Participants
Everyone in the record. Attendance and the spelling of every board name come from the district’s approved minutes of 16 October 2024; roles come from the agenda masthead and from the subcommittee list on the agenda itself. Segment and word counts are from the dialogue file, which holds 883 rows and 20,747 words. Where the recording leaves a voice unidentified and the minutes name it, this page reports both and says which is which.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Michelle Herrington | Assistant Director, Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center — began work at the end of August 2024 | 84 segments, 4,449 words, 21.4 per cent — the largest share of the evening, larger than the superintendent’s and larger than the chair’s. Her presentation runs from 0:33:43 to 0:49:58 and is the single longest item of the meeting. She dates her own start: “So it’s kind of like, what have I been doing, you know, since I started at the end of August.” (0:33:43) She describes the student slideshow that flag 2 concerns (0:38:29, 0:38:49), the program advisory committees (0:39:43), the field-trip programme, the student-of-the-month scheme, and the fire-service ride-along. The chair introduces her as a new assistant director; the district’s own record has called the post three different things in seven weeks. |
| Chris Pratt | Superintendent, SAU 6 | 92 segments, 3,727 words, 18.0 per cent. He delivers what he calls “the first official superintendents report” in a new format (0:14:33), covering the Chamber of Commerce video, the 30 September joint meeting with the City Council, the Parent Square community poll, a superintendent’s community outreach committee, the strategic plan, and the security upgrades at the central office. He gives the only account of the van — “So it was a it was a Esser Grant van that we got.” (0:57:02) — and he brings the professional-development day to the board under Other Business (1:55:33 onward). |
| Heather Whitney | Chair, Claremont School Board — presiding | 208 segments, 3,599 words, 17.3 per cent. She opens (0:00:08), asks the clerk for the roll, runs the consent agenda and citizens’ comments, and reopens comments when a resident arrives late (0:10:22). She puts and declares all four motions. She is also the voice the minutes credit to the business administrator three times in the LED item (flag 8): the fixture counts and the incentive (1:04:36, 1:05:20) and the payback figure (1:05:46). The dialogue file records that the diarizer split her across three clusters and that the business administrator held one of them for the whole financial-management item; Candace Crawford names her Heather at 1:32:40. |
| Mary Henry | Business Administrator, SAU 6 | 101 segments, 1,879 words, 9.1 per cent. She presents the financial management plan from 1:08:33, working from three sheets she handed out at the table: “You looking for? I gave you three sheets.” (1:09:17) She gives the fund balance, the additional revenue, the retention ceiling and the break-even figure, and states her own position — “I honestly am comfortable with 350 000.” (1:12:40) She gives the only answer anyone gives about the federal deadline: “We just are trying because we just ended on 930.” (1:34:48) The dialogue file records that she has no cluster of her own for her own agenda item — the whole presentation and question period sit inside the chair’s cluster and are reassigned by override. |
| Candace Crawford | Member; chair, Capital Improvement Committee; chair, SRVRTC Subcommittee; Finance Subcommittee | 142 segments, 1,677 words, 8.1 per cent. She carries most of the questioning on the retention calculation (1:13:24 to 1:22:57) and is the member who makes the arithmetic public by working through it aloud. She thanks the business administrator for the joint City Council session (0:27:28), relays an absent member’s request about the tech-centre video, tells the tech-centre director the website “needs updating”, and says of the ESSER accounting “We’d be good to get that before we go into the budget season.” (1:34:54) She is called for the Capital Improvement report and does not give one (1:34:20). |
| Frank Sprague | Vice chair; chair, Finance Subcommittee; NHSBA delegate; Ad Hoc Communications Subcommittee | 72 segments, 1,328 words, 6.4 per cent. He moves the fund-balance retention (1:24:57) and moves the question on it (1:30:46). He gives the Finance Subcommittee report, and in it the last request this corpus records for an ESSER accounting: “The we still would like to hear is final disposition of SR.” (1:34:32) He presents the draft board communication matrix (1:43:08 onward), recalls the district’s Johnson Controls energy lease from the inside (1:02:59 onward), and asks the one question about the records-retention regulation. |
| Miles Sheehan | Student Board Member, Stevens High School — first appearance in this corpus | 12 segments, 701 words, 3.4 per cent. He gives the activities half of the student report from 0:02:01: the homecoming dance, the pep rally, the theatre production, and a full account of the restorative-justice programme and its trained student panel (0:04:08 onward). Asked by the chair how students feel about it, he answers at length (0:08:40), and the exchange runs on to 0:09:51. |
| Whitney Skillen | Member; chair, Policy Subcommittee | 20 segments, 649 words, 3.1 per cent. She presents all three policies (1:35:35, 1:37:58, 1:39:56) and proposes the pre-deliberative community forum with a pizza dinner in the high school cafeteria (1:53:41). The chair credits her with the second on the federal grants motion (1:39:36); the approved minutes credit that second to Frank Sprague (flag 8). She is also the voice that reads the retention motion back for the record (1:25:43) — a function by-law 4.03 gives the clerk. |
| Mike Koski | Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction, Innovation and Assessment | 55 segments, 613 words, 3.0 per cent. He explains the autumn benchmark assessments and the Eureka Math² programme (0:23:46 onward), answers the attendance question, and speaks to the federal-grants and JJJ policies (1:40:24, 1:41:46). He, not Frank Sprague, asks the student members how the new schedule is going (0:07:08) — the minutes say Sprague. He also offers the evening’s one self-correction on the law: “Just a correction. RSA looks like maybe high school.” (2:05:13) |
| Arlene Hawkins | Member; Curriculum Subcommittee representative; Policy Subcommittee; chair of the SAU 6 joint board; named the board’s bargaining representative on this night | 43 segments, 532 words, 2.6 per cent. She asks for the analysis behind the absence figures (0:25:58, 0:26:38), tests the LED contract price against its quoted date (1:05:52), asks whether the unfilled positions that produced the surplus will still be budgeted (1:26:03), and asks twice for a plain-language tutorial on the fund-balance calculation. She accepts the negotiator role: “I agree to accept that position.” (2:06:52) The dialogue file identifies her by elimination and says so, setting out the competing reading; her presence and her acceptance at the close are separately anchored by the chair and the superintendent naming her. |
| Jennifer Gallagher | Citizen commenter, Ward 1 — a former board member speaking as a parent | 7 segments, 503 words, 2.4 per cent. She self-identifies (0:10:35) and speaks after the chair reopens the comment period for her. She describes how an incident in an elementary school girls’ bathroom was handled and asks the board for a policy: “So I just feel like if there was a policy in place on how the district handled that” (0:12:40). This page reports her institutional argument and does not reproduce what she said about her own child — see the footer. |
| Lilly Clark | Student Board Member, Stevens High School — first appearance in this corpus | 9 segments, 462 words, 2.2 per cent. She gives the athletics half of the student report and the account of the mock election and the marching band’s first field show (0:03:25 onward), and answers the chair on restorative justice (0:09:26). The district prints her given name Lilly on the agenda, the minutes and the masthead; she introduces herself on the recording as Lily, and the dialogue file follows the recording. This page prints the district’s spelling and reports the conflict rather than resolving it. |
| Michael Petrin | Member; chair, Ad Hoc Communications Subcommittee; SRVRTC Subcommittee | 21 segments, 349 words, 1.7 per cent. He asks the question that puts ESSER into the October record at all: “We bought a van, so I’m just wondering where that came from.” (0:56:33) He seconds the retention motion (1:25:53), asks whether the figures take the roofs into account (1:23:44), asks whether a motion is needed on the LED project and gets no answer (1:05:50), reports that his draft communication document “was actually accidentally attached to policy.” (1:42:57), and proposes childcare to raise turnout at the community forum (1:55:07). |
| Unidentified | A district administrator in the substitute discussion, and two shorter voices | 15 segments, 246 words, 1.2 per cent — well below this corpus’s usual range. Nine of them are one administrator speaking from 2:02:23 to 2:03:18: “And I had a meeting this morning with the principals”, the permanent-substitute proposal, and the tiered-pay proposal. The dialogue file reasons that this is not the assistant superintendent (the speaker refers to him in the third person), not the chair, and most likely the Human Resource Director, whom the chair thanks by first name at 2:06:19 — but no name is spoken for the voice, so none is asserted. The approved minutes split this one continuous block between two named people (flag 8). Five further segments are an unnamed voice in the closing crosstalk, and one is a three-word fragment. |
| Noelle Kronberg | School Board Clerk — present | Zero attributed rows. She reads the roll at the chair’s request (“Miss Kronborg, would you please roll call for attendance?”, 0:00:35), but the roll call is swallowed whole into the chair’s segment and cannot be split out without altering the transcript. She signs the minutes. Her presence is the notable fact: the clerk was absent on 21 August, 18 September and 14 November, and read the roll on 4 September, 12 September and here. |
| Bonnie Miles | Member; SRVRTC Subcommittee; Capital Improvement Committee — absent | Zero rows. The approved minutes list her as the only absentee. Crawford confirms it on tape and relays her request anyway: “I know Bonnie’s not here tonight, but she she called me and said, I want you to find out if we can get that video at the visitor’s center.” (0:55:36) |
| Michael McCosker | Director of Student Services | Zero rows. On the masthead of both the agenda and the minutes, spelled McCosker here after three consecutive documents spelled it McKosker. No voice in this recording is attributable to him. |
| Patrick O’Hearn | Human Resource Director, SAU 6 | Zero attributed rows, and he is the leading candidate for the unidentified administrator above. The chair thanks him by name for the substitute hiring and onboarding procedure (0:32:06), the superintendent says “Patrick and I have been working” on the onboarding packets (2:01:04), and the chair says Thank you. Patrick as the discussion closes (2:06:19). None of that is a naming of the voice itself. |
| Jeff Small | Director of Technology | Zero rows. On the masthead; not heard. |
| The public | — | One speaker, after the period had been declared closed and reopened. No other member of the public speaks, and no written comment is recorded. |
Agenda
An official agenda was posted and is in the packet: CSB Agenda 10.16.24.pdf, prepared 9 October and posted to the district’s public share on 11 October 2024. It runs to seven exhibits, A and C through G. There is no Exhibit B in the folder, and Exhibit B is the document behind the only vote of the evening (flag 1). Times in the left column are the agenda’s own; the links go to the moment the item was actually reached. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
6:30 p.m.
0:00:08 | I. Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance | Agenda: “I. 6:30 PM Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance”. On tape, in one segment: “October 16th, 2021 meeting of the Claremont School Board. With all right and yes. Yes. United States of America. And to prepare for which sins one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” October 16th, 2021 is the recognizer on the meeting date; the year is 2024. The Pledge is recited over the chair’s words and the transcript merges them Anchored to the minutes’ 8:37 p.m. adjournment, this moment is about 6:29:57 p.m. |
6:35 p.m.
0:00:35 | 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)”. On tape: “Miss Kronborg, would you please roll call for attendance? Yes, sir. Here. Here. On. Miles. Here. Here, here. I’m here.” Miss Kronborg is Noelle Kronberg, the clerk; the roll itself is one unbroken segment and cannot be split into names By-law 2.05: “The chair shall commence the meeting at the hour appointed and the clerk shall call the roll.” Both halves happened. Minutes: “Present: Candace Crawford, Arlene Hawkins, Michael Petrin, Whitney Skillen, Frank Sprague, and Heather Whitney”; “Absent: Bonnie Miles”. |
| 0:01:10 | II.a Consent Agenda (vote required) — 1. Amendments and Final Approval of board agenda; 2. Minutes Approval, 10.2.24 | Agenda: “a. Consent Agenda (vote required) 1. Amendments and Final Approval of board agenda 2. Minutes Approval- 10.2.24”. On tape, in full: “All items on the consent agenda will be approved without discussion. Unless a motion is made to move a specific item to the regular agenda. Is there any wish to move any specific item to the regular agenda?”, then “Is there any objection to accepting the minutes of 10 to 24? Seeing no objection. We’re going to approve the all items on the consent agenda.” 10 to 24 is 10.2.24 No motion, no seconder, no vote. Minutes: “Consent approval of all”. By-law 2.10 authorises exactly this — “When prompted by the chair consent agenda items will be moved,en masse, by consent (absence of objection)” — while the agenda’s own heading says vote required. The by-laws and the agenda have said different things about this item all year. |
| 0:01:10 | II.b Citizens Comments — reference CSB Policy BEDH | Agenda: “b. Citizens Comments-Please reference CSB Policy BEDH- Public Comment & Participation at Board Meetings.” On tape: “Next item is citizens comments. Seeing no citizens. Other, well, citizens. But, no citizens that are going to comment right now.” The period is then reopened nine minutes later at 0:10:22 (flag 18). |
| 0:01:58 | II.c Student Board Member Report — Miles Sheehan & Lilly Clark | Agenda: “c. Student Board Member Report- Miles Sheehan & Lilly Clark”. The chair: “We’ll move forward to the student board member report. We have two new student members, which we’re thrilled to have.” and “We have Miles Sheehan and Lily Clark, and I don’t know if both of you are planning to present or one this evening, but please proceed.” The report runs to 0:06:44, followed by board questions to 0:09:51. Nothing anywhere records the board fixing the date at which their term begins, which is what RSA 194:23-f, III requires of it (flag 12). |
6:40 p.m.
0:14:13 | III. Superintendent’s Report | Agenda: “III. 6:40 PM Superintendent’s Report” — no exhibit named, and no superintendent’s report in the packet (flag 11). The chair: “Next item of business is the superintendent’s report. We received a very nice packet, which I was very impressed with and appreciative of.” Pratt reads a summary from 0:14:33; board questions run to 0:33:02. Minutes: “results are in the full report available online”. |
7:00 p.m.
0:33:02 | IV.1 SRVRTC Momentum: Progress, Programming, and Vision for SRVRTC (Exhibit A) — Michelle Herrington | Agenda: “1. SRVRTC Momentum : Progress, Programming, and Vision for SRVRTC (Exhibit A) Michelle Herrington, Assistant Director of SRVRTC”. Reached twenty minutes early. Presentation 0:33:43–0:49:58; questions to 1:01:29. Exhibit A is in the packet and is the source of flag 2: it publishes a live sharing link to the student slideshow. The board asks four sets of questions; one of them produces the ESSER van answer. |
| 1:01:41 | IV.2 Affinity LED Lighting Efficiency Upgrade (Discussion) — Chris Pratt | Agenda: “2. Affinity LED Lighting Efficiency Upgrade (Discussion) Chris Pratt, Superintendent”. No exhibit. Runs 1:01:48 to 1:08:33. The contract is already signed (1:06:01); a member asks “You need a motion or anything? You’re just.” (1:05:50) and no motion follows. The item is headed Discussion and it is a discussion of something already done (flag 13). |
| 1:08:33 | IV.3 Financial Management Plan (Discussion) (Exhibit B) — Mary Henry | Agenda: “3. Financial Management Plan (Discussion) (Exhibit B) Mary Henry, Business Administrator”. There is no Exhibit B in the packet (flag 1). The agenda calls the item a discussion; it produced the evening’s only recorded vote. Runs 1:08:33 to 1:34:20, twenty-six minutes, of which the retention motion and its disposal occupy 1:24:57 to 1:31:31. |
| 1:34:20 | IV.4 Sub-Committees (Discussion) — six subcommittees called | Agenda: “4. Sub-Committees (Discussion) Reports by subcommittee chairs if available, consider topics board would like referred to committee for investigation or review”, listing (a) Capital Improvement, (b) Finance, (c) Policy (Discussion/Vote) with four numbered policy items, (d) Curriculum, (e) SRVRTC, (f) Ad Hoc Communications with Exhibit G. (a) is called and produces nothing; the minutes print the heading with no text beneath it, and by-law 1.05(3) requires the Capital Improvement Committee to “report to the full Board monthly.” |
| 1:34:32 | IV.4(b) Finance Subcommittee — Frank Sprague | On tape, in full: “Well, we heard some of the, information tonight, which was the, on retention. That was that was part of our agenda. The we still would like to hear is final disposition of SR. Yes. And hopefully next board meeting.” SR is ESSER; the same rendering appears elsewhere in this corpus Then three answers the minutes do not carry (flag 4). Minutes, in full: “i. The fund retention was on the agenda for the subcommittee ii. Frank Sprague shared that he would still like to see a presentation on ESSER”. |
| 1:35:35 | IV.4(c) Policy Subcommittee (Discussion/Vote) — Whitney Skillen | Agenda: “1. EHB-R- Regulation: Data/Records Retention-First Read/Adoption (Exhibit C) 2. DAF- Administration of Federal Grant Funds-Repeal Old (2020)(Exhibit D) 3. DAF- Administration of Federal Grant Funds (2024) First Read/Adoption (Exhibit E)” and “4. JJJ- Access to Public School Programs by Nonpublic, Charter School and Home Educated Pupils-First Read/Adoption (Exhibit F)”. Three motions, three voice votes, no counts, in fourteen minutes (1:35:35–1:42:16). The JJJ item is noticed as a first read and adoption only; the motion actually put was a repeal and replacement (flag 6). |
| 1:42:29 | IV.4(d)–(f) Curriculum; SRVRTC; Ad Hoc Communications (Exhibit G) | Curriculum, in full: “Anything new on the curriculum subcommittee? I think you see the space at the last meeting. Yes, I reported at the last meeting. Nothing new to report, right?” SRVRTC is treated as covered by the presentation. The communication matrix runs 1:42:57 to 1:52:54; the packet’s Exhibit G is a seven-column table that extracts as interleaved text, so its column order is not verified here. |
8:20 p.m.
