Participants
Everyone heard or addressed on the recording. Spellings follow the project's 2015-2023 roster where the transcript garbles a name; there are no minutes to check spellings against. Speaker labels come from the dialogue file and its attribution report.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Marjorie (Marge) Erickson | Chair, SAU 6 Board; member (Unity) | Presides. Sets ground rules for debate (0:07:28); reads the New Hampshire School Boards Association consultant's advice on search committees (1:46:58); restates each motion before the votes. She speaks as a Unity member at 2:06:46. The roster records her election as SAU 6 chair on June 14, 2018; she is not named at a presiding turn, and the attribution report rates the identification high. Her voice cluster also carries some of LeClair's and Lowe's turns, split on content. |
| Sara Lowe | Member (Unity) | Presses the business administrator on why 2019-20 wages already include last year's merit raises (0:34:02); argues the search committee must set the qualities sought before any advertisement (1:52:13); proposes adding the special education director to the committee (1:59:41). Transcribed "Sarah Wall" in the roll call. |
| Prudence (Prue) McCormick | Member (Unity) | Abstains on the August minutes (0:06:17); recalls that the last superintendent search committee had 11 or 12 members (1:54:39); objects to the seating ("I feel like we're segregated.", 2:50:32). Transcribed "Lucas McCormick" in the roll call. |
| Craig (surname not established) | Member (Unity) | Called in the roll ("Carol. Craig, shoot.", 0:01:09). No attributed rows; one unnamed Unity-side question about the Unity principal (2:05:39) may be his, and is left Unidentified. |
| Robert McDevitt | Member (Unity) | Absent ("And Robert McDevitt." / "Not present.", 0:01:22). |
| Frank Sprague | Member; chair of the Claremont School Board | Asks about substitute costs (0:31:53) and job descriptions (0:58:31); seconds the September 28 deadline amendment (2:17:23) and the nonpublic motion (2:52:20); asks whether the enrollment consultant also studies administrative organization (2:44:33). Voice identification medium. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Member; vice chair of the Claremont School Board | Asks for laptop estimates (0:31:19) and why the merit pool is budgeted at the maximum (0:44:20); questions the grant manager's cost (1:14:36); "I'll fight really hard to be on whatever the committee is." (1:44:59). |
| Jason Benware | Member (Claremont) | Questions laptop replacement at "$1,400 each" (0:27:21) and curriculum staffing (1:03:34); seconds the search committee motion (1:58:32) and the leadership-team amendment (2:11:01); moves the break (2:20:13); asks how accurate enrollment projections are (2:45:35). |
| Steven Horsky | Member (Claremont) | Questions the 2% raise already in a salary line (0:23:36), the furniture line ("a double dip", 1:23:28) and a rent figure (1:27:37); moves the search committee (1:58:05) and both amendments (2:10:37, 2:16:42); moves the nonpublic session (2:51:28). Transcribed "Steven Horsey". |
| Michael Petrin | Member (Claremont) | Supports the "three, two, two" structure and says each board should choose its own members (1:46:24). Transcribed "Michael Peterson" in the roll call. |
| Michelle Pierce | Member (Claremont) | Arrives during the minutes item (0:05:19); asks to hold questions until sections are presented (1:15:52); moves an amendment to seat senior members on the search committee, which dies for want of a second (2:01:32, 2:04:52); then offers to "remove myself and maybe we can come to a determination that way" (2:09:37); leaves after the committee vote (2:19:52). Transcribed "Shall pierce". |
| Carolyn Towle | Member (Claremont) | Asks how the summary and detail reports correspond (0:52:48) and when the board reviews job descriptions (0:57:48, 2:35:18); prefers that each board pick its committee members and run forums (1:57:23); asks about open positions (2:39:25). Transcribed "Carolyn tall"; some of her questions sit in the chair's voice cluster. |
| Dr. Keith Pfeifer | Interim Superintendent, SAU 6 | Introduces the draft budget (0:12:56); superintendent's report (2:38:46); proposes a NESDEC enrollment study for 1186 [$1,186] (2:44:02). Transcribed "Doctor Pica" and "doctor Pepper". |
