| 0:01:20 | Consent agenda — a $10,000 gift, read into the record | The chair read the whole gift aloud rather than approving it by reference: "the acceptance of a very generous donation from the Jack and Dorothy Burns [Byrnes] Foundation of $10,000 for the Stephens [Stevens] High School trip, and this trip is to launch in Woburn, Massachusetts, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, Boston, Boston Aquarium, and then on to a City Scapes Cruise." Approved 30 seconds later with the 3/19/25 minutes and the agenda: "Is there any objections to any of the items on the consent agenda, including approval of the minutes? Seeing none. Consent agenda is approved." Donor, amount, purpose and itinerary all appear in the approved minutes and both supporting exhibits are in the public packet. | POSITIVE |
| 0:02:31 | Tyson: a "single source of truth" for board policy | Kevin Tyson maintainer of this project — see the method note opened from a career "in policy management and regulatory compliance and cybersecurity compliance and large financial services firms." The district's policy manual reaches the public through "a link on the SA six website that links to the Claremont School Board page, which contains a link labeled School Board Policies that links to a Google Drive HTML file that contains over 300 links to other Google Drive PDF files." "Several of the links in that document are broken"; he built a single PDF from the reachable files with a Python script, and "As an aside, the entire site contains 14 broken links." Why it matters: "The single source of truth is essential because it allows for equitable access for all citizens of Claremont, including those who are neither employed by the SA nor have children enrolled in one of our schools." | |
| 0:04:15 | Three proposals: eight policies, a glossary, RFC 2119 | "It took me approximately 45 seconds to identify the eight problematic policies" — the eight he says must be examined "in light of the recent legislative actions in Concord." Second, a glossary with "a term, its definition as used in our policy documents, and optionally links to related terms." Third, at 0:04:45, "the adoption of what is affectionately known as IETF RFC 2119 or, in plain English, Key words to indicate requirements levels. This document precisely defines terms such as must, must not require a child. Shall not, should, should not recommend may an optional." (The transcript garbles his recitation of the RFC's keyword list; "require a child" is "REQUIRED" and "may an optional" is "MAY and OPTIONAL".) He noted the board's own three-month deadline to review a policy — "three months or 7.9 million seconds, is actually a stretch goal, given the disparate sources you'll need to consult and the fact that you are unpaid volunteers." No board response; the chair's standing rule for citizens' comments is "no expectation of comment from the board" (the transcript renders it "we know expectation of comment from the board"). | |
| 0:05:35 | Rhines: the Adult Ed HiSET closure | Mimi Rhines thanked the board for the senior-trip donation, then: "The closure of the Adult Ed high set [HiSET] program is a decision that I am deeply disappointed in this board for making. I paid close attention during budget season, and never once did I hear the adult Ed was on the chopping block or else trust me, I would have been here way earlier making this speech." She tied it to graduation rates — "since the graduation rate continues to be a source of concern for this board, getting rid of a program that directly helps that rate seems short sighted" — and to "the countless community members over the like 30 plus years of this program existing that have been able to earn their GED high set high school diploma." Her two ideas: share the program with the city, or "downsize but not eliminate the program, perhaps run it for less amount of days or something similar." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:07:47 | Hemingway: turnout, signage, and an apology | "My name is Wayne Hemingway. I'm a state representative, district six, Claremont, and I'm also a city councilor for Claremont." On outreach: "Currently, the sign at CMS says March 11th. No school now is a voting day. No mention of voting day for school board of Budget." On turnout: "Voting turnout is poor for the school 15% this year and barely 9% last year." He retracted a social-media comment — "needless to say, I attacked the teachers and our record. I apologize for my comment" — while standing by the part "about parents and guardians are responsible for teaching work ethics." He closed on the March 19 meeting: "I would hope that those individuals would show the same commitment to come here and apologize for their actions to this board. It was disrespectful." And: "unity is separating from the system. I would hope that we look at the side to see where we can make cuts." | |