1:53:01 | V. Other Business — one bullet on the agenda | Agenda, in full: “V. 8:20 PM Other Business – Discuss potential date for community forum on District’s plans to improve academic achievement and share strategic plan”. The chair opens it as “There’s two topics of other business” (1:53:01) and the board then disposes of three: the forum, a district-wide professional-development day given to staff, and the appointment of the board’s collective-bargaining representative. Two of the three resulted in board action and neither was on the agenda (flags 9 and 10). |
8:25 p.m.
2:07:12 | VI. Future Dates / Future Agenda Items | Agenda, in full: “a) Claremont Board Meeting 11/6/2024 b) SAU6 Board Meeting 11/14/2024 c) Schedule Public Forum to discuss district’s plan to improve academic achievement d) Finance Subcommittee Meeting dates: 1-3 PM at SRVRTC John Goodrich Community Room.” with 12 and 19 November and 4 and 18 December, then “e) Claremont School Board FY26 Proposed Budget Public Hearing- 1/2/2025 f) Claremont School Board Deliberative Session- Saturday, February 1, 2025. Snow Date: Saturday, February 8, 2025”. The item was never reached aloud — the minutes print the list, the recording goes straight from the negotiator appointment to adjournment. The 6 November meeting did not take place (flag 15). |
8:30 p.m.
2:07:12 | VII. Adjournment | On tape, in full: “Is there any objection to moving into negotiations with the CAA, seeing no objections? No objections to adjourn. Meeting is adjourned.” Two dispositions in one sentence, neither moved nor seconded nor voted. Minutes: “Consent adjournment at 8:37pm”. By-law 2.07 lets the chair dispose of a matter on the absence of objection, and lists to adjourn among the motions in order; the by-laws do not provide for two subjects being carried on one absence of objection. |
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 the text and the link cannot disagree. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording. Hover or focus a cell to expand it. Transcript quotations are reproduced exactly as the automatic transcription produced them; quotations from the agenda, the minutes, a packet document, the by-laws or a statute are labelled as such in the sentence that carries them.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:08 | The chair opens, and misdates the meeting by three years | “October 16th, 2021 meeting of the Claremont School Board. With all right and yes. Yes. United States of America. And to prepare for which sins one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The year is a recognizer error, not a misstatement by the chair; the same file renders Petrin five different ways The clock matters here: anchored to the minutes’ adjournment time this is 6:29:57 p.m., three seconds before the noticed hour. | POSITIVE |
| 0:00:35 | The clerk reads the roll — which she has not always been there to do | “Miss Kronborg, would you please roll call for attendance? Yes, sir. Here. Here. On. Miles. Here. Here, here. I’m here.” The roll is a single unbroken segment and no name can be separated from it. The approved minutes give the answer: six present, Bonnie Miles absent. By-law 2.05 asks for the chair to open and the clerk to call the roll, and both happened — which is worth recording, because the clerk was absent on 21 August and 18 September and would be absent again on 14 November. | |
| 0:01:10 | The consent agenda passes without a motion, and the citizens’ period is declared closed | “Is there any objection to accepting the minutes of 10 to 24? Seeing no objection. We’re going to approve the all items on the consent agenda. Next item is citizens comments. Seeing no citizens. Other, well, citizens. But, no citizens that are going to comment right now.” The agenda heads the item vote required; by-law 2.10 says consent items “will be moved,en masse, by consent (absence of objection)”. Minutes: “Consent approval of all”. The 10.2.24 minutes approved here are in this packet, which is not always true. | |
| 0:01:41 | Two student board members are seated — the masthead has been empty since July | “We’ll move forward to the student board member report. We have two new student members, which we’re thrilled to have.” and “Thank you so much for coming. We have Miles Sheehan and Lily Clark, and I don’t know if both of you are planning to present or one this evening, but please proceed.” The 7 August, 21 August and 4 September agendas print the heading Student Board Members with nothing under it. The 2 October agenda prints both names but has no student item; this is the first report. Under RSA 189:1-c the board “shall have at least one nonvoting student member from each public high school”; the district seated two. | POSITIVE |
| 0:02:01 | The student report: homecoming, a pep rally decided on a tiebreaker, and a theatre production | “We had the homecoming dance, not last weekend, but the weekend before on Saturday. There’s a good turnout. There was a lot of new freshmen joining their high school experience with dances, and it was a good turnout from upper classmen as well.” and, at 0:02:29, “We raised around $1,000 to be put towards more dances and other things that the student council will decide to do with it.” Then 0:02:54: “Seniors won the Pepper rally by one point after a riveting rock, paper, scissors tiebreaker.” Pepper rally is pep rally | |
| 0:03:25 | Athletics, a mock election, and the marching band’s first field show | “I’m Lily, and I’m on the girls varsity field hockey team. We played against Newport and we won the Flint Cup again.” Then 0:05:49: “And upcoming event that we’re having at school is a mock election that’s called invaded by NP, Mr. Simon. He wants us to learn about voting and, basically how things work in the real world.” and 0:06:16: “At the last football game, the Stevens High School band performed their first field show. We are both in band, and, our field show was A night at the movies, which was really cool.” The student self-identifies as Lily; the district’s agenda, minutes and masthead all print Lilly | |
| 0:04:08 | Restorative justice, described by a student in more detail than any district document contains | “Is our restorative justice program, which is I think it’s been around for a while, but it’s been kind of kicking into gear a lot more lately.” He describes the coordinator’s process, then the panel at 0:04:37: “he brings in his, the student panel, which is, new to the school, I’m pretty sure, and they’re highly trained students. And they take the information collected by Mr. P, and then they facilitate, mediate a conversation with all the parties involved”, and at 0:05:12 the written outcome: “they have recommendations to the school and how the student can be held from others, like teachers to school professionals.” | |
| 0:07:08 | The assistant superintendent — not, as the minutes say, the vice chair — asks how the new schedule is going | Koski: “So how is the the new schedule going for for you?” The answer, 0:07:13: “I think there’s pros and cons to the schedule. I mean, I really like being in shorter classes because I feel like I don’t get as board as often or, like, distracted. I think it’s really nice. But say you have a doctor’s appointment. I’ve had a couple of them, and I’ve missed like, so many classes due to it.” and, 0:07:53: “I feel like there’s a lot of students that right now it’s just. New and sort of uncomfortable for the moment as we’re kind of figuring it all out.” Minutes: “Frank Sprague asked Miles and Lilly how they feel about the new schedule”. Sprague’s first attributed word in this file is at 0:28:12, twenty-one minutes later. | MEDIUM |
| 0:08:27 | The chair asks the students whether restorative justice works, and gets an answer worth the asking | “I just have one question about the restorative justice. How is how do students feel about that? And do you do you personally or does your peer group feel that that’s an effective way of handling things?” The answer, 0:08:40: “I feel like when you put time and effort into working through the problem and finding why this person did this, what’s causing this behavior, I feel like that is a lot more defective than your effective than, than throwing a detention at someone and just having them sit for an hour.” and at 0:09:26: “You never know why people act out like that. So it’s a really nice way to have, like, people there to talk it out and find a way to make not just like our school, but also our peers feel better about talking about things”. | |
| 0:10:22 | The chair reopens citizens’ comments for a resident who arrived late | “Looks like Mr. and Miss Gallagher may have missed the citizens comments. Can I is there any objection for citizens?” and the speaker: “Thank you. You were really speedy tonight. I’m really sorry that I missed citizens comments. Hi, I’m Jen Gallagher, Ward one.” Nothing required this. Board policy BEDH and RSA 189:74 require the opportunity, not a second opportunity after it has been declared past. | POSITIVE |
| 0:11:07 | A parent asks the board for a policy on how an elementary bathroom incident is handled | She describes an incident of fecal smearing in a girls’ bathroom, an assembly held for the girls in grades two to five, and the children then being lined up to view the stall one at a time. This page reproduces neither her account of her own child nor anything that would identify a student. Her institutional argument, at 0:12:40: “So I just feel like if there was a policy in place on how the district handled that, it’s come to my attention that it’s not the first time this type of issue has happened at an elementary school.” And at 0:13:07: “But as I’m sure some of you know, fecal smearing can happen due to a variety of medical issues, some of which are sensory and some of which are actually trauma based. So by shaming children, which that is the only purpose that type of activity seeks to do is by shaming them. They’re not going to get the support that they need in order to fix the problem, which keeps happening.” And at 0:13:34: “I know that only parents that were upset enough to email got anything from the school.” No board member responds to the substance and no follow-up appears on any later agenda in this corpus. The minutes record the complaint in three bullets. | POSITIVE |
| 0:14:33 | A superintendent’s report in a new format, summarised aloud from a document not in the packet | “I guess this is the first official superintendents report to be able to really dig into some really relevant information about how busy we’ve been. So I just took some notes here. Rather than going through the whole paper, I’ll just hit some of the main points of the superintendent’s report.” The document he is summarising is not in the packet folder (flag 11), and three separate speakers send the public to it. | MEDIUM |
| 0:15:50 | The city partnership: a Chamber of Commerce video, and monthly meetings with the city manager | “It’s kind of like a, a recruitment video that we’ll get out of it. And but they were gracious enough to reach out to see if we wanted to be part of their video.” Then the 30 September joint session, 0:16:21: “The focus was on educational funding and budgets, which, Mary Henry reviewed with the City council, give them a better understanding of what school budgets are, what we have control of, what we don’t funded mandates, unfunded mandates”. And 0:17:17: “They followed up with the city manager, and we’re going to set up monthly meetings, the two of us”. | |
| 0:18:13 | A community poll, and a superintendent’s outreach committee with twenty applicants for eight seats | “And one of the new features in there is that we can give quick, little quick surveys to get the pulse of the community. So I started off with the first question with what qualities do parents value most in their child’s education?” Then 0:18:54: “a couple of weeks ago, I announced the creation of a superintendents community outreach committee”, and 0:19:49: “So right now I’m up to over 20 people who are interested. Optimal size of the committee. I would like to have eight.” The selection criteria are not stated and no board action is taken on the committee’s creation. | |
| 0:21:12 | Security locks at the central office, and radios tested by an unplanned internet outage | “We have the security locks at the Sussex office with cameras and buzzers.” and 0:21:38: “I feel the SEO office should be just as secure as the schools.” Sussex and the SEO office are both the SAU 6 central office; both are standing renderings in this corpus Then the radios, 0:21:57: “We had a good opportunity to test them yesterday because our internet was down for most of the day as well as the telephones.” and 0:22:25: “Well, we had a cyber breach where we had to shut things down. Can we still function? And so it was a good practice for all of us.” | |
| 0:23:17 | Nine per cent of third graders at or above grade level in mathematics | The chair: “It looks like we’re doing okay within reading or at least six tolerable with the reading. But the the math, was pretty shocking where we had a guess, the maple at the third grade level, 9% of kids are, on or above grade level. So that was concerning to me.” the maple is Maple Avenue elementary school The figure comes out of the report that is not in the packet. The answer, 0:23:46: “A little bit of explanation. This is a test based on this school years instruction.” and 0:23:58: “And 7% of our kids are functioning in fifth grade level. It’s like a pretext. It’s like a priestess. And so we’ll do this test again in the winter and spring test.” a pretext / a priestess are a pretest | MEDIUM |
| 0:24:28 | The explanation offered: a fall benchmark measures the whole year’s standards | “But right now we’re testing students on what they should know in May but haven’t been talking about it. And so you’ll you’ll notice in the early grades, kindergarten has come in and already read, oh, 74% or whatever. So in the young grades they score really well. As they get older, there’s more to take in over the course of the school year and the school board, it does feel a little shocking.” And the comparison, from 0:23:58: “but last spring, when we were all around the 50% in reading and math across all the trees, so we expect we’ll end up that same point or better this spring.” across all the trees is across all three The programme is named at 0:25:03: “It’s called Eureka squared. You read the two.” and confirmed as first-year at 0:25:10. | |
| 0:25:16 | Four hundred absences against three hundred students at the middle school | The chair: “it looked like in some of the schools we were having some real attendance issues, most notably at CMS, we had 300 plus students and there was 400 plus absentee absences from the beginning of the school year to currently. And, I guess when Chris comes back in, I was curious whether or not there was a if there’s a policy prescription that the board could provide that may be more rigorous than what the state requires as far as action on those kind of absences”. Two members press for the analysis behind it — 0:25:58: “I was curious about the analysis of those absences.” and 0:26:38: “That’s why I think the analysis of those numbers would help everyone understand.” The answer, 0:26:18: “If a number of students who appear to have been a school for health reasons. There’s several weeks straight and that could really help.” The state floor the chair asks about is RSA 189:35-a, II: “Ten half days of unexcused absence during a school year shall constitute habitual truancy.” Nobody cites it, and no analysis is promised by a date. | |
| 0:26:50 | A member asks for the verbal summaries to continue, and thanks the business administrator for the joint session | “I think if, if people are listening to the report that might encourage them to find the full report on the website for more information. And for those who don’t do that part, at least they’re hearing part of the report and know what kinds of things are being reported that the school board is aware of.” Then 0:27:28: “I just wanted to thank you, Mary. I’ve heard some comments, back, I’ve gotten feedback on the September 30th, meeting with the city council and people, community members watch that.” The report she sends the public to is not in this packet, and the joint session she praises is the one the 18 September page records the board being unable to locate a venue for. | |
| 0:28:12 | Character development outpolls academic excellence, and the board reads it as confirmation | Sprague: “I was looking at the push out poll, the poll results community poll. And I’m wondering, is that fuel for the, strategic plan”, then 0:28:41: “And, academic excellence? It was 28%, but character development was 46%.” A member asks whose children the answers are about (0:29:13); the superintendent answers 0:29:34: “I think based on the questions, based on your overall perception of our schools, what would you like to see whether, you know, in general?” and 0:29:41: “I would have thought it would have been the other way. Right. And we would have missed the mark.” A member replies 0:30:16: “the other thing that struck me was it’s right in keeping with the work that’s being done on the strategic plan.” | |
| 0:32:06 | The chair thanks the HR director for the substitute onboarding procedure — two hours before the board is told it has not worked | “I just want to give a thank you to Mr. O’Hearn to for getting the standard operating procedure for hiring and onboarding substitutes in place. And it looks like things are moving to be more customer service related to our staff.” At 2:00:06 the chair asks whether the pay increase produced more substitutes and the answer is “Not really.” | |
| 0:33:37 | The tech centre’s administrator is introduced — with the fourth title in seven weeks | “First, let me just announce to the community that Miss Harrington is our a new assistant director of the technical center.” Miss Harrington is Michelle Herrington; the recognizer never gets the surname right in this file On 4 September the board struck the word acting from the title by a 3–2 vote; on 18 September a member called her “the new, director, actor director” on that meeting’s recording; on 30 September two speakers called her the director. The district’s own record has not settled the post’s name, and this page reports each usage as spoken. | |
| 0:33:43 | Six weeks of work, described by the person who did it | “So it’s kind of like, what have I been doing, you know, since I started at the end of August. So my big thing is, is building relationships, and that’s kind of just building relationships with staff.” The scale, 0:34:31: “We have 150 students that come through the tech center in level ones, level twos and intro classes, and then 13 students from Newport. So I met with each student individually.” Exhibit A carries the same figures and a fourteen-item list of community events between 11 September and 10 December. | |
