About the Navigator
The Claremont School Board Meeting Navigator (CSBMN) is an experimental service of the Claremont Community Media Center (CCMC), which operates Claremont's public-access television channels and video-on-demand service. CSBMN gives each covered public meeting of the Claremont School Board and its Finance Committee, the SAU 6 Board, and the joint, deliberative and special sessions that go with them a single page that brings together the meeting video, the agenda, the board's document packet, and, when the district posts them, the minutes.
Each meeting page lists who took part, reproduces the posted agenda, and follows the discussion topic by topic. Timestamps on the page link to that moment in the recording, so a summary can be checked against what was actually said. Discussion that appears to touch a requirement of state or federal law, such as a filing deadline, a notice rule, or an audit obligation, is flagged with a citation to the specific statute or regulation. An appendix on every page links the source documents.
The video comes from CCMC's video-on-demand service, which carries the district's meeting recordings. The documents come from the public Google Drive folders where the district posts its board packets and meeting minutes. No non-public material is used. Coverage begins with the School Board meeting of February 1, 2023, and further meetings are added as they are processed.
AI does most of the assembly: transcribing the recording, matching voices to named speakers, summarizing the discussion, and flagging items that may deserve review. It makes mistakes, such as a misheard name or a remark credited to the wrong speaker, which is why every page — this one included — carries the standing notice printed at its foot. These pages are a finding aid, not a record. The district's approved minutes, posted at sau6.org and in the Drive folders above, are the official account of any meeting. Before relying on anything here, follow the timestamp or the document link and confirm it at the source.
New Hampshire's Right-to-Know Law (RSA 91-A) makes these meetings and records public. Public is not the same as convenient: a meeting recording can take a full evening to watch, and the documents behind it sit in folders most residents never open. CSBMN tries to shorten the distance between a resident's question and the moment in the meeting that answers it.
What is wrong with the record, and with these pages. An archive built from public records inherits the quality of those records, and the work of building it introduced defects of its own. The Data Quality Report catalogues all of it — 392 issues in the district’s own records, in this project’s transcripts and speaker attributions, in this project’s own analysis, and in the limits of the methods used to check all three. It is published in full, including the errors this project made and corrected.
Corrections and suggestions are welcome through the Claremont Community Media Center.
Meeting pages
| Date | Meeting | On the page | Flagged items |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 — 23 meetings | |||
| August 19, 2026 | Claremont School Board | Regular meeting. The treasurer reported two August payments — the district payroll and a federal tax payment — issued with no board or treasurer signature. The board adopted its first audit corrective action, setting $5,000 and $20,000 procurement thresholds and requiring a purchase order before a purchase, unanimously; a joint high-school and middle-school dress code failed 2–4. The packet folder held only the draft agenda; no minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| August 12, 2026 | Claremont School Board Finance Finance Subcommittee |
Finance Subcommittee work session. FY26 close-out and the September 1 state filings (DOE-25/MS-25) landing on unreliable opening balances; an $868,000 unbudgeted insurance assessment two-thirds unpaid; business-office staffing; audit corrective actions; negotiations logistics. No packet or minutes posted for this meeting. | 2 HIGH 3 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| August 5, 2026 | Claremont School Board | Regular meeting. The auditor's public Q&A on the FY22/FY23 draft audits, and the treasurer's reconciliation report on unauthorized, backdated, and mis-signed checks; about $2 million in federal grant reimbursements still unclaimed ahead of the September 30 cutoff. Packet (7 documents) and draft minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 1 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| July 29, 2026 | Claremont School Board, Goal Setting Meeting | Annual goal-setting work session built around the superintendent's nine-domain "Foundation" framework — post-it brainstorming, then a domain-by-domain review. Flags include the plan to finish all audits by July 2027, now running against a statutory funding clock, and the absence of a functioning teacher-evaluation system. Agenda and draft minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| July 21, 2026 | Claremont School Board | Regular meeting. The FY22 and FY23 draft audits arrive with disclaimers of opinion, an unreliable general ledger, and tax rates set on overstated fund balance; also the September 30 federal grant-claim deadline, teacher hires made without board election, and the Unity withdrawal agreement. Packet (13 documents) and draft minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 3 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| June 19, 2026 | School Board Finance Committee Claremont School District |
Finance Subcommittee work session — the first covered meeting. About $2 million in federal entitlement grants unclaimed and time-limited; a $350,000–$400,000 services contract signed without a funding source, purchase orders, or an authorized signer; annual audits years behind; proposals for a published budget book and accounts-payable register. No packet or minutes in the district's public shares. | 3 HIGH 1 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| June 17, 2026 | Claremont School Board The last meeting of the fiscal year, and of SAU 6 |
Regular meeting, thirteen days before the end of the fiscal year and of SAU 6. The board thanked a private alumni association for having run the year’s student activities, accepted a bank’s refund of the interest on a four-million-dollar deficit loan, closed a shuttered school’s student activity fund, and spent sixty-two minutes in nonpublic session. Packet of five documents and approved minutes posted. | 8 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| June 3, 2026 | Claremont School Board Four weeks from the end of an SAU and the end of a fiscal year |
Regular meeting, twenty-seven days before SAU 6 is said to end and the fiscal year closes. A superintendent who does not take office until July 1 gave the longer of the two administrative reports; the board set meal prices, lent a closed school to the State Police, and added a nonpublic session to its own agenda from the chair. Packet of six documents and approved minutes posted. | 4 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| May 20, 2026 | Claremont School Board Five procurements, a stipend register with a blank approval column, and six weeks to go |
Regular meeting. Five procurements in one evening — transportation, food service, school photographs, a commercial broker and the federal grant assurances — alongside a stipend register of more than a million dollars whose approval column is mostly blank, and a policy adopted 6–1 over a member’s objection that the public had not had a second read. Packet and approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| May 6, 2026 | Claremont School Board A new superintendent, a grant with no vote on record, and eight weeks to the end of the SAU |
Regular meeting. The incoming superintendent was introduced and nominated his own central office; a sitting member said the board had never voted on a $19,100 school-safety grant; a parent’s unrefunded lunch balance became a lesson in how money leaves a district; and in the last three minutes the chair gave her only public statement that the administrative unit must be wound up. Packet and approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| April 15, 2026 | Claremont School Board A superintendent chosen, a four-million-dollar misreading, and Unity’s withdrawal |
Regular meeting, six days after the SAU 6 board’s reorganization. The chair announced the superintendent decision and her own dissent, read an absent officer’s finance report and understated the district’s encumbrances by exactly four million dollars, voted to pay counsel to repair by-laws whose numbering is broken, and gave the public its first plain account of Unity’s withdrawal. Packet of six documents and approved minutes posted. | 5 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| April 9, 2026 | SAU 6 Board The reorganization meeting, eighty-three days before the separation |
SAU 6 Board reorganization meeting, eighty-three days before Unity’s withdrawal from the unit takes effect. The joint Claremont–Unity board elected a chair and a vice chair, took neither of the two votes its own agenda noticed, and spent an hour on a separation for which no planning-committee record or state approval has been located. Packet of three documents; no minutes exist for this meeting or the three before it. | 3 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| April 6, 2026 | Claremont School Board, superintendent candidate forum Eighty minutes of public questions, and no record but the tape |