| 0:11:17 | Crawford: the adult-education grant that was never renewed | "I discovered a former business administrator chose not to renew the contract for Delta education, which we did not know. He did that, and we have to wait three years before we can renew the contract." Sprague, in a segment the transcript marks as an uncertain attribution — "If you mean the grant application." Crawford: "Yes." At 0:12:31 Hillary Walsh, "As a teacher at adult ed that I just left", asked "Is there a plan? … The grant has been gone for two years, and it has been non funded from a grant for two years." The chair: "We are having a finance meeting. So we'll address this at the finance." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:16:53 | Student report: students of the month, the Puerto Rico trip, prom | Lilly Clark on two students of the month: "I only know one of the students, Lily, and I don't remember." Then, at 0:17:17, "The second one is we never got that information." — the students, not the public, were the ones left without it. She continued: "We also have a Puerto Rico trip coming up. On, I'm going on Puerto Rico. We're leaving on Easter morning and for our 6 a.m. flight." Prom was set for May 10, 7 to 11, with Grand March at 6:30 p.m. and a "Night Out on the city" theme. Earlier she described a new principal's advisory committee — the transcript renders the principal as "Doctor Hamilton" and elsewhere "Doctor Harrington"; the approved minutes say "Dr. Harrington". | |
| 0:18:31 | Beauchaine: a student newspaper | "I transferred to Stephens [Stevens] this year. I'm a junior. And I went to Doctor Harrington at the beginning of the year, or Mister Elliott… we pointed me in the direction of Miss Walsh, who worked for the Eagle for coming years, 25, 25 years, and she has a background in design, so." Motive: "I'm just really passionate about the community knowing about all of the things that are going on in Stevens and the things that students are doing that are really cool." | |
| 0:20:00 | The nonpublic motion — statute named, subparagraph supplied in the exchange | Sprague: "Okay. I'd like to make a motion to go to the non public under RSA 91-8 [91-A:3] colon, three comma Roman numeral two." Whitney, at 0:20:10: "And there's multiple subsets in the agenda for those that are interested." Sprague: "Okay. A yes." Whitney, at 0:20:17: "Right. A and then there's one to see. I there's multiple things that we're going to be discussing. Unrelated items. Yes. I'll second the motion. Second motion. Would you do roll call? Vote, please." The approved minutes record the motion as "under RSA 91-A:3, II (a (1, 2), c, i)" and print the full text of (a), (c) and (i) on the agenda page. Roll calls were taken both entering (0:20:33) and leaving (0:21:14) — "We do need to do a roll call. Miss Cromer [Kronberg]?" | MEDIUM MEDIUM POSITIVE |
| 0:21:40 | Henry: the deficit, in nine fragments | The diarizer splits her opening across nine sub-second fragments; joined in order they read: "So I'm going to start off … By saying … That, currently … According to our … Bottom line, that I … Have. About one … Point 4 million … In a deficit … For this year". The approved minutes record the figure as "roughly at $1.5 million". She continued at 0:21:53: "that has a lot to do with encumbrances as well. That may not happen… We're about a million over in tuition and about 700,000 over in contracted services." Offsetting: "We have about 300,000 sitting in, salaries because we didn't hire." Controls: "we have a freeze on all spending currently, unless it's necessity… I review every purchase order and discuss it with every person, even if it's for pencils." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:23:13 | "Special Ed is its own beast" — and the fund balances | "Unfortunately, Special Ed is its own beast. We have to fund it. And you don't know what you're going to have from year to year for the kids, how much it's going to cost. I mean, we got some really heavy hitters that are not cheap, $300,000 a year." The only mention of the audit all evening came next, at 0:23:35: "the other thing is I'm looking at fund balances from the past with the auditors to see where we're at carrying forward. To see how that adds to or takes away from that 1.4 million." Her closing note at 0:24:43: "But I don't want panic. Let's put it that way. I don't want panic. I'm managing it to the best I can right now." And at 0:24:23: "We're not the only district in a deficit right now currently." | MEDIUM OBSERVATION |