| 0:38:29 | A slide for every student, on two screens and in the packet | “So each, you know, each kid has their own slide. And then you see this level two, you have a group photo of them. So there’s over 200 plus slides in the slideshow.” The screens, 0:38:49: “there’s two TVs at the high school. One when you first walk in that this is just constantly going on, and then one in the library”, and the names, 0:39:12: “I spelled a few kids names wrong and they’re like, Miss Harrington, my name is spelled wrong.” What each slide holds is described at 0:37:24: “each student has their own slide. So then it just goes what classes they’ve taken, what classes they’re in now, what grade they’re in.” and 0:37:48: “And then kind of what what job do you want to do. You know. And your favorite thing at the tech center.” Exhibit A, in the district’s public packet folder, prints a sharing link to that slideshow (flag 2). This page reproduces no student name, image, programme or career intention, and did not follow the link. | HIGH |
| 0:39:43 | Program advisory committees rebuilt, and given a date | “The program advisory committees, we really needed to work on those a lot. You know, it’s kind of just like a check the box kind of thing.” and 0:40:25: “We’re like, let’s have it on November 19th, you know, at between 230 and 4. And all of them will happen at the same time.” Asked later to define one (0:59:11), she answers 0:59:20: “program advisory committee is the teacher. And then there’s a student on the committee. And it’s kind of just like the people in the community kind of giving input on where we can move the programs kind of in the future.” A member supplies the old name at 1:00:41: “Sometimes it’s been called the Craft Committee.” | |
| 0:47:51 | A ride-along with the fire service, as a way of testing a new programme | “So we’re kind of just getting our feet wet with the ride along program. And we met with the chief. It took a few minutes because we had to get this waiver signed and make sure everything’s kind of like on the back end.” and 0:48:09: “we’re not sure if he’s going to do a full day or half a day, kind of to just be that first student”. The purpose, from 0:47:24: “the Claremont Ride Along program, there’s we’re really kind of seeing if fire safety would be a good CTE program here.” | |
| 0:49:38 | “we bought a van” — three words that put ESSER back on the record | “And then there’s a health care career fair at the college that we’re going to be in, and we bought a van. So, so that will be able to so Pamela doesn’t, you know, say Michelle, come on. We can’t be doing all these field trips all the time.” Exhibit A carries it as a slide heading: “We bought a Van for more class field trips”. No board vote on a vehicle purchase appears in any Claremont minutes in this corpus. | |
| 0:54:22 | A member reports the visitor’s-centre request of an absent colleague, and tells the district its website is wrong | “I know Bonnie’s not here tonight, but she she called me and said, I want you to find out if we can get that video at the visitor’s center.” (0:55:36) and the website, 0:56:14: “And I don’t know, I mean, just I was looking at staff today, and it’s wrong. Yes. And so I don’t know who’s responsible for doing that, but I would really love to see that updated.” The answer: “I can do that.” The exchange also carries the evening’s one question about cost to families, 0:55:17: “No. So we do a lot of fundraising like we’re calling like at the say the Arrowhead will raise money”, prompted by “Because I don’t want kids not to go because they don’t.” | |
| 0:56:33 | The van question, and the only ESSER answer of the evening | Petrin: “My second is maybe more for Mr. Pratt. Something we kind of went over that we just kind of went real quick. We bought a van, so I’m just wondering where that came from.” and 0:56:56: “Traditionally to, you know, is there credentials to drive the Vin or requirements for driving the van?” The superintendent, 0:57:02: “So it was a it was a Esser Grant van that we got. And so it didn’t come out of our, our local monies. And because of the size of the van, you don’t need any special license to drive it. It’s it’s right out here. If you guys wanted to see it. And I think I put a picture of it in the report as well.” Esser Grant is ESSER; the Vin is the van Then the controls, 0:57:24: “we created procedures for the process of if you’re going to use the van, what you need to do, sign it in, check it out. So we have those all in place and now we’re just, going to get it registered hopefully within the next week or so.” Minutes: “Superintendent Pratt said it was purchased with ESSER funds, so no local money” — accurate. The picture is in the report that is not in the packet. | MEDIUM |
| 1:01:48 | The LED project: already signed, brought as a discussion | The superintendent: “So this is a, a project that, I don’t know. Was it already in the works when I came in?” and 1:02:02: “we’re at the point now where we’re just trying to finish up and getting the, the rest of the paperwork is that as of today, Mary was talking to the company. And so we’re because we have certain audits that aren’t done. We’d say, what what will you take in rather than those audits because they’re not they’re not ready yet.” The district’s unfinished audits are holding up a lighting contract. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:04:36 | The numbers the minutes give to the business administrator, spoken by the chair | “Well the total number of fixtures that we’re changing are 2826. That and then we’re putting 2741 smart fixtures in. So 97% it looks like we are changing in the buildings in bluff Stevens Tech and maintenance. So it is across the whole whole district.” and 1:05:20: “But I mean, we also got incentives to from the power company of 262,262. So. And that’ll go towards the first payment right up front.” and, answering a question about the payback period, 1:05:46: “That’s what I was looking at. 77 years.” 77 years is 7 years; the approved minutes independently print “Ms. Henry shared that it is a 7 year contract” Minutes: “Ms. Henry noted that there are 2,826 fixtures being replaced and the eclectic company offered an incentive”. The business administrator’s first attributed word in this file is at 1:08:33, four minutes later. | MEDIUM |
| 1:05:52 | A member tests whether the quoted price still stands | “This. Has the contract already been signed? Because they read that the prices were in effect March and April. Are they still honoring that price?” The answer: “Yeah. Yeah, because we already signed on to it.” Immediately before, a member had asked 1:05:50: “You need a motion or anything? You’re just.” Nobody answers that question and no motion is made. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:06:54 | Occupancy controls, and the reason the district is doing lighting first | Sprague: “I assume there’s other, other factors other than the fixtures. For example, if if we left this room with the lights on.” Answer: “Off smart switches that we have going in.” Then the strategy, 1:07:08: “as we look at different energy projects down the road, like, you know, renewable renewable energy, like, you know, solar arrays and stuff like that, that will save us money down the road usually. The, the grants that are out there, they really won’t look at a school district if they haven’t done the the energy efficiencies upgrades before then.” and 1:08:16: “your building has to be, up to speed in lighting and controls. And I think this was the last step for that.” | |
| 1:08:33 | The business administrator opens the item with a deadline of her own | “Next item on the agenda is financial plan. Financial management plan discussion. Well, really what I’m here for, you guys need to make up your mind on how much money you’re going to keep out of the fund balance for me to finish the dough 25. I will talk about that as well, but I do need that taken care of this evening so that I can do that, because the city definitely wants it done, like we all do.” the dough 25 is the DOE-25, the annual financial report RSA 198:4-d put the DOE-25 filing date at September 1; this is 16 October. | |
| 1:09:17 | Three sheets of paper, and every figure the board will vote on | “You looking for? I gave you three sheets. Yeah. Yep. You got them? Okay. So the first one is just telling you right now that the end of year fund balance is 497,000. We’ve received 114,000 in additional revenues. So the combined end of year surplus is 611,000. Also, during deliberative session, we estimated a budget increase of $376,718. With the current budget in place right now and the amount that it would increase, the tax rate would go from $14.15 to $14.46, or for every $100,000 your house is valued at.” and 1:10:01: “It would be $30.66. So for every 100,000 your house is valued. Your taxes would go up by that much by the valuation.” None of the three sheets is in the packet (flag 1). On 18 September this board was told the FY24 budget balance was $544,145.29; the figure here is $497,000 and nobody mentions the difference. | HIGH |
| 1:10:19 | The retention ceiling, and the method behind it | “So this right here is showing you how we come to the number we come to. So we take the amount of local education tax that you raise and the sweat tax because you raise that and then it’s times to point 5%. So the most you can retain is the $466,664. And $0.43 is the maximum amount that you can retain.” the sweat tax is SWEPT, the statewide education property tax; to point 5% is a rate the recording does not resolve RSA 198:4-b, II caps retention at “5 percent of the current fiscal year’s net assessment under RSA 198:5”, and the base is on a sheet the public does not have. Within four minutes the figure becomes 469 in the room and $469,000 in the minutes (flag 7). | MEDIUM |
| 1:10:45 | The break-even point, and a recommendation above it | “the next page that tells you shows you the fund balance, the revenue, the total less the break even point. So I’m calling the break even point on our budget, the 376,000 718, leaving you that $234,403 if you want to keep the tax rate level.” Then the reason for going higher, 1:11:34: “the interest that we’re gaining is going to be over $200,000 a year. Okay. I budgeted 35, right?” and 1:11:46: “I also budgeted tuition low because again, I’d rather be low than high.” and the conclusion, 1:12:16: “so even though it says 234,000 here, I’m comfortable with 350.” | |
| 1:13:24 | A member works the arithmetic out loud, which is the only reason the public has it | Crawford: “So I get the 611 100,000. So I got that number. Yep. And I understand that the total amount that we could retain is 1469.” then, over ten minutes, 1:15:03: “So so 376 is the total amount to break even for taxes.”, 1:16:23: “So so it’s we can come up with a number between 0 and 469.”, and 1:17:29: “so we could choose we could choose to leave the 376 there which would bring down the tax rate and move 234 inch or 200,000 into retaining or whatever you want to call it.” Without this exchange the recording would carry the conclusion and none of the working. | |
| 1:19:26 | The chair asks whether the surplus can be pointed at a labour contract | “Can we retain any money now to offset projected tax increases?” then, more precisely, 1:19:45: “What what I’m interested in, in finding out, is if we could retain some of these funds to offset some of the collective bargaining agreement.” The answer, 1:20:00: “I could do that. But you can’t use it as going back to the tax rate. No. You could use it to go into your budget right next year.” and the chair, 1:20:32: “Of 469,000. Yada yada yada. We could retain all of that to offset collective bargaining impact.” RSA 198:4-b, II states no purpose limitation, so the money may lawfully be pointed this way; ¶II(a) requires a noticed public hearing before it is spent, not before it is retained. | |
| 1:23:44 | A member asks whether the roofs are in the number, and gets three words | Petrin: “Does this say these numbers take into account the roofs that we were doing?” The answer, in full: “Yes. They’re all done.” then “But this is in addition to.” and “That we spent.” This is the whole of the reconciliation. On 20 June this board voted two roofs; the FY24 report in the September packet gave a total encumbrance of $648,931.76, of which the roofs account for $583,931.76; on 18 September the board was told the encumbrance had fallen to sixty-five thousand and the balance was $544,145.29. Tonight the balance is $497,000. Neither the $544,145.29 nor the $648,931.76 is spoken here, and no figure is reconciled to any other. | HIGH |
| 1:23:58 | Why there is a surplus at all: the district could not fill the jobs it budgeted | “I say we did very well on last year’s budget. You know, it’s I mean, we had staff that we couldn’t fill and stuff like that that helped to that.” A member: “Because we couldn’t get the staff that we wanted.” (1:24:14) The chair, 1:24:22: “It’s it’s this, this excess as a result of us being unable to fill positions that we do need to communicate that.” and the administrator, 1:24:35: “people need to understand too, that people change positions. People leave, people come in at different rates, different insurance”. The same explanation carried the September exit-interview report, where forty staff left in FY24. | |
| 1:24:57 | The motion: retain up to $350,000, conditioned on the following year’s tax rate | Sprague: “Okay. So I’m going to make a motion that we retain up to $350,000. And I’m going to put a condition that it be that that money be used to offset the tax rate in 25, 26.” He explains the condition at 1:25:26: “Mean something could happen this year, we’d say, well, we’d better take the money out this year. That’s why I put the condition in.” The motion is read back at 1:25:43: “To retain up to $350,000, with stipulation that it be used to offset.” Petrin seconds and the mover thanks him by name: “Thank you. Mike.” (1:25:55) Mover and seconder are both on the tape and both in the minutes, which RSA 91-A:2, II requires and which this board does not always manage. | |
| 1:26:03 | The question the surplus actually raises: will the unfilled posts still be funded? | Hawkins: “You mentioned unfilled staff positions. That’s how we’ve been able to retain some of this funding. Will those positions be impacted or will they still be budgeted for all we know budget. I just wanted to confirm that.” The answers: “Yep. If we need them, they will be budgeted for.” (1:26:25) and “Vacant positions will flow into the next budget if needed, obviously. But we look at staffing every year or so.” (1:26:32) The qualifier “if we need them” is not in the minutes, which record only “Mary Henry clarified that they are and will be”. | |
| 1:26:55 | The ceiling is stated again, and the district’s own arithmetic drifts | “This this you have to do it tonight if you’re going to do it. But yes, you can go all the way up to the 469 because you have 497 and fun to balance off your budget.” and 1:27:38: “let’s just say you do and you want to go with the full 469. And we’ll see $100,000 roughly increase on the bottom line.” and the per-household consequence, given in three broken fragments and then restated by a member at 1:30:27: “Thousand $9 and 77 per 100,000.” $469,000 is $2,335.57 above the ceiling stated at 1:10:19, and it is the figure the approved minutes publish (flag 7). | MEDIUM |
| 1:30:46 | The question is moved, seconded and put — and the chair loses the thread, on the record | “I’m going to move the question.” The chair begins to put the main motion instead (1:31:04), is corrected — “To three. Oh, I made a motion to move the question.” (1:31:07) — and a second follows: “Second, on that motion.” (1:31:17) Then the vote on the main motion, in full, 1:31:31: “Thank you so much for your pleasure. To make a motion to vote on. The motion to retain up to 350,000. To be used to offset the tax rate for fiscal year 2526. All in favor, say aye. Aye aye. Opposed? See? No opposition. The motion passes.” Two voice votes, no counts announced. Nothing in RSA 91-A requires a count and by-law 2.13 makes a roll call available to any member on request; none was requested. Minutes: “voice vote taken to move forward with the motion, all present voting in favor” and “Voice vote taken on the original motion, all present voting in favor”. | |
| 1:32:02 | A board member asks for a tutorial on the calculation, and the chair puts it to the public | The request had come during debate, 1:26:03: “Need a tutorial on all of this because I’m trying to catch as much as I can, but I need a tutorial at some point.” The chair takes it up: “is there any way we could actually have a in meeting tutorial on this course? Could we schedule that for it. Would next meeting be two. I’m not kidding.” and 1:32:40: “So we do need a tutorial for all of us. Well, and I think so. And I think for the public, and if we are going to have discussions with the public about the budget, I agree.” The administrator offers to widen it (1:33:00) and a member trims it: “Oh, I mean, the history is less important than the actual calculation.” (1:33:13) The chair closes by consent, 1:33:57: “it’s everybody is a board okay with us having a brief tutorial on this in public.” The corpus records no such tutorial being given. | |
| 1:33:27 | The offer that answers the question, and moves it off camera | “You know what? Because why don’t you come in and talk to me on your own too?” The reply: “Right. I have no problem.” Minutes: “Ms. Henry and Ms. Hawkins agreed to have a 1:1 explanation”. Two people is not a quorum and no meeting occurs within RSA 91-A:2, I. It is recorded because the public tutorial the same exchange produced is the alternative, and because the corpus shows the same member going to the same office with the same questions in May. | |
| 1:34:20 | Six subcommittees are called; the first produces nothing | “Well, moving on to item number four, which is our subcommittee discussions. I miss Crawford. Is there anything to offer? Finance subcommittee. Frank?” I miss Crawford is Miss Crawford The Capital Improvement chair is called and the recording carries no answer; the minutes print the heading “a. Capital Improvement Committee Subcommittee Chair Candace Crawford” with nothing beneath it. By-law 1.05(3) requires that committee to “meet at least quarterly” and to “report to the full Board monthly.” | HIGH |
