace Crawford, Chair, Bonnie Miles, Michael Petrin”, and “The meeting adjourned at 4:01 pm.” Both are the whole membership of their committees, so both were quorate.

What the law and the by-laws require of them. RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) makes a “committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body” of a school district a public body in its own right. RSA 91-A:2, II requires 24 hours’ notice, minutes recording “the names of the members who made or seconded each motion”, and inspection “not more than 5 business days after the meeting”. By-law 1.05(c): “Notice of the meeting including place and time must be posted at least 24 hours in advance on the SAU 6 website.” 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.”

The arithmetic. Both sets of minutes reached the district’s public Drive share on Monday 19 August 2024, with the rest of the packet. For the 22 July meeting that is the twentieth business day, against a statutory five; for the 29 July meeting, the fifteenth. Neither file’s modifiedTime rescues it: each sits a few seconds before the moment the folder recorded its creation, which is an upload-session artefact and proves nothing about when the document was written.

Two further defects in the documents themselves. The Capital Improvements minutes record that “the committee approved the proposed draft, with minor changes” without naming a mover or a seconder, which RSA 91-A:2, II has required since 2018, 244:1, effective 1 January 2019. The Finance Subcommittee’s document is a calendar note rather than minutes: it carries attendees and action items but no call to order, no adjournment, no motions and no votes.

And two subcommittees that did not meet at all. By-law 1.05(2) requires the Policy Committee to “hold at least one regular monthly meeting” and to “report to the full Board monthly”; by-law 1.05(4) requires ad hoc committees to “report to the full Board monthly”. On 21 August the Policy chair reported nothing (1:29:24) and the ad hoc Communications chair reported “Nothing yet. Can I find the time?” (1:31:04).

Which limb of the severity rule, and what was searched. The mitigated one: minutes of both meetings exist, were produced by the committees themselves and were published — the defect is lateness and the absence of notice, not the absence of a record. That is a change from the position on 20 June, when two subcommittee meetings drove a $583,000 vote and left no paper at all. The search was three-stage: the 21 August packet folder (eight documents, enumerated); the district’s 2024 packets share, enumerated folder by folder; and the 4 September packet folder. No notice or agenda for either July meeting was found. Google Drive’s search interface under-reports on these shares — it returned eighteen of the twenty-plus folders the 2024 share is known to hold — so the correct statement is “not found”, not “does not exist”.

Sources: Exhibit B, Finance Subcommittee minutes 22 July 2024; Exhibit A, Capital Improvements Committee minutes 29 July 2024; RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification); Claremont School Board By-Laws, rule 1.05; the companion page Claremont School Board — June 20, 2024.

MEDIUM Both sets of board minutes in play here reached the public late, and the approved copy of these minutes still calls itself a draft on every page

What the statute requires. RSA 91-A:2, II, in its 2023 codification: minutes shall include the names of members, persons appearing, a brief description of the subject matter, final decisions and “the names of the members who made or seconded each motion”, and shall be “open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting”. Business days are counted excluding the legal holidays in RSA 288:1, which include “the first Monday in September, known as Labor Day”.

7 August 2024 (Wednesday). Deadline Wednesday 14 August. The draft minutes reached Google Drive on Monday 19 August at 8:32 a.m. — the eighth business day, three late. They were approved on the consent agenda at this meeting, and no approved version of them was ever filed: the only copy of the 7 August minutes in the district’s share is the one headed “8.7.24 DRAFT CSB meeting minutes”.
21 August 2024 (Wednesday). Deadline Wednesday 28 August. No draft was filed at all. The approved minutes were created on Thursday 5 September, the day after the meeting that approved them and the tenth business day after the meeting they record. Its cover page is headed “8.21.24 approved CSB meeting minutes” and every one of the seven pages after it is headed “8.21.24 DRAFT CSB meeting minutes”.

What is deliberately not applied. The requirements that minutes record a start time, an end time and the name of the person who produced them were added by 2025, 112:1, effective 22 August 2025 — a year after this meeting. This page therefore treats the absence of times as a gap in the record rather than a breach of the statute, and does the same for the authorship question at flag 6.

Which limb. The mitigated one: the minutes exist, are complete on their face and were published; the defect is lateness of days, not the absence of a record. That distinguishes this from the 20 June minutes, which reached the share on the thirty-fourth business day.

Sources: Google Drive createdTime and modifiedTime for the 7 August draft minutes (2024-08-19, 12:32 UTC) and the 21 August approved minutes (2024-09-05, 14:07 UTC), read 2026-08-29; RSA 91-A:2, II; RSA 288:1.

MEDIUM The minutes were written and signed by a clerk who was not at the meeting, and four things in them do not match the recording

The clerk was absent and the record says so twice. The chair looked for her at 0:00:29, called the roll herself “In the absence of our secretary of Clark” (0:00:43), and twice referred business to her in the future tense — “for the minutes when Noel gets to to them” (1:25:04). The approved minutes end “Respectfully submitted by Noelle Kronberg, school board clerk”. Nobody who was present is named as having taken a note.

Four places where the minutes and the recording disagree.

The amendment. The minutes: “Arlene Hawkins made a motion to amend the motion to change the job description title to ‘acting assistant CTE director’, Bonnie Miles seconded the motion”. On the recording the words are spoken in the voice the dialogue file identifies as Bonnie Miles, at the end of her own long run on the word acting (1:12:21). This page reports the conflict and resolves nothing: the diarizer merges these two women into a single cluster on this recording, so the tape cannot settle which of them moved and which seconded.
The question about hiring before approval. The minutes give it to Arlene Hawkins: “Arlene Hawkins asked about the position being offered to someone before it was approved”. It falls inside the run the chair opened with “Who’s next, miss Miles?” (0:47:48), and the dialogue file attributes it to Bonnie Miles. Same merge, same caution.
The 504 cost answer. The minutes: “Mr. McKosker explained that 504 don’t usually include services and the burden of a 504 falls on the district; IEPs include some reimbursement.” The recording has one voice giving that answer (0:12:56), and the same minutes attribute the next answer from the same voice to “Mr. Koski”. Michael McKosker, the Director of Student Services, is named nowhere on this recording, and this project’s records place him almost nowhere in the 2024 Claremont board record.
The main motion. The minutes describe it as approving the position “with the amendment in the title to ‘assistant’”. The amendment that carried changed the title to acting assistant CTE director, and the chair read that wording into the record twice (1:15:29, 1:16:06). The job description published eight days later is headed “Acting Assistant CTE Director SRVRTC”.