| 0:24:56 | Crawford: "How did we get here?" | "Mary, it's not unusual. It's March to April. I've been on the board before, and I have seen there have been years that the freeze has hit in December… I would like Mr. McCusker [McCosker] more information about how we might how we might have a shortfall in this year's. I really don't care about next year's students." Then, at 0:25:27: "I just want. How did we get here? Now." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:25:31 | McCosker: a $1 million request and the meetings that were cancelled | "Heather encouraged me to be totally honest and transparent. Okay. Last July, when we were in a subcommittee meeting, it was brought into my first meeting. I think it was my first weekend. I was told that the previous director had asked for an extra million dollars because of projected out of district that was not included in the budget." Asked to repeat, he did: "The previous director asked the board for an additional million dollars" for "the current budget year." Then, at 0:26:25: "We had that meeting in July, every subcommittee meeting from that point until we got to budget Committee got canceled. So we never dealt with that issue. I went through all the numbers. I looked through everything. The number was right. We were short 900,000 somewhere around there." He noted he began July 1 and "that budget was a was put together, what, nine months before voted on? Six months before my arrival." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:29:05 | Contracted services filling unfilled positions | Crawford asked whether hiring difficulty was driving cost again this year. McCosker, joined across the diarizer's split — "Or contract… Services 700… Thousand had to fill positions through contracted services. They I can't tell you exactly how much more it would cost to plug someone in through contracted services versus our own hire. It is more." On hiring status: "We are getting ready to go through because it's hiring season for next year… Some of them have dropped off because of time limits and stuff like that. We've got to refresh stuff." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:30:04 | Sprague on out-of-district placement quality | "When I'm in the kitchen cooking sometimes I got NPR on and they were talking yesterday about, a program in Brattleboro, called the Inspire School. We have the kids there." McCosker: "I cannot answer that question." Sprague relayed the reporting: "the state of Vermont went into the program and found that, they're consistently overcharging districts, for tuition… it was capped at 98,000" and "they've been charging as much as $136." His concern at 0:31:35: "we're sending kids off because we presume that these very expensive placements that can provide services that we cannot, we can't, but they may be getting worse services there than we would be giving them ourselves." McCosker answered at 0:31:57: "I'm very confident with the schools that we do send our students to, Jessica McCloud, my assistant, spends a lot of time doing site visits, checking the quality of programs that our students are getting." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:32:51 | "There wasn't a processes in place" | Sprague: "I worked in the public schools for almost 30 years and I have never, in my experience, seen anything resembling the amount of placements that exists. Now, I think when I was the principal of payments, we might have had 1 or 2 kids maybe." Pratt, at 0:33:23: "Do we do we have we we have do we have processes in place? We do now. And I think that was part of the problem before, you know, Michael got here and stuff." At 0:33:42: "there was an uptick during Covid. It's like, okay, we want out of district placement. An administrator would say, I want this kid go out of district and say, okay, let's send them. There wasn't a processes in place." Sprague asked to see them: "It would be great to see for the board to to… See what those processes are." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:37:22 | Bringing students back | McCosker: "right now I, I'm looking at three for next year coming back. That's somewhere. Five one half $1 million." (The approved minutes record only "3 students are coming back next year and there are students aging out"; the transcript's dollar figure is garbled and should not be relied on.) He added at 0:37:35: "We brought kids back this year that have saved the district some big money. One of them. Nobody believed he'd be able to make an a general ed classroom." Pratt at 0:35:35 connected it to the coming alternative program: "the reason behind starting the academy program is that right now we're sending kids out that aren't high level, they just struggling learners, and we send them out." Sprague closed: "I have every confidence in this team to do that." | |
| 0:39:12 | The agenda is cut for time | Whitney: "Given that we're at quarter of nine. Is there any objection to us moving the remainder agenda items to the next agenda? I don't think there's anything critical on here." Sprague: "We have to approve some money or something." Whitney: "We already did that." Nothing further was moved; the strategic-plan update and all five subcommittee reports went to the next meeting. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:39:45 | The MS-22, circulated before signing | Henry: "For the next meeting, I'll be bringing forward the miss 22 [MS-22] for you to sign. But I will email it ahead of time so that you guys can look it over. It's basically that you voted on your budget and so we can get that uploaded to the Drey [DRA]." The MS-22 is the report of appropriations voted, filed with the Department of Revenue Administration; circulating it before the signature is asked for is a small but real control. | |