| 1:34:32 | The last request in this corpus for an ESSER accounting — and the answer the minutes leave out | Sprague, in full: “Well, we heard some of the, information tonight, which was the, on retention. That was that was part of our agenda. The we still would like to hear is final disposition of SR. Yes. And hopefully next board meeting.” The business administrator, 1:34:48: “Yes. We just are trying because we just ended on 930. So we want to make sure we have everything accurate.” A member, 1:34:54: “We’d be good to get that before we go into the budget season. Yep.” The superintendent, 1:34:58: “Yeah. We won’t put behind us at this point. So yeah.” SR is ESSER; 930 is 30 September, the obligation deadline; We won’t put behind us is left as recorded — a negation the surrounding words do not settle, and this page does not supply one The approved minutes carry the request and none of the three answers. Nothing said here states that any ARP ESSER money went unobligated or was lost. | MEDIUM |
| 1:35:02 | The Finance chair checks the calendar, and the first budget session is four weeks out | “I’ve got it going to check the calendar. And we’re actually vastly approaching when we’re going to be getting together for.” The chair: “Our first public budget meeting is November 12th.” (1:35:10) The agenda fixes four of them, all “1-3 PM at SRVRTC John Goodrich Community Room” — 12 and 19 November, 4 and 18 December. The same weekday-afternoon scheduling recorded on 18 September, and the requested ESSER accounting is now inside that window. | |
| 1:35:35 | Three policies, presented in eight minutes, on the assumption the reading was done | The Policy chair: “We’re going to make this quick. I’m going to assume everybody did their reading. We’re all caught up on our homework. Thank you for your dedication and commitment. The first policy up for tonight is policy e hb dash r, which is a regulation on data records and retention. This tonight I’d like to do a first read and adoption.” and 1:35:57: “And after we adopt this policy, I think there’s just some minor, like formatting edits we need to put in the dates and stuff, and then it’s ready to publish to the website.” The Policy Subcommittee meeting that produced these three documents has no notice and no minutes anywhere this project can reach (flag 3). | HIGH |
| 1:36:17 | The records-retention regulation is adopted — and it hands the board’s own statutory duty to the administration | The chair: “I would like to make a motion to adopt, the regulation data records retention policy code EHB dash r first read and adopt this evening with minor edits from Miss Guillen’s recommendation. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion?” The one question, 1:36:41: “So presumably whoever has these records at the whether they be IEPs or whatever they are, employment forms or whatever. Whoever has them knows what the specific term, right, that they need to keep them.” Answer: “So the policy references all those different individual types of records and their retention.” (1:37:10) It does not. Exhibit C says the district “shall establish and maintain a record retention schedule” and gives no schedule; RSA 189:29-a puts that duty on the members of the school board, and Exhibit C assigns oversight to “The Superintendent or designee”. The vote, 1:37:36: “All in favor of approving or adopting, regulation data? Record retention code EBRIII. I oppose policy is adopted.” EBRIII is EHB-R; I oppose is Aye. Opposed? | OBSERVATION |
| 1:37:58 | The federal-grants policy: what the board was told it was adopting | “It’s kind of a two thing. We need to repeal the old one from 2020 and then adopt the new one. So it’s two votes. We don’t have the old one in front of us because it doesn’t matter. And the new one is very, very long. But it basically in preparing this policy to get ready to adopt for our district, we had to go through and identify the accountable persons in various and pretty much for every paragraph.” and 1:38:25: “So everywhere you see someone in our district named like the superintendent, where we find an example, the superintendent or the business administrator”, and 1:38:49: “And Mr. Kosky helped us identify who in the district is the most appropriate person to appoint. And we wrote that into the policy.” Mr. Kosky is Michael Koski, the assistant superintendent Exhibit D, the 2020 policy being repealed, is in the packet after all — it is headed “Claremont School Board Policy DAF” and carries a dated history: “First Reading: January 8, 2020 Second Reading: January 21, 2020 Adoption: January 21, 2020”. Exhibit E, the replacement, names no Claremont officer, contains the word Claremont nowhere, and still carries its own drafting instructions (flag 5). | MEDIUM |
| 1:39:10 | One motion for two votes, and a seconder the minutes get wrong | “I would like to make a motion, dual motion to repeal the policy DAF administration of federal grant funds that was adopted in 2020 and replace it with the current document. Is there policy DAF? It’s the.” then 1:39:36: “Same title 2024. Second second from Miss Gillen. Is there any further discussion? All in favor of adopting policy DAF for 2024 say I.” Miss Gillen is Whitney Skillen The chair names the seconder aloud. The approved minutes name a different member: “Frank Sprague seconded the motion”. The agenda listed the repeal and the adoption as two separate numbered items; the chair put them as one dual motion and one vote (flag 8). | MEDIUM |
| 1:39:56 | Policy JJJ is explained as a federal-funding policy, which it is not | The Policy chair: “And similar for the last policy j j. J. Access to public school programs by nonpublic charter school and home educated pupils for submitting this for a first read and adoption. We also had to identify the a delegate and accountable person for a few areas”, then asks for help. The answer, 1:40:24: “No, it’s just the for federal grants were required to share a portion of that with any other, nonpublic institutions in, in and so this is guidance on.” The chair completes it: “How to do that.” Exhibit F is the district’s RSA 193:1-c policy — access by non-enrolled pupils to district courses, athletics and library materials. The Title I sharing duty the board was described is 20 U.S.C. §6320, and it lives in the policy the board had adopted twenty minutes earlier (flag 6). | MEDIUM |
| 1:40:46 | The board repeals a policy while asking whether it has one | The chair: “So I would like to make a motion to repeal the previously adopted, policy. JJ access to public school programs by nonpublic charter school and home educated pupils and replace it with a 2024 policy that is before us of the same name.” then, seconds later, 1:41:10: “Second. Is there any discussion from the board? Just ask questions. Do we have a current j j. J. Policy. I wasn’t at this meeting. We need to repeal.” and 1:41:23: “This is this is the new school board. But Claremont currently has a j j j. Okay. Thank you. I don’t know.” The agenda noticed this item as “First Read/Adoption” only — unlike the DAF item two lines above it, which the agenda expressly noticed as “Repeal Old (2020)”. The discussion, 1:41:35: “so if we had a a montessori school or something like that in, in the district, we would be obligated to share.” / “Our title funds.” / “With that. We do that with Claremont Christian.” The vote, 1:42:03: “All in favor of adoption of the policy as described. Say I, I any opposed seeing no opposition policy JJJ2024 is approved or adopted.” | MEDIUM |
| 1:42:29 | Curriculum has nothing; the communication matrix arrives attached to the wrong document | Curriculum, in full: “Anything new on the curriculum subcommittee? I think you see the space at the last meeting. Yes, I reported at the last meeting. Nothing new to report, right?” Then, 1:42:57: “As a as a note, my document was actually accidentally attached to policy.” and “It’s at the back of.” The packet’s Exhibit G is the matrix, filed correctly; the copy in members’ hands was appended to the JJJ policy. By-law 1.05(5) has the Curriculum representative reporting “quarterly or as dictated by curriculum review cycle”, so nothing turns on the empty report. | |
| 1:43:08 | A board communication plan, brought for the format rather than the content | “But just a disclosure. This is by no means a complete document. So I was working on this, and Mike and I are going to get together because we want to kind of finish this up.” The design, 1:43:40: “So what’s the purpose of the communication? Who’s the target audience? How will it be communicated? What’s the purpose? Frequency. Who’s in charge of it? Is it internal? Is it external?” and the scope, 1:44:30: “we communicate about the budget. We communicate about policy. We communicate about student achievement. We communicate about committee work. We communicate school board goals, administrative arrangements”. Exhibit G names CCTV as a communication vehicle in three of its rows, which is disclosed in this page’s footer. | |
| 1:49:20 | Where the board’s job ends and the administration’s begins | The chair: “I’m almost in favor of keeping it very narrow, like, Frank and Mike habit and seek other ways of I think we’ve it’s been batted around between, the city and the district about having, like, a communication specialist”, and the superintendent supplies the word: “Almost like a publicist.” (1:49:50) The chair, 1:49:51: “But I’m afraid that if we start, like codifying the school board, being responsible for that kind of recognition, I think to Arlene’s point, we could choose to once a year.” The mover closes it, 1:51:24: “Are the weeds I wanted to stay out of. You know, as far as trying to keep it. What is the actual role of the, of the board.” and the chair, 1:52:10: “So I’m pretty happy with the way this looks quite frankly.” No vote; the document remains a draft. | |
| 1:53:01 | Other Business opens with two topics, on an agenda that noticed one | “on to other business. With the phone, it would be. There’s two topics of other business. One is getting a potential date for community forum on district plans to improve academic achievement and to share the strategic plan. I spoke to Mr. Pratt briefly about this, and my thoughts were that if we had this before the deliberative session, it could be an informational, and it could also be an opportunity for us to highlight all the good that’s going on in the district and why we’re looking for funds”. The agenda’s item V carries exactly one bullet, and it is this one. Three items are in fact disposed of (flags 9 and 10). | MEDIUM |
| 1:53:41 | A pizza dinner in the cafeteria, and childcare, to get people to a budget forum | “I love this idea of having it before the deliberative session. Can I make a suggestion on, like, the format, venue style? What if we did it in the high school cafeteria and so that the meeting can move from the cafeteria for this community forum. And then we move over to the auditorium for the deliberative session, and we make it a pizza dinner because we’re only going to be in the cafeteria.” and 1:54:09: “if we serve food, something easy like pizza. And it might get actual like people in the seats to come and attend.” The chair corrects the timing, 1:54:24: “No, I was thinking, like, a week before. Once we once we’ve got our budget fleshed out.” Then 1:55:07: “I think, offering childcare, getting some high school students to volunteer to watch.” and “That’s what helps attendance if you offer childcare. So they’ve done it in the past as community service.” No date is set and none appears in this corpus. The deliberative session was 1 February 2025. | |
| 1:55:33 | The superintendent asks for a professional-development day to be given back to staff | “teachers. And in Paris, they’re they’re fried right now.” in Paris is and paras — paraprofessionals Then the request, 1:56:36: “we had planned on, you know, throwing some professional development on the 26th, which is a no student day. I would like to offer out for the board to consider, to give me the permission to.” / “Recognize the teachers for all the hard work they’re doing and have them have the 26th off.” and the reasoning, 1:57:08: “there are very few times that we can listen to what they’re saying and be able to respond in action, rather than just words”. The assistant superintendent, 1:57:55: “We’re kind of an atypical time where we have instituted a lot of changes in two years. And I think this is just become too burdensome at times. I, I would never suggest this for a different district in a different time or place. But I think it might be appropriate here.” This item is not on the agenda and the chair says it was “brought to me by Mr. Pratt” (1:55:21) — that is, it was known before the meeting. | MEDIUM |
| 1:58:35 | Three members speak in favour; the chair asks for opposition and hears none | “I support this group having their finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the district and what needs to be done. I think you guys have a good grasp on whether this is viable and appropriate, and I fully support your and back you.” then “I totally agree.” (1:58:55) and 1:59:00: “I agree with Mr. Peterson as well as Miss Crawford. And I want to thank you for bringing this to the board”, and 1:59:30: “And I also really think that the the school staff deserve a little extra love.” Mr. Peterson and Mr. Putin are both Michael Petrin in this file The disposal, 1:59:38: “Is there anyone who would like to speak against this? I think we’re unanimously in support of showing our educators and our staff how much they are appreciated.” No motion, no second, no vote — a district-wide day of professional development converted to a day off by absence of objection. By-law 2.07 permits the method; by-law 2.09 requires the item to have been on the agenda. | MEDIUM |
| 2:00:06 | Did last year’s substitute pay increase work? Not really | The chair: “I have a question about substitutes. I know last year we increased the pay for subs. Have we gotten more people as a result of that?” The superintendent: “Not really. I don’t think we’ve had a huge increase in in subs.” (2:00:16) The assistant superintendent, 2:00:44: “right now we’re standardizing procedures to really from the time we have an applicant to when they get in the door to kind of close that gap”, and 2:01:55: “the number of substitutes in our roster is a lot larger than the number of substitutes who have actually had an assignment within the last, you know, well, since it started school year.” Minutes: “Arlene Hawkins asked if the changes in the substitute pay and hiring process has helped to draw in any subs” and “Patrick O’Hearn said they have not seen an uptick in applicants”. Neither speaker is the one the recording has (flag 8). | MEDIUM |
| 2:02:23 | An unnamed administrator proposes a permanent substitute in every building | “And I had a meeting this morning with the principals, and right now, Disney has a.” / “Full time sub that is there every day.” then 2:02:33: “I think during the budget season, we will be looking for subs to be a permanent sub in all the buildings because they’re busy all the time.” and 2:02:55: “I’ve worked in districts where I’ve had a permanent sub in my building and always busy.” and 2:03:18: “Tiered payment for subs. If it works so many days consecutively, the pay that they receive is bumped up.” Disney is Disnard elementary school This is one continuous block from one voice. The minutes split it between two named people (flag 8). The superintendent then ties it to the budget, 2:04:42: “we think that if we have each school try to budget for a full time substitute, cost effective wise, we might be spending less money because of all the money that we’re paying for teachers to take on”. | MEDIUM |
| 2:04:17 | Nobody in the room knows what a substitute has to have | The chair: “What’s the minimum educational requirement? High school.” A member: “For a teacher? I believe.” / “It’s a bachelor.” The superintendent: “It’s a bachelor’s, but for a substitute.” An unnamed voice, 2:04:32: “You have to have a bachelor’s. Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s the issue with our community is that we’re very.” Then, 2:05:13: “Just a correction. RSA looks like maybe high school.” and the chair: “That’s what I thought it was.” and “That would be great. That would be great to know.” (2:05:20) The question is left there. The minutes record none of it, and record instead a conclusion the recording does not carry (flag 14). | OBSERVATION |
| 2:05:32 | The chair hopes the substitute rate beats local hourly pay; the minutes report it as fact | “whatever we bump the pay up to just. I would hope it would be more than the starting salary. Hourly starting salary in places that are hiring workers right now.” and 2:05:58: “To know we increase it like. But I’ve been seeing signs everywhere. Just want to make sure that on an hourly basis we’re more.” Minutes: “Discussion regarding sub pay- the pay is now more than starting hourly pay in the area”. Nobody says that. What is said is a hope and an undertaking to check. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:06:25 | A bargaining request received fifteen days earlier reaches the board in its closing seconds | The chair: “Is that the Claremont Administrators Association is interested in collective bargaining. And so we need to have dates set within two weeks of receiving this written request, which was received October 1st.” The vice chair: “Did we already miss it?” A member: “So not in business days.” The chair: “Not in business days. So, Arlene, you are our.” / “Yes negotiator.” and the acceptance, 2:06:52: “I agree to accept that position.” The superintendent, 2:07:01: “We are willing to move into negotiations with the CAA. AA and our Arlene and myself will set up times that we can meet.” The written request is in no packet, the item is on no agenda, and the two-week rule appears in no provision of RSA 273-A this project can find (flag 10). | MEDIUM |
| 2:07:12 | Two dispositions and an adjournment in a single sentence | “Is there any objection to moving into negotiations with the CAA, seeing no objections? No objections to adjourn. Meeting is adjourned.” then, 2:07:22: “Thank you. Thank you. Have fun. Saturday night here.” The board’s bargaining representative was named, negotiations were authorised and the meeting was closed on one absence of objection. Minutes: “Discussion regarding collective bargaining meetings that need to begin soon; Arlene Hawkins will represent the board for the negotiations” and “Consent adjournment at 8:37pm”. The recording ends at 2:07:27 of a 2:08:11 file. | MEDIUM |
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 16 October 2024 and against the board’s own by-laws. Every statute was re-fetched in the codification that governed that date, and where a provision has since been amended the page says so and names the session law it is not applying. HIGH marks an unmitigated failure of a duty owed to the public; MEDIUM marks a defect the record itself mitigates or a rule breach with a lesser consequence; OBSERVATION records something a reader needs and no rule reaches; POSITIVE records something done well. A flag is not a legal conclusion, and nothing here is a finding of fact against any person.
