Claremont School Board — May 20, 2026 | Five procurements, a stipend register with a blank approval column, and six weeks to go

Participants

Board and staff names follow the agenda masthead; residents' and vendors' names follow the district's approved minutes, which identify at the podium what the recording does not. Where the dialogue file and the minutes disagree about who spoke, both are given.
Name	Role	Participation
Candace Crawford	School Board Chair (presiding); Finance Subcommittee Chair; Superintendent Evaluation Subcommittee Chair; SRVRTC Committee	Presided; added the out-of-state field trip to the agenda from the chair; questioned the Masonic Temple improvement spending against the board's authorisation; gave the subject-by-subject account of middle-school vacancies; read the superintendent-designate's memo in his absence; announced there would be no superintendent evaluation this year.
Heather Whitney	School Board Member; Finance Subcommittee; Ad Hoc Exploratory Reconfiguration Subcommittee Chair	Pressed for a staffing map, a net-vacancy count and a decision date for opening the schools; asked whether the discovered invoices meant the deficit had always been larger; asked how a transportation comparison could be made from data the district does not hold; moved two policies; asked that the board's empowerment of a member be documented in the minutes.
Brian Rapp	School Board Member; Capital Improvement Subcommittee; Policy Subcommittee	Moved the transportation recommendation after declining to move it on the information available; reported what a contractor had told him about the funding of the Masonic Temple works; asked whether the food service contractor's original undertakings survive; and objected, alone, to adopting a policy without a second read.
Donald Lavalette	School Board Member; Ad Hoc Exploratory Reconfiguration Subcommittee; Superintendent Evaluation Subcommittee; Curriculum Representative	Corrected the previous minutes; asked on a constituent's behalf about a stipend paid to the former superintendent; compared bus-driver pay with the top of the teachers' scale; moved the field trip, the broker RFQ and two policies; and lodged six future agenda items including exit interviews for departing families.
Loren Howard	School Board Member; Policy Subcommittee Chair; ad hoc communications	Presented five policies; moved the food service and photography contracts and then voted against the food service award; put the ownership of both vendors on the record; and agreed to the disbanding of the communications subcommittee while keeping its work.
William Madden	School Board Member; Capital Improvement Subcommittee Chair; Curriculum Representative	Reported that the capital improvement item would be taken with the superintendent-designate the following day, and returned to the student information system question he had raised on May 6. The minutes also credit him with asking how $110,000 of transportation for one student can be reasonable; the dialogue file assigns those words to Lavalette.
Michael Petrin	School Board Member; SRVRTC Committee Chair	Gave the tech-centre committee report. The minutes credit him with seconding three motions and with asking about the special education transportation costs; the dialogue file assigns that question to Lavalette.
Noelle Kronberg	School Board Clerk	Called the roll and all three nonpublic roll calls; explained why the reconfiguration maps had been struck from the previous minutes; confirmed there had been no dissenting votes on the earlier policies.
Kerry Kennedy	Interim Superintendent, SAU 6	Introduced the music department recognition; reported the attendance officer's home-visit numbers and the truancy rate; reported the special education parent advisory council's final meeting of the year; named four acting administrators appointed in the previous week; and answered the board on job postings and the collective bargaining agreement's internal-posting sequence.
Matt Angell	Senior Comptroller / Interim Business Administrator	Gave the monthly finance report; presented the transportation, food service, photography and broker procurements; disclosed that the district's transportation accounting does not separate special education from regular education and that its state reporting is therefore inaccurate; and set out the carrying cost of the two properties for sale.
Timothy Broadrick, EdD	Superintendent-designate, effective July 1, 2026	Absent; a board meeting in his current district. His written report was read by the chair and its operative paragraph reproduced in the minutes. It reports that the State Board approved the district's day-and-hour waiver 6-1 on May 12, sets the final week of school, and prescribes a four-year athletic uniform replacement cycle including Unified Sports.
Chelsea Weatherford	Interim Human Resources Manager	Named on the agenda masthead; no remarks recorded.
Paige Jarvis	Interim Student Services Director	Named on the agenda masthead; named by the interim superintendent as following up the charter-school referral to the tech centre.
Jason Bonneville	Interim Technology Director	Named on the agenda masthead; no remarks recorded.
Taylor Trudeau	Music teacher, Stevens High School	Presented the music department's year: six students at the New Hampshire All-State Festival, first place and superior ratings for choir, percussion ensemble, musical theatre and band at a recent festival, and a professionalism award. A woodwind quintet performed. The minutes name the five players.
Hope Damon	Citizens' comments — state representative	Reported the state of two open-enrollment bills and of a bill she had filed at a board member's request; answered the board on how a chartered public school opening in a neighbouring town would affect Claremont's adequacy aid and its special education liability.
Butler Bus Service, vice president of operations	Named in the approved minutes as Emo Chenoweth	Came to the podium at the chair's request and offered to partner with the district whether or not the district keeps transportation in house, naming out-of-district and McKinney-Vento runs as the work Butler would take on. Unattributed in the dialogue file and identified from the minutes.
Arlene Hawkins	Former School Board Member and former Policy Subcommittee Chair, Ward 3	Spoke from the floor during the policy dispute to confirm that two reads to adoption is the rule, and to explain why the practice had changed while the district worked through its missing priority policies.
Stevens High School student, Ward 3	Announced the school musical and the annual collage concert	Self-identifies only by ward. Not named in the minutes.

Agenda

Items follow the agenda document in the packet folder; dispositions follow the approved minutes. As on May 6, two of the agenda's lettered headings are both labelled d, and the printed clock times are scheduled rather than actual.
Taken up	Item	Agenda text / disposition
0:00:03	Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance	Agenda: "Call to Order & Pledge of Allegiance", scheduled 6:30 PM. The chair: "I would like to call the Claremont School Board meeting to order. Would you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance"
0:00:36	Secretary roll call	Agenda: "Secretary Roll Call of Attendance of Board Members." Minutes: All present.
0:00:47	Consent agenda — agenda amendment, minutes of 5/6/26, manifest	The chair adds an item from the chair: "I would just like to add one item to the board agenda under action items, and I'm going to have it the first item. To approve the eighth grade trip to Boston, for June. June 5th". The agenda amendment is taken by acquiescence — "Do I have a approval of that or any, I guess, the consent. And if no one objects, we're all set" — and the minutes are moved, seconded and carried as amended. The third line, "Approval of Manifest:", is a heading with nothing after it in the agenda, nothing under it in the minutes, and nothing on the recording — see flag 3.
0:03:11	Superintendent's report — music department recognition (taken out of order)	Agenda item d, moved ahead of citizens' comments by the chair. A woodwind quintet performed; the minutes name the five students and their instruments.
0:09:57	Citizens' comments	Agenda: "Citizens Comments- Please reference CSB Policy BEDH- Public Comment & Participation at Board Meetings." One speaker, a state representative, followed by board questions to her; closed at 0:16:13.
0:16:13	Superintendent's report, resumed	Not itemised on the agenda beyond the music recognition. Truancy and attendance, the special education parent advisory council, four acting administrative appointments and three departures, then a long exchange on staffing for the autumn.
0:32:00	Finance update — monthly report and stipends	Agenda: "Finance Update (Report) Matt Angell, Senior Comptroller — Monthly update" with a linked documents folder, and "Stipends update" with a linked spreadsheet. The stipends item is never separately reached; it surfaces only through a member's constituent question — see flag 2.
0:47:13	Follow-up item — memo from the superintendent-designate	Agenda: "Memo from Superintendent Designee Tim Broadrick", linking a PDF headed Claremont Board Report and dated May 21, 2026 — the day after this meeting. Two sub-items: athletic uniforms including Unified Sports, and the State Board waiver with the last week of school.
0:50:50	Action — eighth grade class trip to Boston	Added from the chair at the consent stage as item zero. Moved, seconded, carried. Funded by a $15,000 donation the board accepted on February 4.
0:51:53	Action — bus contract	Agenda: "Bus Contract (vote)", linking the staff report. The recommendation to remain self-operated carried; a Butler contract for work the district cannot cover was deferred to the next meeting.
1:14:25	Action — food service contract	Agenda: "Food Service Contract (vote)", linking a documents sub-folder. Awarded to the incumbent, the only bidder, for two years with three one-year continuations, 6-1 — see flag 1.
1:20:41	Action — school photo contract	Agenda: "School Photo Contract (vote)", linking a documents sub-folder. Three quotations obtained; awarded to the principals' preferred vendor for three years on a voice vote.
1:25:44	Action — sale of property, request for qualifications	Agenda: "Sale of Property RFQ (vote)", linking the RFQ. Approved for issue; proposals to come back to the board.
1:26:56	Nonpublic session — RSA 91-A:3, II(d), sale of property	The agenda notices the exemption and prints its text in full. The motion states it on its face. Minutes: in at 7:57 p.m., out at 8:20 p.m., minutes sealed for six months on a roll call, "Minutes sealed until November 20, 2026."
1:29:03	Action — general assurances	Agenda: "General Assurances (vote)", linking the PDF. Deferred from May 6 because members could not open it. Moved, seconded and carried with no discussion.
1:29:31	Subcommittee reports	Agenda asks each committee for its purpose statement and meeting schedule. Two purpose statements are linked. The ad hoc communications subcommittee is disbanded by motion; the finance subcommittee's report is deferred to July.
1:35:26	Policy subcommittee — FA, IHBH, IHCD, JLCJA on first read; EBCH on second	Agenda lists four policies under "First Read" and one under "Second Read". All five were adopted; the last of the four first reads carried 6-1 after a dispute about whether a second read was required — see flag 7.
1:55:34	Superintendent evaluation subcommittee	The chair reports that no evaluation will be conducted this year. The subcommittee had been announced with membership and a schedule fourteen days earlier.
1:56:36	Other business — school and community engagement assignments	Agenda: "Assignment of School/Community Engagement Activity for Board Member(s)." Graduation, athletics and music events discussed; no assignments recorded.
1:58:37	Future dates and future agenda items; adjournment	Agenda prints "May 28: SAU Board Meeting" with no subject, and eight future agenda items. The chair adds that there will be one July meeting, on the 21st. Minutes: 8:59 adjournment.