The by-law that was not available. Rule 2.07: “If a motion on the floor is debated, the clerk shall read the motion back prior to the official vote.” The tech-centre motion was debated for thirty-five minutes and amended once. There was no clerk to read it back, and the chair did the work instead. Rule 4.03(a) makes it the clerk’s duty to “Keep a complete, accurate record of all CSB proceedings”, and rule 4.03(c) to “Perform the duty of clerk at all committee meetings, including keeping time during Citizen’s Comments per policy.”

What this page does not say. It does not say the minutes are wrong. They may rest on a recording, a colleague’s note or the chair’s own dictation — the chair twice spoke sentences into them expressly (0:39:56, 1:25:04). The finding is that the only account of who moved what at this meeting was composed by someone who was not in the room, and that four of its attributions cannot be reconciled with the tape.

Sources: approved minutes, 21 August 2024; Output/Dialogue/15947 SchoolBoard082124.mp4.CSV, whose Role field for both women records the merge and the overrides applied; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rules 2.07 and 4.03; RSA 91-A:2, II, whose mover-and-seconder clause is 2018, 244:1, eff. 1 January 2019.

MEDIUM The public comment period opened and closed inside a single sentence

What happened. The whole of it: “We’ll now open the floor to non-agenda items for citizen comments per policy DEDH. Is there anyone present motion to speak this evening? The citizens comments. Seeing none, we’re going to move on to our first order of business, which is superintendents report” (0:01:23). Minutes: “Citizens Comments- none”.

The statute. RSA 189:74 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.” In force from 2022, 333:1, effective 6 September 2022. The statute does not say whether the thirty minutes is a floor on elapsed time or on the opportunity, and this page does not assert a violation of it: nobody was in the room to be turned away.

The board’s own policy is less ambiguous. Policy BEDH, Public Participation at Board Meetings (first reading 17 May 2023, adopted 6 September 2023) states at section B: “The Board will provide a minimum of thirty minutes in total to hear all public comments under RSA 189:74.” Its procedures then contradict that in the next paragraph: “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.” On 21 August the board followed the procedure and not the standard.

A step that was skipped either way. BEDH procedure 5: “After closing public comment, the Board Chair will open ‘Board Discussion Regarding Citizens Comments.’” The chair moved straight from the invitation to the superintendent’s report inside the same utterance. The same policy also provides for written comment submitted 24 hours ahead; none is recorded.

Why this page grades it the same as 20 June. The 20 June page graded a sixty-four-second period MEDIUM. This one is shorter still, but the material difference — that there was nobody present — cuts the other way from severity, not towards it. The consistent grading is MEDIUM on the policy, with the statutory question left open on its face.

Sources: RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022); board policy BEDH, Public Participation at Board Meetings, read in full from the district’s live policy index 2026-08-29, adoption date taken from its own District Policy History block; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rule 2.04.

MEDIUM The board sat with no student member, eight days after the statute governing student members was amended

What the documents show. The agenda masthead and the minutes masthead both print the heading “Student Board Members” and then, where the 20 June agenda printed two names, print nothing. No student member is recorded present, absent, or seated. The next Claremont meeting at which this project’s records show student members introduced is in October 2024.

What the law says. RSA 189:1-c: “In addition to the school board members authorized in RSA 671:4, the school board shall have at least one nonvoting student member from each public high school maintained by the local school board within its district.” In force from 2022, 195:1, effective 1 January 2023. RSA 194:23-f carries the mechanics, and it was amended by 2024, 69:1 with effect from 13 August 2024 — eight days before this meeting: “A high school shall select one or more students to be nonvoting members of the school board”; “A student board member shall be chosen by a simple majority vote of the high school student body”; “The student government of the high school shall establish procedures for the nomination and election of candidates”; and “A student board member shall serve for a term of one year. The school board shall decide the date at which the term shall begin.”

Why this is graded MEDIUM and not higher. The selection duty sits on the high school and its student government, not on the board; the board’s duties are to have the member and to fix the date the term begins. A vacancy in late August, days into a school year, is the ordinary consequence of a one-year term expiring with the school year. What the record does not contain is any board action fixing that date, any mention of student members at all on this recording, or any note in the minutes that the seats are vacant — where the 20 March 2024 minutes recorded the student members’ absence expressly.

The board’s own by-law on the point. Rule 2.16: “In accordance with RSA 189:1:c, student members of the CSB shall have all the rights of a regular school board member regarding school board business except the right to vote. They shall, however, be excluded from discussions and procedures of the school board involving subjects which are confidential under RSA 91-A.” the by-law’s “RSA 189:1:c” is not a citation form; the section is RSA 189:1-c That exclusion had a live application on this night, at the nonpublic session.

Sources: RSA 189:1-c (1983, 111:2; 2009, 5:1; 2022, 195:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2023); RSA 194:23-f (source note ends 2024, 69:1, eff. Aug. 13, 2024); CSB Agenda 8.21.24 masthead; approved minutes masthead; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rule 2.16.

MEDIUM A rule in the by-laws was changed in perpetuity by an uncounted voice vote, on the night, without amending the by-laws

What was decided. “we are going to permanently change the first meeting in June for the Claremont School Board to in perpetuity, to be held on Tuesday two so it does not conflict with the annual senior student awards night” (1:25:04). Moved by Whitney Skillen, seconded by the chair, carried on a voice vote with no tally announced. Minutes: “voice vote taken, all present voting in favor”.

The board rule it changes. By-law 2.01: “The regular meetings of the CSB shall be held on the first and third Wednesdays of the month.” No exception, and no power in the rule to alter it by ordinary motion.

How the by-laws say they may be changed. Three separate provisions, all in the same document. The preamble: “Revisions of these rules are permitted by 2/3 vote annually at the first meeting following elections.” Rule 2.11(a): “A 2/3rds vote of CSB members shall be required to amend or suspend the CSBL.” Rule 2.11(b): “Amending/suspending of CSBL shall occur, by motion, and voted upon at the next regularly scheduled CSB meeting, unless deemed otherwise by a ⅔ vote by Board members.” None of the three was used: the vote was taken the same night, on the same motion, by voice, with no count from which a two-thirds majority could be established.

What is not a defect here. Policy BEA opens “Unless otherwise altered by Claremont School Board action, regular meetings of the Board shall be held… on the first and third Wednesday of each month… beginning at 6:30 p.m. (with the exception of the month of July)”. The policy expressly contemplates alteration by board action, so the vote does not conflict with it. BEA also requires that “All changes of regular meetings from normal dates shall be advertised at least 24 hours prior to the date of the meeting”, which is a duty owed nine months later. The finding is confined to the by-laws, which are the stricter instrument and were not amended.

