| 0:00:44 | Adding a nonpublic session — and saying what it is about | Whitney: "there is a request from the administrative team to add a nonpublic at the end of the meeting." Crawford asks whether it will come before the ratification vote; told it will not, because the agreements are already ratified by the units, "So it's okay to talk." Asked under which RSA section, Whitney says she will read it at the time, then volunteers the substance anyway: "It's going to be one related to compensation and one related to purchase of property." That advance statement of subject matter is more than the statute requires at this stage. | POSITIVE |
| 0:02:11 | Rep. Hope Damon's legislative update | "I'm state rep hope Damon one of Claremont's five state reps." The House Education Committee has been split in two. She is prime sponsor of a bill to "establish a commission to review the draft rules related to the minimum standards for public school approval… The intent is to have a more transparent process than what has just happened," and of a bill that "would prohibit school districts from shaming students who have unpaid school meal balances." She co-sponsors the Foundation Opportunity Budget Program, "a pretty comprehensive restructuring of how we fund public education", while warning "the landscape is very challenging… we are expecting a significant state revenue shortfall." The minutes give the bill numbers as HB 0471 and HB 0431. | |
| 0:07:03 | Why the state reimbursed 67% instead of 95% | Crawford: "If the state law says that they must reimburse, it's 95%. How does the state get away with only reimbursing the local school districts, who have put out the money only at 67%?" Damon: "It's because the state law also says that if not enough money was appropriated, then the amount that districts requested will be prorated. And that's what happened. That brought it down to 67 instead of 95." She adds that the Department of Education "could have asked for more funds to be approved by the Executive Council, but the commissioner chose not to do that." The percentages are quoted as spoken and are not corrected here. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:10:55 | Paraprofessionals: $16.77 to over $19 | Whitney: "Can you tell us what the starting pay scale is now? Because I know we were egregiously behind and that was one of the boards" [priorities]. Crawford: "our starting is going to be at $19" — O'Hearn supplies the current figure — "16, 16" — and Crawford: "1677. And it moves to over 19." Sprague, who met with the paraprofessionals, notes the contract addresses "the hardship that having, vacations and long periods of time without pay." Motion Sprague, second Whitney; ratified on a voice vote with no discussion. | |
| 0:12:55 | Administrators' (CAA) contract ratified | Hawkins: the goal was "competitive wages, benefits, opportunities for administrators, administrators so that we can draw highly professional and maintain and sustain the administrators currently in place." She adds: "we also increased the educational adjustments for our administrators to indicate and to reinforce how we value education." Motion Crawford, second Skillen; ratified. Crawford flags the consequence for the ballot: "these two negotiations will be separate. More [warrant] articles" | |
| 0:19:29 | Policy KCD: gift thresholds rewritten to match the statute | "Policy D [KCD] is just a revision of the current policy. It just changes the numbers… if it's less than 2500, there's no board action that the board just should be informed" … "If it's greater than 2500 to 19,000 999, the board needs to approve it. But we do not need a public hearing. And if it's over 20,000, we would need a public hearing to accept the grant gift." Sprague: "These are unanticipated." Whitney: "Unanticipated revenue, correct?" The $20,000 hearing threshold is the statutory one. The dialogue file marks the presenter attribution uncertain; the minutes credit Whitney with the motion. | POSITIVE |
| 0:21:18 | Policy JRA (FERPA): an eighteen-year-old policy revoked and replaced | Hawkins: "We currently have a policy in our manual from 2007, which I would hope that we would vote to withdraw, and then replace it with this new recommended or suggested sample policy from the New Hampshire School Board Association". Timelines to be filled in — annual notification of rights "the first three weeks" of school. Revocation carried; Skillen then moved a friendly amendment: "Can I modify your motion to move it to adoption with the two small suggested revisions that you mentioned?" Adopted. Sprague notes HR and Guidance need to know. | |
| 0:25:07 | Policy GBEAA: confidential student information | A brand-new policy. Crawford notes the NHSBA sample carries a 2015 adoption date — Skillen: "So it would be new to our policy manual. We currently don't have this one correct." Sprague raises visitors and observers; O'Hearn commits: "what I can do to your point, Frank, is ensure that each group, for new hires" receives the policies that apply to them, with updates provided to current employees. Miles asks whether medical information is covered; Pratt confirms it is. Motion Skillen, second Petrin; adopted. | POSITIVE |
| 0:29:59 | Policy JFABD: homeless children — "trailer parks" versus "mobile home parks" | Miles, a realtor, objects to the federal wording: "you're talking about if you talk trailer, it's a camping trailer, utility trailer or something like that. But these are these are mobile homes and the manufactured and, this is all approved by HUD"; "So I think mobile home parks would be more adequate than trailer parks." Skillen reads the definition as aimed at housing that does not meet an adequate standard. Damon, from the floor: "We went around in circles on that in committee whenever this came up in the last two years. It's the federal language of the McKinney Vento Act, right? The legal experts didn't think there was a way for us to change it." Whitney: the document is in-house, so no shaming follows from it. Adopted as written. | POSITIVE |