Discussion timeline

Chronological topics with the moment each is taken up. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording. Snippets expand on hover or keyboard focus.

Time	Topic	What was said	Flags
0:00:55	An out-of-state field trip added to the agenda from the chair	Crawford: "I would just like to add one item to the board agenda under action items, and I'm going to have it the first item. To approve the eighth grade trip to Boston, for June. June 5th", and "You can call it zero. So we don't have to change the order". The agenda amendment is then taken without a vote: "Do I have a approval of that or any, I guess, the consent. And if no one objects, we're all set"
0:01:50	The previous meeting's minutes, corrected	Lavalette: "The maps Noel need to be. You had put in their maps to be attached, and I didn't see him in the minutes". The clerk: "We discussed not attaching the.", and "And I do know there are other things that still need to be attached. I didn't have those documents" The minutes for May 6 are then approved as amended.	9
0:03:41	The music department's year	Trudeau: "the music department has had an exceptional year this year, despite all of our challenges, which is really, really wonderful". Six students at the state festival — "We had six students, as you might have seen, make the New Hampshire All-State Festival this year, which is more than we've had in a very, very, very long time, which is very, very cool" — and at a recent competition "the band all received superior ratings, which is a one rating, as well as first place among all of the groups that were there in every single ensemble, which was crazy", with "the Professionalism Award that they only give to one school the entire festival based on how they treat each other and how they treat their directors".
0:10:22	Two open-enrollment bills, reported by a state representative	Damon: "Senate Bill 101 was tabled, and it will not come off the table at this point in the term", and "House Bill 751 is in a committee of conference which has met once earlier this week". Her assessment: "open enrollment is a version of it is still under consideration", and "there's a pretty strong consensus that open enrollment is not good for Claremont".
0:12:14	A bill filed at a board member's request, through both chambers	Damon: "the bill that I submitted at the request of Whitney to require the Department of Education and the Department of Revenue Administration to send any reports that they send currently to school superintendents, to send them to all school board members in the district, to the superintendent and to the business advisor administrator", and "That bill is passed both chambers. It's on its way to the governor and. Should come statute sometime in the next couple of months".
0:13:50	What a chartered public school in the next town would cost Claremont	Whitney: "Given that we have a charter school opening in Newport, what is the potential? How to. My assumption is, is that the adequacy aid that would normally go to a Claremont student attending a Claremont school district would follow that student going to a charter school that happens to be in another community. Am I correct in that" Damon: "the sending or the district of residence doesn't receive adequacy aid for that student. The charter school receives funding that's different from adequacy aid. It's about double what adequacy a it's around $10,000 per student per year", and on the source, "Comes it comes from the education trust fund of the state. So it's the same funding source as the adequacy money that comes to the district, but it goes directly to the charter schools". On liability: "Claremont would still be responsible for any special education costs, incurred by that"	11
0:16:28	Truancy: an attendance officer's home visits, and a rate	Kennedy: "since his rehire in December, he has made over 300 home visits since that time and since his start in the position, which was March of 2025, he has made over 700 home visits to establish connections with families, to support court cases and as a follow up to requests from the schools", and "Currently, we're at just over 5% of our population who are considered truant".
0:18:18	Four acting administrators in a week, and three departures	Kennedy: "thank you to Courtney Steele for stepping up as acting CMS principal for the end of the year"; "Nicole Boynton has shifted over from school. So I appreciate her work. As you know, acting assistant principal at CMS"; "Mr. Blunt is not going to be with us for the rest of the year"; and "She unfortunately had left us on Friday. And Mr. Schnitzel last day was on Friday too".
0:21:05	Whitney asks for a staffing map, a floor and a decision date	"I've had a lot of concerns and a gut feeling that we're going to really struggle to staff fully next year", and "when I'm looking at our postings, I, I can't believe that they reflect anywhere near our what our actual staffing needs are at CMS. I see we don't have 12345678 positions open. And so I can't believe that reflects what our needs are going to be". What she asks for: "hopefully the next meeting, have a very clear staffing map on what our needs will be for next fall per school", "I'd like to have like a benchmark of what our net vacancies are going to be and then what our net net vacancies are going to be after we we pull out the positions that we don't need because of our reconfiguration", and the floor: "I want to make sure that we know exactly not even our ideal, but what is our floor to open school and be 306 requirements". Then the timing: "at what point are we going to say, you know, like, is it July that we're going to say we don't we're struggling".	6
0:24:11	The middle school's core vacancies, counted on the record	Kennedy: "So we need three math teachers, three Ela teachers, two science" Crawford restates it as a full-staffing requirement: "for fully staffed, we would need six math and six English for fully staffed. And we would need three social studies and three science", against "out of the six that we need for English, we have three openings". Her view of the calendar: "It's also May 20th. And so there are three months of prime season for hiring".
0:26:33	The attrition rate the board is hiring against	Whitney: "our normal attrition rate is anywhere between 15 like we're looking. We usually enter a school year at like best case scenario, at 15% vacancies. And Claremont has normally entered a school year with anywhere between 30 and 5050% attrition rate, which is a high attrition rate to begin with", and "from the numbers, the back of the napkin numbers that we're looking at were at some places 50% down in one school". Her conclusion: "We can't be caught on the back foot, that's all. I'm. I just am hoping we can get that staffing map and that, you know, net vacancies for, for the next meeting".
0:28:05	Postings: forty live, or eight, depending which page you open	Rapp: "I am wondering, I am wondering why we're not posting openings there … Posted don't necessarily have to hire. We don't necessarily have to interview yet, but we do. Everything is posted" Whitney lists what she found: "the postings I found for CMS was AP principal, assistant principal, principal nurse, health teacher, music teacher, substitute teacher, para one on one and para on our website" Kennedy: "I'm looking at it right now live, and there's 40 spots". Rapp locates the discrepancy: "You go to locations, you go to CMS says eight and it lists eight", and the reason emerges — "Yeah. They're currently only posted internally.", "that's according to the CBA. We have to post them internally first before we post them externally".
0:29:26	A member on quality over headcount	Lavalette: "I'd rather be short staffed than a higher, just a warm body because we did somebody. So it's traditionally been garbage. Right. So I'm less concerned with the vacancies and more concerned with the quality"
0:32:47	Cash, the city's assessment payments, and the statute behind them	Angell: "Our cash balance as of the evening of May 7th at the bank was $5,905,486. This amount includes an assessment payment from the City of Claremont for 1,675,000", and "For the month of May, we anticipate the final assessment payment from the city, this fiscal for this fiscal year on June 1st, which will be 1,677,000, the the entire cash balance is going to carry us to the end of the year". On the mechanism: "basically, the city is our collection agent for real estate tax payments, and they remit that collection to us based upon a payment schedule that I provide them", and "if anyone's interested, the process that relates to this payment schedule is RSA 194, section five through seven".	10
0:34:24	The year's numbers, forty-one days out	Angell: "Back at the beginning of the year, I calculated a deficit of just over $5 million. At that time, the school board directed me to try to, cut the, the current operating budget to absorb that deficit", and "At this time, I'm estimating what's remaining of that $5 million to be approximately $1 million". Then the position: "revenues through the end of April, worth 37,336,000 budgeted … Revenues remaining to be collected were $2,378,000, or 5.99%"; "Expenditures through the end of April were 27,806,000. Encumbrances were 11,907,000. The remaining appropriation is 4,265,000 or 10.74%"; and "As you can see, that remaining. I could not cut the entire 5 million out of it".	5
0:35:33	Out-of-district placements, and purchase orders pulled back	Angell: "special education costs earlier, or I may have either spoken publicly or privately about special education. Costs have gone up due to out of district placements", and "At the beginning of April, I asked the Student Services Department to review their purchase orders under their control, and I've heard that they were working diligently to tighten up their estimates through the end of the year". The result: "I believe any increase in costs since April have been offset by, a reduction in their POS".
0:36:25	Two buildings for sale, and what one of them has cost	Angell: "So far, we've shown both properties and Sonic Temples had three showings", and "the charter school that viewed Bluff School, identified a property in Newport that was suitable for their needs". The figure: "I was asked for what the carrying cost was for the Masonic Temple, and I calculated that to be $438,354", broken down as "I estimated the purchase price to be 255,000, closing cost to be an additional $3,755. And there were improvements made to the property for just over $160,000, which included a new handicap ramp, fire alarm and sprinkler system" with "Within this amount were unpaid architectural fees for 18,900".	4