HIGH The only vote of the evening was taken on three sheets of paper the agenda calls Exhibit B, and the public packet does not contain them
What the agenda promised. Item IV.3 reads, in full: “3. Financial Management Plan (Discussion) (Exhibit B) Mary Henry, Business Administrator”. The approved minutes repeat the label. The packet folder 6. CSB 10.16.24 holds eight documents and none of them is an Exhibit B: the agenda, Exhibit A (the technical-centre presentation), Exhibits C, D, E, F and G, and the draft minutes of 2 October. The lettering skips from A to C. Every document was uploaded on 11 October within twenty-two seconds of the folder’s creation, so nothing was added later and forgotten.
What was on the sheets. The business administrator says so herself (dialogue file, 1:09:17): “You looking for? I gave you three sheets.” Sheet one gives the fund balance, the additional revenue and the tax-rate effect; sheet two is described at 1:10:19 as “showing you how we come to the number we come to” — the retention-ceiling calculation; sheet three is “the fund balance, the revenue, the total less the break even point” (1:10:45). Every figure the board voted on is on those sheets and nowhere else in the public record: $497,000; $114,000; $611,000; $466,664.43; $376,718; $234,403; $14.15 rising to $14.46; $30.66 per $100,000 of valuation.
The board’s own rule is explicit, and it is the second rule numbered 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.” This was a presentation by the administration, it was named in the agenda as an exhibit, and it was not made available online in any format.
Why it matters more here than it would elsewhere. The vote taken on these sheets disposed of $350,000 of public money and fixed the district’s FY26 tax posture. A member of the public who watched the whole two hours can hear the numbers and cannot check a single one of them — not the base the 5 per cent ceiling is drawn on, not the arithmetic that produced $466,664.43, not the derivation of the $376,718 break-even. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes that include “a brief description of the subject matter discussed”; the minutes do that, and the underlying record is what is missing. RSA 91-A:4, I gives every citizen the right to inspect governmental records — a right that runs against a document, and a document nobody has published is a right nobody can exercise without asking.
And it is the sheets that would answer the $584,000 question this project has carried since September. The FY24 report in the September packet gives a total encumbrance of $648,931.76. The two roofs this board voted on 20 June come to $583,931.76, leaving $65,000. On 18 September the board was told the FY24 budget balance was $544,145.29 and that the encumbrance had fallen to sixty-five thousand — two statements that cannot both be true of the same $544,145.29. Tonight the board works from $497,000, a third figure, and the only reconciliation attempted is four words: a member asks “Does this say these numbers take into account the roofs that we were doing?” (1:23:44) and is told “Yes. They’re all done.” Neither $544,145.29 nor $648,931.76 nor $583,931.76 is spoken at this meeting. The ambiguity was not resolved on the record here, and the document that would resolve it is the one the packet does not have.
Which limb of the severity rule. The unmitigated one. A document was noticed to the public as an exhibit, was used at the table for the meeting’s only vote, and does not exist in the district’s public share; nothing on the record explains its absence and nobody asks for it. The comparison is instructive: on 18 September the board’s money document was in the packet as Exhibit B, and this project could and did check the arithmetic against it.
The honest limit. This project has established the packet’s contents from its own browser enumeration of the folder, recorded in Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md §56, and confirmed each of the eight files individually through the Drive metadata interface. The Drive search interface returns nothing at all for this folder, which is a documented failure of that interface rather than evidence about the folder. If an Exhibit B exists somewhere else in the district’s share, this page has not found it.
Sources: CSB Agenda 10.16.24, item IV.3; approved minutes, item IV.3; packet folder 6. CSB 10.16.24; Claremont School Board By-Laws, rule 2.09 (agenda itemisation); RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification); RSA 91-A:4; the companion page Claremont School Board — September 18, 2024.
HIGH The public board packet prints a sharing link to a slideshow the district describes as holding a slide for every enrolled student
What the slideshow is, in the presenter’s own words. She met “150 students that come through the tech center in level ones, level twos and intro classes, and then 13 students from Newport” individually (0:34:31), and built a slideshow from it: “each kid has their own slide. And then you see this level two, you have a group photo of them. So there’s over 200 plus slides in the slideshow.” (0:38:29) Each slide carries, on her account, “what classes they’ve taken, what classes they’re in now, what grade they’re in” (0:37:24) and “what what job do you want to do. You know. And your favorite thing at the tech center” (0:37:48), with names attached — she describes correcting misspellings at students’ request (0:39:12). It runs continuously on two screens at the high school (0:38:49).
What the packet does with it. Exhibit A, the presentation deck filed in the district’s public Drive folder, prints under the heading “Students” a bullet reading “Made Slideshow , Greet them in the hall, being present in their classes” followed by a full Google Slides address ending in /edit?usp=sharing. Two further Google Docs addresses in the same format appear on the newsletter slide. This page does not reproduce the address and did not follow it.
Why the form of the address matters. The ?usp=sharing suffix on an /edit URL is what Google produces from its own Copy link control when link sharing is enabled. That is suggestive and it is not proof; a document can carry that address and still be restricted. What this page therefore reports is the district’s publication practice, not a confirmed disclosure — and the practice is to publish, in a folder linked from the public agenda, a route to a compilation whose contents the same document describes.
The rule. Under 34 CFR 99.3 an education record is a record directly related to a student and maintained by the agency, and personally identifiable information includes the student’s name and other information that would allow identification with reasonable certainty. 34 CFR 99.30(a) and 20 U.S.C. §1232g(b)(1) require prior written consent for disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records, subject to the exceptions in 34 CFR 99.31. The exception a district would reach for here is directory information, and it is conditional: 34 CFR 99.37(a) permits disclosure only after the district has given public notice of the types of information it has designated, of the parent’s or eligible student’s right to refuse, and of the period within which a refusal must be filed. A stated career intention and a stated “favorite thing at the tech center” are not among the categories 34 CFR 99.3 lists as capable of designation as directory information, whatever notice a district has given.
What this page does. It reproduces no student’s name, image, programme, grade, prerequisite or career intention, prints no enrolment figure small enough to identify anyone, and does not reproduce the address. The aggregate figures it does use — 150 and 13 — are the presenter’s own whole-programme totals and appear in Exhibit A and in the approved minutes.
What would settle it. The sharing setting on the linked document, which only the district can show. If it is restricted, this flag reduces to a publication-hygiene point. If it is not, the packet is a route to an education record and the notice question at 34 CFR 99.37(a) becomes live. This is the third donor- or student-data exposure this project has recorded in a Claremont public packet in six months, after the 17 April and 4 September cheque photographs, and the pattern is the reportable part.
Sources: Exhibit A, slides 2 and 6; the dialogue file at the timestamps given; 34 CFR 99.3; 34 CFR 99.30(a); 34 CFR 99.37(a); 20 U.S.C. §1232g(b)(1).
HIGH Three subcommittees produced this meeting’s business and there is no notice and no set of minutes for any of them
What the statute reaches. RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) defines a “public body” as “Any legislative body, governing body, board, commission, committee, agency, or authority of any county, town, municipal corporation, school district, school administrative unit, chartered public school, or other political subdivision, or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto.” A Claremont School Board subcommittee is a public body. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes recording the members present, the persons appearing, a brief description of the subject matter, decisions and the names of members who made or seconded each motion, “available for public inspection not more than 5 business days after the public meeting”.
What the board’s own rules add. 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.” By-law 1.11 makes the subcommittee chair responsible for sending them to the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent to post.
The three meetings, each established from the district’s own record.
- The Policy Subcommittee, on or about 9 October. The 2 October draft minutes in this very packet say: “Policies that will be brought forward will be finalized at the meeting next week; will be submitted for the agenda for the next meeting- will be 3 or 4”. Three policies were brought forward, and Exhibits C, E and F all carry a modification date of 9 October 2024. The chair of that subcommittee presents all three from 1:35:35.
- The Finance Subcommittee, before 16 October. Its chair, 1:34:32: “we heard some of the, information tonight, which was the, on retention. That was that was part of our agenda.” A subcommittee with an agenda held a meeting. By-law 1.05(1) requires it to “hold at least one regular monthly meeting”.
- The SRVRTC Subcommittee, 17 September. Exhibit A lists it among the technical centre’s events: “Claremont school board subcommittee 9/17”. The 18 September page records the same meeting from the other side.
Where the by-laws send the notices and the minutes, and what is there. The SAU 6 site’s Claremont board page links five subcommittee Drive folders — Capital Improvement, Finance, Policy, SRVRTC and Ad Hoc Reconfiguration. Four were created in February 2026 and one in April 2026; four are empty and the fifth holds a purpose statement dated June 2025 and a 2025–2026 folder. Nothing from 2024 is reachable from any of them, and there is no folder at all for the Ad Hoc Communications subcommittee that reported at this meeting. The board itself conceded the destination was not operating: the approved minutes of 21 August 2024 record that “once the website is up and running, those will be available.”
The honest limit of that search. This project cannot inspect the SAU 6 website as it stood in October 2024. The correct statement is therefore not published where the by-laws require and not recoverable, rather than never existed.
Which limb of the severity rule. The unmitigated one. Public bodies met; nothing on this record explains the absence of notice or minutes; nobody says minutes exist elsewhere or are coming; and the meetings were not incidental — they produced three policy votes and the retention figure the board adopted. This is the same finding the 18 September page graded HIGH on the same facts a month earlier, and grading it the same way is deliberate.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification); by-laws, rules 1.05(b)–(d), 1.05(1), 1.05(3) and 1.11; draft CSB meeting minutes 10.2.24; Exhibit A; SAU 6, Claremont School Board subcommittee pages, read 2026-08-29; the companion page 18 September 2024.
MEDIUM The minutes keep the board’s last request for an ESSER accounting and drop all three answers to it — including the only sentence in this corpus about where the district stood at the deadline
What the minutes record, in full. Under item IV.4(b): “i. The fund retention was on the agenda for the subcommittee ii. Frank Sprague shared that he would still like to see a presentation on ESSER”. That is the entire ESSER content of the subcommittee item.
What the recording has. Four turns, at 1:34:32 to 1:34:58, running twenty-nine seconds:
- The Finance chair: “Well, we heard some of the, information tonight, which was the, on retention. That was that was part of our agenda. The we still would like to hear is final disposition of SR. Yes. And hopefully next board meeting.”
- The business administrator: “Yes. We just are trying because we just ended on 930. So we want to make sure we have everything accurate.”
- A board member: “We’d be good to get that before we go into the budget season. Yep.”
- The superintendent: “Yeah. We won’t put behind us at this point. So yeah.”
What each of those adds that the minutes do not carry. The request has a subject the minutes generalise away — final disposition, an accounting, not a presentation. It has a date attached: next board meeting. The answer explains the delay and dates it to the deadline itself. The member’s intervention puts a second deadline on it, the budget season, which began four weeks later. And the superintendent’s reply is left exactly as recorded here, because it carries a negation the surrounding words do not settle and this page does not supply one.
What the recording does not say, and this page does not say either. Nothing on this tape states that any ARP ESSER dollar went unobligated, lapsed, or was lost. The record is silent on that, and silence is what this page reports. What the record does establish is narrower and checkable: that on 16 October 2024 the board had no ESSER document in front of it, no figure, and no accounting; that its Finance chair asked for one; and that the district’s finance officer said the numbers were still being assembled because the period had only just closed.
The deadline the sentence refers to. The U.S. Department of Education’s grantee memorandum of 12 June 2024 states that “all ARP ESSER and ARP EANS funds, including reverted ARP EANS funds, must be obligated by September 30, 2024” and that all funds must be liquidated “within 120 calendar days after the close of the obligation period, or by January 28, 2025”, citing 2 CFR 200.344(b) in the 2023 annual edition — the paragraph lettering in force for this award. Neither date is spoken at this meeting and neither appears in any packet document. The one moment ESSER is explained rather than deferred is the superintendent’s account of the van at 0:57:02, which the minutes report accurately.
What happened to the request. The next scheduled meeting was 6 November 2024, and it did not take place (flag 15). This project has read every later Claremont and SAU 6 dialogue file in the corpus through January 2025. No ESSER presentation or final disposition is ever given. ESSER continues to be spoken of — at the 19 November finance session as a question on that meeting’s recording (“how much of the Esser money was spent towards the summer school?”, Output/Dialogue/16155 SchoolBoardFinance111924.mp4.CSV), on 20 November as the fund that replaced a keyboard, and through December and January as the fund that used to carry out-of-district placements and summer school — but always retrospectively, as an explanation for a budget line, never as an accounting.
Which limb of the severity rule. The mitigated one. Minutes for this meeting exist, are detailed elsewhere, and record the request itself, so a reader is not left ignorant that the subject arose. What they lose is the answer, which is the part with information in it. RSA 91-A:2, II asks for “a brief description of the subject matter discussed”; a request recorded without its answer is a description of half a discussion.
A correction this page owes the project’s own notes. This project’s working record has treated the single minute sentence as the end of the ESSER thread. It is not. The recording carries three further turns, and ESSER is spoken of at seven later meetings in this corpus. What ends on 16 October 2024 is the board asking for an accounting.
Sources: approved minutes, item IV.4(b); the dialogue file at the timestamps given; ED grantee memorandum, 12 June 2024; 2 CFR 200.344(b), 2023 annual edition; 20 U.S.C. §1225(b); RSA 91-A:2, II; the project dialogue files for the Claremont and SAU 6 meetings of 14 and 19 and 20 November, 4, 12, 13 and 18 December 2024 and 7 and 15 January 2025, searched for every ESSER rendering this corpus records; the companion page 18 September 2024.
MEDIUM The federal grants policy the board adopted is an association template with its own drafting instructions still in it, and it names no Claremont officer — which is the one thing the board was told had been done to it
What the board was told it was adopting. The Policy chair, 1:37:58: “in preparing this policy to get ready to adopt for our district, we had to go through and identify the accountable persons in various and pretty much for every paragraph”, and 1:38:49: “And Mr. Kosky helped us identify who in the district is the most appropriate person to appoint. And we wrote that into the policy.” The agenda item promises the same thing: “3. DAF- Administration of Federal Grant Funds (2024) First Read/Adoption (Exhibit E) - add an identified person who is responsible for management and execution of procedures for administration of federal grants”.
What Exhibit E actually is. Its first lines read “Policy DAF: Administration of Federal Grant Funds Status: ADOPTED” and “Original Adopted Date: 04/01/2019 | Last Revised Date: 09/01/2021 | Last Reviewed Date: 09/01/2021”. It is the New Hampshire School Boards Association sample, last revised three years before this vote, and it still carries the association’s instructions to the drafter:
- On the contents page: “Please change or delete page numbers according to your own formatting”.