| 0:36:07 | Who arranges transportation for homeless students | Sprague: "I don't know who, in the district figures out transportation of homeless citizens from one district to the other. But I imagine that's interesting figuring out the district of" [liability]. Pratt: "It's a process. It's usually going back and forth between the two districts." Whitney confirms the district has a designated McKinney-Vento "Liaison for McKinney, Vento liaison. So we do have someone who monitors and understands the process." | POSITIVE |
| 0:37:47 | The chair sets out exactly what tonight's vote is — and is not | Whitney: "The vote tonight will be to move the budget to a public hearing. It is not the it is not a vote to accept the budget in its entirety." Then the sequence: "Folks will go home, digest what they've heard at the public hearing, and we will come back on another day to vote, to move it to the deliberative session for the final public approval, to put it on the warrant article." She repeats it during the motion at 1:32:59: "today we're voting to move this budget to the public hearing." | POSITIVE |
| 0:44:18 | Henry's building-by-building walk-through | Maple: "we made an adjustment to the health, Medicare, Social Security, New Hampshire retirement that had to do with some changes in staffing. Overall total increase for Maple was $588,860." She then gives a second figure — "the overall increase was $421,857 in both Maple and Bluff." Guidance salary adjusted downward because the departing employee sat at the top of the scale; an open nurse position adjusted. Hawkins presses on whether the increases are only insurance and Social Security — Henry: staffing changes too — "we had turnover last year in Maple. And in that turnover we got teachers that cost us mor[e]". Skillen asks whether a nurse hired mid-year could still be funded; Henry: "You could still do that." | |
| 0:50:07 | CMS: $944,488.58 taken out, and why lines look emptied | "we took out $150,000 off of that to bring it down. We moved positions". Henry explains the mechanics: "That function line is what we use to report to the state of New Hampshire what our positions are" … "a 1300 is a tech ed position. Usually in most cases you don't have that in a middle school. So these positions would be moved into regular Ed." … "So those positions were not limited [eliminated]. They were moved into the proper." Total CMS adjustments: "$944,488.58." One social worker remains budgeted because a grant is expected — Pratt: "between 125 and $175,000 a year for four years to for social workers and social work programs." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:53:14 | The ESSER hangover: $600,000 of out-of-district placements returning to the tax base | Stevens was "1.4 million over originally" before $350,000 came out. Henry: "these out of district costs are up, because we had a lot of this sitting in Esser last year." … "We had over $600,000 in out of district placements that were funded by Esser. Now we are absorbing that as well… So Esser was great. But this is one of those after effects of SR [ESSER] that that does hurt." Pratt: "Not that we have a huge increase in district placement. It's just it was masked before because we were able to use Esser funds to, defray the costs". Whitney: "We were trying to keep the budget level funded during the Covid periods, and we were able to do that with SR" [ESSER]. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:55:31 | SRVRTC: a new teacher-education program for $42,000 net | Crawford: "The total increase is only 42,000" — a $125,000 program offset by insurance savings. She describes the intro-level teacher training feeding the year-one and year-two program at the Newport campus, "And down the road we hope to add year three", plus the medical program expanding. The finance committee had discussed the $125,000 figure as recently as the day before, at the January 6 meeting. | |
| 0:59:50 | District-wide: SAU cost down $91,855, debt down $32,751 | "the SA [SAU] costs decrease by $91,855… that is due to a change in Unity's assessment. They were a year behind Claremont. So last year we increased for a year. Now unity is finally is back to where they were." Debt payments "decreased by 32,751… some of those will be coming to an end, hopefully in like 2028… ones in I think 2034". Total district-wide decrease: "$637,133." Henry undertakes to send the full function-and-object explanations to the whole board, having previously sent them only to the finance committee. | |
| 1:01:40 | The two drivers: health insurance +15%, out-of-district +$1.4 million | "the health insurance increases, which was 15%, and dental was 10% for roughly $1.2 million increase." … "That's huge. The out of district placement was 1.4. So overall, just those two combined is more than the increase in the budget". The committee brought the draft down "about $1.5 million". Sprague asks what the original ask was — Whitney: "That was 11." Henry: "11%. It was 11%. Yep. And right now it's. Yeah, 2.82%." Whitney immediately flags the arithmetic: "That's a deceptive number. I really want to clarify." | |
| 1:03:36 | The honest number: 2.82% plus the teachers' contract equals 4.9% | "after revenues, though, the total increase is $350,330 just on the general budget, that does not include the teachers contract, which will be added in." Whitney: "But that's one warrant article, right? Cannot be separated." Henry: "It cannot be separated. But I want people to know that we are down to 350 before anything else." Then the teachers' agreement: Whitney supplies "2.15," Henry: "2.15, which is 4.9… Our target was 5%. So we came in just under that." | POSITIVE |