0:38:05	The chair: more was spent on the building than the board authorised	Crawford: "We spent 150,000 for improvements. In fact, the board voted to spend 50,000 for that. And how could more money be expended than we authorized" Angell: "I wasn't here to control that" Rapp supplies what he was told: "I was, I was told that there was money put aside in building maintenance that was used for that", and "the contractor said, I was assured that the money is already set aside. It's in a different account and everything's going to be fine". Whitney: "You knew more than we did, Brian" The chair closes it: "Be interesting to hear what the source of that information was. We will follow up, if we can"	4
0:40:09	Assessed value against what a buyer will pay	Whitney: "I way back when I looked at the tax maps, and I'm a little concerned that what the assessment that the city has on those properties are not going to be aligned with reality" Angell: "the assessment for bluff schools, over $3 million, we're not going to see $3 million for this property because whoever is going to buy it, it's probably going to put in millions of dollars on top of that. And then the fair market value they will be under. Okay. So we're going to end up selling it for much, much less", and "I don't think you're going to get $438,000 for the Masonic Temple. Okay. I just I'm going to say it because I know someone from the public is going to ask you. I don't think you're going to get it and be surprised".
0:42:15	Whether the deficit was always bigger than five million	Whitney: "we had unexpected invoices of over 900,000 that came in that weren't on the ledger that we had to manage. We also had an $800,000 assessment from school care that we weren't expecting", and "we discovered that we were expending roughly $800,000 a year on health payments to our insurance company for employees that were no longer on the rolls". Her question: "did we take into account some of the invoices that were not documented in the general ledger that will carry over" Angell: "I tried to be as accurate as possible? Okay. Included the debt. That was a surprise to me", and "the deficit could have been bigger because of some of the surprise invoices and the timing that it came in. All right. But we would have still had to have consumed it with inside this appropriation".	5
0:45:02	A stipend to the former superintendent, raised by a constituent	Lavalette: "So on the front page where we have the competition compensation package. So they asked if the Christopher Pratt that's listed there says SRV RTC mentor $20,000. And they wanted to know if that's the same one as the superintendent it is and who approved it" Crawford's account: "this is the second year of, Miss Harrington being at the tech center, is that correct? And her first year. And she is working on her certification, and she was not certified the first year. And so we needed somebody who had who carried the certification", "the first year, I don't recall, I thought it was 10,000, but it could have been 20,000", and the point that matters: "That was actively not approved the second year. Correct? Yes", "I know it was not approved the second year, but it was the first".	2
0:47:13	The superintendent-designate's memo, read by the chair	Crawford: "he sent a letter to the school board, he saying that he could not come to the meeting tonight because he has a school board meeting in the district where he's currently serving. But he did address in the letter, there were three items that he addressed". On uniforms, "He included in his documentation a plan for rotation of replacement of all uniforms". On the waiver, "I attended the state Board of Education meeting. Regarding the day and our waiver request from Claremont", "we did receive the waiver. Therefore, we can begin to make plans for the end of school". The memo itself records the vote as 6-1.	9
0:52:26	Transportation: two bids, and the district's own number that did not fit	Angell: "we sent out a request for proposal for student regular ed student transportation, and we issued a notice in the local newspaper … We also sent to known providers such as First Student, Butler Star and Durham", "We received two proposals back Butler Transportation and First Student. The difference to me between the two proposals, they were they were fairly close to each other. Okay. However, when the school district also put in a proposal and our number was way off in comparison, which kind of threw me off", and then the finding: "when I started digging into the quality of the information on our side, I found out that special education costs were buried in the regular Ed". The totals: "The school district is $1,971,619. Butler Transportation was $2,011,500, and first student only had regular Ed transportation at 1.1 million".	5 10
0:54:21	What the process turned up about the district's own controls	Angell: "right now there are about 20 people who order transportation. We need to have all transportation orders to be run through. If the school board approves the, Claremont School District as the as the service provider, it's all going to run through the transportation coordinator, and it's going to be her responsibility to hire", and "Right now we have seven different providers that we're contracted with. It would be nice to". His recommendation: "I'm recommending that we continue with our self up, for transportation services. However, to contract with Butler Transportation for any, any other needs that we can't service ourselves".	10
0:57:49	The bidder speaks from the podium	"I'm the vice president of operations for Butler Bus service. Thank you for northern New England. And currently we operate near here. We operate in Springfield. We operate in Croydon. Cornish. Plainfield. Moscow. Hartford. So right around in this area", and "If you keep it in house, we still want to partner with Claremont and work with you for your out of district, for your McKinney Vento. Work, anything that you can't cover. We would like to take on and cover for you so".
0:59:18	Bus driver pay against the top of the teachers' scale	Lavalette: "So I'm looking at the SRT, a contract. Right. And the top step Masters plus 15 for next year is 73627. And I used the publicly available data. Last year we paid a bus driver 7480375. And and we got some others. And I don't dispute that their work is hard", and "it's hard for me to swallow paying a full time bus driver higher than the top step of somebody that we're measured by. I mean, let's face it, the state judges us based on what's in the building, not how they get to the building". Crawford explains the history: "during Covid, there was a problem finding, bus drivers and so that they were during Covid, they were made full time employees as an incentive to get the bus drivers".
1:02:02	A member declines to move on the information available	Rapp: "I'd like more information on a potential contract. I have not seen any information yet, so I'd like to dig a little bit deeper", and "I'm just looking to figure out what kind of costs are going to be. You know what? If there's anything set in stone, if we're. There's an automatic payment. If if drivers are on call, just sort of stuff like that that I think we should really hash out". Howard tests whether a vote is needed at all: "Do we need a motion? If we're maintaining service as is, would the only thing we need a motion would be to approve some sort of contract with Butler. Correct", and "I'm just testing, like, legally, that's we don't have to make an affirmative action to do something right. Doing it would be to add this other service. Just just clarifying". Angell's reason for wanting one: "it's nice just to let the public know what we've done and the direction that we're going in".
1:05:51	The accounting that cannot answer the question the board is asking	Angell: "we actually have to identify the activities and segregate them in the general ledger. And so that's going to be work I'm going to have to do this summer". Whitney presses: "would we have to capture all of our special education transportation activity now and is well, well capture it to be able to segregate it. And do we actually have that data anywhere" — answered "Like that's the problem". Then the sentence this page treats as the finding: "You have to do this anyways for state reporting, because we need to be accurately reporting our special education costs and we're not".	5
1:08:52	Where the special education money actually sits	From the board table: "you just said we have 110,000 for one student for McKinney Vento. Yes, but your total for special ed is 241" Angell: "Hundred and 41 was specifically identified in the budget. Okay. But see, what's happening is, is in that 1,730,000 is special education costs that are not broken out", and "And that accounting is wrong". The consequence for the decision: "Because the accounting is so messed up is it relates to transportation I can't tell you. And so you I can't do a mix and match of services".	5
1:12:15	One student, $110,000 of transport	From the board table: "Can you give. … without divulging any confidential or privacy information, how. And $10,000 for one student is … Is in any way reasonable?" Angell: "I can only make a comparison to my last school district, and we were paying $54,000 to transport a student. So I'm a little shocked with 110". The response from the table: "54000 shocks me too. Yeah"	5
1:14:32	Food service: the incumbent is the only bidder, and the term is set at five years	Angell: "for our food service provider right now, we have a contractor providing it. Their their name is Fresh Picks. And their they are owned by an equity firm called Watson's", and the term: "In my experience, a typical food service contract is for two years with three one year extensions. The total numbers of the contract can last up to five years". Why the rebid happened now: "because of the closure of bluff during this year, the state required us to go out to bid before the five years was up. I think we're three years into the contract". The outreach: "we sent our to all known providers within the state, and there are six of them", "We also issued a public notice in a statewide newspaper, during April break, we gave a tour to one company that ultimately did not provide a proposal to us". The result: "our current provider was our only company that provided a proposal. Okay. And in that they anticipated a 6000, I mean, a $9,600 surplus in the food service fund".	1