A second date moved the same night, and correctly. The chair announced that the first January 2025 meeting would move from Wednesday 1 January to Thursday 2 January. 1 January is a legal holiday in New Hampshire under RSA 288:1. The agenda’s starred note states it accurately; the chair’s spoken version attaches the holiday to the 2nd rather than the 1st (1:25:41). No vote was taken, and none was needed: the meeting was not being moved off the first Wednesday by choice.

Sources: Claremont School Board By-Laws, preamble and rules 2.01 and 2.11; board policy BEA, Regular Board Meetings (first reading 19 December 2018, second reading and adopted 2 January 2019), read in full 2026-08-29; RSA 288:1; approved minutes, item IV.7.

MEDIUM Two sums moved with no source of funds named and nothing in writing — one of them under an item headed “Discussion”

The $1,500. The motion, as made: “I make a motion that, we support this program and, have the finance person for intendant find $1,500 in the current budget to to cover the cost of” (0:33:07). The presenter had asked for prior-year money — “that’s from monies left over from last year” — and the chair corrected the year on the spot: “Yeah, it can’t come from last year, so we’ll have to come” (0:33:24). No line, no fund, no account and no cost centre was named, no document supported the request, and the vote was a voice vote with no tally, under an agenda item headed “(Discussion)”.

The salary. The new post’s pay was given once, orally: “she would be making the same as, like an assistant principal would be making that we see around 80,000” (0:43:47), set by the superintendent and the HR director by analogy because “assistant director is not in the current CBA for administrators”. The funding: “there’s no increase to the budget”, and “we have the money that we saved based on Alex’s salary” (0:47:36). No budget document was before the board; the business administrator did not speak; and the same vote created a second vacancy, a counselling post, whose cost and coverage nobody addressed (1:18:40).

The rules. By-law 2.11: “An affirmative vote of the majority of members present and voting of CSB shall be necessary to appoint or remove any employee of the school district, to modify salaries,appropriate, or transfer money per Board policy DBJ.” That was satisfied on both items, though neither vote produced a count. RSA 32:10, I is the transfer power a school board actually has — “the governing body may transfer to that appropriation an unexpended balance remaining in some other appropriation” — and paragraph II attaches a record-keeping duty: records must be kept “such that the budget committee, if any, or any citizen requesting such records pursuant to RSA 91-A:4, may ascertain the purposes of appropriations to which, and from which, amounts have been transferred.” In force from 2017, 127:4, effective 15 August 2017; RSA 32:1 applies the chapter to school districts.

What this page does not say. It does not say either sum was unlawfully spent. $1,500 inside a $36 million operating budget will in all likelihood have been absorbed within an existing appropriation, which is exactly what RSA 32:10 permits; and a post funded from a salary saving on a vacated post of the same kind may involve no transfer at all. The finding is that in neither case did the board, or the record it produced, identify where the money came from — and the motion as recorded delegates that question to the administration after the vote rather than answering it before.

Sources: RSA 32:10, I and II; RSA 32:1; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rule 2.11; approved minutes, items IV.1 and IV.4.

MEDIUM Thirty-one teachers were elected on a list the board had no credentials for, and the certification count was assembled at the table in three tries

What the statute provides. RSA 189:39, “How Chosen”: “Superintendents shall nominate and school boards elect all teachers employed in the schools in their school administrative unit, providing such teachers hold a valid educational credential issued by the state board of education.” In force from 1971, 371:2, effective 27 August 1971; never amended since.

What the board was given. A three-page list of names, buildings and titles, with a summary table. The certification question was asked by the vice chair — “So how many of these folks are head for” head for is Alt IV, the alternative certification route; the district’s own minutes print it correctly — and answered three times with three different framings: “Three staff on on all four” (0:38:26); “I think it’s probably about ten staff that are working on the certification” (0:38:50); and “It’s it’s about 12 of these are so so 20 I think it’s 31 folks in here. So I think about 1920 them are fully certified” (0:39:21). The chair then dictated a fourth version into the minutes (0:39:56). The board voted anyway, after Candace Crawford proposed the alternative of waiting for written figures (0:40:42).

The board’s own rule on exactly this. By-law 5.01: “When an additional certified teacher is required, or a vacancy is to be filled, the superintendent shall make a nomination for election by the board, stating the qualifications and experience of the candidate. Notice of the nominations of new teachers shall be submitted to all board members, with credentials and qualifications, at least seven days before the meeting.” Nothing on the recording suggests credentials were circulated, and the list itself is in no public document (flag 3).

What this page does not assert. It does not assert that any teacher was unlawfully employed. New Hampshire’s alternative certification routes — including the Alternative 4 statement of eligibility the board discussed on 7 August — allow a person to teach while completing certification, and RSA 189:39’s proviso has been read against that framework for decades. The finding is that the board discharged a statutory election duty without the credential information its own by-law requires, and recorded a count it could not reconcile. The minutes carry a sentence the recording is too garbled to confirm: “Superintendent Pratt noted that they work under his certification”.

Sources: RSA 189:39 (source note ends 1971, 371:2, eff. Aug. 27, 1971); Claremont School Board By-Laws, rule 5.01; approved minutes, item IV.3; 7 August 2024 draft minutes, where counsel explained the statement-of-eligibility route.

MEDIUM A Claremont School Board meeting failed for want of a quorum this summer, and nothing about it exists in the public record

Four people put it on the record. The superintendent, explaining why the assistant-director item had not come to the board earlier: “it was going to go in the last agenda, but that we there was a meeting that was going to go to it. There was we didn’t have a quorum” (0:49:26). Bonnie Miles: “We didn’t have a quorum for a Claremont meeting” (0:49:38) and “I must have been out because I was out for one” (0:49:44). Michael Petrin: “The meeting was missed. I think I’m probably one that missed that meeting” (0:57:33). And the approved minutes themselves: “Mr. Pratt explained that it is time sensitive and was on a previous board agenda but there was not a quorum”.

It is not either meeting the record does hold. The 20 June meeting had six of seven members present. The 7 August meeting had six of seven — “Present: Candace Crawford, Arlene Hawkins, Bonnie Miles, Michael Petrin, Frank Sprague, Heather Whitney / Absent: Whitney Skillen” — and its agenda, reproduced in its own minutes, does not carry the assistant-director item. So there was a third Claremont School Board meeting between 20 June and 21 August 2024, noticed and agendaed, that did not proceed.