| 1:04:26 | Where $2.1 million of new revenue came from — and how much of it is temporary | "adequacy eight [aid] increase by 1.9 million. That was due to the extraordinary grant which has to do with free and reduced… It was based on $8,500 per student on a sliding scale based on your assessed value. So this year they increase that number to 11,500." Against it, the hold-harmless grant is being withdrawn: "10% every year. So next year will be at 20%." Investment income is up because balances moved "from having money in a savings account to a money market… our money is working for us. It really wasn't before. We were lucky if we made 30,000." Vocational tuition raised by $15,000. Total revenue increase: "2.1 million". | OBSERVATION |
| 1:08:24 | O'Hearn on vacancies, hiring volume and turnover | "we currently have five teaching vacancies right now… And we have three counselor vacancies and at least two paraprofessional vacancies." Historical onboarding: "FY 23, we want more than 42." … "FY 2437. FY 2540. So reasonably we can anticipate we'll be one boarding somewhere around 40 counselors, pairs and teachers." Turnover: "FY23 is 40, FY24 is 39 and FY 25 right ten so far." with about 20 teacher turnovers expected. His conclusion: reductions can largely be absorbed by vacancies and movement, and "there are p[ositions]" for affected staff. | |
| 1:13:50 | Sprague: the extraordinary grant is "very much of a year to year thing" | "the finance committee was faced with the daunting task of looking at an 11% increase". On the extraordinary special-education grant: "hope is still here. And you can correct me if I'm wrong. That is very much of a year to year thing" — Henry puts it at "roughly 1.9 million." Sprague: "there's no guarantee at all that that would happen in the years to come. So, so the danger in treating that, as if it were an ongoing thing is okay. So in fiscal year 25, we can we can use that money to pay for those expenses. But in fiscal year 26, the money goes away and it becomes part of the budget again." Whitney adds the hold-harmless grant to the same list. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:18:21 | The evidence behind the pre-K decision | Sprague on the data the board was shown: the model peers were "Scoring lower" than non-attenders, and "It was suggested to the board that that poverty had, that the nature of our clientele. Suppressed achievement. My pushback on that is that part of the the non attending group attends headstart, which is income driven or no programing at all." He adds that the previous special-education director who supervised the program had reported "there were some serious issues", and sets the standard: "it has to be a quality intervention. It needs to be pedagogically driven. It needs to have an organized format." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:20:22 | Whitney: "almost a half $1 million serving 23 students strictly out of local dollars" | "the program was developed in roughly 2016, 2017 to serve exclusively our special education student population." then opened to typical peers "for a 1 to 1, kind of match" by lottery. "The number of students at the program actually serves as roughly 23… although we have a total of 43 students in the program, the program exists for 23 students." Her conclusion: "the number of almost a half $1 million serving 23 students strictly out of local dollars, local tax dollars when it was in a program that couldn't be accessed by every public school child in the community. Simply just didn't seem fair." The alternative cut considered and rejected: "The instructional coaches, which we put in, and the curriculum director." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:26:36 | What the district still owes the children either way | Sprague: "this does not in any way, alleviate our responsibility to provide services to those special ed kids. We still have to do that. However, Mr. McCosker provided us yesterday with information that at least two FTEs currently work with push in services between OT speech and psychological services." McCosker (both his segments marked uncertain in the dialogue file): "Speech ot a part time PT, we had a little trickle of vision and hearing." Whitney: those services are not in the in-classroom budget and "Cannot be removed." The "yesterday" is the January 6 finance meeting. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:27:45 | Crawford points the public at the finance meetings | "I would encourage the public to, refer to our public, sessions that we've had. Our finance committee meetings were televised on CCTV, and they can be accessed. And so those give a more in-depth analysis of where some of the cuts or the additions, have been made." Those recordings are, in the case of January 6, 2025, the only record of that meeting that exists — no minutes were ever posted for it. On the granularity of the review: "there's $7,000 in the budget for designer [Disnard]. Library. I mean, gosh, $7,000 for an elementary library is nothing." | POSITIVE |
| 1:32:29 | The motion — and Hawkins asks to speak first | Petrin: "I just wanted to thank the finance subcommittee for all the hard work that you did, as well as the administrative team. And I also like to make a motion to move this budget as presented to the public hearing." Hawkins: "I would like to comment before we make a motion… Whatever is the pleasure of the chair?" Sprague seconds; discussion is opened. The minutes record the mover as Michael Petrin and the seconder as Frank Sprague. | |