| Cory LeClair | Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6 | Explains the shared tech integrator (0:20:57), the timing of the July 1 raises (0:35:01), split positions and the indirect cost rate (1:02:50), grants (1:14:46) and the removal of the SAU curriculum position (1:30:33). Voice shares a cluster with the chair; turns assigned on content (medium confidence). |
| Michael (Mike) O'Neill | Business Administrator, SAU 6 | Walks through the budget by function (1:06:15); explains merit pool budgeting (0:23:49), retirement rates (1:07:04), the audit catch-up (1:16:36) and the Unity rent pass-through (1:28:44). First name on the record; surname per the roster. |
| Nathan (surname spelling unverified) | Human resources, SAU 6 office | Explains the merit pool math and the evaluation scale (0:45:38); "We have 14 staff members that take care of three organizational entities" (0:50:30); reports on job descriptions (2:32:46, 2:35:56). Labeled Nathan Leavenworth in the dialogue file; the attribution report takes the surname from a later recording and marks its spelling unverified. |
| Josh Malloy | Director of Instructional Technology, SAU 6 | Explains the shared tech integrator (0:19:35) and laptop purchasing (0:27:25). First name on the record; surname and title per the roster. |
| Ben (surname not stated) | Special education director, SAU 6 | Explains the special education training list in the packet (1:11:08). |
| Mary Woodman | Recording secretary (staff) | Calls the roll (0:01:01); takes the minutes ("Did you get that for the minutes Mary.", 2:12:29). First name on the record; surname per the roster. |
| Unidentified | Various | 93 of 1,286 dialogue rows (7.2%): the pledge, roll-call audio, short interjections, and the members who moved the agenda and the August minutes (0:01:43, 0:02:53). No citizen spoke (0:07:01). |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda survives, though the chair says "You have an agenda before you." (0:01:35) and refers to lettered items B and D. The list below is reconstructed from the chair's transitions.
| Taken up | Item | What was said and done |
|---|
| 0:00:03 | Pledge; roll call | Ten members answer; McDevitt not present; Pierce arrives later. |
| 0:01:35 | Agenda | An unidentified member moves "the agenda for this evening"; approved by voice vote, no opposition heard (0:02:08). |
| 0:02:21 | Minutes of August 23, 2018 | Two amendments: the date at the top, and "adding the fact that we had sealed the minutes from the nonpublic" (0:05:41). Approved as amended; "Prudence abstained." (0:06:17). |
| 0:07:01 | Citizens' comments | "Seeing none". |
| 0:07:01 | A. Rules of debate | The chair: "I'm not sure if we adhere, if we if we've decided to adhere particularly to Robert's Rules or not." Everyone speaks once before anyone speaks twice; courteous language. |
| 0:10:09 | B. Draft FY2019-20 SAU 6 budget | Presentation and questions; no vote. Members to send written questions. |
| 1:38:53 | C. Superintendent search committee | Motion Horsky, second Benware (1:58:05, 1:58:32). Pierce amendment, no second (2:04:52). Horsky amendment replacing the two principals with one Unity leadership team and one Claremont administrative team member, second Benware; passed by voice vote (2:12:54). Horsky amendment setting September 28 for appointments, second Sprague; passed (2:17:58). Main motion as amended passed by voice vote, no nays or abstentions heard (2:19:09). |
| 2:28:24 | D. Letter to candidates on school funding | Not yet typed; deferred to October 18 "so that we can send it out prior to Election Day." |
| 2:28:41 | Merit pay and job descriptions | Status report; HR to provide current job descriptions before the next meeting (2:35:56). |
| 2:38:41 | Superintendent's report | Opening of school, staffing vacancies, a possible in-district program for out-of-district students. |
| 2:43:10 | NESDEC enrollment study | A study for 1186 [$1,186]; referred to each district board's agenda (2:50:21). |
| 2:50:25 | Other business | Seating arrangement to be changed so the two boards sit mixed (2:51:12). |
| 2:51:28 | Nonpublic session | Motion Horsky, second Sprague, restated until the chair settles on two a (2:53:46); roll call begins (2:54:27); the recording ends during it. |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/10002 SAU6091318.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording. Quotations are as transcribed; bracketed words are corrections, with the transcript's wording kept where the correction changes sense.