Public candidate forum — eighty minutes of questions to the sole superintendent candidate brought to the district for a full-day interview. Announced from the chair at the meeting of 1 April and filmed by a board member as a volunteer. No agenda, packet or minutes exist for the evening, so the recording is the only record of it. | 2 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| April 1, 2026 | Claremont School Board A twenty-thousand-dollar scoreboard, and the end of SAU 6 inside an insurance vote |
Public hearing on a private donation, followed by the second meeting of the board seated after the 10 March election. The evening covered a twenty-thousand-dollar scoreboard, and the end of SAU 6 surfaced inside an insurance vote rather than as an item of its own. Packet posted, and approved minutes signed by the board clerk. | 1 HIGH 3 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| March 18, 2026 | Claremont School Board The organisational meeting after the vote |
Organisational meeting, eight days after the ballot. Two new members were sworn, a new chair elected, a motion to replace the vice chair defeated three to three, and every subcommittee reconstituted except the one choosing the superintendent. The state form reporting what the voters appropriated was signed at the only meeting available before its filing deadline; the operating budget passed and the petitioned cap did not. Packet and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| March 4, 2026 | Claremont School Board The last meeting before the ballot |
Regular meeting, the last of the 2025–26 board and six days before the March 10 ballot on a $42,957,713 operating budget and a petitioned budget cap. Neither article appears on the agenda, in the minutes, or on the recording. The board spent an hour on mid-year reading and mathematics data, adopted two policies, and asked why the salaries published to voters do not match the budget. Packet and approved minutes posted. | 5 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| February 18, 2026 | Claremont School Board, Public Hearing & Meeting Two warrant articles, then the board's own business |
Statutory public hearing on the two warrant articles going to the March 10 ballot — open enrollment and a petitioned budget cap — followed immediately by the regular board meeting. The cap hearing was also republished by CCTV as a recording of its own, which this archive covers on a separate page. Packet posted, and approved minutes covering both the hearing and the meeting. | 5 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| February 18, 2026 | Claremont School Board, Warrant Article 8 The statutory hearing on a petitioned budget cap |
Statutory public hearing on the petitioned budget cap, republished by CCTV as a recording of its own: forty-nine minutes on Warrant Article 8, twenty days before the ballot. The same evening’s open-enrollment hearing and regular meeting are on their own page in this archive. Packet and approved minutes posted. | 1 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| February 7, 2026 | Claremont School Board, Deliberative Session SB 2 first session: two amendments carried, a budget cap the statute does not fit |
Deliberative session — the first of the two sessions of the annual district meeting under SB 2, and not a board meeting: the body in the room was the registered voters of Claremont. Four hours, eight warrant articles, and the words “or lease” struck from both property articles, 105–36 on the first. An FY27 budget of $42,957,713 went to the ballot against a $44,449,704 default. Warrant posted; minutes still in draft. | 2 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 8 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| February 4, 2026 | Claremont School Board Athletics restored without a vote, three days before the warrant |
Regular meeting, the last before the voters took up the warrant at the deliberative session on Saturday 7 February. Athletics were restored to the budget without a vote being taken on the change, three days before the warrant went to the floor. Packet posted, and approved minutes produced and signed by the board clerk. | 1 HIGH 3 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| January 21, 2026 | Claremont School Board Budget adopted 4–3 and the warrant set |
The FY2026-27 budget fixed at $42,957,713 on a 4–3 vote, with roughly $1.9M of cuts left for administration to identify and athletics carried at $1 on the MS-26; the full March warrant set, including a petitioned budget cap the board declined to recommend 6–0–1; a "chief education officer" model adopted 6–1. Packet of 16 documents and approved minutes posted. | 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| January 20, 2026 | Claremont School Board, Public Hearing on Proposed Budgets Two budgets and a petitioned cap |
The statutory budget hearing: Option A (four-school aligned, $44,844,373) against Option B (current configuration, $46,211,951), both default budgets, and a petitioned budget cap disclosed publicly for the first time — estimated by the administration to force a $9,143,468 or 20.39% reduction. Fifteen residents spoke. Packet of one document and approved minutes posted. | 2 MEDIUM 1 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| January 7, 2026 | Claremont School Board, Public Hearing & Meeting Budget models and a closed session |
A $49,775 music-programme grant accepted; a closed session citing two different Right-to-Know provisions; the forensic audit stalled after two firms declined; and three school-configuration budgets put to separate votes — the four-school models advancing, the three-school model failing 3–4. Packet of three documents, approved, draft and unsealed nonpublic minutes posted. | 2 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| 2025 — 38 meetings | |||
| December 17, 2025 | Claremont School Board The restructuring models arrive |
FY27 restructuring models presented — four schools at $44,861,008 (rate 18.82) against three at $43,968,104 (18.09), on a current-year $43,179,564; roughly a dozen residents and the SREA president spoke against the pace. Budget calendar amended to a 1/20 hearing deadline. Clerk's stipend raised $300/month. The nonpublic session is minuted under the wrong statute. Packet of 10 documents, approved, draft and unsealed nonpublic minutes posted. | 2 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| December 12, 2025 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee The budget the board never saw in draft |
Subcommittee working session on the FY27 operating budget: the 2% target, a $1-per-vacancy benefits assumption, the SAU staffing build, a substitute line modelled at $185,000 against a $250,000 actual, athletics and arts, and the Bluff lease concept. Behaviour programmes disclosed as unbudgeted. No packet and no minutes posted for this meeting. | 3 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| December 10, 2025 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee The restructuring models are built |
Subcommittee working session where the three FY27 models were worked through before reaching the full board — enrolment projections, the $868,000 SchoolCare assessment, health-plan costs and prior-year bills paid from this year's appropriation. No packet and no minutes posted for this meeting. | 2 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| December 3, 2025 | Claremont School Board Curriculum, test scores and the search |
SAS results and school improvement plans presented in full; a Code Monkey curriculum purchase voted the night it appeared after the business administrator said policy IGA had been bypassed; a lapsed Title IV programme; the superintendent search assigned to Madden and Petrin; five meetings' minutes approved in one sitting. Packet of 12 items and approved minutes posted. | 3 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| November 19, 2025 | Claremont School Board Staffing counted out loud, post by post |
Ed 306 required subjects unstaffed at CMS — music, health and wellness, computer science, no school nurse — and special-education programmes running below the 1:1 paraprofessional support the district says IEPs prescribe. School psychology interns hired outside the board's knowledge and the appropriated budget. Truancy officer reinstated 4–2. Packet of 8 items; draft minutes only. | 2 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| November 13, 2025 | SAU 6 Board Five sets of minutes approved, and none for this meeting |
The quarter's shortest meeting. Forensic audit extended to SAU records; new banking controls; five meetings' minutes approved at once; Unity's withdrawal seven months out with "nothing to update." Packet of 4 documents — three of them draft minutes of earlier meetings. No minutes posted for this meeting, or for any SAU 6 meeting. | 3 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| November 5, 2025 | Claremont School Board Trust withdrawals, a forensic audit and the vacant seat |