- Footnote 1, in the procurement chapter: “[REMOVE FOOTNOTE PRIOR TO ADOPTION]The 2020 UGG amendments (see 2 CFR 200.320) set the micro-purchase threshold at $10,000” — the instruction and the footnote both survive into the adopted text.
- At the end: “District Policy History: First reading: Second reading/adopted: District revision history:” — all three blank.
- The word Claremont does not appear anywhere in the document. The accountable roles are the generic “Business Administrator” and “Superintendent” that the association’s sample already contained; the district it governs is “the District” throughout.
What it replaced. Exhibit D — the 2020 policy, which was in the packet notwithstanding the presenter’s “We don’t have the old one in front of us because it doesn’t matter.” (1:37:58) — is headed “Claremont School Board Policy DAF”, opens “The Claremont School Board accepts federal funds”, and closes with a dated history: “District Policy History: First Reading: January 8, 2020 Second Reading: January 21, 2020 Adoption: January 21, 2020”. The district replaced a Claremont-branded policy carrying a complete adoption record with an unbranded template carrying none.
The timing. The 2024 revision of the Uniform Guidance was published at 89 FR 30046 (document 2024-07496) and took effect 1 October 2024 — fifteen days before this vote. It raised the equipment and supplies threshold from $5,000 to $10,000 and the single-audit threshold from $750,000 to $1,000,000. The text adopted here still sets equipment at “the lesser of $5,000, or the capitalization level established by the District” and still describes “The 2020 UGG amendments” as current. That is not, on its own, an error: the revision applies to federal awards issued on or after 1 October 2024, so the older figures remained correct for awards already held, ESSER among them. It is a dating problem, and it is one the board was not told about.
One substantive divergence worth recording. Both the repealed and the adopted texts provide that “the District shall liquidate all obligations incurred under the award not later than forty-five (45) days after the end of the funding period unless an extension is authorized.” The federal rule for this district’s ARP ESSER award is 120 calendar days — 2 CFR 200.344(b), and the Department of Education’s own June 2024 memorandum cites that paragraph twice. A stricter internal deadline is permissible. The point is that on the night the board adopted a 45-day internal liquidation rule, its Finance chair was four minutes away from asking when the ESSER accounting would arrive, and nobody connected the two.
Why this is MEDIUM and not HIGH. The board did the substantive thing: it repealed a five-year-old policy and adopted a newer one, on the recommendation of its Policy Subcommittee and with the assistant superintendent’s involvement, and 2 CFR 200.303 requires exactly that kind of internal control over federal awards. What is defective is the document, not the decision, and the defects are curable by an edit.
Sources: Exhibit E, DAF (NHSBA); Exhibit D, the 2020 Claremont DAF; CSB Agenda 10.16.24, item IV.4(c)3; 89 FR 30046, eff. 1 October 2024; 2 CFR 200.344(b), 2023 annual edition; ED grantee memorandum, 12 June 2024.
MEDIUM Policy JJJ was repealed and replaced on the strength of an explanation of a different policy, and the repeal was not on the agenda
What the agenda noticed. Item IV.4(c)4, in full: “4. JJJ- Access to Public School Programs by Nonpublic, Charter School and Home Educated Pupils-First Read/Adoption (Exhibit F)”. A first read and adoption — not a repeal. Two lines above it the same agenda expressly notices the DAF repeal: “2. DAF- Administration of Federal Grant Funds-Repeal Old (2020)(Exhibit D)”. The drafter knew how to notice a repeal and did not do so here.
What was moved. 1:40:46: “So I would like to make a motion to repeal the previously adopted, policy. JJ access to public school programs by nonpublic charter school and home educated pupils and replace it with a 2024 policy that is before us of the same name.” Then, in the same breath, the mover asks whether there is anything to repeal: “Do we have a current j j. J. Policy. I wasn’t at this meeting. We need to repeal.” (1:41:10) and answers herself “This is this is the new school board. But Claremont currently has a j j j. Okay. Thank you. I don’t know.” (1:41:23) The repealed policy is not in the packet, is not dated on the record, and its existence was in doubt at the moment it was repealed.
What the policy is about. Exhibit F is the association’s sample of policy JJJ, and its own legal reference is RSA 193:1-c — “Nonpublic, public chartered school, or home educated pupils shall have access to curricular courses and cocurricular programs offered by the school district in which the pupil resides.” Its body governs access to courses, tryouts, the school library and textbooks, and an appeal to the principal and then the superintendent. It says nothing about federal money.
What the board was told it was about. The assistant superintendent, 1:40:24: “No, it’s just the for federal grants were required to share a portion of that with any other, nonpublic institutions in, in and so this is guidance on.” The vice chair then tests it, 1:41:35: “so if we had a a montessori school or something like that in, in the district, we would be obligated to share.” / “Our title funds.” and the answer, 1:41:46: “With that. We do that with Claremont Christian.” The minutes then record the same substitution: “Frank Sprague asked if Title 1 funds are shared with nonpublic schools; Mr. Koski stated that that is accurate and currently Title 1 funds are shared with the Claremont Christian Academy”, filed under the JJJ item.
Where the duty they were describing actually lives. Title I equitable services for private-school children are 20 U.S.C. §6320: “after timely and meaningful consultation with appropriate private school officials, provide such children” services “on an equitable basis”. That is a federal-grants duty, and it belongs to policy DAF — the policy this same board had adopted twenty minutes earlier. Nothing on this record shows the board being told what policy JJJ does.
What this page does not say. It does not say the adopted policy is wrong or unlawful. Exhibit F is a competent statement of the RSA 193:1-c duty, it is what the district needs, and adopting it was right. What is defective is the notice for the repeal and the account on which the board voted.
Sources: Exhibit F, policy JJJ; CSB Agenda 10.16.24, item IV.4(c); approved minutes, item IV.4(c)iv; RSA 193:1-c (source note ends 2023, 7:8, eff. June 25, 2023); 20 U.S.C. §6320(a)(1); by-laws, rule 2.09 (agenda itemisation).
MEDIUM The approved minutes publish a retention ceiling $2,335.57 higher than the one the business administrator gave the board
The figure as stated. 1:10:19: “So the most you can retain is the $466,664. And $0.43 is the maximum amount that you can retain.” The recognizer splits the cents into their own sentence; the figure is $466,664.43.
The figure as it travelled. Within four minutes it is 469 in the room, and it stays there: a member at 1:13:24 and again at 1:16:23; the administrator herself at 1:16:20, at 1:26:55 — “you can go all the way up to the 469 because you have 497 and fun to balance off your budget” — and at 1:27:38. The approved minutes then print it as a round number: “The maximum that can be retained is $469,000”. That is $2,335.57 above the ceiling the board was given, and it is the only version of the ceiling a reader of the district’s record will ever see.
Why it is not merely a rounding. The number is a statutory ceiling, not an estimate. RSA 198:4-b, II permits a district whose legislative body has so authorised to retain year-end unassigned general funds “provided that the total amount of year-end unassigned general funds does not exceed, in any fiscal year, 5 percent of the current fiscal year’s net assessment under RSA 198:5.” A published maximum that is higher than the real one is an invitation to exceed it. Twice in this meeting the board discussed retaining “the full 469” (1:27:38), which on the administrator’s own arithmetic it could not lawfully have done.
And the base cannot be checked. The method is stated aloud at 1:10:19: “we take the amount of local education tax that you raise and the sweat tax because you raise that and then it’s times to point 5%”. The percentage the recognizer renders as to point 5% is not resolvable from the audio, and the statutory ceiling is 5 per cent. The sheet that would show the base and the rate is the missing Exhibit B (flag 1), so this page states the discrepancy and does not resolve it. What is certain is that $466,664.43 and $469,000 are not the same number and that the district published the larger one.
Not flagged. The retention itself. Paragraph II states no purpose limitation, so conditioning the money on the FY26 tax rate is lawful; and paragraph II(a)’s noticed public hearing is required “Prior to expending retained general funds”, not prior to retaining them, so no hearing was owed on 16 October. The board held exactly such a hearing on 6 March 2024 when it spent retained money, which is the sequence the statute contemplates.
Sources: the dialogue file at the timestamps given; approved minutes, item IV.3; RSA 198:4-b, II and II(a) (2023 codification; source note ends 2020, 38:25, eff. Sept. 27, 2020); RSA 198:5; the companion page Claremont School Board — March 6, 2024.
MEDIUM The approved minutes give seven statements to speakers the recording does not have making them, and name the wrong seconder on a policy vote
The rule. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to include “the names of members who made or seconded each motion” and a description of the subject matter. Who said what is the substance of a set of minutes, and this project’s standing rule is that where a district document separates two voices a diarizer merges, the document is the better evidence. These are the other case — the voices the minutes reassign are anchored elsewhere in the recording by name.
Five where the recording has a different, identified speaker.
- Minutes: “Frank Sprague asked Miles and Lilly how they feel about the new schedule”. On tape the question is the assistant superintendent’s at 0:07:08: “So how is the the new schedule going for for you?” The vice chair’s first attributed word in this file is twenty-one minutes later.
- Minutes: “Mary Henry added that this update will cut the costs in half”. On tape the chair, 1:02:44: “But when it’s all done and completed, it’ll cut our costs in half.”
- Minutes: “Ms. Henry noted that there are 2,826 fixtures being replaced and the eclectic company offered an incentive”. On tape the chair, 1:04:36 and 1:05:20.
- Minutes: “Ms. Henry shared that it is a 7 year contract”. On tape the chair, 1:05:46, answering a member’s question about the payback period. The business administrator does not speak once in the whole LED item; her first attributed word is at 1:08:33.
- Minutes: “Arlene Hawkins asked if the changes in the substitute pay and hiring process has helped to draw in any subs”. On tape the chair, 2:00:06: “I have a question about substitutes. I know last year we increased the pay for subs. Have we gotten more people as a result of that?”
Two where the minutes divide one continuous voice between two named people. The block from 2:02:23 to 2:03:18 is a single speaker: the meeting with the principals, the Disnard full-time substitute, the permanent-substitute proposal, and the tiered-pay proposal. The minutes give the Disnard sentence and the permanent-substitute proposal to the business administrator and the tiered-pay proposal to a board member. The dialogue file establishes that the speaker is not the assistant superintendent — the voice refers to him in the third person — and reasons to the Human Resource Director, whom the chair thanks by first name as the item closes (2:06:19). No name is spoken for the voice, so this page asserts none; what it records is that the recording has one speaker where the minutes have two, and that neither of the two the minutes name is the candidate the audio supports. The minutes also give the roster observation at 2:01:55 to the Human Resource Director where the tape has the assistant superintendent.
The seconder. On the federal-grants motion the chair names the seconder aloud, 1:39:36: “Second second from Miss Gillen.” The minutes record “Frank Sprague seconded the motion”. The recognizer’s Miss Gillen is the standing rendering of Whitney Skillen in this file, and the chair uses it again at 1:58:59 to recognise her. On the records-retention motion the minutes name Michael Petrin as seconder; on the recording the second is inside the chair’s own segment and carries no name, so there the minutes supply what the tape cannot and this page follows them.
Why MEDIUM. None of these changes an outcome. The votes, the movers on the two named motions, the attendance and the substance are right. What is wrong is attribution, in a document that is the only account most readers will ever see, and in six of the seven cases it can be checked in seconds against a recording the district itself broadcasts.
Sources: approved minutes, items II.c, IV.2, IV.4(c)ii and V; the dialogue file at the timestamps given; RSA 91-A:2, II.
MEDIUM Two items that produced board action were taken up under Other Business and neither was on the agenda
What the agenda carries. Item V, in full: “V. 8:20 PM Other Business – Discuss potential date for community forum on District’s plans to improve academic achievement and share strategic plan”. One bullet, and it is a discussion.
What was in fact disposed of. Three things. The forum, which was discussed and produced no date. Then a request to convert the district’s 26 November professional-development day into a day off for staff, put and carried by absence of objection at 1:59:38. Then the appointment of the board’s collective-bargaining representative and authority to open negotiations, put and carried in the same sentence as the adjournment at 2:07:12.
The board’s own rule. By-law 2.09: “The superintendent with consultation of the board Chair shall itemize any and all items to be presented in the agenda to ensure members of the public and board are aware, in advance, of any items that may require or result in board action.” And, on the same rule: “Items brought up under new business should be informational, requests for future meetings or agenda items. If an item requiring action is brought up under new business the item must be deemed emergency or time sensitive that cannot be put off until an upcoming meeting.” Neither item was so deemed on the record, and nobody refers to the rule.
Both were known in advance. The chair says of the second: “And second item on other business brought to me by Mr. Pratt, and he’ll speak to that about, I’ll let you speak to that.” (1:55:21) The third arose from a written request the chair says was “received October 1st” — fifteen days before the meeting and eight days before the agenda was finalised. Both could have been itemised and neither was.
The statutory dimension. RSA 91-A:2, II requires notice of a meeting, not of each item, so the omission does not by itself breach the Right-to-Know Law. What it does is defeat the purpose the by-law states in terms: that the public be aware in advance of items that may result in board action. A resident who read this agenda had no way to know that the board would that evening give away a district-wide professional-development day or name its bargaining representative.
Not flagged. The method. By-law 2.07 expressly lets the chair dispose of a matter on the absence of objection — “If the Board is in obvious agreement, the Chair may save time by stating ‘If there is no objection, we will adopt the motion to…’” — and the professional-development decision was, on the record, unanimous and welcome. The defect is the notice, not the vote.
And not flagged: the decision itself. Converting a professional-development day to a day off is squarely within the board’s power over the school calendar, and the reasons given — a new high-school schedule, a new mathematics programme, a substitute shortage — are on the record and were tested by three members.
Sources: CSB Agenda 10.16.24, item V; by-laws, rules 2.07 and 2.09; approved minutes, item V; RSA 91-A:2, II.
MEDIUM The board opened collective bargaining and named its negotiator on a deadline that appears in no provision of RSA 273-A this project can find, from a written request the public has never seen
What was said, in full. 2:06:25: “Is that the Claremont Administrators Association is interested in collective bargaining. And so we need to have dates set within two weeks of receiving this written request, which was received October 1st.” The vice chair: “Did we already miss it?” A member: “So not in business days.” The chair: “Not in business days. So, Arlene, you are our.” The member named accepts (2:06:52), and the whole item — appointment, authority and adjournment — is closed on one absence of objection nine seconds later.
The arithmetic the board was doing. 1 October plus fourteen calendar days is 15 October; the meeting is 16 October. On business days, and excluding Columbus Day (the second Monday in October, a legal holiday under RSA 288:1), fourteen business days from 1 October runs to 21 October. That is what the exchange resolves — and it resolves it in the board’s favour without anyone naming the source of the rule.
What RSA 273-A:3 actually provides. The section is headed Obligation to Bargain. Paragraph II(a): “Any party desiring to bargain shall serve written notice of its intention on the other party at least 120 days before the budget submission date”. Paragraph IV: “Each public employer shall record its budget submission date with the board.” Paragraph II(b) limits what goes to the legislative body: “Only cost items shall be submitted to the legislative body of the public employer for approval at the next annual meeting of the legislative body”. There is no two-week duty on the employer anywhere in the section, and its source note ends 2013, 244:1, eff. Sept. 22, 2013, so the text served today is the text that governed this meeting. The two weeks may well come from the expiring agreement’s own ground rules or from a practice; nothing on this record says.
The clock that is in the statute, and that nobody mentioned. The district’s own published FY26 calendar puts the budget public hearing on 2 January 2025 and the deliberative session on 1 February 2025 — 93 and 123 days after 1 October 2024. Whether the association’s notice met RSA 273-A:3, II(a)’s 120-day requirement turns on the budget submission date the district has recorded with the Public Employee Labor Relations Board under paragraph IV, which is not in this record and which this page therefore does not decide. It is the question the board should have been asked, and it was not raised.