| 1:34:07 | Hawkins reads a prepared written dissent | "I prepared a written statement. I'd like to be indulged to read it. I cannot support the elimination of the Claremont School Department pre-K program." She is careful to separate that from the committee's work. On the law: "We're also required by law to include what is called, like peers to be role models for our most at risk youngest children." From thirty years as teacher, principal and association executive: "investing in our youngest children sets the stage for their future success". She accepts the data — "It's not acceptable. It's not a quality program" — but not the remedy: "The questions we should have been asking is, why is this happening? What do we need to do differently?… Instead, the program was allowed to continue." Her closing question: "When will we revisit bringing a high quality pre-K back to our Claremont Public Schools?" | OBSERVATION |
| 1:39:44 | Whitney's answer: only the classroom program goes | "everything else we are mandated by law to provide them. They are not part of the reduction. The only reduction that you see in the budget is the, the paras that are the parents and the teachers that are providing the in classroom, play based curriculum." Hawkins is not satisfied: "So because we have not had a quality program, we're eliminating it rather than fixing it, rather than making it an integral part of our public school system." And: "Preschools will be much more effective if they are located within a district rather than reach, rather than an outreach" model. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:40:48 | Skillen: transparency was why she ran | "I would like to echo Miss Hawkins's sentiments. I the reason why I ran for this school board seat is because when the first school board meetings I attended, I got to witness and speak to a lot of community members who were very, very upset about the lack of transparency with the budget process." She commends the administration, then: "coming up with ideas and considerations for how to improve the pre-K program should be at the forefront of our mind before we even whisper about eliminating it." | |
| 1:42:53 | Whitney's universal-access argument | "We all agree that pre-K is critical and quite frankly, in an associate economically disadvantaged district as this, it's 100% correct that the most appropriate thing for us to do would be eventually to have a universal pre-K. That would be my dream… What I can't personally support is a pre-K program that does not provide that universal access, in particular, since it is strictly local dollars that are funding it, with no state dollars at all." And: "that lack of equity is really difficult for me to swallow. And in, in beyond that, we are not required to provide the service. And we will continue to require every service that we are obligated by state law, to provide." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:47:03 | Pratt reads a prepared statement | "I can't disagree with anything coming from a state who had universal pre-K." On the alternatives: "Faced with the need to cut it, the additional 500,000 from the budget, we already crossroads. If we do not address this issue, the only alternatives are to go in and eliminate other areas, such as the Director of Special programs. The new program at the Tech Center drastically reduce athletics across the district, and possibly even looking at a multi grade, teaching model." On coming back: "I need time with my team in the principals to say, you know what, we want to come back with a pre-K model. For me, I think it needs to be in the schools, without a doubt". And on who decides: "there has to be some sort of consolidation of whatever you want to call it of the district, a plan… I don't think we should move forward without the public" — "we're in recovery mode because now we have to find a way to still do it without that money." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:53:48 | Skillen and Miles ask for a commitment, not just a vote | Skillen: "It would make me feel a lot better supporting the motion if I knew that… this board, in collaboration with the administration, together will make meaningful effort to continue to monitor, evaluate and assess the feasibility of restarting a pre-K program like a subcommittee". Miles: "Create a pre-K subcommittee so the public can see that all these subcommittees… Let's add in a pre K subcommittee. And I'm not going to be here next year. But if it's in there and it's on paper and people are starting doing something even small, and can we put just a little bit of money… toward, toward a pre-K?" Skillen later: "there needs to be some kind of comprehensive needs assessment for our pre-K, for pre-K in this community that is independent of any budget considerations". | OBSERVATION |
| 2:06:33 | "Do we have a commitment to revisiting the preschool?" | Hawkins puts it directly. Sprague: "That's not part of the motion." Crawford: "Actually it is." Whitney: "I think the commitment comes from the board. I think we don't vote on a commitment because the board's not quite frankly" — and Skillen finishes the thought: "Competition [composition] is going to change in six weeks." Petrin: "I've heard the commitment from this, from this current board and this current administration." Nothing is voted on; the pre-K commitment is deferred to the board's March retreat. Skillen and Miles both left the board at the March 11 election. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:08:45 | The vote, and the recording ends | Whitney: "All in favor of the motion has spoken a a full opposed? No. Opposed. Motion to move the budget to the public hearing in the past [passed]. Next, we're going to be moving into a banana public [a nonpublic]." The approved minutes record: "Voice vote taken, all present voting in favor, the motion passes" — unanimous, notwithstanding the written dissent. The recording ends at 2:09:08, mid-transition. What follows is known only from the minutes: nonpublic session 8:41–8:57 p.m., a $255,000 property purchase authorized, the minutes sealed for six months, adjournment 8:58 p.m. | MEDIUM OBSERVATION |