Regular meeting of the Claremont School Board, summarized from the CCTV recording and its speaker-attributed transcript; no agenda, packet or minutes are online. After a brief nonpublic session, the board spent most of an hour on school lunch debt ($20,821 across 540 accounts), redirected small donations sent for that debt to school food shelves, recommended shutting off a la carte charging at a zero balance and warning seniors about their diplomas, authorized the chair to sign a three-year administrators' agreement, and sent a $31,828,063 proposed budget to the January 2 public hearing. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
Body
Claremont School Board (SAU 6), regular meeting
Date
Wednesday, December 19, 2018 (the chair: "Claremont School Board meeting of December 19th, 2018")
Start time
Not stated on the recording. Called to order at 0:00:01; nonpublic session moved at 0:05:03, with the recording resuming at the motion to come out (0:06:01); adjournment moved at 1:55:47. The dialogue file runs 1:55:55.
Location
Not stated in any available record. The January 2 hearing was set for "here in this room" (1:47:41), which was televised, as against the high school (1:47:59); the building is not named.
None located in the district's public shares as of September 26, 2026; the shares' year folders begin in 2022 (MAP.md section 90). See flag 1.
Board composition
Seven members, all answering the roll: Frank Sprague (chair), Rebecca Zullo (vice chair), Jason Benware, Rob Lovett Jr., Michael Petrin, Michelle Pierce, Carolyn Towle. Per the project roster, Steven Horsky's resignation was announced October 3, 2018 and Rob Lovett Jr. was appointed November 7, 2018.
Participants
Everyone in the record. Names follow the dialogue CSV; where the CSV says Unidentified, this page says unidentified. ASR renderings are shown in code. No minutes were available to check spellings. A quarter of the rows are unidentified short interjections (see the method footer).
Name
Role
Participation
Frank Sprague
Chair
Ran the meeting; raised withholding diplomas for seniors with lunch debt; asked for the board's permission to sign the administrators' contract. Answers the roll as Frank. Spike here.
Rebecca Zullo
Vice Chair; superintendent search committee
Pressed the board to act on lunch debt; reported 14 superintendent applicants; addressed a rumor that the board fires staff.
Jason Benware
Board member; budget subcommittee
Moved the nonpublic session, the lunch-debt recommendation, disposal of equipment, the budget and the policies; presented the elementary alternative program. Rendered Jason. Ben, when. and Jason. Bennett. at roll.
Michael Petrin
Board member; budget subcommittee
Moved the agenda and the food-shelf disposition of the donations; presented the ROTC course; asked for the food-service contract to be reviewed before renewal.
Michelle Pierce
Board member; administrators' negotiating team
Moved to split the donations two-thirds to food shelves and one-third to the debt (failed); moved to authorize the chair to sign the administrators' agreement.
Carolyn Towle
Board member
Wanted the donations kept "with the food"; asked about a letter from counsel to families in debt; asked for an indexed budget binder.
Rob Lovett Jr.
Board member
Asked how often families are contacted and about payment apps; seconded disposal of equipment and the budget.
Mary Woodman
School district clerk and recording secretary
Called the roll and the roll-call votes; advised on voting the amendment before the main motion (uncertain attribution).
Dr. Keith Pfeifer
Interim Superintendent, SAU 6
Described the minus-$20 cutoff; to check the food vendor's non-compete clause. His superintendent's report and a remark on the second letter to parents sit inside rows the CSV labels for the chair (see the method footer).
Cory LeClair
Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6
Presented the lunch debt figures, the donations question and the budget overview.
Michael O'Neill
Business Administrator, SAU 6
Explained how unpaid lunch debt reaches the general fund; the food-service contract term; supplied the budget figure for the motion.
Josh Malloy
Director of Instructional Technology, SAU 6 (surname from the roster)
Presented the surplus equipment list.
Ben Nester
Director of Special Education, SAU 6 (attribution medium)
Answered on staff qualifications for the alternative program.
Jesse
Student representative, filling in for Prescott Herzog (surname not given)
Student report.
Unidentified
Several board members' interjections, votes and cross-talk
247 rows, mostly one to five words.
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this meeting is posted in any district share, so this list is reconstructed from the chair's transitions on the recording. The board had a written agenda ("We have an agenda in front of us tonight"). Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
Benware motion; roll call (0:05:13). The session itself is not on the recording; the motion to come out (0:06:01) was first put as a voice vote, then retaken by roll call at a member's prompting (0:06:11, 0:06:18). No action was announced. See flag 1 and flag 5.