A $150,000 capital reserve withdrawal made without the district vote RSA 35:15 requires, on a trustees' letter that does not state the purpose. Forensic auditor authorised at New Hampshire State Police request. The former business administrator's termination announced. The vacant seat filled on the third vote by reinstating Frank Sprague, 3–2 with one abstention. Packet of 1 document; draft and unsealed nonpublic minutes. | 1 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| November 5, 2025 | Claremont School Board, School Board Vacancy Discussion The seventh seat, filled on three votes of six |
Vacancy discussion — fifty minutes on one agenda item, republished by CCTV as a recording of its own. A six-member board that had already deadlocked three to three over two applicants filled its vacant seventh seat by reinstating the man who had resigned it, three votes to two with one abstention, after two further deadlocks and six residents speaking. Packet of one document, the agenda; minutes in draft. | 5 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| October 15, 2025 | Claremont School Board Tax rate, the late MS-25 and a suspension announced |
The FY25 MS-25 and DOE-25 put before the board for signature six weeks after the September 1 statutory deadline, with the special-education aid figure still unresolved — 9.18% or 6.08%, depending. A ten-cent-per-meal commitment signed by the former business administrator with no board vote. A $1.9M projected deficit. Conducted correctly under the electronic-participation rule. Packet of 19 documents; draft minutes only. | 1 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| October 6, 2025 | SAU 6 Board, Special Meeting A governance briefing, a sealed hour, and no minutes |
A governance and finance training session the board used to name its own oversight failures on camera, plus three central-office resignations. Nonpublic minutes sealed for five years with no statutory determination stated. Packet of 1 agenda. No minutes posted for this meeting, or for any SAU 6 meeting. | 2 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| October 6, 2025 | Claremont School Board, Special Meeting One item, twelve minutes, and no minutes at all |
Special meeting, twelve minutes, called to put back a school secretary post the board itself had abolished. It did that, skipped both of the other items its own notice promised, and heard three central-office resignations that were on no notice at all. One posted agenda; no minutes have been located anywhere, and the board’s December catch-up passed this meeting over. | 2 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| October 1, 2025 | Claremont School Board Deadlocked 3–3, and the FY2022 audit arrives in draft |
The FY2022 audit presented still in draft, more than three years after the period ended, with findings of oversight gaps, failed reconciliation and unsubstantiated balances — and FY2023–25 not yet begun. The board deadlocked 3–3 on the vacant seat. A resolution sought special legislation to borrow against next year's adequacy aid. Packet of 18 documents; no minutes in the Minutes share. | 2 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| September 17, 2025 | Claremont School Board Bluff closure voted 4–1 |
Vice Chair Petrin presided with the chair and the clerk both absent. The elementary principals presented their own plans and the board voted 4–1 to move Bluff School's students, staff and classrooms intact into Disnard and Maple Avenue by October 20, pending a fire-department inspection. A 6:00 p.m. nonpublic session appears in the notice but nowhere in the record. Packet of 7 documents; approved minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| September 11, 2025 | SAU 6 Board | The meeting that ended a superintendency: Christopher Pratt's resignation accepted, Kerry Kennedy appointed interim superintendent, and TMS Consulting engaged — each by voice vote, with no severance figure, effective date or compensation stated in public session. No minutes exist for this meeting in any district share. | 2 HIGH 1 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| September 10, 2025 | Claremont School Board Elementary consolidation tabled |
The administration's plan to close Bluff Elementary and reconfigure Disnard as K-2 and Maple Avenue as 3-5 by mid-October — opposed by all three building principals, tabled unanimously, then deferred 4–1 to the principals' own proposals. Eleven staff resignations reported; case managers carrying more than 40 students. Packet of 3 documents; draft minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 1 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| September 4, 2025 | SAU 6 Board | Joint Claremont–Unity board. Nearly the whole meeting — 84 of about 105 minutes — was a nonpublic session absent from the recording, with no sealing motion and no nonpublic minutes anywhere. A grant was accepted without its dollar value known, with the applying official absent. Packet of 2 documents; draft minutes posted. | 1 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| September 3, 2025 | Claremont School Board $4,000,000 note public hearing |
Noticed public hearing on $4,000,000 of borrowing against the district's state adequacy grant — opened by motion, held for two hours and forty-nine minutes, and approved 6–0 by roll call. Frank Sprague's resignation was announced from the floor, though the minutes never record it. Packet of 8 documents; draft minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| August 25, 2025 | Claremont School Board, Special Meeting Reduction in force and extracurricular cuts |
Three days before school opened: 20 positions eliminated (Howard opposed, Sprague abstaining) and the business administrator directed to eliminate or reduce all non-mandatory extracurricular and co-curricular programs (Sprague and Howard opposed). Athletics needed about $187,000 for the year with nothing committed. Neither tally is audible on the recording. Packet of 1 document; approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| August 20, 2025 | Claremont School Board Emergency financial meeting |
The night the crisis met the public: a letter from the Commissioner of Education, counsel on bankruptcy and receivership, the auditor's account that FY20 and FY21 were the last completed audits — and roughly three dozen citizens' comments taken by a volunteer moderator, after the scheduled financial presentation by the business administrator was never delivered. Packet of 2 documents; approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| August 14, 2025 | Claremont School Board | First public disclosure of a deficit of "anywhere between 1 and $5 million," which district counsel called a state of fiscal distress. Student handbooks and nine finance policies adopted; a 78-minute nonpublic session sealed for five years with no statutory finding stated on the record. Packet of 20 documents; approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 1 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| June 18, 2025 | Claremont School Board | The board went straight into nonpublic before conducting public business — motion naming (a) and (c), roll call taken, and the minutes never sealed. Superintendent Pratt and Vice Chair Petrin both absent; the business administrator attended remotely while on medical leave and named a structural deficit and $2.3 million in encumbrances on the record. A special-education opportunity review was presented. Packet of 8 documents; approved minutes and unsealed nonpublic minutes both posted. | 2 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| June 12, 2025 | SAU 6 Board | Short joint-board meeting: April minutes approved, meeting cadence set, then a nonpublic session under RSA 91-A:3, II(a) and (c). Twenty seconds of recording cover roughly forty minutes of wall clock, and the vote to seal sits inside that gap. This meeting's own draft minutes are filed in two later SAU packet folders while its own folder holds April's. | 3 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| June 3, 2025 | Claremont School Board | Grade 3–8 NH SAS results presented from a slide deck that is missing from the packet, then five policies adopted at a single read with no motion to suspend the rule — GBEF, JICL, JICK, IHBA and ADC — while CHCA was held for a second read over the superintendent's invitation to adopt it anyway. Crawford and Sprague absent. Packet of 10 documents; approved minutes posted. | 2 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| May 21, 2025 | Claremont School Board | A "non meeting" with legal counsel — lawful under RSA 91-A:2, I and not a nonpublic session. Tax-rate forms had overstated the surplus and $2,089,152 was returned to the city in error; federal grant money was spent but never claimed; a private gift over $1,000 was accepted with no motion, agenda item or minute. Policy JBAB adopted with the second read waived. Packet of 10 documents; approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 3 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| May 7, 2025 | Claremont School Board Five trust-fund withdrawals |