1:16:38	The motion, and what the board could not check	Howard moves it and asks for the shortest term available: "I'll make a motion to approve fresh picks for our food service provider for what's the term of the contract? The minimum we can do" — answered "It's it's I think it's going to be a two year contract with three when you're, you know, all periods". Rapp on the original undertakings: "There were a lot of things in the contract, a lot of things that they were supposed to provide. They were supposed to source locally. They were supposed to, do special, special meal presentations and let kids try different foods and all this other stuff", and "they were going to provide fresh meals. They were going to do, you know, cook, cook in line sort of postures and whatnot. And they did a big, big presentation. I'm just very interested to see if that's something that was is supposed to be done and if it's being done". Angell: "Essentially nothing changed because the contract is dictated by the USDA".	1
1:18:55	The food service fund's own deficit	Angell: "when I arrived here, I think last year the food service deficit was like $270,000. But but they I mean, the the fund itself is in deficit for 560,000, which was included in that $5 million estimate", and "this year they've actually cut out so much that right now the current, operating deficit for just this year is $130,000". Howard, before voting against: "they are owned by an ex 360. So it's not just Winston's. And I think it's important to read some of the paperwork that this companies put out. It's a little bit dystopian, frankly … I would really like to see, especially next year, more of an effort to get more bids. I feel, you know, we're limited in our area, but this it's really sad that this was like our one of our only options" Angell's explanation for the single bid: "Frankly, I think our deficit position scared away that one vendor"	1
1:21:04	School photographs: three quotations, one supply chain	Angell: "We got three quotes once from Birkdale. The second one's guesses, and the third one's life touch", and "two of them use Shutterfly to process all their photos … Life touch is owned by Shutterfly. Okay. And guess it, contracts out with Shutterfly to process all their photos and they all use the same photographers". What the board is actually choosing: "when I'm saying we're picking one or the other. Really what you're doing as a board is you're selecting based upon the price of the what's being charged to the parents". The scores: "Life charge got an 87 points. Barksdale got 77 points and gaskets got 69". Howard adds a claim the minutes record: "They are all owned by Apollo Global Management. Just put that on the record. All three on that in the minutes".	8
1:23:31	Where the commission goes	Angell: "each school gets a commission check, and that check goes into a principals fund". Lavalette: "Where does that how is that money accounted for it within the line items of the budget" The answer: "It doesn't go through the operating budget. It actually goes into like the student activity fund".	8
1:25:58	The broker RFQ, and the commission nobody could state	Angell: "I pulled together an RFQ to select the most qualified real estate commercial real estate broker. And I'm asking you to approve this, RFQ. And once I once it's approved, I'm going to send it out and then solicit, proposals to bring back to the school board to award". Whitney: "What's the commission? Did I miss the commission" — answered "That's going to be part of the process".
1:31:42	A subcommittee that had never really been one	Howard: "It's been quasi. I don't really know what the function of it should be. We've talked about me reaching out to people to help us with public communications. So it at this point has felt like sort of an appointment to just be a point person for starting that. But there hasn't been a formal committee", and "I think we kind of forgot about it after the deficit stuff". Lavalette: "Would kill it. Is that." Whitney asks for the record to be made: "the only thing that is important that we do is document in the minutes that the board agrees that Mr. Howard can speak on behalf of the board and authorize, like the investigation of activities. And like we're saying, we just should have a documented that the whole board is empowering him to do that so he can go do that".
1:35:35	Policy FA, back before the board with the incoming superintendent's own version	Howard: "Heather had concerns about wanting to flesh it out in more detail. As Tim came on and in my research, I found that his current districts have a verbatim copy of F.A. that looks like this, and he sent along some helpful information about what plans stemmed from their policy". His own reform proposal: "many of these policies have, time frames for review that we've not been keeping track of. And so part of what I want to do is, you know, we can start with this one is put if it says annual on the policy. Mark that on our site review annually and then also in our own internal audit tracker". Adopted on a voice vote.
1:42:15	The sports-injury policy, and whether the public gets a second look	Howard: "it seemed like somebody tried to pass it at some point in 22 or 23. So there was specifically about August. And then it sat on the back burner. So I think somebody caught it when NHS put this out, but then it just sat there … we changed that from August 1st, 2022 to the first board meeting in August of each year", and his plea for input: "If anyone who is concerned about sports injuries is watching and is interested in this, please check it out and give us some feedback". Rapp: "So don't we have to send it to second reading" and "I think it's best like it is best practice to move to a second read".	7
1:46:09	A former policy chair explains the practice from the floor	Hawkins: "Technically, Brian, you're absolutely correct. Two reads to adoption. Except that what we were trying to do was bring the policies up to date, specifically regarding policies required as a priority. Because of our essays, our policies have been neglected for so long", and "in discussing it, we felt we wanted to bring the policies up to date so that we were in line with our assays. So that's why the practice has been for many policies to get them in and get adopted".	7
1:47:05	The board looks for its own rule, and finds it ambiguous	Howard: "The policy is BG a just for just for reference", then "we should allow for public comment on policy proposals and skipping the second read kind of bar people from that", and "It says to follow Robert's Rules, which I think, like, lays it out more clearly, motions of order and stuff like that. So it's a it's a little bit muddy". Later he reads the exception aloud: "The section that, unusual or unexpected urgency, they may wave second meeting limitation, take immediate action to adopt a new policy, or to suspend to revise existing policy … In such instances, the meeting minutes to reflect the nature of circumstances". Lavalette: "If so, we violated it a million times"	7
1:50:14	The objection, put plainly	Rapp: "Look, no offense, but but listen to yourselves. You're giving an excuse to just steamroll over" and, later, "You do your first read, people see it, people talk about it. They have an opportunity to reach out. At that point, after seeing our public meeting, maybe they'll come to the next meeting, maybe they won't. But the process is to do a first read", "To to just blow it off and say, well, we don't think anyone's going to come, so we'll just we'll just skip the second read and just do it now". Whitney's counter: "no matter how hard our chairs and the policy committees have worked for years on this, we have we have missed really important policies that we haven't addressed because we've had priority policies", and "there's a level of urgency. I hear what you're saying 100%, I get it. But I, I do have to say, I think there is a level of urgency for us to get our house in order that may warrant us putting the boilerplate kind of policies that appear to have due diligence". Adopted 6-1.	7
1:55:34	No superintendent evaluation this year	Crawford: "I just would like to say that, we will not be having a superintendent, sir. This year, this has been a very unusual year. It was, Miss Kennedy stepped up to the plate, as were Billy. And this is not a conventional time when we set goals and analyze the superintendent", and "The goal was to survive, and we're not there yet, but we're doing well". Fourteen days earlier the same chair had announced the subcommittee's membership and said it would be meeting over the next month.
1:58:37	Future dates: one SAU meeting, no subject given	Crawford: "May 28th is the board meeting, and we will be doing annual goal setting in July", and the July arrangement, "our first meeting in July is usually on the first Wednesday, and that's during 4th of July week. We will not have a meeting that week. We will have a second, a second meeting", "So we're saying July 21st, so July 21st will be the only meeting in July for the board". Nothing else is said about May 28.	6
2:00:22	Eight items for future agendas, from one member	Lavalette: the alternative programme — "Miss Springer last meeting brought up some pretty good concerns about the academy. And, so I'm hoping we can get an overview for myself and the public what the academy is. So, what is it? Who goes there? How's it run"; district cell phones — "I want to talk about cell phone issuance by the district. Right. Some thoughts that came to mind. Like who decide who gets one and and can we get a budget cost breakdown"; athletics — "Stevens High school sports. Are they cut sports, and if so, which ones"; team fundraising — "when a team fundraisers. My question is what's the chain of custody for the money"; and exit interviews — "If a child's leaving this district, that exit interview, I would say, is more important than anything else we get", "we ought to look at developing an exit interview for parents and students that leave to seek alternative education. Why did they leave? What can we do to bring it back".
2:02:37	A question about eliminated special education posts, left unanswered	Whitney: "Have we eliminated any BCB positions? Have we eliminated any registered behavior technician positions this year or any certified positions this year", and "it was referenced that we eliminated those positions, and I, I thought that those were required positions to have that. I don't. Remember eliminating any of those positions". The chair moves on.