Pierce's amendment to split the checks two-thirds to food shelves and one-third to the debt failed on a voice vote (0:22:20); Petrin's motion, Benware second, to apply them to the school food shelves "split equally between the schools" carried (0:22:55). See flag 2.
Benware motion, Petrin second, amended: recommend the administration shut off a la carte charging at zero balance, consult counsel on a letter to parents, warn seniors about diplomas, and check the vendor's non-compete clause. Carried on a voice vote (0:52:15). See flag 3.
Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Each time is the start of the cited row, from the CSV's own second count. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell for the full entry.
"We had an inaccuracy in the November. I guess it was a truncated version of the November 7th minutes. So we postponed approving that and then the December 5th minutes."
In a row the CSV labels for the chair: "we obviously are presenting a budget tonight that's a culmination of a lot of hard work"; "We're back to business on the second" (0:03:51). By content this is the interim superintendent's report (see the method footer).
Benware: "I would like to make a motion to go into nonpublic session for RSA 91. Dash a colon three. Subparagraph two a." Chair: "Second roll call vote, Mrs. Woodman, please."
"So we've got a motion to come out on public." A member: "I don't we have to roll." Chair: "I'm sorry. Don't call my I apologize. I'm just trying to keep things moving." Roll taken (0:06:18). No decision is announced.
LeClair: "I don't have the actual copies of the checks with me, but we did receive, more checks in the 50 to $100 range for food service." The last set, "$2,300 and change we decided to put toward the food shelves." Later: "at most $150 or so" (0:21:10).
LeClair: "the donations were for the food service debt". Petrin: "if we keep bailing people out with their debt is not okay with me" (0:10:16); "I have no intention of ever putting this debt on the taxpayers" (0:13:56).
Benware: "we will just, you know, for lack of a better term, create a welfare state". Pierce (0:08:18) had asked for a split "So that we do have a little reserve."
Petrin: "does the donation have to be split equally amongst debt?" LeClair: "It has to be split equally amongst." ... "The USDA guidelines." (0:20:56). Not verified on this page.
Amendment fails on a voice vote with Petrin's "Nay, nay." (0:22:28); main motion restated by Petrin: "accept these donations to go towards the food shelves, split equally between the schools" (0:22:39); carried (0:22:55). The chair asked "Jason, would you like to restate it?" though Petrin had moved it.
"we had 540 negative accounts totaling $20,821." Only about 30% were families eligible for free or reduced lunch who had not reapplied. Staff: "$926 as of last Friday in staff debt" (0:28:12), some owed by people "that no longer work for us" (0:28:18).
"I noticed a student who had a hot lunch in front of them, and in front of their hot lunch, they had clearly a lunch from home". Families did not know about the debt (0:27:14).
LeClair: "right now we are allowing students who have debt to still purchase a cart items." Free and reduced lunch students "can't pay for that" (0:29:53). Pfeifer: "when they hit -$20, they're cut off. But in some cases, they've been continuing to allow to charge." (0:32:48).
O'Neill: "the general fund has got to transfer money to cover any debt at the end of the year." Pierce: "Which would raise our taxes." O'Neill: "Have an impact on taxes."
LeClair: the policy calls for contact when a balance drops below a week of lunches, then a principal's letter, then a meeting at minus $30. "The first letters home this year went out in November. They didn't go out as soon as those policy points were picked up." (0:37:44).
Chair: "I don't think we can hold student records hostage for back, debt. But I will say, one of the things I think we can do, is withhold diplomas." "I do not believe we need to give them their diploma until they satisfy their debts." (0:46:29).
Benware: "strongly suggest to the administration that they shut off a la carte charging at zero balance, that they talked about Upton and, draft of a legal letter to send to parents that they put seniors on, warning that outstanding balances could result in them not receiving their diploma." Pierce: "We we were here to make policies, not tell them how to do it." (0:50:17).
"the CAA there are Claremont administrators association has ratified a proposal from the school board for a three year contract." "So I would like to get permission from this board to go and sign the contract tomorrow." (1:01:14). No cost is stated before the vote.
Sprague: the subcommittee "met with, every school principal, and director" and "went line by line through their requests"; "It was not simply a cut, cut, cut, cut, cut." (1:03:45).
LeClair: current budget "$31,494,410"; proposed "$31,810,274", about a $315,000 increase; with lost revenue "416,925" and "If you add in the collective bargaining agreement you approved at the last agenda item, you're just over 430." (1:10:03).
Four positions at the high school, 1.5 at the preschool, one at Bluff, six vacant paraprofessional posts district-wide (1:12:17); "total reductions right now of around $632,000" (1:13:30).