Vice Chair Petrin presiding with the chair absent. Five separate withdrawal motions totalling $888,998.42 across five funds — including $283,860 for two buses and $425,000 from the special-education expendable trust — each reimbursing spending already made, with no district vote or "agents to expend" designation anywhere in the record. The nonpublic minutes were released rather than sealed. Packet of 16 documents; approved minutes plus unsealed nonpublic minutes posted. | 2 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| April 16, 2025 | Claremont School Board Regular meeting with an RSA 198:20-b grant hearing |
A public hearing under RSA 198:20-b to accept a $44,300 state grant for industry-recognized credentials at the tech center — properly held, though the motion misstated the amount as $444,300. A roughly $20 million tech-center renovation concept was aired on an admittedly un-estimated number, and the board authorized up to $50,000 from a trust fund for the Maple Avenue alternative program without naming the fund. Packet of 13 documents; approved minutes posted. | 2 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| April 10, 2025 | SAU 6 Board Annual reorganization and audit status |
The annual reorganization — Hawkins elected chair, Ruggeri vice chair — and auditor Michael Campo's spring status report: FY2020 finished but never reviewed in a public meeting, FY2021 before the board, FY2022 delivered in draft that afternoon, FY2023 not begun, FY2024 untouched. The business administrator's fullest appearance anywhere in this record. Packet of 1 document, filed in the Claremont share; draft minutes filed in a later SAU folder. | 4 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| April 2, 2025 | Claremont School Board | A 41-minute recording of a meeting whose ninety-minute nonpublic session is excised from it. A citizen's comment proposed treating the district's policy manual as a "single source of truth" and documented fourteen broken links on the site — the speaker maintains this project, disclosed on the page. The deficit was put at about $1.4 million on the recording and $1.5 million in the minutes. Packet of 5 documents; approved minutes posted. | 3 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| March 19, 2025 | Claremont School Board Organizational meeting and the policy JBAB vote |
The organizational meeting seating the board elected March 11, with Petrin chosen vice chair in absentia. A motion to suspend enforcement of the district's transgender and gender-nonconforming students policy was amended on the floor to drop the suspension, and the amended motion — tabling any action pending review by the policy committee and counsel within three months — passed 3–2. The policy was neither suspended nor rescinded. Twenty-one members of the public spoke. Packet of 16 documents; approved minutes posted. | 1 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| March 17, 2025 | Claremont School Safety Public Discussion Superintendent's public forum |
A public forum convened and chaired by Superintendent Pratt after the February 11 lockdown at Stevens High School — no chair, no roll call, no motion and no vote in an hour and a half, and no quorum of the board shown on the recording, so the page does not assert that minutes were owed. Principals answered parents on drills, entry points and communication. No packet and no minutes exist in any district share. | 5 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| March 5, 2025 | Claremont School Board Regular meeting: FY2020 audit, YRBS data, safety specialist |
Six days before the ballot: auditor Michael Campo presented the FY2020 findings the agenda had labelled FY2021 — unbalanced checkbook, no credit-card policy, unauthorized reimbursements — and asked the board to name a member to track the audits, which it did. The minutes record the Acuity letter vote as unanimous while the recording has the chair voting no. A safety-specialist proposal was withdrawn rather than voted. Packet of 7 documents; approved minutes posted. | 3 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| February 19, 2025 | Claremont School Board Regular meeting (13-minute recording) |
Thirteen minutes of recording for a meeting the minutes say adjourned at 9:56 p.m. Four of five public speakers came about the Acuity waste-facility proposal, not the lockdown; one raised a teacher's dismissal and reinstatement. Nonpublic minutes sealed for ten years with no statutory determination recorded. Packet of 2 documents; approved minutes posted. | 1 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| February 5, 2025 | Claremont School Board | A 25-minute broadcast around a 55-minute nonpublic session spliced out of it. The nonpublic motion named its exemption on the face of the motion and was roll-called both ways, but the minutes were sealed for five years with no statutory finding stated. A point of order forced the RSA 198:20-b threshold to be checked before a $14,000 acceptance vote. The FY2021 audit item was struck from the agenda again. | 1 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| February 1, 2025 | Claremont School Board, Deliberative Session First session of the annual district meeting |
The first session of the district meeting under RSA 40:13 — run by Moderator Tracy Pope, not the board. Four warrant articles were explained and sent to the March ballot exactly as printed: no amendment was moved and no voter spoke. The moderator asked that discussion be limited to comments rather than questions “which should have been asked at an earlier public meeting”, against a statute that provides for explanation, discussion and debate. Packet of 4 documents; approved minutes posted. | 1 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| January 21, 2025 | Claremont School Board FY26 warrant to the deliberative session |
The meeting that put the FY26 warrant on the ballot, and the only one of the quarter with no packet folder at all. The nonpublic motion cited RSA 91-A:3 without naming a paragraph II exemption on its face, and the minutes were sealed for seven years with no statutory determination recorded. Playground spending was proposed from “the trust” without identifying the fund. Approved minutes posted. | 2 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| January 15, 2025 | Claremont School Board, Budget Public Hearing RSA 32:5 budget hearing |
The RSA 32:5 budget hearing on a $42,933,564 proposed budget — held 55 days before the March ballot session, with nothing inserted into the appropriation afterward, and public comment taken well past the statutory floor. Seven days' published notice is not evidenced in the packet or the minutes. Packet of 4 documents; approved minutes posted. | 2 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| January 7, 2025 | Claremont School Board Contract ratifications, policy slate, and the FY26 budget to public hearing |
Budget season with the full pre-election board. A $255,000 property purchase was decided in nonpublic session, with the sealing motion recording no statutory ground; pre-kindergarten was eliminated on a unanimous voice vote over a written dissent read into the record; and the year's budget leaned on roughly $1.9 million of extraordinary aid the finance chair called “very much of a year to year thing”. Packet of 12 documents; approved minutes and unsealed nonpublic minutes posted. | 1 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| January 6, 2025 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee FY26 budget-building session |
The clearest record anywhere of how the FY26 budget was actually built — an hour and three-quarters of line-by-line work with all five building administrators, who talked the board out of a student-services restructure and watched pre-K come out at about $500,000. A subcommittee is a public body under the Right-to-Know Law, and no notice, no agenda, no packet and no minutes for this meeting exist in any district share. | 1 HIGH 1 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| 2024 — 30 meetings | |||
| December 18, 2024 | Claremont School Board The night the budget did not move |
Regular meeting at which the budget did not move: with two collective bargaining agreements unratified, the chair said the board had to stay “pretty mum” about its bottom line, and the only FY26 figure spoken was a $39,791,261 default disclosed with no worksheet and no document. The one money vote was an $857,592 seven-year lease added at the table. Packet of 10 documents and approved minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| December 18, 2024 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee the FY2026 budget reaches a target |
Finance Subcommittee afternoon work session, at which the FY2026 budget arrived at a number: three board members, four administrators, no agenda, no motion and no vote, and a closing direction to find another $200,000 and land the whole thing at about four per cent. The full board met in the same building hours later and none of those figures reached its record. No agenda, packet or minutes exist. | 1 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| December 13, 2024 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee The FY2026 draft budget, school by school |