Chronological topics with the most concrete material first.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:02:21 | August minutes and the sealing vote | A member asks "Into nonpublic when we came out. Did we seal the minutes?" (0:04:07). The chair: "the vote we took to seal those minutes, because that's important to be in the" record (0:04:28), and "putting the roll call of seals and minutes at the end" (0:04:53). She also notes that minutes "if you pulled them off the web" carry stray succession-plan pages from "a templating issue or something with the website when they're posted." (0:03:26). | POS MEDIUM |
| 0:10:14 | Draft budget totals | Pfeifer: "84% of the SA budget is personnel and benefits". The proposal "is 1,900,005 3878, which is down 45,000 292, 94 from last year's budget. With that, we're operating under of 1 million 945. 83172 that's a -2.33%." (0:12:56) [read as $1,900,538.78, down $45,292.94 from $1,945,831.72; the three figures reconcile]. The difference is mainly that "we have removed to the curriculum coordinators", who "are really functioning in Claremont" (0:13:53). | |
| 0:19:02 | Shared technology integrator | Lowe asks whether the SAU-shared tech integrator belongs in the district budgets. Malloy: "Our tech integrator does a lot of work for unity." LeClair: "She has the other half of her salary." paid "solely from Claremont" (0:22:10). | |
| 0:23:13 | Raises already in the salary lines | Horsky: "the director of technology salary is up exactly 2%, but we haven't had any merit work done." O'Neill: "Simple answer. That's last year's merit pool." (0:23:49); last year's pool is given as 175 [as transcribed] (0:24:15). | OBS |
| 0:26:46 | Laptops | Benware asks about two administrators' laptops "At $1,400 each." Malloy: "our five year replacement cycle, we've never met." (0:29:29). | |
| 0:32:22 | When last year's merit raises were paid | O'Neill: "1920 is higher because we've we've given them the merit pool that we budgeted for last year." Lowe: "Were pretty clear that that. That wasn't supposed to happen." O'Neill: "They got a merit pay increase at July 1st, 2018." (0:34:34). LeClair: raises "went in place for 1819 on July 1st, 2018, but those were based on contracts that had been distributed prior to July 1st and prior to that directive of no increases with merit raises." (0:35:01). | OBS |
| 0:36:46 | Size of the 3% merit pool | LeClair: "somebody would have to be an absolute rock star to get the 3%." Lowe: "So the 29,768 is assuming everybody's a rock star." (0:38:00). Horsky: "84% of 3% is roughly 2.7 something percent" a year to the taxpayer (0:38:10). Nathan of HR defends 3% as a ceiling (0:45:38) and notes "over 400 employees" served by 14 staff (0:50:30). Pfeifer: "141 people across the three entities this year we hired." (0:50:56). | |
| 0:54:49 | Health insurance and benefits | O'Neill: guaranteed maximum rates arrive "around November"; the draft uses a three-year average of 7% (0:55:13). Non-union staff moved to the SchoolCare yellow plan; Zullo calls it a "Cost savings to the district." (0:56:29). | |
| 0:57:48 | Job descriptions and split positions | Towle asks how members can see what each position does. LeClair: one split position stays split because "it would have a negative impact on our indirect cost rate" (1:02:50). Pfeifer: grants yield "about five and a quarter, 5.5% in indirect" (1:03:16). | |
| 1:03:34 | Curriculum staffing | LeClair: "We had three total positions focused on curriculum." (1:04:02); Claremont goes "from 3 to 2." (1:04:18). Later she defends the change: "we are in a much different place" (1:30:59) and the work is nearing "a maintenance mode" (1:34:12). A reorganized administrative position took "about a 10% decrease to that salary" (1:35:21). | |
| 1:06:15 | Walk-through by function | O'Neill on retirement rates: "It was 3.2% ten years ago when I started doing this. Now it's going to be up to 17.8." (1:08:43). The grant manager works "Three, three days a week." (1:13:42); LeClair: "We run around 5 million in grants at any given time." (1:14:46) and later "it's north of 50 that she manages." (1:27:32). | |
| 1:16:36 | Audits caught up | O'Neill: "the auditors obviously budgeted 115. I know we spent more than that this year. But we're caught up in the saw. So we will be doing one year at a time from now on" and audits are "done through 17." (1:16:48). | |