Items flagged for review

These are a reviewer's aid, not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each rule-based flag names the provision it rests on and links to the primary source; where no verified rule applies, the item is labelled an observation. Verify against the recording and the primary sources before relying on any of it.

HIGH The food service contract as moved, seconded and minuted runs two years with three one-year renewals. The federal rule caps the initial term at one year.

The term is stated twice on the recording and once in the minutes, and it is the same each time. Angell, at 1:14:32: "In my experience, a typical food service contract is for two years with three one year extensions. The total numbers of the contract can last up to five years". Howard moves it at 1:16:38 and asks for the shortest term available — "I'll make a motion to approve fresh picks for our food service provider for what's the term of the contract? The minimum we can do" — and is answered "It's it's I think it's going to be a two year contract with three when you're, you know, all periods". The approved minutes record the motion as being "to approve the contract with Fresh Picks for 2 years with 3 one year continuations", carried 6-1.

7 CFR 210.16(d) is unambiguous. "The contract between a school food authority and food service management company shall be of a duration of no longer than 1 year", and "options for the yearly renewal of a contract signed after February 16, 1988, may not exceed 4 additional years". A five-year maximum is right; a two-year initial term is not. The board's own vote therefore describes a term the regulation does not permit, and it does so on a contract that must in any event be approved by the state agency — which is the safety net Angell identifies at 1:15:18: "through a normal bid process, we actually have to have it approved by the state in New Hampshire".

The single bid compounds it. The rebid was forced early: "because of the closure of bluff during this year, the state required us to go out to bid before the five years was up. I think we're three years into the contract". The outreach was real — "we sent our to all known providers within the state, and there are six of them", plus a statewide newspaper notice and a site tour for one company that then did not bid — and it produced one proposal, from the incumbent: "our current provider was our only company that provided a proposal. Okay". The comptroller's own explanation, at 1:20:25: "Frankly, I think our deficit position scared away that one vendor". Rapp asked whether the undertakings that won the contract the first time still bind — "There were a lot of things in the contract, a lot of things that they were supposed to provide. They were supposed to source locally. They were supposed to, do special, special meal presentations and let kids try different foods and all this other stuff" — and got "I'm I'd have to look for, for the local sourcing. I haven't seen them".

What this page could not read. The contract itself is in a packet sub-folder that MAP.md records as unopened, and an enumeration of that folder from here returned nothing, which this project's standing method warning says proves nothing either way. So the executed term is not established; what is established is the term the board voted and the clerk recorded. Graded HIGH on the unmitigated limb: a five-year commitment of federal child-nutrition money, awarded on one bid, on a term that conflicts on its face with the regulation that governs it, with no reference to that regulation anywhere in the discussion.

Sources: 7 CFR 210.16 — contracts with food service management companies; (a) state agency approval, (b) procurement standards under § 210.21, (d) the one-year duration limit and four renewal years (53 FR 29147, as amended through 88 FR 57845, Aug. 23, 2023); approved minutes, 5/20/26; Food Service Contract Documents (packet sub-folder, contents not read).

HIGH A stipend register of $1.15 million was filed with the agenda; its column headed How it was approved is empty on 649 of 726 lines

The spreadsheet linked from the agenda under "Stipends update" has four labelled columns — Name, Position, Amount, How it was approved — and, on its first sheet, 726 payment lines for 324 named employees totalling $1,155,658.55. Seventy-seven of those lines, $181,946.53, carry an entry in the fourth column, and every one of them is the same sentence: "Per CBA Agreement with specifical approval by the Building Principal". The remaining 649 lines, $973,712.02, carry nothing. A handful of stray accounting notes of the form "Charged to ESY Salaries Teacher for periods 2, 3, 4" appear in the sheet outside the four labelled columns; they are not approval records.

The board never reached the item. It is on the agenda and it is linked; it appears in the minutes only as the heading and the link. What surfaced instead was a single line from it, raised because a constituent had read the document. Lavalette, at 0:45:02: "So on the front page where we have the competition compensation package. So they asked if the Christopher Pratt that's listed there says SRV RTC mentor $20,000. And they wanted to know if that's the same one as the superintendent it is and who approved it". The spreadsheet's entry for that line reads: PRATT, CHRISTOPHER A / SRVRTC Mentor / 10000 / (blank). The figure spoken on the recording is twice that; this corpus has a standing warning that an impossible or surprising number in this transcription is often two numbers, and the chair herself was unsure — "the first year, I don't recall, I thought it was 10,000, but it could have been 20,000". The approved minutes record her belief as $10,000, which is what the document says.

The part that does not depend on which figure is right is the chair's answer about authority, at 0:46:14 and 0:46:44: "That was actively not approved the second year. Correct? Yes", and "I know it was not approved the second year, but it was the first". A payment appears on the district's own stipend register, in a year in which the board's chair says on camera the board declined to approve it, with the approval column blank.

The rules. RSA 197:23-a, I: the treasurer "shall have custody of all moneys belonging to the district and shall pay out the same only upon orders of the school board or upon orders of the 2 or more members of the school board empowered by the school board as a whole to authorize payments." RSA 32:8: no school board "shall pay or agree to pay any money, or incur any liability… for any purpose for which no appropriation has been made, except as provided in RSA 32:9-11" — unamended since 1993, 332:1, so it binds every year in this corpus. A blank approval column is not itself proof that no order was given; a manifest carries the order and a payroll register is not a manifest. What it does establish is that the document the board was given to answer the question how was this approved does not answer it for 84 per cent of the money on it, and that the one line anybody asked about turned out to be one the chair says was refused.

Graded HIGH on the unmitigated limb. Nothing on the record mitigates it: the item was not reached, no member asked why the column was empty, and the exchange that did occur ended with "and is being looked into" in the minutes and no date. The workbook's second sheet, headed What was deleted for SB, holds the base-salary rows filtered out to leave the stipends — an ordinary and sensible step, noted here only so a reader who opens the file is not misled by the heading.