Finance Subcommittee work session — two hours and twenty-three minutes walking the draft FY2026 budget building by building with the superintendent, the business administrator and the director of student services. A proposal to close the district preschool, unmet special-education staffing needs, and a percentage never attached to a dollar total all entered the record here. No agenda, packet, minutes or posted notice exist. | 2 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 1 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| December 12, 2024 | SAU 6 Board, FY26 Budget Public Hearing A fifty-five-minute hearing at which no total, no increase and no percentage was ever said out loud |
SAU 6 budget public hearing and adoption. In fifty-five minutes nobody stated the budget’s total, its increase or any percentage; the sheet in the room printed a 0.67 per cent decrease, while the $2,755,723 the board then voted is 10.71 per cent above FY25. Packet of eight documents, posted the afternoon of the meeting; minutes approved in April 2025 and never published. | 3 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 8 OBSERVATION 6 POSITIVE |
| December 4, 2024 | Claremont School Board The budget season opens without a number |
Regular meeting opening the FY26 budget season, in which not one dollar figure about the district’s own money was spoken in eighty-five minutes. The noticed default-budget item was replaced from the chair by a calendar of three Finance Committee meetings, one of them a closed-door rehearsal. Two students presented a stress survey of 194 people. Packet of four documents and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 8 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| November 21, 2024 | SAU 6 Board, Strategic Plan Presentation Forty-five minutes of business before the meeting began, and five minutes fifty seconds of meeting |
Single-item SAU 6 meeting on the five-year strategic plan. The board had no quorum at the noticed hour, so the presentation and every word of discussion happened before the gavel, forty-five minutes into the recording; the noticed citizens’ comment period was never called; and the plan was adopted without a dollar figure being spoken. Packet of two documents, posted four and a half hours before the vote; minutes in draft. | 2 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| November 20, 2024 | Claremont School Board The consent agenda that swallowed two meetings |
Regular meeting. In seventy-one minutes the board ratified a two-year teachers’ agreement no member of the public could read, and carried two sets of minutes through its consent agenda without discussion — one of them recording an unfilmed meeting six nights earlier, forty minutes of it behind a closed door. It then held its own nonpublic session and produced no minutes of that either. Packet of six documents and approved minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| November 19, 2024 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee FY2026 budget-request walkthrough |
Finance Subcommittee work session — the first FY2026 budget session on tape, with every principal and district director in one room presenting their building’s requests to a three-member subcommittee. No motions, no votes and no adjournment. No agenda, packet or minutes for this meeting exist in any district share, so the recording is the record. | 2 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| November 14, 2024 | SAU 6 Board The seal review happens, the raises are handed to the superintendent, and a second meeting nobody filmed |
Regular SAU 6 meeting. The board carried out the sealed-minutes review its own new policy required and released eight sets of nonpublic minutes, handed the superintendent the authority to set next year’s staff raises, and adopted six policies at a single first reading with the sample publisher’s drafting notes still in them. A second, unfilmed board meeting followed in the same room. Packet of ten documents; minutes in draft. | 3 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 6 POSITIVE |
| October 16, 2024 | Claremont School Board Sixteen days after the federal deadline |
Regular meeting, sixteen days after the federal ESSER obligation deadline. ESSER was mentioned twice: once to explain where a van came from, and once when the Finance chair asked for its final disposition and was told the numbers were still being assembled. The board voted to retain up to $350,000 of the FY24 surplus on an exhibit the public packet does not contain. Packet of eight documents and approved minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 9 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| October 2, 2024 | Claremont School Board The first meeting after the deadline |
Regular meeting, the first after the September 30 federal ESSER obligation deadline. The board’s own minutes a fortnight earlier had promised a report on that money in October; there was no finance item on the agenda, the business administrator was not in the room, and ESSER was spoken once in forty-seven minutes, by a counsellor in an aside. Packet of six documents and approved minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 9 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 6 POSITIVE |
| September 30, 2024 | Claremont School Board and City Council, Joint Meeting Two public bodies, one set of minutes |
Joint meeting of the school board and the city council — the only one in this archive, and the first between the two bodies in several years. Two hours and ten minutes, five presentations, no vote of any kind, and one set of minutes left behind between two public bodies. It fell on the day every dollar of federal ESSER money had to be obligated. No packet and no separately posted agenda; approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 9 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| September 18, 2024 | Claremont School Board Twelve days before the federal deadline |
Regular meeting, the last before the September 30 federal ESSER obligation deadline. The board’s entire treatment of that deadline occupies about ninety seconds of a sixty-two-minute recording and ends with the subject deferred to October. The same night it received the FY26 budget calendar, which nobody voted on. Packet of five documents and approved minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 11 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| September 12, 2024 | SAU 6 Board Pratt confirmed, four policies, and Unity told what its 7.8 percent buys |
Regular SAU 6 meeting, the joint board’s first in five months. It announced Christopher Pratt’s appointment as superintendent by announcement rather than by vote, three months after it took effect; learned that the central office’s health insurance had already been moved to a different carrier and took no vote on it; and revised its own organizational policy in terms that do not match RSA 194-C. Packet of thirteen documents; minutes in draft. | 1 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| September 4, 2024 | Claremont School Board The first meeting of the school year, twenty-six days before the ESSER deadline |
Regular meeting, the first of the school year and twenty-six days before the ESSER deadline. Five of seven members, four items all carried over from August, no financial report, no superintendent’s report, and the word ESSER never spoken. The board reversed a roll-call vote taken a fortnight earlier and gave direction without a motion on a report about Unity’s place in SAU 6. Packet of five documents and approved minutes posted. | 6 HIGH 10 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| August 21, 2024 | Claremont School Board A position filled before the board created it |
Regular meeting. The board learned that a newly created administrative post had already been offered and accepted before the board created it, then entered nonpublic session on a motion that stated no exemption at all, declined to seal the minutes, and filed none. It also elected thirty-one teachers and changed a regular meeting date in perpetuity by voice vote. Packet of eight documents and approved minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 11 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| June 20, 2024 | Claremont School Board The last meeting before the fiscal year and the summer |
Regular meeting, the last before the fiscal year closed and the board’s summer recess. It voted $583,000 for two roofs under an agenda item headed “Financial Update (Discussion),” naming no source of funds, on the recommendation of a subcommittee with no notice, agenda or minutes; and it created a new standing body and changed two chairs without a vote. Packet of eleven documents; approved minutes reached the public share on 8 August. | 3 HIGH 10 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| June 5, 2024 | Claremont School Board By-laws adopted by a bare quorum |
Regular meeting, and the one that adopted the twenty-two-page Claremont School Board By-Laws. It opened with the chair announcing that there was no quorum, paused, and then ran the whole evening on four of seven members. Also on the night: three student handbooks, the ESSER-funded strategic-planning engagement described from the chair as budget neutral, and state assessment results at about half the state average in mathematics. Packet of thirteen documents and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| May 15, 2024 | Claremont School Board The $54,000 that nobody moved |