| 1:22:44 | Furniture and the Unity rent | Horsky: "We only spent $998 of that 8000 that we budgeted the previous year." (1:23:09). On a $40,000 rent line, O'Neill explains the pass-through after Cornish left: Unity pays the SAU and the SAU pays Claremont (1:28:11, 1:28:44). | |
| 1:26:13 | Paying for the superintendent search | The chair asks where the search appears. O'Neill: "it'll come out of savings and wages" in 2018-19, and "You'll see that we actually spent that money even though we only budgeted 7500." (1:26:48). | |
| 1:38:53 | Search committee: the consultant's advice | The chair reads the advice: community-wide committees are "often large" and make it "tougher to manage confidentiality which we would have to maintain in a search" (1:47:57); "The committee needs to fully understand that it is advisory only, and that he would request that any non board members sign a confidentiality agreement." (1:48:24); form it by the end of September (1:48:44). | OBS |
| 1:39:49 | Search committee: composition | Horsky warns that three Unity members "creates a quorum, even if they're on that subcommittee." (1:41:47). Zullo: "this is the reason why I got on the board in the first place." (1:43:57). McCormick on the last search: "I think we had 11, 12." (1:54:39). Towle prefers that "we, as boards pick our members" (1:57:23). | OBS |
| 1:58:05 | Search committee: motions | Horsky moves "Two representatives from the Claremont School Board, two representatives from the Unity School Board, one from the SA office, and then, I believe, two building principles" (1:58:05). Pierce's amendment for one "experienced" member from each board gets no second (2:04:52). Horsky's amendment substitutes "a representative from the leadership team at unity and a representative from the collective leadership team of our many schools in Claremont" (2:10:37); passed. The final motion: appointments "by the 28th of September" (2:18:23); passed by voice vote (2:19:01). | OBS |
| 2:28:24 | Letter to candidates | The chair: a letter "to people running for office in November to ask them or tell them how important the issue of school funding is. And I hope you guys all Molly Kelly is a strong proponent, I think, for state for school funding." (2:29:03). Then: "We have to be really careful as board members about speaking publicly about supporting stand" and "we will send it to everyone who's running for office." (2:29:27). Modeled on a Hopkinton letter (2:29:49). | OBS |
| 2:30:29 | Evaluation system and job descriptions | Horsky recalls job descriptions were due "no later than I thought it was, July 1st" (2:32:23); the chair's notes say "before the budget is produced" (2:32:13). Nathan: "out of 14, I think we have two that that need major updates." (2:36:18). The chair: "we don't approve those job descriptions. They're just going to be here for our review." (2:36:51). | |
| 2:38:46 | Superintendent's report | "school is open. Is running well". Open positions: Nathan thinks "we were probably in the 30s." (2:40:15); LeClair puts Claremont teaching vacancies at four to six (2:40:29). Pfeifer is talking with the city about space "where we could bring some of our out of district students home and run a program here" (2:41:00). | |
| 2:43:10 | NESDEC enrollment study | Pfeifer: "it's 1186 for to do the study." (2:44:02); the method is "cohort survival, which is based on live births" (2:46:18), usually "plus or -10%." Horsky: Unity's high school choice limits its use (2:47:00). Sent to the district boards (2:50:21). | |
| 2:51:28 | Nonpublic motion | Horsky: "a motion to go into nonpublic session per RSA 91, a, a three, a paragraph, subparagraph a" (2:51:28); restated as "under RSA 91 A subsection two paragraph A" (2:52:07) and "per RSA 91, A paragraph three, subsection two, paragraph A one." (2:53:20). McCormick: "No, you don't have a one." The chair: "Yes it is two a yeah." (2:53:46). Roll call (2:54:27): Yes answers heard, including "Erickson. Yes" (2:54:37); the recording ends with "Is not here." at 2:55:28. | OBS |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer's aid, not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one names the rule it rests on, as that rule read on September 13, 2018, or is labeled an observation where no verified rule applies.