Sources: Copy of Stipends for SB.xlsx, linked from the agenda (figures computed from the sheet as served, 2026-08-29); RSA 197:23-a, I; RSA 32:8 — limitation on expenditures (1993, 332:1, eff. Aug. 28, 1993; unamended); approved minutes, 5/20/26.

MEDIUM No manifest appears anywhere in the record of this meeting — on the night a parent had been told his refund would issue

"Approval of Manifest:" is the third line of the consent agenda. In the agenda it is a heading with nothing after it. In the approved minutes the consent-agenda section records the agenda amendment and the motion approving the previous minutes, and then the same heading with nothing under it. On the recording there is nothing at all: the word does not occur between the call to order at 0:00:03 and the adjournment at 2:04:57.

Two weeks earlier the same board had spent nearly ten minutes on exactly this. A Ward 2 parent had asked for the refund of an unused school-lunch balance; the comptroller explained that he had no authority to release it outside the manifest cycle; and, asked whether the cheques could be cut at the next meeting, answered that they could. That undertaking is in the May 6 record and in its approved minutes. This is the next meeting.

RSA 197:23-a, I is the provision the whole exchange turned on: the treasurer "shall pay out the same only upon orders of the school board or upon orders of the 2 or more members of the school board empowered by the school board as a whole to authorize payments." RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to carry "a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions". Absence from these three records is not proof that no manifest was approved — a manifest signed after the meeting by empowered members would satisfy the statute and might leave no trace in any of them, and that is exactly the practice the chair described at the February 18 meeting. But it is proof that a reader of the district's own record cannot tell whether public money was authorised on May 20, or how much.

Graded MEDIUM, and this page states the divergence from its neighbours. The page for February 18, 2026 graded the same blank line MEDIUM on the mitigated limb, because the chair had described the manifest aloud and said members would sign it. The May 6 page graded it MEDIUM as well. Here that mitigation is absent — nothing is said — and the specific undertaking made on May 6 makes the silence more visible, not less. The grade is held at MEDIUM for consistency across the three, with the difference recorded rather than buried.

Sources: RSA 197:23-a, I; RSA 91-A:2, II; 5.20.26 CSB Meeting Agenda; approved minutes, 5/20/26.

MEDIUM About $160,000 of improvements to a building the board authorised $50,000 for, and no record of where the rest came from

The comptroller's carrying-cost figure for the Masonic Temple, at 0:36:44: "I was asked for what the carrying cost was for the Masonic Temple, and I calculated that to be $438,354", built up as "I estimated the purchase price to be 255,000, closing cost to be an additional $3,755. And there were improvements made to the property for just over $160,000, which included a new handicap ramp, fire alarm and sprinkler system", with "Within this amount were unpaid architectural fees for 18,900". The components reconcile to the total: purchase $255,000 plus closing costs $3,755 plus improvements of about $160,700 plus $18,900 of unpaid architectural fees gives $438,355, within a dollar of the figure given.

The chair's question, at 0:38:05: "We spent 150,000 for improvements. In fact, the board voted to spend 50,000 for that. And how could more money be expended than we authorized" The answer, at 0:38:31: "I wasn't here to control that", and at 0:38:34, that it happened before he arrived. What Rapp adds is the only account of the funding anyone offers, at 0:38:48 and 0:39:22: "I was, I was told that there was money put aside in building maintenance that was used for that", and "the contractor said, I was assured that the money is already set aside. It's in a different account and everything's going to be fine". Whitney's response, at 0:39:40: "You knew more than we did, Brian" The chair closes the item at 0:39:53: "Be interesting to hear what the source of that information was. We will follow up, if we can"

RSA 32:10 is the provision that makes this testable. A governing body may move money between appropriations, but ¶I(b) attaches a records duty to the power: "Records shall be kept by the governing body, such that the budget committee, if any, or any citizen requesting such records pursuant to RSA 91-A:4, may ascertain the purposes of appropriations to which, and from which, amounts have been transferred". ¶II makes purpose reach "individual line items in whatever detailed budget or chart of accounts is regularly used". ¶I(a) caps the total at what the meeting appropriated, and ¶I(d) excludes special warrant articles and capital reserve money from transfer altogether. RSA 32:8 supplies the other side: no board "shall pay or agree to pay any money… for any purpose for which no appropriation has been made."

The finding is the record, not the spending. This page does not assert that anything unlawful was done: a transfer from a building-maintenance line to a building project may be entirely proper, and if RSA 32:10 was used, the money moved lawfully. What RSA 32:10, I(b) requires is that a citizen be able to find out. Here the sitting chair, the sitting comptroller and the board between them cannot say which appropriation the money came from; the best available account is what a contractor told a member. Graded MEDIUM because the spending predates the present administration and the officers answered candidly rather than deflecting — and because the chair undertook to follow it up, which is the right next step and is now on the record.

Sources: RSA 32:10, I(a)–(d) and II — transfer of appropriations and the records a citizen may inspect under RSA 91-A:4 (1993, 332:1; 2017, 127:4, eff. Aug. 15, 2017); RSA 32:8; RSA 32:7 — lapse of appropriations; approved minutes, 5/20/26.

MEDIUM The district's own officer says its special education costs are not being reported to the State accurately — and the board voted a $1.97 million contract on those numbers anyway

The disclosure comes from the staff report and is repeated on the recording. Angell, at 0:53:19: "when I started digging into the quality of the information on our side, I found out that special education costs were buried in the regular Ed". The staff report of May 15 puts it in writing: "As a result, I investigated how we are budgeting and found that our accounting for student transportation is not accurate. The regular education line includes both regular education and special education." And then, at 1:08:37, the sentence this flag rests on: "You have to do this anyways for state reporting, because we need to be accurately reporting our special education costs and we're not".

The numbers show the size of the problem. The staff report's table gives the district's self-operated cost as $1,730,019.46 regular education plus $241,600.00 special education, total $1,971,619.46; Butler at $994,500.00 plus $1,017,000.00, total $2,011,500.00; First Student at $1,187,544.60 for regular education with no special education bid. The two totals are about $40,000 apart, which is how the item was presented and decided — but the components are not comparable at all: the private bidder prices special education at more than four times the district's line, and the district's regular-education line is 74 per cent above the private bid. Angell says why, at 1:09:04: "Hundred and 41 was specifically identified in the budget. Okay. But see, what's happening is, is in that 1,730,000 is special education costs that are not broken out", and "And that accounting is wrong". The consequence for the decision the board was taking, at 1:09:36: "Because the accounting is so messed up is it relates to transportation I can't tell you. And so you I can't do a mix and match of services".

Whitney identified the same problem from the other end, at 1:07:28: "would we have to capture all of our special education transportation activity now and is well, well capture it to be able to segregate it. And do we actually have that data anywhere" — answered "Like that's the problem". And at 1:08:01: "But if we just figure out exactly what our regular education costs are, we can simply extrapolate out what our special education costs. Would that be easier to just do that".

What the misreporting reaches. RSA 198:4-d requires the annual financial report showing "the summary of receipts and expenditures" to be filed with the commissioner "on or before September 1 of each year". That report is the district's statement of its own costs by function, and special education transportation is one of them. The same cost data drives the district's claim for state special education aid under RSA 186-C:18, whose paragraph III sets the department's share of costs above the statutory multiplier — this page states no percentage and makes no claim about the entitlement, only that the input is the district's reported cost and the district's officer says the input is wrong.

Graded MEDIUM, on the mitigated limb, and the mitigation is that the disclosure is the district's own. It was made in a written staff report filed with the agenda five days ahead, repeated on camera, and paired with a plan and a date — "we actually have to identify the activities and segregate them in the general ledger. And so that's going to be work I'm going to have to do this summer", with better numbers promised for the autumn budget. That is the opposite of concealment. It is flagged because a board voted a two-million-dollar award on a comparison its own comptroller told it could not be made, and because the correction is scheduled for a summer in which the same officer is closing three fiscal years of books.

Sources: Staff Report — Award of Student Transportation, May 15, 2026; RSA 198:4-d — annual financial report, filed on or before September 1 (2025, 141:401, eff. July 1, 2025); RSA 186-C:18 — special education aid, computed on reported costs; approved minutes, 5/20/26.