Regular meeting, all seven members present, three motions carried on uncounted voice votes. The board authorised an unbudgeted pre-bond architectural payment: the proposal, the request, the motion and the chair’s question were all $50,000, and the agenda and both the draft and approved minutes record $54,000, with no source of appropriation named anywhere. Packet of ten documents and approved minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 11 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| April 17, 2024 | Claremont School Board The meeting that took the place of one that never happened |
Regular meeting, the board’s only one in April and the first with all seven seats filled since the March election. It stood in for a 3 April meeting for which no record of any kind exists and that nothing says was cancelled; the ESSER balance presentation scheduled for that night never happened. The district’s federal grant assurances were accepted with no motion and no vote. Packet of five documents and approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| April 11, 2024 | SAU 6 Board Annual reorganization, eight policies, Unity's withdrawal |
The joint Claremont–Unity board’s annual reorganization: Arlene Hawkins re-elected chair and Rocco Ruggeri vice chair in ninety seconds, with no secretary or treasurer chosen although RSA 194-C:5 names all three offices. Eight policies moved in one sitting, including a Title IX grievance policy the chair says the SAU had gone without since the 2020 federal regulations took effect, and a §504 grievance procedure tabled after a member argued such complaints belong at the Office for Civil Rights. Unity’s withdrawal reaches this board for the first time. Packet of 9 documents; draft minutes exist but are filed in the 9/12/24 packet and were approved 154 days after the meeting. | 1 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| March 20, 2024 | Claremont School Board The organizational meeting, and the year’s roster |
Organizational meeting after the 12 March district election, and the source for the board’s 2024–25 officers, subcommittees and delegate. The chair and vice chair were re-elected on uncounted voice votes taken before the roll call of attendance, and every subcommittee appointment was disposed of by “no objection” on an agenda that headed each item “Nomination/Vote.” Packet of seven documents and approved minutes posted. | 4 HIGH 11 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| March 6, 2024 | Claremont School Board The outgoing board spends the $420,000 it was holding |
Regular meeting, the last of the board elected in 2023 and six days before the district election. Its central item was a statutory public hearing on transferring $420,000 of retained fund balance into the FY2024 general fund; a motion to wait two weeks for the ballot result failed, the operative argument against it being that the board would not be the same board in two weeks. Packet of six documents and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| February 21, 2024 | Claremont School Board The night the board adopted the record of a meeting that has no other record |
Regular meeting with the largest packet in this archive, twenty-four documents. The one that matters most runs three pages, carries no attendance, no times and no location, and records a meeting with no video, no notice and no agenda; the board approved it on the consent agenda without a motion, a second or a vote. Packet of 24 documents and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| February 15, 2024 | SAU 6 Board The first meeting under a new interim superintendent, whose contract does not appear on it |
Regular SAU 6 meeting, the first with Christopher Pratt sitting as interim superintendent. Five policies were disposed of in about seventy minutes, three of them adopted at a reading the agenda had noticed as a first read. The evening opened with a fifty-six-minute nonpublic session of which the published recording contains sixteen seconds. Packet of ten documents; minutes in draft. | 3 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| February 3, 2024 | Claremont School Board, Deliberative Session SB 2 first session: five articles, one typo, no amendment |
Deliberative session — the first of the two sessions of the annual district meeting under SB 2, and not a board meeting: the body in the room was the registered voters of Claremont. Ninety-three minutes, five warrant articles, and the voters’ power exercised once, to correct “2015” to “2025.” The FY25 budget went to the ballot exactly as written, at $39,582,407. Packet of nine documents; draft and approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| January 17, 2024 | Claremont School Board The night the FY25 budget got its final number |
Regular meeting, and the one that fixed the FY25 budget at $36,117,406.87 — $196,001.10 below the figure carried into the hearing two weeks earlier, and $210,633 above the default. The board took two votes, neither counted; the approved minutes name a mover for the night’s only amendment whom the recording does not support; and the budget documents showed no revenue of any kind. Packet of fourteen documents and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 6 POSITIVE |
| January 11, 2024 | SAU 6 Board The superintendent is terminated and a successor appointed, both effective the next day |
SAU 6 Board meeting — the night the unit changed superintendents. Under an agenda item consisting of the single word “Superintendent,” and after a sixty-eight-minute nonpublic session whose minutes were sealed for thirty years, the board terminated Michael Tempesta’s contract with six months’ severance and appointed Christopher Pratt interim superintendent, both effective the next day, 10–1–1 with no member speaking to either motion. Packet of four documents; minutes in draft. | 2 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| January 5, 2024 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee The $688,426.17 answered, and the meeting nobody could watch |
Finance Subcommittee work session, two days after the statutory budget hearing. The $688,426.17 credit the committee had chased since December turned out to be a plug for grant-funded salaries never distributed to the lines they belonged on, leaving $16,830 unplaced; the chair reported about half a million more in prior-year misentries. The committee then scheduled a further session and decided on camera not to televise it. No minutes exist. | 2 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| January 3, 2024 | Claremont School Board, FY25 Budget Public Hearing The statutory budget hearing under RSA 32:5 |
Budget public hearing — the one hearing state law requires before a district asks its voters for money. The board presented an operating budget of $36,313,407.97 against a default of $35,906,774, and not one member of the public spoke; every question in the forty-one minutes came from the board itself. Packet of seven documents and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| 2023 — 35 meetings | |||
| December 20, 2023 | Claremont School Board The FY2025 budget goes to hearing |
Regular meeting, and the hinge of the FY2025 budget season: after five televised finance sessions in nineteen days, the board voted to send a budget of $36,313,407.97 to public hearing, and the approved minutes record the motion, its mover and its seconder but not the amount. It also ratified three collective bargaining agreements and spent two hours and twenty-nine minutes in nonpublic session. Packet of five documents and approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| December 18, 2023 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee FY2025 budget, the last working session |
Finance Subcommittee work session, the fifth and last of the FY2025 budget season. No total is spoken in two hours and twenty-four minutes; the largest figure on the table is an increase of 1.783 million, about $350,000 more than the board moved two days later. The session ends with the chair clearing the room for a members-only caucus, and the recording stops. No agenda, packet or minutes exist. | 2 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| December 14, 2023 | SAU 6 Board, FY25 Budget Public Hearing The budget is adopted, and a 35-minute nonpublic session vanishes from the tape |
SAU 6 budget public hearing and adoption: $2,489,151.03, up $93,151.03 or 3.89 per cent, eighteen days inside the statutory deadline and after a hearing that lasted about sixty-seven seconds. The minutes place a thirty-five-minute nonpublic session inside a twenty-two-minute recording, and the board approved 7 December minutes that exist in no public share. Packet of three documents; minutes in draft. | 2 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 8 OBSERVATION 6 POSITIVE |
| December 13, 2023 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee FY2025 budget review, day four |