MEDIUM No agenda, packet or minutes for this meeting survive in any district share
MAP.md records no Drive material for this SAU 6 meeting: neither share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023. The meeting set up the superintendent search committee and reviewed the unit's draft budget, and the recording is now the only public account. RSA 91-A:2, II, as in force throughout 2018, required minutes including "the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions", open to public inspection "not more than 5 business days after the meeting". This page applies the MEDIUM limb of the project's severity rule because the record mitigates the gap: members had an agenda (0:01:35), a recording secretary took minutes (2:12:29), the chair said SAU 6 minutes were being posted on the web (0:03:26), and the board approved this meeting's minutes "as written" on October 18, 2018 (October 18, 2018 page). What is missing is the public copy today, not proof that minutes were never kept. The 2018 rule did not yet require minutes to name the mover and seconder; that sentence took effect January 1, 2019.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2017 codification; the text for all of 2018)
OBSERVATION Merit raises took effect July 1, 2018 although a member said the board had directed otherwise
The business administrator said the 2019-20 wage lines are higher "because we've we've given them the merit pool that we budgeted for last year" (0:33:54) and that staff "got a merit pay increase at July 1st, 2018." (0:34:34). Sara Lowe: "Were pretty clear that that. That wasn't supposed to happen." (0:34:02). The assistant superintendent's account is that the July 1 raises rested on contracts "distributed prior to July 1st and prior to that directive of no increases with merit raises." (0:35:01). RSA 194-C:5, III assigns to the SAU board the duty to "fix the salaries of all school administrative unit personnel". Whether the July 1 raises were within what the board had fixed depends on the board's earlier votes and the contracts, none of which is in the record, so this is an observation. The minutes of the spring 2018 meetings at which the directive was given would settle it.
Sources: RSA 194-C:5, III (2017 codification; source note 1996, 298:3, never amended)
OBSERVATION The new search committee is itself a public body; confidentiality has to run through the Right-to-Know exemptions
The board created a seven-member committee of four board members, one SAU staff member and two district staff members (2:16:10), after hearing advice that it must be "advisory only", that non-board members "sign a confidentiality agreement", and that the search requires confidentiality (1:47:57, 1:48:24). RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) defines a public body to include a board's "committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto", so the committee carries its own notice and minutes duties under RSA 91-A:2 whether or not its members form a quorum of either board; Horsky's quorum concern (1:41:47) decides only whether a parent board is also meeting. Applicant confidentiality is available through a nonpublic session under RSA 91-A:3, II(b) ("The hiring of any person as a public employee"), entered by a motion naming the exemption and a roll call; a private confidentiality agreement does not replace that procedure. Nothing on this recording shows how the committee later met, so this is an observation for the pages that follow.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (2019 codification; source note ends 2008, 354:1, so the text in force in 2018); RSA 91-A:2, II (2017 codification); RSA 91-A:3, I(b) and II(b) (2017 codification)
OBSERVATION The nonpublic motion was recited four ways before the board settled on an exemption, and the recording ends during the roll call
RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires a motion to enter nonpublic session to "state on its face the specific exemption under paragraph II", adopted by roll call. Horsky's motion went from "RSA 91, a, a three" (2:51:28) to "RSA 91 A subsection two paragraph A" (2:52:07) to "paragraph A one" (2:53:20), with the chair offering "91-A colon three colon three two a" (2:52:33) and finally "Yes it is two a yeah." (2:53:46), which is RSA 91-A:3, II(a) (an employee's dismissal, promotion, compensation or discipline). Horsky's remark that he was "going off what was tight" [typed] (2:53:33) suggests a prepared text carried a typo. The board did land on a real exemption and took a roll call, so the procedure was met as far as the tape shows. The tape ends during the roll call (2:55:28), and with no minutes surviving, the motion's final wording, the vote, what was decided, and whether those minutes were sealed by the recorded two-thirds vote RSA 91-A:3, III requires cannot be checked.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(a) and III (2017 codification; source note ends 2016, 30:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017; 280:1)
OBSERVATION The chair named a candidate for governor while introducing the board's letter to candidates
Introducing a letter on school funding to be sent to all candidates, the chair said "Molly Kelly is a strong proponent, I think, for state for school funding." (2:29:03) and then cautioned "We have to be really careful as board members about speaking publicly about supporting stand" (2:29:27). RSA 659:44-a bars electioneering only by a "public employee, as defined in RSA 273-A:1, IX", and RSA 273-A:1, IX(a) excludes "Persons elected by popular vote", so the statute does not reach an elected board member. The remark is recorded here for completeness; the board's stated plan was to send the same letter to every candidate (2:29:27), and it was deferred to October 18.
Sources: RSA 659:44-a, I and III (2017 codification; source note ends 2016, 176:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017); RSA 273-A:1, IX(a) (2019 codification; source note ends 2014, 13:1, 2)
POSITIVE The board corrected its August minutes to record the vote sealing its nonpublic minutes
A member noticed that the August 23 minutes did not show whether the nonpublic minutes had been sealed (0:04:07). The chair agreed the sealing vote is "important to be in the" minutes (0:04:28), the minutes were amended to add "the fact that we had sealed the minutes from the nonpublic" (0:05:41), and she took an action item to send the clerk the roll call (0:06:17). Under RSA 91-A:3, III, nonpublic minutes must be disclosed within 72 hours unless withheld "by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session" with a statutory determination, so the public minutes are where that vote must appear. The board fixed its own record unprompted.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, III (2017 codification)
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: SAU SCHOOL BOARD MEETING of 9-13 (show 10002; run time from the Cablecast API not retrieved, as the API refuses requests from the build environment; the transcript runs to 2:55:29)
- Google Drive: no packet folder, agenda or minutes. MAP.md: "neither share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (checked 9/26/26)." Not searched again for this page, per the run instructions for meetings with no Drive material.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/10002 SAU6091318.mp4.CSV (1,286 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/10002 SAU6091318.mp4Input/Transcripts/10002 SAU6091318.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 81Scripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/10002 SAU6091318.mp4.md (speaker attribution report)
Laws and rules cited on this page
- RSA 91-A:2, II, 2017 codification (in force Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2018): notice, minutes content and five-business-day inspection; no mover/seconder requirement until Jan. 1, 2019
- RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (source note ends 2008, 354:1): committees, subcommittees and advisory committees of a board are public bodies
- RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(a), II(b), III, 2017 codification: nonpublic motion states its exemption, roll call; employee matters; hiring; sealing by recorded two-thirds vote in public session
- RSA 194-C:5, III (1996, 298:3): the SAU board fixes the salaries of SAU personnel
- RSA 659:44-a (2016, 176:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017): public employees may not electioneer on duty
- RSA 273-A:1, IX(a): persons elected by popular vote are not public employees