What does not exist for it. No notice, no agenda, no minute, no packet folder and no section in this project’s map. The district’s 2024 packets share holds folders for 1.3.24, 1.17.24, the deliberative session, 2.21.24, 3.6.24, 3.20.24, 4.17.24, 5.15.24, 6.5.24, 6.20.24, the 5.11.24 retreat, 8.7.24, 8.21.24, 9.4.24, 9.18.24, 10.2.24, 10.16.24, 11.6.24, 11.20.24, 12.4.24 and 12.18.24, and nothing between 20 June and 7 August. The Cablecast archive holds no Claremont School Board programme in that window.

Which limb of the severity rule, and why it is MEDIUM. The mitigated limb, expressly: a body that lacks a quorum has not held a meeting under RSA 91-A:2, I, which defines one as the convening of a quorum, so no minutes were owed and nothing was transacted. What is missing is the notice and the agenda, which were owed before the members failed to arrive, and any note anywhere that the meeting was called and did not happen. This is the seventh 2024 session this project has found outside its corpus, after the 29 January working session, 3 April, 1 May, the 11 May retreat, 22 May and 7 August — and the second of them, with 3 April, for which no document of any kind survives.

What would settle it. The posted notice, or a single line in a district calendar. Nothing on this recording gives the date: Petrin’s “So last night we didn’t have. Nice meeting in junction, I think” (0:49:46) is not recoverable, and no member names a day.

Sources: the recording, at the four points above; approved minutes, item IV.4; 7 August 2024 draft minutes; the district’s 2024 Meeting Documents share, enumerated 2026-08-29; RSA 91-A:2, I and II; Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md.

MEDIUM The by-laws in force at this meeting do not list the exemption the board used, and misstate the law in five further places

The central problem, and it bit on this night. Appendix D of the by-laws adopted 5 June 2024 opens: “It is the duty of every school board member to be familiar with and adhere to requirements outlined in RSA 91-A:3”, then states “RSA 91 -A:3 sets forth eight grounds upon which Board of School Committees may enter nonpublic session” — and lists nine, numbered (1) to (9). The statute has twelve live grounds, lettered (a) to (m) with (f) repealed. The three the appendix leaves out are II(g), II(h) and II(j) — and II(j) is the ground this board relied on to go into nonpublic session at 0:34:32. A member following the board’s own governing document would not have found the exemption the chair announced.

The same appendix then re-lists the grounds and loses three more. Its “Checklist for Compliance” reduces the nine to six lettered items a) to f), folding property, litigation and emergency functions into a single sub-paragraph, and then continues the same lettering into procedure, so that “g) Motion to enter a non-public session is seconded” sits in the list as though it were a ground. It also twice tells the board its decision “must fit squarely within one of the eight statutory reasons”.

Five further defects in the same twenty-two pages.

Appendix A, headed “REGULATIONS OF THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION… PURSUANT TO Ed. 303”, gives the board’s meeting duty as “at least once a month (except the month of July)”. Ed 303.01(f) says “Hold meetings for the transaction of business at least once in 2 months and require the attendance of the superintendent or designee.” The by-law is stricter, so nothing turns on it — but it is offered as the State Board’s text and is not.
Rule 5.04 quotes Ed 302.02(i) as “shall provide for temporary staff to fill vacancies and provide for supplies needed immediately for the operation of schools”. The rule reads “Provide for temporary staff to fill vacancies and provide supplies immediately needed for the operation of the schools”. A paraphrase presented as a quotation, in the very rule at issue at flag 1.
Rules 1.05(c) and 1.11 both cite “RSA 91-A:II”, which is not a citation; rule 2.16 cites “RSA 189:1:c”; Appendix D cites “RSA 91-A, II (d)” for what is RSA 91-A:3, II(d).
Rule 4.03 heads the clerk’s duties “per RSA 671:20 and RSA 671:25” — two sections about the preparation and delivery of ballots, which say nothing about board minutes. On this date RSA 671:20 was a single sentence; the paragraph added by 2025, 281:1 did not yet exist.
Two rules are numbered 2.09, one on amendments and one on agenda preparation. The amendments rule provides that “If the amendment passes, the original motion is disregarded” — which inverts ordinary parliamentary practice and, read literally, would have extinguished the assistant-director motion the moment the title amendment carried. The board did not follow it; the chair restated the amended original motion and put that (1:16:06).

Why it is graded MEDIUM. These are defects in a board rule, not breaches of a statute, and the by-laws expressly subordinate themselves: “Nothing in this document shall violate New Hampshire law or the policies of the CSB”, and rule 2.15, “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.” The escalation from the 20 June page is that the omission is no longer academic: the ground the board actually used is one of the three the document leaves out.

Sources: Claremont School Board By-Laws, twenty-two pages, read in full 2026-08-29; RSA 91-A:3, II(a)–(m); N.H. Code Admin. Rules Ed 302.02(i) and Ed 303.01(f); RSA 671:20; the companion page Claremont School Board — June 20, 2024, flag 4.

MEDIUM The ad hoc committee on Unity’s withdrawal has two members, one of whom is not on the board, and was created without a vote

How it was created. At the 7 August meeting, on an item added to the agenda at the meeting itself: “Arlene Hawkins motioned to add to the agenda to create an additional sub committee (to be discussed at that time); no objection, added to agenda item 5.” The item then reads: “Arlene Hawkins made a motion for the Claremont School Board create an ad hoc subcommittee to explore the impact of Unity deciding to either stay or leave the SAU, seconded by Heather Whitney… Approved by consensus, Arlene Hawkins and Superintendent Pratt will form the committee and report out at next SAU and next CSB meetings.”

What the board’s rules require. By-law 1.08: “All special committees or ad hoc committees shall be created at the direction of the CSB and consist of three (3) members, unless a different number is ordered by the CSB. The vice-chair shall appoint all special committees and shall designate their chairs, unless otherwise ordered by the CSB by a simple majority.” By-law 1.05(a): “Subcommittees should be composed of no more than three board members.” By-law 4.02(b) repeats the vice chair’s appointing power. Board policy BDE, Committees and Delegates (adopted 2 June 2004) is one sentence: “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.”

Four departures at once. Two members rather than three, with no order of the board setting a different number; one of the two the superintendent rather than a board member; no appointment by the vice chair and no chair designated; and approval “by consensus” where BDE requires a vote of a majority. The board thereby created a public body — RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) reaches “any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof” — whose entire membership is one board member and one employee.

It met on the afternoon of 21 August. “We were able to meet this afternoon, Mr. Pride and myself and Chelsea” (1:21:26) — both members of the committee, plus the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent. On the minutes’ own account of the membership, that is the whole committee, and therefore a quorum of a public body. No notice and no minutes of that afternoon meeting were found, and its product reached board members the same day, against by-law 1.09’s “no later than the Wednesday prior”. The item was postponed for that reason, and the document surfaced publicly a week later as Exhibit D of the 4 September packet.