Finance Subcommittee work session, the fourth of the FY2025 season and the last before the committee reported to the full board. Nobody in the room could say what the total was: the chair says so out loud, and the business administrator confirms that the summary page in the members’ binder had already been superseded. No agenda, packet or minutes exist in any district share. | 2 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| December 7, 2023 | SAU 6 Board The FY25 budget meeting, and the minutes that were approved and never published |
SAU 6 Board meeting on the FY25 budget — thirty-nine minutes as published, with the caucus recess and the nonpublic session edited out. The board took the proposal from 8.12 to 4.25 per cent in one sitting and moved $2,497,924 to a hearing the statute does not require, then sealed nonpublic minutes for ninety-nine years with the chair voting no. The public minutes were approved a week later and never published. Packet of three documents. | 2 HIGH 8 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 7 POSITIVE |
| December 6, 2023 | Claremont School Board Two schedules, one vote |
Regular meeting, thirty-five recorded minutes. The board came out of a nonpublic session with two officials of another district having voted to become Croydon’s anchor district, sealing the discussion for six months; adopted two different Programs of Studies for the same school year in a single motion; and heard its Finance Subcommittee report that the record of five budget sessions is the CCTV broadcast. Packet of four documents; draft and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 8 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| December 6, 2023 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee FY2025 budget review: facilities and special education |
Finance Subcommittee work session, the third in seven days on the FY2025 budget, bringing in the buildings-and-grounds and special-education directors. On camera the district’s own officers establish that the current year’s budget did not account for positions needed or vacant, that a supply line is still charged for a programme closed about a decade ago, and that a social worker is counted twice. No agenda, packet or minutes exist. | 2 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 1 POSITIVE |
| December 1, 2023 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee FY2025 budget review, day two |
Finance Subcommittee work session — three hours line by line through the secondary-school and district-wide halves of the FY2025 budget, the morning after an evening on the elementary schools. The business administrator tells the committee the current year’s budget contains a negative line of $688,426.17 she cannot account for, and the chair finds one employee budgeted in two places at once. No agenda, packet or minutes exist. | 2 HIGH 3 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| November 30, 2023 | Claremont School Board Finance Committee FY2025 elementary budget review |
Finance Subcommittee work session, the opening night of the FY2025 budget season: three board members, four administrators and the three elementary principals going line by line through the elementary school budgets on live television, with no agenda, no motions, no votes and no adjournment. No agenda, packet or minutes exist in any district share. | 1 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| November 15, 2023 | Claremont School Board A clerk is appointed, and stops the meeting |
Regular meeting. The district clerk’s seat, empty since March, was filled — by a woman who had already stopped the meeting to tell the board it had sealed minutes the wrong way. The state told Claremont that Bluff Elementary is in the lowest-performing five per cent in New Hampshire, and the business administrator reported roughly $300,000 of federal pandemic money unclaimed. Packet of five documents; draft and approved minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 6 POSITIVE |
| November 9, 2023 | SAU 6 Board A clerk appointed, and the office the statute names still empty |
Regular SAU 6 meeting, sixty-two minutes of business. The board appointed Noelle Kronberg as its clerk in the first four minutes, after withdrawing an earlier motion when told the Claremont seat was Claremont’s to fill; the office of secretary that RSA 194-C:5 actually names was left empty. It also adopted four objectives and sixteen key results with no timeline attached. Packet of six documents and minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| November 1, 2023 | Claremont School Board The pre-K case, the clerk's pay, and a 50-year seal |
Regular meeting built around the administration’s five-point plan to rebuild the district’s early-childhood programme, including a first-ever fee for regular-education families; the board received it, asked for a timeline in January, and took no vote on any of it. It did vote to approach the paraprofessionals’ union, raise the district clerk’s pay, and set an FY25 tuition rate of $16,000. Packet of seventeen documents, the largest of 2023, and minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| October 18, 2023 | Claremont School Board The athletic-fields licence, the fund balance, and an attendance record missing two members |
Regular meeting. No roll call was taken and the minutes account for only five of the board’s seven members; one of the two omitted speaks eight times on the recording. The board took the first public vote this archive can find on a $30,000-a-year municipal athletic-fields licence whose term had already run seven weeks, and heard how far the district’s audits had fallen behind. Packet of nine documents and approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 3 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| October 4, 2023 | Claremont School Board Twelve NHSBA resolutions, a policy adopted, and no subcommittee minutes anywhere |
Regular meeting. The board worked through the New Hampshire School Boards Association’s twelve proposed resolutions one at a time, taking a recorded position on each ten days before the delegate assembly, and adopted policy GBE on second reading. A capital-improvements report from a building tour found two roof sections unreplaced, a floor failing on a badly laid subfloor, and a building management system broken for years. Packet of five documents and minutes posted. | 4 HIGH 2 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| September 20, 2023 | Claremont School Board The tax-rate primer, and a set of minutes that never came |
Regular meeting. Its substance is a twelve-minute public walkthrough of how Claremont’s school tax rate is built, every figure of which ties to the packet and to the statutory formula. Around it: a nonpublic session entered on a miscited exemption and sealed for ten years, and the previous meeting’s minutes postponed for want of a draft that still does not exist. Packet of five documents and minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| September 6, 2023 | Claremont School Board Board governance, the Yondr rollout, and a meeting with no minutes |
Regular meeting. The recording stops mid-sentence after fifty-two minutes, on the second of seven discussion items, so for the last two thirds of the agenda — a nonpublic session, a six-year athletic-fields licence and the second read of the policy governing public comment — there is no public record of any kind. Packet of thirteen documents, the richest governance packet of 2023; no minutes exist. | 2 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| August 17, 2023 | SAU 6 Board The treasurer refilled, the secretary still missing, and a purchase already made |
Regular SAU 6 meeting, eighty-two minutes. The board refilled the treasurer’s office its July chair election had emptied but took no countable vote on it; suspended policy CBI because the superintendent had not been evaluated in a timely manner, a vote that appears nowhere in the minutes; and learned that a roughly $120,000 software purchase had already been made before it voted to approve it. Packet of nine documents; minutes in draft. | 4 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| August 16, 2023 | Claremont School Board The last meeting before school opens |
Regular meeting, the last before school opened: seventy-four minutes, four of seven members, no superintendent, and eight recorded votes, every one unanimous and taken by four members. Three student handbooks were approved with amendments that did not yet exist in writing, two health policies adopted in thirty-three seconds, and nineteen educators elected in twenty-four. Packet of thirteen documents and minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 9 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| August 9, 2023 | Claremont School Board Special meeting: The Academy at the Tech Center |
Special meeting on a single item, two hours long: whether to put an alternative-education programme for struggling Stevens High School students inside a career and technical education centre that state statute reserves for career and technical education exclusively. The board approved it 4–3 on a raised-hand vote, with the legal opinion it had commissioned still unwritten. Packet of three documents and minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| August 2, 2023 | Claremont School Board Handbooks, adequacy aid and two health policies |