MEDIUM Six weeks before the administrative unit stops serving two districts, the board awards five procurements on its letterhead and never mentions it

On May 6 the chair told this board that the SAU 6 meeting had moved to May 28 because Unity was not ready and because the winding-up had to be addressed there. On May 20 the agenda's future-dates block reads "May 28: SAU Board Meeting" with no subject; the chair's only reference to it, at 1:58:37, is "May 28th is the board meeting, and we will be doing annual goal setting in July". Neither the recording, nor the agenda, nor the approved minutes contains the word.

What the board did instead, in the same two hours: awarded student transportation for the coming year at $1,971,619.46; awarded a food service contract capable of running five years; awarded a three-year school photography contract; approved a request for qualifications for a commercial broker to sell two buildings; and authorised the chair to sign the annual federal grant assurances. The staff report supporting the largest of those is on letterhead reading "School Administrative Unit #6 Serving Claremont & Unity". Two of the five run past July 1, 2026 by years.

Why this is graded MEDIUM and not higher. The Claremont board is not the body that acts on Unity's withdrawal; that is the SAU 6 board, and RSA 194-C:2, IV routes the process through a planning committee, the State Board and a vote of the withdrawing district's voters. This board had been told on May 6 that the item was moving to the SAU meeting eight days after this one, and the SAU 6 agenda for that meeting does carry it, in five separate items. The record therefore explains the silence, which is the mitigated limb. It is flagged because the explanation only covers the governance question: it does not cover why a board contracting into 2029 and 2031 on the administrative unit's paper recorded no consideration of the entity change eight days away, and because the meeting the item moved to has produced no recording and no minutes — a negative established two ways, from a Cablecast title search returning no SAU 6 board meeting later than April 9, 2026 and from the SAU 6 share, to which nothing has been added since May 22, 2026.

The May 6 page grades the same subject HIGH, on different facts: there the chair stated the duty out loud and the minutes omitted it. Here nothing was said, and there was nothing for the minutes to omit.

Sources: RSA 194-C:2, IV — withdrawal from a school administrative unit (source note ends 2024, 250:1, 2, eff. July 1, 2024); 5-28-26 SAU6 Board Agenda; Staff Report — Award of Student Transportation; MAP.md section 120.

OBSERVATION A policy was adopted 6-1 on a single read, over the objection that the public had not had its second look, under a rule the board could not settle in the room

Four policies were listed for a first read and all four were adopted the same night; the fifth, on a second read, was adopted too. On the last of the four, Rapp objected. At 1:44:28: "So don't we have to send it to second reading" and at 1:45:07: "I think it's best like it is best practice to move to a second read". His reason, at 1:53:28: "You do your first read, people see it, people talk about it. They have an opportunity to reach out. At that point, after seeing our public meeting, maybe they'll come to the next meeting, maybe they won't. But the process is to do a first read", and at 1:53:52: "To to just blow it off and say, well, we don't think anyone's going to come, so we'll just we'll just skip the second read and just do it now". Bluntly, at 1:50:14: "Look, no offense, but but listen to yourselves. You're giving an excuse to just steamroll over"

The board then went looking for its own rule and could not resolve it on camera. Howard names it at 1:47:05: "The policy is BG a just for just for reference", reports that "we should allow for public comment on policy proposals and skipping the second read kind of bar people from that", and concludes "It says to follow Robert's Rules, which I think, like, lays it out more clearly, motions of order and stuff like that. So it's a it's a little bit muddy". Later he reads the escape clause aloud, at 1:48:36: "The section that, unusual or unexpected urgency, they may wave second meeting limitation, take immediate action to adopt a new policy, or to suspend to revise existing policy … In such instances, the meeting minutes to reflect the nature of circumstances". A former policy chair confirms the default from the floor at 1:46:09: "Technically, Brian, you're absolutely correct. Two reads to adoption. Except that what we were trying to do was bring the policies up to date, specifically regarding policies required as a priority. Because of our essays, our policies have been neglected for so long", and explains the departure at 1:46:35: "in discussing it, we felt we wanted to bring the policies up to date so that we were in line with our assays. So that's why the practice has been for many policies to get them in and get adopted". Lavalette's summary, at 1:45:02: "If so, we violated it a million times"

No statute is engaged and this page asserts none. New Hampshire fixes no reading procedure for school board policies; the requirement is the board's own, in policy BGA, and the escape clause Howard read out is in the same policy. The public-comment duty in RSA 189:74 attaches to meetings, not to policy readings, and it was satisfied. What makes this worth recording is what the exchange shows about the instrument: a member invoking a rule, the chair of the committee locating it live and calling it muddy because it points partly at itself and partly at Robert's Rules, a former chair explaining that the practice was changed to clear a backlog, and the board resolving it by vote rather than by reading. Whitney's answer at 1:51:38 is the honest statement of the trade-off: "no matter how hard our chairs and the policy committees have worked for years on this, we have we have missed really important policies that we haven't addressed because we've had priority policies", and "there's a level of urgency. I hear what you're saying 100%, I get it. But I, I do have to say, I think there is a level of urgency for us to get our house in order that may warrant us putting the boilerplate kind of policies that appear to have due diligence". The board also fixed the process going forward — the minutes record Whitney asking the policy committee to review the very policy in dispute.

Sources: RSA 189:74 — public comment at board meetings (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022); approved minutes, 5/20/26; policy JLCJA as presented. Policy BGA itself is not in the packet; it is quoted here only as the board read it aloud.

OBSERVATION A three-year district contract generates revenue that, by design, never enters the district's budget

The mechanism is described plainly. Angell at 1:22:31: "each school gets a commission check, and that check goes into a principals fund". Lavalette asks the right question at 1:23:31: "Where does that how is that money accounted for it within the line items of the budget" The answer, at 1:24:06: "It doesn't go through the operating budget. It actually goes into like the student activity fund".

Two things follow. The first is that the board's own account of what it is choosing between is not price but commission: "when I'm saying we're picking one or the other. Really what you're doing as a board is you're selecting based upon the price of the what's being charged to the parents", scored by the building principals — "Life charge got an 87 points. Barksdale got 77 points and gaskets got 69". The second is that RSA 197:23-a, I gives the district treasurer custody of "all moneys belonging to the district". Whether a commission earned under a district-wide contract, paid to a school and spent by a principal, is money belonging to the district is a real question and this page does not answer it; student activity funds are ordinarily accounted for separately, and this board is already scheduled to take up a related item — the agenda's future list carries "2nd meeting in June: Closure of Bluff School Student Activity Funds".

Labelled an observation because no verified rule is breached on this record. It is recorded because the exchange is a clean example of a control question asked and answered honestly in public, and because a district three fiscal years behind on its audits has just committed for three more years to an arrangement whose revenue its own comptroller says is outside the operating budget. The market question is separate and belongs to the members who raised it: Angell's account is that two of the three vendors process through the same firm, which owns the third — "two of them use Shutterfly to process all their photos … Life touch is owned by Shutterfly. Okay. And guess it, contracts out with Shutterfly to process all their photos and they all use the same photographers" — while Howard asked for a different proposition to be minuted, at 1:25:17: "They are all owned by Apollo Global Management. Just put that on the record. All three on that in the minutes". The minutes record his statement as his. This page verifies neither claim about corporate ownership.

Sources: RSA 197:23-a, I and III — custody of all moneys belonging to the district; the treasurer's accounts; RSA 198:4-d — the annual financial report of receipts and expenditures; approved minutes, 5/20/26; Photography Contract Documents (packet sub-folder, contents not read).

OBSERVATION The minutes carry no start time, name nobody as their author, and print a professional day on a Saturday

Three separate points, all checkable against the same document.

Start time. RSA 91-A:2, II has required minutes to include "the start time and end time of the meeting" since 2025, 112:1, effective August 22, 2025. These minutes give an end — 8:59 adjournment — and the nonpublic times, 7:57 p.m. and 8:20 p.m., but no time of call to order. The May 6 minutes have the same gap.

Author. The same paragraph requires the "name of the person who produced the minutes". The May 6 minutes close "Respectfully submitted by Noelle Kronberg, school board clerk". The copy of the May 20 minutes served from the district's share ends at the adjournment line with no such attribution.