Why this matters beyond form. The subject is the possible withdrawal of a member district from SAU 6 — a question governed by RSA 194-C:2’s planning-committee machinery, in which the composition of a body and the vote that creates it are the whole of its authority. The agenda item was headed “(Discussion and Vote)” with “Recommended action”, and it was not reached.

Sources: 7 August 2024 draft minutes, items II.1 and III.5; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rules 1.05, 1.08, 1.09 and 4.02; board policy BDE, Committees and Delegates; RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 194-C:2.

OBSERVATION Nothing in the public record fixes when this meeting began, how long the board sat in nonpublic session, or when it ended

What the record contains. One clock time: “reenter nonpublic at enter the public session at 730. Exactly” (0:36:02), which the minutes carry as “Re-entered the public session at 7:30”. The minutes record no call to order, no time for the entry into nonpublic session, and no adjournment time — only “Consent adjournment”.

What the recording contains. The dialogue file has no gap across the nonpublic session: the row that closes the roll call to enter ends at 2,122.94 seconds and the next row begins at 2,123.02, a hundredth of a second later than the resolution of the file. The largest interval between any two consecutive rows anywhere in the file is 3.44 seconds. Video-frame differencing across the same window shows changes of the same magnitude as the camera switches that occur every thirty to sixty seconds throughout the recording, so the picture does not settle it either.

Two readings, and the page adopts neither as fact.

Continuous. If the recording is unbroken, then working back from 7:30 p.m. the meeting was gavelled at about 6:54 p.m. — twenty-four minutes after the hour the agenda sets — and the nonpublic session lasted about ninety seconds.
Spliced. If the meeting began at or near the agenda’s 6:30 p.m., then the nonpublic session ran roughly 7:05 to 7:30 p.m. and about twenty-three minutes of the meeting is absent from the only recording. Two things favour this reading: the agenda schedules the superintendent’s report at 6:40 and the discussion items at 7:00, and on tape they begin at 0:01:52 and 0:25:54 — which map to 6:32 and 6:56 on a 6:30 start and to 6:56 and 7:20 on a 6:54 start; and the 7 August nonpublic session, minuted 8:10 to 8:40 p.m., shows this board using half an hour for such a session rather than a minute and a half.

Why it is only an OBSERVATION. The requirement that minutes state a start time and an end time was added to RSA 91-A:2, II by 2025, 112:1, effective 22 August 2025, a year after this meeting; on 21 August 2024 no statute required either. And no statute requires a district to broadcast or record a meeting at all. The finding is that the length of a nonpublic session — the one part of this meeting the public could not attend — is not recoverable from any source the district produced.

Sources: Output/Dialogue/15947 SchoolBoard082124.mp4.CSV, inter-row intervals computed 2026-08-29; the Cablecast archive’s reported total run time of 5,645 seconds for show 15947; approved minutes, 21 August 2024; 7 August 2024 draft minutes; RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification).

OBSERVATION Six weeks before the federal deadline to obligate its pandemic relief money, the board’s first meeting of the fiscal year had no financial item at all

The deadline. All ARP ESSER funds had to be obligated by 30 September 2024 and liquidated within 120 days of that date, by 28 January 2025 — the dates the U.S. Department of Education gave grantees in its memorandum of 12 June 2024, ten weeks before this meeting, and in its Technical FAQs for Liquidation Extension Requests of 9 January 2024. The 120-day rule is 2 CFR 200.344(b) in the 2023 annual edition, the text in force for this period: “a non-Federal entity 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” the 2024 Uniform Guidance revision moved this to paragraph (c); the Department’s own June 2024 memorandum cites (b). The underlying carry-forward rule is 20 U.S.C. §1225(b).

What this meeting did with it. Nothing. The words ESSER, relief, federal funds and grant appear nowhere in the 14,148 words of this recording; there is no financial item on the agenda; no budget report, year-end position or revenue figure was presented; and the business administrator, printed on both mastheads, does not speak. The only occurrences of the word federal are in the 504 discussion and in the chair’s note about a January holiday.

Why the timing is worth recording anyway. This board created and funded a new administrative post that evening on the strength of a salary saving, and elected thirty-one teachers, without any statement of the district’s financial position. Its own Finance Subcommittee had adopted, four weeks earlier, a written cadence placing the fiscal-year debrief in July and the hiring-status and budget-timeline review in September — so the first written account of where the money stood was scheduled for 18 September, twelve days before the obligation deadline.

What this page does not say. No statute requires a school board to discuss federal grant deadlines, and nothing here suggests the district failed to obligate its funds. The finding is the silence itself, recorded so that a reader tracing the district’s handling of relief money can see that its governing body did not take the subject up at the last regular meeting before the cliff.

Sources: U.S. Department of Education memorandum to grantees, 12 June 2024, and Technical FAQs for Liquidation Extension Requests, 9 January 2024, as recorded in this project’s verified legal anchors; 2 CFR 200.344(b) (2023 annual edition); 20 U.S.C. §1225(b); Finance Subcommittee minutes, 22 July 2024; the dialogue file, searched term by term.

OBSERVATION An artificial-intelligence framework went to every teacher in grades 5–12 on the day of this meeting, and no document about it exists

What was said. Pratt: “on Wednesday, August 21st, which was today, we had K-5 teachers engaging in a session of accountable talk at the in the tech Center, and grade six through 12 were introduced to kind of ego, which is an AI framework that be using on 5 to 12” (0:07:41), having introduced it earlier as part of “extensive training” (0:03:06). Koski: “It’s an artificial artificial intelligence program. Okay. So students are using it already to write essays”, and “we’re introducing the teachers to what they can use on the teacher side, but also to be aware how students are using it” (0:08:55).

What is not in the record. The product’s name in a form anyone can act on — the recognizer gives MeeGo, kind of ego and kind of me go, and neither the agenda, the packet nor the minutes names it. No contract, no privacy review, no data-sharing description, no board policy cited, and no vote. The minutes reduce the exchange to “Candace Crawford asked about the AI professional development that teachers are participating in and Assistant Superintendent Koski shared more about that”.

The board’s own rule. By-law 2.09: “Any and all presentations by the administration to the board or any committee shall be contained in the agenda and made available to the public in its original format online so the public may download or access the information prior to or during board meetings.” The superintendent’s report is the presentation this arrived in, and it is not in the packet (flag 3).