Regular meeting, two hours and forty minutes of back-to-school business for a district short of teachers, drivers and time: three student handbooks brought in draft, a bus-driver shortage waiver renewed for one season only, the first full account of the new adequacy-aid formula from a business administrator four weeks into the job, and two health policies moved on a first read. Packet of twelve documents and minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| July 19, 2023 | Claremont School Board Filling the vacant seat |
Regular meeting. Its single action of consequence was the appointment of a seventh board member: three residents applied for the seat Steven Horsky vacated on 21 June, each answered the same three questions at the podium, and the board chose between two nominees on a 4–2 show of hands. Packet and minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| July 13, 2023 | SAU 6 Board A chair elected by show of hands, and two statutory offices left empty |
Regular SAU 6 meeting. The board elected a new chair by show of hands, and only after a member’s point of order stopped a paper ballot; that election moved the treasurer into the chair and left the treasurer’s office empty, on a board that had never chosen a secretary. The chair was told that retirement money withheld from teachers’ pay had gone unforwarded for months. Packet of four items; minutes in draft. | 1 HIGH 8 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| June 21, 2023 | Claremont School Board Last meeting of the school year |
Regular meeting, the last of the 2022–23 school year. It opened with an hour and a half in nonpublic session, came back into public view for Steven Horsky’s resignation effective immediately, added $90,000 to the Stevens High School roof job, raised every school meal price, and adopted the policy that governs how this board adopts policy. Packet and minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| June 7, 2023 | Claremont School Board A $5,500 gift over the threshold, a 177-day calendar, and a retreat dated 2020 |
Regular meeting. The board accepted a $5,500 donation from a national foundation — over the $5,000 threshold that then triggered a mandatory prior hearing with seven days’ newspaper notice, which nothing in the record shows — and approved changes to a school-year calendar printing 177 student days, three below the statutory 180, on the consent agenda without a vote. Packet of eleven documents and minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 11 MEDIUM 8 OBSERVATION 4 POSITIVE |
| May 11, 2023 | SAU 6 Board A business administrator, a third-read adoption, a ten-year seal |
Regular SAU 6 meeting. The board appointed the SAU’s business administrator on an item the posted agenda does not contain, adopted policy GCQB-R at third and final read in a text still missing the amendment it had voted in four weeks earlier and still citing a United Kingdom statute, and sealed nonpublic minutes for ten years without stating any statutory ground. Packet of seven items; minutes in draft. | 2 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| May 3, 2023 | Claremont School Board The special-education report, an ASL class, and the CCTV appointment |
Regular meeting carried by two items: an hour-long report from the Director of Special Education, and the appointment of a board member to the board of Claremont Community Television. An appendix to the special-education report lists individual students by name, grade and disability programme on the district’s public share. The board also approved an American Sign Language class at Stevens over its vice chair’s lone no. Packet of six documents and minutes posted. | 3 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 6 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| April 19, 2023 | Claremont School Board Regular meeting: a $500,000 capital-reserve roof vote, an ELA purchase with no price, and a public-participation policy pulled from the agenda |
Regular meeting. The chair arrived late, and her first act was to strike from the agenda the one item marked “Vote required.” The board approved a district-wide literacy purchase for which no dollar figure appears anywhere in the record, filled six subcommittees and a delegate seat without a vote, and voted to release up to $500,000 from the Capital Reserve Trust Fund for a leaking roof. Packet of seven documents and minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 7 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| April 13, 2023 | SAU 6 Board Policy second reads, a new treasurer, a 50-year seal |
Regular SAU 6 meeting, the first since the board elected new officers on 30 March. It took second reads of the two policies opened two weeks earlier and finished them differently, one adopted and one sent to a third read; elected a treasurer who twice asked to think about it first; and sealed a two-minute nonpublic session’s minutes for fifty years without stating any ground. Packet of seven items; minutes in draft. | 5 MEDIUM 7 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| April 5, 2023 | Claremont School Board Organizational meeting: officers elected, a transportation waiver, two donations and the tech-center plan |
Organizational meeting, the first of the seven-member board seated by the March 14 election. The superintendent presided over the officer election in the first two minutes, on unanimous voice votes with no count taken. The board approved a liability waiver letting approved adults drive middle-school athletes in private cars, against its own attorney’s earlier advice, and committed $47,900 of ESSER money to a tech-center study. Packet of nine documents and minutes posted. | 6 MEDIUM 2 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| March 30, 2023 | SAU 6 Board The annual reorganization: a 6–5 paper ballot |
Annual SAU 6 organizational meeting. Claremont’s delegation went from six seats to seven, and the chairmanship passed from Unity to Claremont on a 6–5 paper ballot whose individual votes no public record contains. The superintendent read the business administrator’s retirement letter, effective in fifteen days, and the board elected a chair and a vice chair but not the secretary and treasurer the statute names. Packet of eleven documents; minutes in draft. | 1 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 5 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| March 1, 2023 | Claremont School Board ESSER update and the last meeting before the election |
Regular meeting and public hearing, the last before the March 14 election that removed the chair. Its substance was a single accounting: with seven months left to run on the ESSER II obligation deadline the district had drawn down $389,390 of a $2,879,320.86 allocation and still had $269,878.54 unbudgeted, and the assistant superintendent presenting the grants said he had never done ESSER reporting. Packet and minutes posted. | 3 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 5 POSITIVE |
| February 16, 2023 | SAU 6 Board Superintendent evaluation, Teach United, a 99-year seal |
Regular SAU 6 meeting. The board adopted a written superintendent-evaluation process, tool and calendar after its chair said on the record that the board had not been very good at that in recent years; the chair stated that the SAU had missed its December budget hearing; and a nonpublic session was voted, held and sealed for not longer than ninety-nine years while the microphone kept running. Packet of four documents; minutes in draft. | 1 HIGH 6 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| February 15, 2023 | Claremont School Board Adding $600,000 to the default budget |
Regular meeting, one week after the deliberative session put $1,000,000 back into the operating budget. The one number still in the board’s own hands was the default budget: the chair cut off a grade-reconfiguration presentation, a member moved to add $600,000, and it carried 4–2 on a roll call. The result, $36,942,948, is the default printed on the March 14 ballot. Packet of six documents and minutes posted. | 1 HIGH 3 MEDIUM 4 OBSERVATION 3 POSITIVE |
| February 8, 2023 | Claremont School Board, Deliberative Session SB 2 first session: the $1,000,000 amendment |
Deliberative session — the first of the two sessions of the annual district meeting under SB 2, and not a board meeting: the body in the room was the registered voters of Claremont, presided over by the district moderator. A voter moved from the floor to put $1,000,000 back into the operating budget; after about forty-eight minutes of debate and a secret ballot the amendment carried 41–27. Packet of seven documents and approved minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 5 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |
| February 1, 2023 | Claremont School Board Budget reduction and grade reconfiguration |
Regular meeting, one week after the board voted 5–1 to cut a further $1,000,000 and one week before the deliberative session. In two and three quarter hours the administration explained how it proposed to find the money — moving pre-K, grade 5 and grade 8 between buildings and shifting about sixty per cent of the savings onto grants. Seventeen residents spoke, nearly all against the timing. Packet and minutes posted. | 2 HIGH 4 MEDIUM 3 OBSERVATION 2 POSITIVE |