What the record does not contain. The written request itself, its date of receipt beyond the chair’s statement, the units it covers, any board vote on the appointment, and any minute of who else was considered. The minutes reduce the whole item to: “Discussion regarding collective bargaining meetings that need to begin soon; Arlene Hawkins will represent the board for the negotiations”.
Why MEDIUM. The board acted promptly on a request it plainly took seriously, and the member appointed is the board’s SAU 6 chair and an obvious choice. What is defective is that a deadline of unstated origin drove an unnoticed appointment made without a vote, in the meeting’s last nine seconds, on a document the public cannot read.
Sources: the dialogue file at the timestamps given; RSA 273-A:3, I–IV (source note ends 2013, 244:1, eff. Sept. 22, 2013); RSA 288:1; CSB Agenda 10.16.24, future dates; approved minutes, item V.
MEDIUM The superintendent’s report is discussed for eighteen minutes, three speakers send the public to it, and it is not in the packet
What the agenda says. “III. 6:40 PM Superintendent’s Report”, with no exhibit letter. The packet folder contains no superintendent’s report. The September packet did — a fifteen-page document, filed as its own item — so this is a change, not a standing practice.
What the board and the public were told. The chair opens the item: “We received a very nice packet, which I was very impressed with and appreciative of.” (0:14:13) The superintendent: “Rather than going through the whole paper, I’ll just hit some of the main points of the superintendent’s report.” (0:14:33) and, of the poll, “In my report you can actually see the results.” (0:18:32) A member: “if people are listening to the report that might encourage them to find the full report on the website for more information.” (0:26:50) And of the van: “I think I put a picture of it in the report as well.” (0:57:02) The minutes repeat it twice — “results are in the full report available online” and “all from the beginning of the month and available on the website”.
What came out of it that is nowhere else. The percentage of third graders at or above grade level in mathematics; the equivalent figure for fifth grade; a kindergarten reading figure; the middle school’s absence total against its enrolment; the two poll results at 28 and 46 per cent; and the principals’ reports the superintendent describes as “the actual principals reports in regards to some of the scores that are in their attendance” (0:22:45). Every one of those was quoted at the table out of a document the packet does not hold. A member of the public following the recording can hear a chair call a 9 per cent figure “pretty shocking” and cannot see the table it came from.
The 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.” A monthly superintendent’s report presented to the board is such a presentation.
The honest limit. The report may well be published on the district’s own website, which is what three speakers say and which this project cannot inspect as it stood in October 2024. The by-law asks for it in the agenda and in the packet, which is where a reader of the public record looks, and that is where it is not. This is graded MEDIUM rather than HIGH for exactly that reason: the record itself says the document is somewhere the public can get it.
Sources: CSB Agenda 10.16.24, item III; packet folder; approved minutes, item III; by-laws, rule 2.09; the companion page 18 September 2024, whose packet contained the September report.
MEDIUM Two student board members took their seats and nothing anywhere records the board doing the one thing the amended statute requires of it
The good news first. After the 7 August, 21 August and 4 September agendas printed the heading Student Board Members with nothing under it, both seats are filled. RSA 189:1-c requires 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”; the district has one high school and seated two students. They gave the substantive report of the evening and answered board questions for eight minutes.
The paragraph that had just changed. RSA 194:23-f was amended by 2024, 69:1, effective 13 August 2024 — nine weeks before this meeting — so the current text is the text that governed it. Under the amended section: “a high school shall select…one or more students from among its members to be nonvoting members of the school board” (¶I); “A student board member shall be chosen by a simple majority vote of the high school student body” and “The student government of the high school shall establish procedures for the nomination and election of candidates” (¶II); and, in ¶III, alongside the one-year term: “The school board shall decide the date at which the term shall begin.”
What the record shows. Both names appear on the masthead of the 2 October agenda and minutes and of the 16 October agenda and minutes. The 2 October agenda has no student item; 16 October is the first report. On the recording the chair simply says “We have two new student members, which we’re thrilled to have.” (0:01:10) There is no agenda item for seating them, no motion, no vote, no report of the student-body election, and nothing that fixes the date the term began or ends. Neither the minutes nor the agenda mentions the statute.
The limits of this flag, stated plainly. The statute sets no deadline, names no consequence, and puts the selection and the election on the high school and its student government, not on the board. Only the term-start decision is the board’s, and a board can make it without ceremony. What is missing is the record of it, not necessarily the decision. A term with no recorded start also has no recorded end, which is the practical cost: nothing in the district’s record tells a student when the seat next falls vacant.
Two smaller things. The by-laws, adopted 5 June 2024 and so predating the amendment, put the students’ rights under the wrong section: rule 2.16 reads “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.” Both sentences are RSA 194:23-f, ¶I and ¶V; RSA 189:1-c says only that the powers and duties “shall be as described in RSA 194:23-f”. And the district prints one student’s given name Lilly on every document while she introduces herself on the recording as Lily; this page prints the district’s spelling and reports the conflict.
Sources: RSA 189:1-c (source note ends 2022, 195:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2023); RSA 194:23-f, ¶¶I–III and V (as amended by 2024, 69:1, eff. Aug. 13, 2024); CSB Agenda 10.16.24; CSB Agenda 10.2.24; by-laws, rule 2.16; the companion page 18 September 2024, where both seats were vacant.
OBSERVATION A district-wide lighting contract was already signed when the board discussed it, a member asked whether a motion was needed, and nobody answered
What the item was. Agenda: “2. Affinity LED Lighting Efficiency Upgrade (Discussion) Chris Pratt, Superintendent”. No exhibit, no vote requested. The superintendent opens by asking whether it predated him (1:01:48) and reports the project is waiting on paperwork — and, notably, that the district’s unfinished audits are part of the hold-up: “because we have certain audits that aren’t done. We’d say, what what will you take in rather than those audits because they’re not they’re not ready yet.” (1:02:02)
The scale, from the chair. “the total number of fixtures that we’re changing are 2826. That and then we’re putting 2741 smart fixtures in. So 97% it looks like we are changing in the buildings in bluff Stevens Tech and maintenance.” (1:04:36) and the utility rebate: “we also got incentives to from the power company of 262,262. So. And that’ll go towards the first payment right up front.” (1:05:20) The payback comes back as “77 years” on the tape; the approved minutes print “Ms. Henry shared that it is a 7 year contract”, which settles the recognizer error.
The two questions in the item. A member: “You need a motion or anything? You’re just.” (1:05:50) — unanswered. And another: “This. Has the contract already been signed? Because they read that the prices were in effect March and April. Are they still honoring that price?” (1:05:52), answered “Yeah. Yeah, because we already signed on to it.”
Why this is an observation and not a flag against anyone. A superintendent may sign within delegated authority, an energy-services agreement structured so the savings cover the payments may not require a separate appropriation, and the project plainly predates this administration. What this project cannot find is the board vote that authorised it. No Claremont minutes in this corpus record a motion on the Affinity project, and the item has now appeared as a Discussion on the 2 October and 16 October agendas without one. What would settle it: the executed agreement, and the minutes of whichever meeting approved it.
One thing the record does establish. The district’s audit backlog — the subject of a dated commitment on 18 September — is now visibly costing the district something operational.
Sources: the dialogue file at the timestamps given; CSB Agenda 10.16.24, item IV.2; CSB Agenda 10.2.24, item III.3; approved minutes, item IV.2; RSA 21-J:19, which is permissive as to audit timing.
OBSERVATION The board could not establish what a substitute teacher has to have, and the minutes record a conclusion the recording does not contain
The exchange, in full. The chair, 2:04:17: “What’s the minimum educational requirement? High school.” A member: “For a teacher? I believe.” then “It’s a bachelor.” The superintendent: “It’s a bachelor’s, but for a substitute.” An unnamed voice, 2:04:32: “You have to have a bachelor’s. Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s the issue with our community is that we’re very.” Forty seconds later the assistant superintendent, 2:05:13: “Just a correction. RSA looks like maybe high school.” The chair: “That’s what I thought it was.” and “That would be great. That would be great to know.” Nobody looks it up and the question is left open.
What this page can and cannot say about the rule. The provision that addresses non-credentialed substitutes is Ed 503.01 in the State Board of Education’s credentialing rules, which permits a non-credentialed substitute to be hired for a limited number of consecutive days in the same position without a New Hampshire educator credential. That rule was amended by Document #14109, effective 16 November 2024 — one month after this meeting — so the text served today is not necessarily the text that governed the exchange, and this page therefore does not state what was required on 16 October 2024. What it records is that a board discussing a staffing shortage was given two different answers by two administrators and got neither confirmed.
What the minutes do instead. They omit the exchange entirely and record, of the same discussion: “Discussion regarding sub pay- the pay is now more than starting hourly pay in the area”. Nobody says that. What the chair says, 2:05:32, is a hope and a request: “whatever we bump the pay up to just. I would hope it would be more than the starting salary. Hourly starting salary in places that are hiring workers right now.” and 2:05:58: “But I’ve been seeing signs everywhere. Just want to make sure that on an hourly basis we’re more.” The superintendent’s answer is that the increase “Put us in a good spot for that”. A conclusion stated as settled fact in the minutes is, on the tape, an open question the board asked to come back to.
What would settle the legal point. The Ed 500 rules as they stood before 16 November 2024. This project has not recovered them and does not guess.
Sources: the dialogue file at the timestamps given; approved minutes, item V; Ed 503.01, Requirement for Employment (current text; amended by #14109, eff. 11-16-24).
OBSERVATION The next meeting — the one the ESSER accounting was deferred to — did not take place, and nothing in the district’s record says so
What was scheduled. The agenda’s future dates begin “a) Claremont Board Meeting 11/6/2024”. The Finance chair deferred the ESSER accounting to “hopefully next board meeting” (1:34:32). A packet folder named 7. CSB 11.6.24 exists in the district’s 2024 share and is recorded in this project’s map.
What exists. No recording. The Cablecast archive was enumerated across the boundary: shows 16140 and 16141 both carry an event date of 3 November 2024 and show 16142 is the SAU 6 board of 14 November 2024. There is nothing between them, and the archive carries other programming on 1, 3 and 4 November, so this is not a gap in the service. The corpus’s next Claremont recording is 20 November.
And the district’s own record confirms it. On 20 November the board’s consent agenda approved “Minutes Approval- 10.16.24 & 11.14.24”, with a note that “Assistant Superintendent Koski shared that the date for the October minutes was incorrect (read 10.2.24, should read 10.16.24)”. No minutes of a 6 November meeting were ever brought to the board.
What this page does not decide. Whether the 6 November meeting was cancelled, postponed to 14 November, or simply not held. The 20 November consent agenda approves minutes dated 14 November, which is the date of the SAU 6 board meeting; if a Claremont meeting was held that night it has no packet folder, no recording and no MAP section, and if it was not then the entry is an error. Either reading is a defect in the record and this project cannot tell which is right. No cancellation notice appears anywhere.
Why it matters here. This is the meeting the ESSER accounting was promised to. It is also, on this project’s count, the eighth 2024 Claremont session that the public record cannot account for, after 29 January, 3 April, 1 May, 11 May, 22 May, 7 August and the quorum-failure meeting between 20 June and 7 August.
A method note, recorded because it keeps recurring. The Drive interface returns 18 folders for the district’s 2024 packet share and silently omits three that this project’s map records, including 7. CSB 11.6.24. This is now the sixth independent confirmation that a negative derived from that interface is unsafe, and the second confirmation that a non-empty result proves nothing about completeness.
Sources: CSB Agenda 10.16.24, future dates; approved CSB meeting minutes 11.20.24, item II.a; the Cablecast API for shows 16140, 16141 and 16142, read 2026-08-29; MAP.md §56 and the unmapped-folder list.
OBSERVATION Six smaller things about this meeting that a reader tracing the record will want, none of which breaks a rule on its own
- The records-retention regulation promises a schedule and does not contain one, and assigns the board’s own statutory duty to the administration. Exhibit C: “The school district shall establish and maintain a record retention schedule that specifies the minimum retention period for various types of records” and “The Superintendent or designee is responsible for overseeing the implementation of this regulation.” RSA 189:29-a reads: “Members of the school board shall establish a records retention and disposition schedule for all official records of the school district.” (1983, 94:1, eff. July 23, 1983; never amended.) The one question asked at the table assumed the schedule was in the document (1:36:41) and was told “the policy references all those different individual types of records and their retention” (1:37:10). It does not. The regulation as adopted also still carries “Adopted: [Date] Reviewed: [Date] Revised: [Date]”, which is what the presenter meant by needing to “put in the dates and stuff”.
- The district’s annual financial report was still unfinished on 16 October. The business administrator opens her item by saying she needs the retention decision “for me to finish the dough 25” and “because the city definitely wants it done” (1:08:33). RSA 198:4-d sets the DOE-25 filing date at September 1. The section was amended by 2025, 141:401, effective 1 July 2025, so only the September 1 date is relied on here.
- The four televised budget sessions are again set for weekday afternoons. The agenda: “Finance Subcommittee Meeting dates: 1-3 PM at SRVRTC John Goodrich Community Room.” for 12 and 19 November and 4 and 18 December. The same scheduling was recorded on 18 September. Televising a session at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday is better than not televising it and is not the same as holding it when working parents can attend.
- A draft board document reached members attached to the wrong policy. 1:42:57: “my document was actually accidentally attached to policy.” and “It’s at the back of.” The packet copy, Exhibit G, is filed correctly, so the public copy was better than the members’.
- The Capital Improvement Committee was called and produced nothing, and the minutes print its heading with no text. By-law 1.05(3) requires it to “meet at least quarterly” and to “report to the full Board monthly.” Its chairship moved from one member to another twice during 2024.
- The board was told the district cannot state its own tech centre’s staff correctly on its website — a member, 0:56:14: “I was looking at staff today, and it’s wrong.” The same website is where by-law 1.05 sends every subcommittee notice and every set of subcommittee minutes (flag 3).
Sources: Exhibit C, EHB-R; RSA 189:29-a; RSA 198:4-d; CSB Agenda 10.16.24; Exhibit G; by-laws, rule 1.05.
POSITIVE Both statutory student board seats are filled, and the students gave the most substantive report of the evening
What changed. The 20 June 2024 masthead named two student members; the 7 August, 21 August and 4 September mastheads printed the heading with nothing under it, and the 18 September page recorded both seats vacant and the student report postponed. By 2 October both names are back on the masthead, and on 16 October the students are in the room.
What they did with the seats. Nineteen minutes of the meeting, and 1,163 of its 20,747 words. They reported the homecoming dance and the sum the student council raised, a pep rally decided by a tiebreaker, a theatre production, three sports, a mock election organised by a teacher, and the marching band’s first field show. One of them then gave the fullest account anywhere in this corpus of the high school’s restorative-justice programme — the coordinator’s process, the trained student panel, and the written plan that comes out of it, including “recommendations to the school and how the student can be held from others” (0:05:12).
And the board treated them as members. The assistant superintendent asked how the new schedule was working and got a two-sided answer (0:07:08). The chair asked whether restorative justice actually works and got an argued one: “when you put time and effort into working through the problem and finding why this person did this, what’s causing this behavior, I feel like that is a lot more defective than your effective than, than throwing a detention at someone” (0:08:40). A member afterwards told the board what she had heard: “I found the student, reflection on the restorative justice, on the scheduling. It really indicates that they’re thoughtful young adults who are reflecting and articulating what their environment is.” (0:31:19)
Why this is a positive finding. RSA 189:1-c requires at least one student member; the district seated two, three months after the seats emptied, and put a real item on the agenda for them rather than a courtesy slot. The defect at flag 12 is about the paperwork of the seating, not about the seating.