Why it is only an OBSERVATION. No New Hampshire statute required board approval of an instructional tool in August 2024. RSA 189:68-a, “Student Online Personal Information”, imposes its duties on operators of school-facing services rather than on districts — a district cannot breach it — and it is cited here only to show where the state framework sits. In force from 2015, 128:1, effective 1 January 2016. The finding is that a district-wide deployment touching every secondary teacher and, on the assistant superintendent’s own account, student work, entered the public record as one sentence the transcript cannot even spell.

Sources: the recording at the points above; approved minutes, item III; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rule 2.09; RSA 189:68-a.

OBSERVATION Neither roll call followed the order the by-laws prescribe, and not one answer on the tape can be tied to a member

The rule. By-law 2.13: “A roll call vote may be requested by any member. Voting shall begin with the requester of the roll call and continue in alphabetical order of last name with the chair casting the final vote. Once a roll call vote has begun, it shall continue without interruption.”

What happened. On the nonpublic vote the chair called it herself without a member requesting it, and read the names Skillen, Petrin, Miles, Hawkins, Crawford, Sprague, Whitney (0:35:34). Alphabetically by surname that order is Crawford, Hawkins, Miles, Petrin, Skillen, Sprague, Whitney. On the amendment and the main motion the chair again began with Skillen (1:19:04). The chair did cast last on each, which the rule also requires.

What the tape cannot do. The answers arrive as merged fragments — Yes yes, Yes. Yes yes, Yes yes yes — attributed by the diarizer to Multiple and to the chair’s own cluster. Only Michael Petrin’s two votes are separable, and both are No. (1:15:23, 1:19:13). Everything this page says about who voted how comes from the minutes, which name every member on both roll calls and are the only source that does.

Why it is only an OBSERVATION. The order of a roll call is a board rule, not a statute, and nothing turns on it: both counts are recorded and neither was close. By-law 2.12’s bar on secret ballots was observed. The point is recorded because it is the mechanism by which the minutes became the sole record of the votes.

Sources: Claremont School Board By-Laws, rules 2.12 and 2.13; approved minutes, 21 August 2024; Output/Dialogue/15947 SchoolBoard082124.mp4.CSV.

POSITIVE Three things this board did on this night that the record shows working

The subcommittees put their purpose in writing, and the packet carries it. The chair’s charge — “Each subcommittee was charged with, providing the board with, what the mission of the subcommittee is going to be, what the cadence of the meetings and what the critical activities of those subcommittees” (1:26:04) — produced four written documents, three of them in this packet and one of them the first Finance Subcommittee document in the whole of the district’s packets share. Six months earlier this project could find no subcommittee paper at all. The Capital Improvements minutes carry a call to order, an attendance list, a decision and an adjournment time; the Curriculum proposal names its three members and its remit.

The budget meetings were set to be televised, by the subcommittee’s own written decision. Finance Subcommittee minutes, 22 July 2024: “Recommend the following for budget preparation: Two meetings in November and two meetings in December. These meetings shall be televised for transparency.” Announced on the night as “November 12th, November 19th, December 4th, December 18th” (1:31:50), with the venue printed on the agenda. The same document commits the committee to “sharing their thoughts and observations with the Board and the public in open meetings prior to Board deliberation”.

The 2025 statutory calendar on this agenda is right. The agenda announces the “Claremont School Board FY26 Proposed Budget Public Hearing- 1/2/2025” and the “Claremont School Board Deliberative Session- Saturday, February 1, 2025. Snow Date: Saturday, February 8, 2025”. Checked against RSA 40:13, in force since 2019, 192:2 and unamended since: paragraph II-a requires budget hearings under RSA 32:5 to be held “on or before the third Tuesday in January”, which in 2025 was 21 January; paragraph III sets the first session “between the first and second Saturdays following the last Monday in January, inclusive of those Saturdays”, and the last Monday in January 2025 was the 27th, making the window 1 to 8 February. RSA 32:5, I requires the hearing “not later than 25 days before” the meeting; 2 January to 1 February is thirty days. The hearing date, the session date and the snow date all sit inside the statute, and the snow date is the last day the window allows. What this page cannot check is whether the seven days’ notice RSA 32:5, I requires, and the second-Tuesday-in-January notice RSA 40:13, II-a requires, were in fact given.

Sources: CSB Agenda 8.21.24, item VI; Finance Subcommittee minutes, 22 July 2024; Capital Improvements Committee minutes, 29 July 2024; Curriculum Sub-Committee proposal; RSA 40:13, II-a and III; RSA 32:5, I (2023 codification identical; 2025, 144:1 post-dates).

OBSERVATION The agenda outran the clock, and the item that fell was the one about a district leaving the SAU

What happened. At 1:20:02 the chair said: “We we have 15 minutes left to get our business done. So the question is is what do we want to not do this evening.” Two of the nine numbered Discussion/Action items were then dropped: the Region 10 agreement, and item 6 — “SAU Exploratory Subcommittee Update (Discussion and Vote) Discussion of budgetary and administrative impacts of potential withdrawal of Unity from SAU 6. Recommended action.”

Where the time went. The assistant tech-centre director item ran from 0:41:04 to 1:20:02 — thirty-nine minutes, forty-one per cent of the recording — and the superintendent’s report and its questions took twenty-four. Between them, two items consumed two-thirds of the meeting.

Why the deferred item is worth naming. The withdrawal of Unity from SAU 6 was, by the autumn, before a planning committee, the State Board of Education and a March 2025 town vote. The board had created its ad hoc committee on it a fortnight earlier and the committee had met that afternoon; the item was headed for a vote; and it fell because the paper reached members the same day and the clock ran out. It went to the 4 September agenda instead, and to the SAU 6 board on 12 September.

Why it is only an OBSERVATION. A board is entitled to manage its own agenda and to defer, and this deferral was on the initiative of the member whose item it was, expressly so that members could read the document first — the better of the two courses available. The finding is recorded because the by-law that would have prevented it, rule 1.09’s Wednesday-before deadline for supporting documentation, is the same rule the packet itself missed by three business days.

Sources: CSB Agenda 8.21.24, items IV.5 and IV.6; approved minutes; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rule 1.09; 7 August 2024 draft minutes, item III.5.