The date. The superintendent-designate's memo, which the chair read aloud and which is linked from the agenda, sets the final week of school and ends: "Monday, June 15: ‘Teacher work day’ at all schools." The chair read it correctly, at 0:49:35: "And finally, on June 15th, the Monday, it will be teacher work day at all schools. This is intended to for teachers to perform any year end tests". The approved minutes render it as "Monday June 13th will be professional day for teachers to complete year end tasks" — and June 13, 2026 is a Saturday. The error is provable three ways: against the memo, against the recording, and against the calendar.

Two smaller documentary oddities belong with these. The memo the board acted on is headed and dated May 21, 2026, the day after the meeting at which it was read, and the agenda names its author Tim Broadrick while both sets of minutes and the Cablecast gallery spell the surname Broderick. And the reconfiguration maps that the May 6 minutes said would be attached were struck from those minutes here, on the clerk's explanation at 0:02:00: "We discussed not attaching the." — a substantive amendment to an approved record, correctly made on a motion and recorded.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II — start time, end time, and the name of the person who produced the minutes (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025); Claremont Board Report, dated May 21, 2026; approved minutes, 5/20/26; approved minutes, 5/6/26, for the comparison.

POSITIVE A procurement run properly, and a staff report that discloses the district's own accounting failure rather than hiding behind it

The transportation item is the best-documented decision on either of these two pages, and it is worth saying so on a corpus whose usual finding is the opposite.

The process. A written request for proposals, publicly noticed: "we sent out a request for proposal for student regular ed student transportation, and we issued a notice in the local newspaper … We also sent to known providers such as First Student, Butler Star and Durham" — the machine transcription fuses two of the four firms the staff report names. Two proposals returned. A staff report dated May 15, five days before the meeting, filed with the agenda and linked, carrying a comparative table, both sets of considerations, a fiscal impact and a named recommendation. The winning bidder's competitor was invited to the podium to speak, at 0:57:49: "I'm the vice president of operations for Butler Bus service. Thank you for northern New England. And currently we operate near here. We operate in Springfield. We operate in Croydon. Cornish. Plainfield. Moscow. Hartford. So right around in this area".

The candour. The report does not present the district's own bid as sound. It says the district's accounting for transportation "is not accurate", explains how the error was found, and reports that the comptroller went back to both bidders for special education prices so the comparison could be made at all — and that only one supplied them. On the recording he goes further, at 1:08:37, and states that the resulting state reporting is wrong. An officer recommending his own department's continued operation, who volunteers that the numbers supporting it cannot be relied on, is doing the job properly.

The controls the process surfaced. At 0:54:21: "right now there are about 20 people who order transportation. We need to have all transportation orders to be run through. If the school board approves the, Claremont School District as the as the service provider, it's all going to run through the transportation coordinator, and it's going to be her responsibility to hire", and at 0:54:56: "Right now we have seven different providers that we're contracted with. It would be nice to". Both are consolidations that reduce the number of people who can commit district money.

And the board did not simply take it. Rapp declined to move the recommendation on the information available — "I'd like more information on a potential contract. I have not seen any information yet, so I'd like to dig a little bit deeper" — then framed a motion that separated the settled part from the unsettled: continue in house now, bring the Butler arrangement back with numbers. Howard tested aloud whether a vote was needed at all, and the comptroller gave the right reason for taking one anyway, at 1:03:47: "it's nice just to let the public know what we've done and the direction that we're going in".

One anchor is worth recording because a district citation in this corpus is usually wrong and this one is right. At 0:33:59 Angell attributes the city's tax remittance schedule to "if anyone's interested, the process that relates to this payment schedule is RSA 194, section five through seven". RSA 194:7 provides that "The selectmen shall annually assess upon the ratable estate of the district a sum equal to the amounts determined by the district, and shall pay over the same to the district treasurer", with RSA 194:5 on taxation and 194:6 on the invoice of property. For a city district the bridge is RSA 21:28, I, under which selectmen may mean "the mayor and aldermen of the city". The citation is correct.

Sources: Staff Report — Award of Student Transportation, May 15, 2026; RSA 194:7 — assessment and payment over to the district treasurer; RSA 21:28, I — "selectmen" may mean the mayor and aldermen of a city (2008, 183:1, eff. Aug. 10, 2008); RSA 197:23-a — the treasurer's custody.

OBSERVATION The state representative's account of what a neighbouring charter school would cost Claremont is right, and this page checked it

Whitney's question, at 0:13:52: "Given that we have a charter school opening in Newport, what is the potential? How to. My assumption is, is that the adequacy aid that would normally go to a Claremont student attending a Claremont school district would follow that student going to a charter school that happens to be in another community. Am I correct in that" The answer given, at 0:14:22: "the sending or the district of residence doesn't receive adequacy aid for that student. The charter school receives funding that's different from adequacy aid. It's about double what adequacy a it's around $10,000 per student per year", with the source at 0:15:24: "Comes it comes from the education trust fund of the state. So it's the same funding source as the adequacy money that comes to the district, but it goes directly to the charter schools", and the liability that stays behind, at 0:15:59: "Claremont would still be responsible for any special education costs, incurred by that"

All three limbs check out against RSA 194-B:11. For a state-authorised chartered public school the State, not the resident district, pays: the section provides that "the state shall pay tuition amounts pursuant to RSA 198:40-a… plus an additional grant of $4,900" per pupil, drawn from the education trust fund — which against the current base adequacy figure puts the total in the region of the ten thousand dollars given at the podium, and above what the resident district would have received in adequacy for the same pupil. And the special education liability does stay with the resident district: "The child's resident district shall have the responsibility, including financial responsibility, to ensure the provision of the special education and related services in the child's IEP." The section's source note ends 2025, 141:81, 82, effective July 1, 2025, so the text quoted is the text in force.

Recorded as an observation, and as a positive one. Nothing is flagged against anybody. It is here because this corpus has now catalogued five district documents citing statutes that do not say what they are cited for, and because a board member asked a precise fiscal question in public and got a precise and accurate answer — including the qualification a careful witness gives, at 0:14:22: "I believe and I will verify this and confirm with you".

Sources: RSA 194-B:11 — funding of chartered public schools; the additional per-pupil grant; the resident district's special education responsibility (source note ends 2025, 141:81, 82, eff. July 1, 2025); RSA 198:40-a — adequate education grants; approved minutes, 5/20/26.

Appendix — source files

District documents

Packet folder: 26. CSB 5.20.26 Agenda — 10 entries, four of them sub-folders whose contents were not opened
Agenda: 5.20.26 CSB Meeting Agenda
Minutes: 5.20.26 Approved CSB Meeting Minutes
Minutes approved on the consent agenda: 5/6/26, amended to strike the reconfiguration maps and to insert the superintendent-designate's uniform text
Finance: Copy of Stipends for SB.xlsx 726 lines, $1,155,658.55, the approval column blank on 649 of them; 5/20 Financial Update Documents (sub-folder, contents not read)
Procurement: Staff Report — Award of Student Transportation, May 15, 2026; RFQ — Commercial Real Estate Broker Services; Food Service Contract Documents and Photography Contract Documents (sub-folders, contents not read)
Reports: Claremont Board Report, the superintendent-designate's memo dated May 21, 2026 — the day after the meeting it was written for; General Assurances 2026
Policies: FA; IHBH; IHCD; JLCJA; EBCH on second read
Subcommittees: Reconfiguration Ad Hoc Subcommittee Purpose Statement; Committee Purpose, Goals and Meeting Cadence 2026-2027
Referenced policy: BEDH — Public Comment & Participation at Board Meetings, hyperlinked at the foot of every Claremont agenda
Read outside this packet: 5-28-26 SAU6 Board Agenda, which carries the separation as five discussion items, in SAU 6 folder 14. SAU6 5.28.26
Companion page: Claremont School Board, May 6, 2026

Project files

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

Output/Dialogue/17373 SchoolBoard052026.mp4.CSV — speaker-attributed dialogue, 852 rows
Input/Transcripts/17373 SchoolBoard052026.mp4.json — diarized transcript
Input/Videos/17373 SchoolBoard052026.mp4 — local copy of the recording
Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md — meeting-to-documents map, section 119