Sources: RSA 189:1-c; RSA 194:23-f; CSB Agenda 10.16.24, item II.c; the dialogue file at the timestamps given; the companion page 18 September 2024.
POSITIVE The chair reopened citizens’ comments for a resident who had missed them, and the minutes recorded a complaint against the district in full
What happened. The comment period was declared past at 0:01:10: “Seeing no citizens. Other, well, citizens. But, no citizens that are going to comment right now.” Nine minutes later, in the middle of the student report, the chair stopped and reopened it: “Looks like Mr. and Miss Gallagher may have missed the citizens comments. Can I is there any objection for citizens?” (0:10:22) The speaker begins “You were really speedy tonight. I’m really sorry that I missed citizens comments.”
Why it counts. Neither RSA 189:74 nor board policy BEDH requires a second opportunity once the period has been declared past. RSA 189:74 requires a board to “provide the opportunity for the public to comment on school district matters” and sets the period at “no less than 30 minutes”; the board provided the opportunity and nobody took it. Reopening it was discretionary and the chair did it unprompted.
And what the district then did with what it heard. The complaint was a criticism of how one of its own schools handled an incident, made by a former board member. The approved minutes record it in three bullets, including the criticism — that parents who did not email heard nothing, and that “there are sometimes medical reasons that children do this and handling it this was does not address those needs”. A district that minutes a complaint against itself accurately is doing what RSA 91-A:2, II asks and rather more than the corpus average.
The qualification. No board member responded to the substance on the record, no administrator was asked to report back, and no follow-up item appears on any later agenda in this corpus. Board policy BEDH’s own section B.5 contemplates the chair opening “Board Discussion Regarding Citizens Comments” after the period closes; that did not happen. The request was for a policy, and none was referred to the Policy Subcommittee that reported forty minutes later.
Sources: the dialogue file at the timestamps given; RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022); approved minutes, item II.b; by-laws, rule 2.04.
POSITIVE This meeting started on time, and its recording reconciles to the minutes’ own adjournment time to within seconds
The arithmetic. The approved minutes record “Consent adjournment at 8:37pm”. The words that adjourn the meeting sit at 2:07:12 of the recording. Subtracting one from the other puts the recording’s zero at about 6:29:48 p.m. and the chair’s first words at about 6:29:57 p.m. The agenda says 6:30 p.m.
Why that is worth a flag. Across this corpus, recording positions and wall-clock times usually cannot be reconciled at all: minutes omit start times, adjournment times conflict with the tape, and at least one recording in this project is a spliced broadcast in which recording seconds stop being clock time part-way through. Here every timestamp on this page converts to a wall clock by adding 6:29:48, and a reader can check any statement in the minutes against the moment it happened. The 2 October minutes for the same board record adjournment at 7:16 p.m., so the practice is consistent.
Two related points. The clerk was present and read the roll, which by-law 2.05 requires and which did not happen on 21 August or 18 September. And the board used two hours and seven minutes of the two hours it noticed — seven minutes over, rather than the pattern of finishing an hour early that the September meeting showed.
What this does not establish. That the recording is continuous. Nothing in this file suggests otherwise — there is no recess, no nonpublic session and no unexplained jump — but a clean reconciliation at the two endpoints is consistent with, and does not prove, an unedited feed.
Sources: approved minutes, items I and VII; draft minutes 10.2.24; the Cablecast API for show 16070; the dialogue file.
POSITIVE Six things this board did on this night that a reader tracing the record backwards will want to find
- Its Finance chair asked for the ESSER final disposition and attached a date to it. “The we still would like to hear is final disposition of SR. Yes. And hopefully next board meeting.” (1:34:32) A member then attached a second: “We’d be good to get that before we go into the budget season.” (1:34:54) The accounting never came, but the asking is on the record and it is the only asking there is.
- A member said she did not understand the fund-balance calculation and asked for a tutorial, and the chair put it to the public rather than to a side room. “I need a tutorial at some point.” (1:26:03) became “is there any way we could actually have a in meeting tutorial on this course?” (1:32:02) and then “I think for the public, and if we are going to have discussions with the public about the budget, I agree.” (1:32:40) The chair took the board’s consent for a public session on how the number is built.
- A member asked where the van came from (0:56:33), which is the only reason the word ESSER is in the October record at all, and the only reason the public knows a district vehicle was bought with federal money rather than local.
- A member tested a contract price against the date it was quoted. “Because they read that the prices were in effect March and April. Are they still honoring that price?” (1:05:52)
- A member asked whether the vacancies that produced the surplus would still be funded (1:26:03), which is the question a $497,000 underspend on unfilled posts actually raises, and pressed until she got “They are in this year’s budget.”
- The board said out loud why it had a surplus, and resolved to say so publicly. The chair: “It’s it’s this, this excess as a result of us being unable to fill positions that we do need to communicate that.” (1:24:22) A surplus a district is careful not to claim credit for is a small thing and it is not nothing.
Sources: the dialogue file at the timestamps given; approved minutes, items IV.1, IV.3 and IV.4(b).
Appendix — source files
Official and public sources
- Recording: Claremont Community Television, Cablecast show 16070 — “School Board Meeting - 10/16/24”. Event date 16 October 2024; total run time 7,691 seconds (2:08:11) per the Cablecast API, read 2026-08-29. The reel record carries no user file name.
- Minutes of this meeting: 7. Approved CSB meeting minutes 10.16.24 — ten pages, read in full, signed “Respectfully submitted by Noelle Kronberg, school board clerk”. Approved by consent on 20 November 2024; the approved copy reached the district’s minutes share on 22 November 2024. The draft is not reachable: it would have been filed with the packet for the meeting of 6 November, and that folder is one of the three the Drive interface will not return.
- Packet: 6. CSB 10.16.24 — 8 documents, all eight read in full for this page. Folder created 11 October 2024 at 15:38:52 UTC; the eight files were created between 15:39:13 and 15:39:14, and carry modification times of 9 October 2024 — a two-day gap, wide enough that the modification dates mean something about when the documents were finished.
- CSB Agenda 10.16.24.pdf — the official agenda; seven items, seven exhibit letters, no Exhibit B.
- Exhibit A--Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center School Board .pptx (1).pdf — the technical centre presentation, 15.1 MB. Carries the enrolment figures, a fourteen-item events list dated 11 September to 10 December, the slide “We bought a Van for more class field trips”, the SREB page references, and the sharing links at flag 2.
- Exhibit C-- Policy EHB-R Regulation_ Data_Records Retention .pdf — adopted on this night; seven numbered sections; no retention schedule; “Adopted: [Date]” unfilled.
- Exhibit D--DAF Administration of Federal Grant Funds.pdf — the 2020 Claremont policy repealed on this night, twenty-four pages, eleven sub-policies, adoption history complete.
- Exhibit E--DAF Administration of Federal Grant Funds- NHSBA .pdf — the replacement adopted on this night; the association sample, last revised 09/01/2021, drafting instructions intact, adoption history blank, no Claremont officer named (flag 5).
- Exhibit F- New 2024 Policy JJJ_ Access to Public School Programs by Nonpublic_ Charter School and Home Educated Pupils.pdf — the association sample of policy JJJ, whose legal reference is RSA 193:1-c (flag 6).
- Exhibit G--Communication matrix.docx.pdf — the draft board communication matrix. A seven-column table that extracts as interleaved text; this page describes it and does not rely on its column order.
- DRAFT CSB meeting minutes 10.2.24.pdf — approved by consent at this meeting; the source of the evidence that the Policy Subcommittee met in the week of 9 October.
- The by-laws in force at this meeting, adopted 5 June 2024: Exhibit E- Claremont School Board By-Laws .pdf — twenty-two pages, read in full. Rules relied on here: 1.05(b)–(d) and 1.05(1)–(5) (subcommittees, notice, minutes, reporting frequency), 1.09 (documentation with the agenda), 1.11 (subcommittee chairs’ duties), 2.01 (meeting dates and quorum), 2.04 (public comment), 2.05 (opening and roll), 2.07 (motions, and disposal by absence of objection), 2.09 — the second rule of that number, on agenda itemisation and publication of administration presentations, 2.10 (consent agenda), 2.13 (roll call on request), 2.16 (student members), 4.01 (chair), 4.03 (clerk) and 5.04 (temporary appointments).
- Neighbouring district documents this page relies on: CSB Agenda 10.2.24 (the masthead that first carries both student names, and the LED item as a discussion); 9. Approved CSB meeting minutes 11.20.24 (the consent agenda that approves these minutes, and the evidence at flag 15); and the approved minutes of 18 September 2024, for the FY24 balance of $544,145.29 and the encumbrance figures.
- The SAU 6 website. SAU 6, Claremont School Board — the destination by-law 1.05 names for every subcommittee notice and every set of subcommittee minutes. Its five linked subcommittee folders were read for this project on 2026-08-29: four created February 2026 and one April 2026, four empty, one holding a purpose statement of June 2025. Nothing from 2024 is reachable from any of them and there is no folder for the Ad Hoc Communications subcommittee. The site as it stood in October 2024 cannot be inspected from here.
- Federal sources. U.S. Department of Education, grantee memorandum on ARP ESSER and EANS obligation deadlines and extensions, 12 June 2024; 89 FR 30046 (document 2024-07496), the 2024 revision of the Uniform Guidance, effective 1 October 2024.
- Explicit negatives, from reading all eight packet documents in full rather than from a search: the packet contains no Exhibit B, no superintendent’s report, no ESSER document of any kind, no copy of the collective-bargaining request, no notice or minutes for any subcommittee, and no executed Affinity contract. The words ESSER, September 30 and January 28 appear in no packet document.
- Negatives that rest on the Drive interface and are therefore weaker, flagged as such: that no Exhibit B exists elsewhere in the district’s share, and that no draft of these minutes was posted before the approved copy. The interface returns nothing at all for this packet folder while returning each of its eight files individually by identifier, and it omits three folders from the 2024 share that this project’s map records. Any negative derived from that interface alone is unsafe and is not stated as settled here.
Project files
Relative links; they work when this page is opened from Output/HTML/.
- Dialogue: ../Dialogue/16070 SchoolBoard101624.mp4.CSV — 883 rows, 20,747 words; thirteen speakers named, fifteen rows left unattributed and two filed as overlapping speech.
- Video: ../../Input/Videos/16070 SchoolBoard101624.mp4
- Diarized transcript: ../../Input/Transcripts/16070 SchoolBoard101624.mp4.json
- Map: ../../Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md §56.
- Companion pages: 18 September 2024, the source of the $544,145.29 balance, the encumbrance figures, the vacant student seats and the same subcommittee-minutes finding; 20 June 2024, where the two roofs were voted; 6 March 2024, the RSA 198:4-b, II(a) hearing that released $420,000 and the page that sets out the retention statute in full; 5 June 2024, at which the by-laws were adopted; and SAU 6 — 12 September 2024.
Laws and rules cited on this page
- New Hampshire statutes, in the text in force on 16 October 2024. RSA 91-A:2, II — notice, and minutes including members present, persons appearing, a brief description of the subject matter, decisions, and “the names of members who made or seconded each motion”, available within 5 business days. Source note ends 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023, so the current text governs. Not applied: the start-time, end-time and minutes-producer clauses added by 2025, 112:1, eff. 22 August 2025.
- RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) — “public body” reaches any board or committee of a school district “or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto”.
- RSA 91-A:4, I — the right of any citizen to inspect governmental records, used at flag 1. Vintage note: the section was amended by 2024, 49:1, 2, effective 13 August 2024, so the current text is the text in force here.
- RSA 198:4-b, II and II(a) — retention of year-end unassigned general funds capped at “5 percent of the current fiscal year’s net assessment under RSA 198:5”, with a noticed public hearing required “Prior to expending retained general funds”, not prior to retaining them. Paragraph II states no purpose limitation. Source note ends 2020, 38:25, eff. 27 September 2020, which raised the ceiling from 2.5 to 5 per cent.
- RSA 198:5 — the net assessment the 5 per cent is drawn on; the base is not in this record.
- RSA 198:4-d — the annual financial report, filed by September 1. Only that date is relied on: the section was amended by 2025, 141:401, eff. 1 July 2025.
- RSA 189:1-c (2022, 195:1, eff. 1 January 2023) and RSA 194:23-f — the student board member. 194:23-f was amended by 2024, 69:1, effective 13 August 2024, nine weeks before this meeting, so the current text governs and the 2022, 195:2 text does not. ¶III: “The school board shall decide the date at which the term shall begin.”
- RSA 189:74 — the 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.
- RSA 189:29-a — “Members of the school board shall establish a records retention and disposition schedule for all official records of the school district.” 1983, 94:1, eff. 23 July 1983; never amended.
- RSA 189:35-a, II — “Ten half days of unexcused absence during a school year shall constitute habitual truancy”, the state floor the chair asked about at 0:25:16.
- RSA 193:1-c — access to public school programs by nonpublic, chartered-school and home-educated pupils; the subject of policy JJJ. Source note ends 2023, 7:8, eff. 25 June 2023.
- RSA 273-A:3 — the obligation to bargain. ¶II(a): written notice “at least 120 days before the budget submission date”; ¶IV: each public employer records its budget submission date with the board. The section contains no two-week duty on an employer. Source note ends 2013, 244:1, eff. 22 September 2013. URL trap: chapter 273-A is under Title XXIII, not Title LXIII.
- RSA 288:1 — the legal holidays, used for the business-day arithmetic at flag 10; the second Monday in October is among them.
- RSA 21-J:19 — the municipal audit provision, permissive as to timing, so the backlog referred to at 1:02:02 is a control weakness rather than a missed statutory deadline.
- New Hampshire administrative rules. Ed 503.01 — the requirement for employment of a non-credentialed substitute. Cited only to say what this page cannot say: the rule was amended by Document #14109 effective 16 November 2024, one month after this meeting, and the pre-amendment text has not been recovered (flag 14). Ed 303.01(f) — a school board shall hold meetings “at least once in 2 months”; Appendix A of the by-laws presents this rule as requiring monthly meetings, which is stricter than the rule and so harmless here.
- Federal, in the 2023 annual edition of title 2 — the edition governing an award made before 1 October 2024. 2 CFR 200.344(b) — liquidation within 120 calendar days, the paragraph the Department of Education’s own memorandum cites twice. 2 CFR 200.303 — effective internal control over federal awards. Dated, not applied: the 2024 revision at 89 FR 30046, effective 1 October 2024, which raised the equipment threshold to $10,000 and the single-audit threshold to $1,000,000 for awards issued on or after that date.
- 20 U.S.C. §6320(a)(1) — Title I equitable services for children enrolled in private schools, the duty the board was described while adopting a different policy. 20 U.S.C. §1225(b) — the Tydings amendment, the mechanism behind the ESSER obligation deadline.
- 34 CFR 99.3, 99.30(a) and 99.37(a), with 20 U.S.C. §1232g(b)(1) — FERPA, education records, consent, and the conditions on the directory-information exception, used at flag 2.
- Board rules. The Claremont School Board By-Laws adopted 5 June 2024, and board policies BEDH and BEA. These are the district’s own rules, not law, and a breach of one is a governance finding rather than a legal one — except where the rule restates a statutory duty, as by-law 1.05(c) and (d) do.
- Deliberately not cited. 28 CFR 35.200, the ADA Title II web and mobile accessibility rule: its compliance dates were amended by 91 FR 20912 on 20 April 2026 and now fall in 2027 and 2028, so no compliance date had arrived in October 2024 and the district’s image-only documents are not a violation of it. RSA 32:5 is not cited, because this meeting held no budget hearing and adopted no budget. RSA 91-A:3 is not cited, because no nonpublic session was held or proposed — though the by-laws’ Appendix D, which says RSA 91-A:3 “sets forth eight grounds” and then lists nine where the statute has twelve live ones, remains a defect of the governing document and is recorded on the 18 September page.