Appendix — source files

Official and public sources

Recording: Claremont Community Television, Cablecast show 15947 — “Claremont School Board 8/21/24”. Title reproduced exactly as the public archive displays it, confirmed 2026-08-29, together with the archive’s event date of 21 August 2024 and its total run time of 5,645 seconds.
Minutes of this meeting: 2. approved CSB meeting minutes 8.21.24 — eight pages, read in full, approved on the 4 September 2024 consent agenda and created in Google Drive on 5 September 2024. No draft version exists in any district share, and every page after the cover is headed 8.21.24 DRAFT CSB meeting minutes (flag 5). The minutes carry a typographical error of their own, Voten taken, and describe the amendment adopted as changing the title to assistant rather than to acting assistant CTE director.
Packet: 2. CSB 8.21.24 — 8 documents, all eight read in full for this page on 2026-08-29. The folder was created 2024-07-25; all eight files were uploaded on Monday 19 August 2024:
- CSB Agenda 8.21.24 (2).pdf — the official agenda. Masthead: seven board members; the school board clerk; an empty Student Board Members heading; and six central-office administrators, with Christopher Pratt as Superintendent, Michael Koski as Assistant Superintendent, Michael McKosker as Director of Student Services, Jeff Small as Director of Technology, Patrick O’Hearn as Human Resource Director and Mary Henry as Business Administrator. Item IV.2 prints both nonpublic grounds in full.
- 8.7.24 Draft CSB Meeting Minutes (3).pdf — the record of the meeting this project has no recording of, approved on this night’s consent agenda. Six pages. Counsel Matthew Upton on board roles, the election of certified staff, moving money between line items, whether audits should be public, quasi-judicial roles and the Right-to-Know Law; a nonpublic session 8:10–8:40 p.m. cited as “RSA 91-A:3, I & II (1) Compensation of a public employee”; and the creation of the Unity ad hoc committee. Its masthead spells the Director of Student Services Michael McCosker, where this meeting’s spells him Michael McKosker. It also styles the district’s attorney “Claremont District Attorney”, an office New Hampshire does not have.
- Exhibit B- Meeting Minutes Finance Subcommittee 7.22.24 (2).pdf — the only Finance Subcommittee document in the district’s entire packets share. A calendar note rather than minutes: attendees, a purpose statement, a five-part meeting cadence, and the decision that the November and December budget meetings “shall be televised for transparency”.
- Exhibit A- Capital improvements Committee Minutes 7.29.24 (3).pdf — one page, signed Candace Crawford. Call to order 3:30 p.m. at the SAU Office, all three members, adjournment 4:01 p.m., and a decision to send a purpose statement to the full board “at the second meeting in August”. Membership as at 29 July 2024: Candace Crawford (chair), Bonnie Miles, Michael Petrin.
- Exhibit C- Visioning Sub-Committee Proposal 7.29.24 (2).pdf — headed DRAFT. A purpose statement and a three-point annual schedule tied to the community Visioning Committee and to Region 10 meetings. No attendance, no date of adoption, no members named.
- CSB Curriculum Sub-Comm. Proposal.pdf — members “Arlene Hawkins, Claremont School Board; Michael Koski, Asst Supt for Curriculum and Instruction; Kat McLaughlin, Curriculum Director”; purpose, cadence and a math update ready for the board. Uploaded seven hours after the rest of the packet. Not cited as an exhibit on the agenda.
- GOTRNH_Site Recruitment Packet_2023.pdf and GOTR_Sample-Lesson.pdf — publications of the Girls on the Run organisation, dated 2023. The only two documents in the packet that support an item the board voted on, and neither is a district document: there is no district cost estimate, no registration quotation and no policy reference for the $1,500.
The by-laws in force at this meeting, adopted 5 June 2024 and filed with the 5 June packet: Exhibit E- Claremont School Board By-Laws .pdf — twenty-two pages, five chapters and seven appendices. Read in full for this page. The rules relied on here are the preamble, 1.05, 1.06, 1.08, 1.09, 1.11, 2.01, 2.04, 2.07, both rules numbered 2.09, 2.10, 2.11, 2.12, 2.13, 2.15, 2.16, 4.01, 4.02, 4.03, 5.01, 5.03 and 5.04, and Appendices A and D.
Board policies, read in full from the district’s live policy index on 2026-08-29 — adoption dates taken from each policy’s own history block, not from the index:
- BEA — Regular Board Meetings. First reading 19 December 2018, second reading and adopted 2 January 2019. The first-and-third-Wednesday rule, its opening “Unless otherwise altered by Claremont School Board action”, the 24-hour advertising rule and the attendance provisions at flag 9.
- BEDH — Public Participation at Board Meetings. First reading 17 May 2023, second reading and adopted 6 September 2023. The thirty-minute minimum, the contradictory closure procedure and the board-discussion step at flag 7.
- BDE — Committees and Delegates. First reading 7 April 2004, adopted 2 June 2004, reviewed 19 December 2018. The majority-vote requirement at flag 14.
Neighbouring district documents this page relies on: Exhibit C-Assistant Tech Center Director (4).pdf — the revised job description brought back on 4 September, headed “Acting Assistant CTE Director SRVRTC (Claremont & Newport)”, carrying a REVISED watermark whose letters interleave with the body text on extraction, and adding to the qualifications a certification requirement naming the New Hampshire Technical Education Director licence — the change Arlene Hawkins asked for and the superintendent undertook to make. Because the watermark scrambles the reading order, no sentence of that document is quoted on this page; and the 4 September packet folder 3. CSB 9.4.24, created 29 August 2024, which also holds the Region 10 agreement and the draft SAU 6 exploratory ad hoc subcommittee paper.
A meeting the corpus does not have, and one nobody has. The 7 August 2024 Claremont School Board meeting has a packet folder (1. CSB 8.7.24) and the draft minutes above, but no recording, no Cablecast show and no section in this project’s map. And a third Claremont School Board meeting between 20 June and 21 August 2024 failed for want of a quorum; for that one there is nothing at all (flag 12).
Explicit negatives, from reading all eight packet documents in full rather than from a search: the packet contains no superintendent’s report, though one was presented and questioned for twenty-four minutes; no list of professional staff nominations, though thirty-one were elected from one; no job description for the post created; no letter of agreement, salary schedule or budget line for it; no Region 10 agreement; no SAU exploratory subcommittee paper; no notice or agenda for either July subcommittee meeting; and no minutes of the nonpublic session.
Negatives that are search-derived and therefore weaker, flagged as such: no minutes of this meeting’s nonpublic session, and none of the 7 August nonpublic session, were located in the 21 August packet folder, the 4 September packet folder or the district’s 2024 minutes folder; and no notice, agenda or record of the quorum-failed meeting was located in the district’s 2024 packets share, enumerated folder by folder, or in the Cablecast archive. Google Drive’s search interface under-reports on these shared folders — a parentId query on the 2024 packets share returned eighteen folders and omitted at least two that are known to exist, and the same query returned nothing at all for the 21 August packet folder whose eight files were read individually seconds later. The correct statement in each case is “not found”, not “does not exist”.

Project files

Relative links; they work when this page is opened from Output/HTML/.

Dialogue: ../Dialogue/15947 SchoolBoard082124.mp4.CSV — 696 rows, 14,148 words, running to 1:33:33.
Video: ../../Input/Videos/15947 SchoolBoard082124.mp4
Diarized transcript: ../../Input/Transcripts/15947 SchoolBoard082124.mp4.json
Map: ../../Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md §50.
Companion pages: 20 June 2024 — the last meeting before the gap, where the by-laws first governed, the roofs were voted under a Discussion heading and Alex Herzog said goodbye; 5 June 2024 — the by-laws adopted, by four of seven members; 15 May 2024 and 17 April 2024, where the subcommittee roster this meeting reports against was set; 20 March 2024 — the organizational meeting; and SAU 6 Board — April 11, 2024, where Unity’s withdrawal first entered the record.

Laws and rules cited on this page

New Hampshire statutes, in the text in force on 21 August 2024. RSA 91-A:2, I and II — a meeting is the convening of a quorum able to communicate contemporaneously to discuss or act on matters within the body’s jurisdiction; 24 hours’ notice; minutes to include the names of members, persons appearing, a brief description of the subject matter, final decisions and “the names of the members who made or seconded each motion”, open to inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting. 2023 codification; source note ends “2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023”. Deliberately not applied: 2025, 112:1, which added the start-time, end-time and minutes-producer requirements from 22 August 2025 — which is why flags 5, 6 and 15 are graded as they are. The mover-and-seconder clause is 2018, 244:1, effective 1 January 2019, and binds this meeting.
RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) — “public body” includes any board or committee of a school district “or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto”.
RSA 91-A:3, I(a)–(c), II(a)–(m) and III — paragraph I contains no exemptions; every ground is in paragraph II, which runs (a) to (m) with (f) repealed, twelve live grounds; the motion must state the specific paragraph II exemption on its face and the vote must be by roll call; nonpublic minutes are public within 72 hours unless sealed by a recorded two-thirds vote taken in public session. II(j), the ground used here, reads “Consideration of confidential, commercial, or financial information that is exempt from public disclosure under RSA 91-A:5, IV in an adjudicative proceeding pursuant to RSA 541 or RSA 541-A.” 2023, 189:1, eff. 3 October 2023.
RSA 91-A:4 — the right to inspect governmental records on request. Applied as amended by 2024, 49:1–2, effective 13 August 2024, eight days before this meeting. Cited only to make clear what it does not require (flag 3).
RSA 189:39 — “Superintendents shall nominate and school boards elect all teachers employed in the schools in their school administrative unit, providing such teachers hold a valid educational credential issued by the state board of education.” 1971, 371:2, eff. 27 August 1971; never amended since.
RSA 189:1-c and RSA 194:23-f — at least one nonvoting student member per public high school, with all the rights of a board member except the vote. RSA 194:23-f is applied as amended by 2024, 69:1, effective 13 August 2024, under which the high school selects, the student body elects by simple majority, the term is one year and “The school board shall decide the date at which the term shall begin.”
RSA 189:74 — school board public comment period of no less than 30 minutes, excepting emergency meetings and meetings held solely for nonpublic session. 2022, 333:1, eff. 6 September 2022. The text does not settle whether the thirty minutes is a floor on elapsed time or on the opportunity, and this page does not assert that it does.
RSA 32:10, I and II — the governing body’s power to transfer an unexpended balance from one appropriation to another, with records that let a citizen ascertain the appropriations to and from which amounts moved. Source note ends 2017, 127:4, eff. 15 August 2017. RSA 32:1 applies the chapter to school districts.
RSA 32:5, I and RSA 40:13, II-a and III — the budget hearing not later than 25 days before the annual meeting and on or before the third Tuesday in January, and the first session between the first and second Saturdays following the last Monday in January. RSA 40:13 last amended 2019, 192:2, eff. 10 July 2019; RSA 32:5’s relevant paragraphs are identical in the 2023 codification, and 2025, 144:1 post-dates this meeting. Used only at flag 19.
RSA 194-C:2 — school administrative unit planning committees and their membership, cited at flag 14 only to show what the deferred item concerned.
RSA 288:1 — New Hampshire legal holidays, used for the business-day arithmetic at flags 4 and 5 and for the January meeting date at flag 9. The list includes January 1 and “the first Monday in September, known as Labor Day”. Source note ends 1999, 106:2, eff. 6 August 1999.
RSA 189:68-a — student online personal information. Its duties fall on operators of school-facing services, not on districts; cited at flag 17 only to locate the state framework. 2015, 128:1, eff. 1 January 2016.
RSA 671:20 and RSA 671:25 — the district clerk prepares the official ballots and delivers them to the town moderator. Cited only because the board’s by-laws cite them for something else (flag 13). RSA 671:20 is quoted in its 1979, 321:1 form; the paragraph added by 2025, 281:1 did not exist.
New Hampshire administrative rules. Ed 302.02(i) — the superintendent shall “Provide for temporary staff to fill vacancies and provide supplies immediately needed for the operation of the schools”; Ed 303.01(f) — a school board shall “Hold meetings for the transaction of business at least once in 2 months and require the attendance of the superintendent or designee. The board shall cause a written record to be kept of each meeting in accordance with RSA 91-A”. Both New #8583, eff. 3-15-06; ss by #10649, eff. 7-26-14.
Federal. 2 CFR 200.344(b), 2023 annual edition — obligations under a federal award must be liquidated “no later than 120 calendar days after the end date of the period of performance”. The 2024 Uniform Guidance revision moved this to paragraph (c); the Department of Education’s own June 2024 guidance cites (b), which is the paragraph that existed for this period. 20 U.S.C. §1225(b) — the Tydings carry-forward. Both at flag 16.
Board rules. The Claremont School Board By-Laws, adopted 5 June 2024, and policies BEA, BEDH and BDE, listed above with their adoption dates. These are the district’s own rules, not state law, and every flag that rests on one says so. Flags 1, 3, 9, 13, 14, 17 and 18 rest wholly or mainly on them.
Deliberately not cited. No procurement rule is engaged: nothing in this record describes federally funded spending, so 2 CFR 200.318–.327 do not apply, and no New Hampshire statute requires competitive bidding for a locally funded purchase of this size. RSA 198:4-b is not cited, because neither sum before this board is described as retained year-end unassigned fund balance. And RSA 91-A:2, I(c)’s political-party caucus exclusion is not available to this body in any event: RSA 671:30 requires every New Hampshire school district without a special statute to elect its officers on the non-partisan ballot (1979, 321:1, eff. 21 August 1979).