A 0.4 ROTC course at the tech center; ESOL support (1:15:06); an elementary alternative program, "Nine total staff to start with the capacity of 12 students" (1:16:49).
Security upgrades dropped; Bluff roof; Disnard fire panel; radios "just shy of $250,000" and bus cameras at $51,000 (1:18:43); "a total projected tax rate impact. I I'll call this the worst case scenario right now is $0.87." (1:19:11). O'Neill: "we added the CAA to the budget to." (1:19:54).
Benware: "Roughly $373,000. The actual cost of the program. Projected cost is 643,000 and change." Three students returned from out-of-district placements "at a cost of about 90,000 a kid".
Motion rebuilt with O'Neill supplying the figure in pieces (31 million, 828,000, 60); Towle: "An extra number?"; O'Neill: "We added 17,000." (1:41:56); Pfeifer: "Difference between this is we proved the CAA." (1:42:03). Carried (1:42:16).
At the high school "we were not going to be able to live stream it". Benware: "the importance of having it on TV over weighs the importance of having a big auditorium." (1:48:32). Childcare to be offered (1:49:24).
Zullo: "there's been, some communication out in the public that the school board has the authority to fire staff." "we cannot fire you." Pfeifer: "it's controlled by evaluation processes" (1:54:37).
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the state law in force on December 19, 2018. They are not findings of violation and nothing here is legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. Six flags follow, ordered by severity. No HIGH or MEDIUM flag was found.
OBSERVATION No minutes are online, including for the nonpublic session, and no vote to seal was taken on the recording
RSA 91-A:3, III, as in force on this date, provides that "Minutes and decisions reached in nonpublic session shall be publicly disclosed within 72 hours of the meeting", unless withheld "by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session" on one of the stated grounds. The board entered nonpublic session under II(a) (0:05:03) and came out by roll call (0:06:18). No motion to seal was made on the recording and no decision was announced, so on the tape's face the nonpublic minutes were due for disclosure. Neither those minutes nor the public minutes are in the district's public shares, which begin in 2022; that is a limit of what the district posts online, not evidence that minutes were never kept, and the board approved two earlier sets at this meeting (0:01:18). RSA 91-A:2, II then required minutes with members' names, persons appearing, subjects and final decisions, open to inspection within five business days. The rule requiring movers' and seconders' names took effect January 1, 2019 and does not apply to this meeting. Graded an observation under the project's rule for missing records.
OBSERVATION Gifts sent for the lunch debt were accepted for a different purpose, without their amounts, on a rule nobody verified
LeClair told the board the checks were "for the food service debt" (0:09:30), that she did not have them with her, and that they were "in the 50 to $100 range" and "at most $150 or so" (0:07:09, 0:21:10). The board voted to apply them to school food shelves instead (0:22:39, 0:22:55), after Pierce's attempt to direct a third to the debt failed. Two members said they did not want gifts to relieve debtors (0:10:16, 0:16:15). When asked whether a gift could be aimed at a family in hardship, LeClair said it "has to be split equally", citing "The USDA guidelines" (0:20:43, 0:20:56); this page did not verify that statement. Two points follow. RSA 198:20-b, III(b) (in force since 2005) required gifts under $5,000 to be noticed in the agenda and minutes and accepted in public session; acceptance was public, but the board accepted checks whose number and amounts were not before it. And the donors' stated purpose was changed by vote. No statute on donor restrictions was verified for this page, so no violation is suggested; the observation is that the record of what was given, by whom, and for what, is thin.
OBSERVATION The lunch-debt steps the board recommended, including warning seniors about their diplomas, sit next to a state rule on meal payment policies
With $20,821 owed across 540 accounts (0:24:42), the board recommended that the administration stop a la carte charging at a zero balance, consult counsel on a letter to parents, and warn seniors "that outstanding balances could result in them not receiving their diploma" (0:49:09). The chair had said "I do not believe we need to give them their diploma until they satisfy their debts" (0:46:29), while acknowledging "I don't think we can hold student records hostage" (0:45:59). The interim superintendent described an existing practice under which students "hit -$20, they're cut off" (0:32:48), without saying from what. RSA 189:11-a, VIII, added in 2016 and in force on this date, required any "school lunch meal payment policy" to "ensure that all students have access to a healthy school lunch", that the district "make every reasonable effort to inform parents of the policy", and "that no student will be subject to different treatment from the standard school lunch meal or school cafeteria procedures". Stopping extra a la carte purchases leaves the standard meal in place, and the members said students would continue to be fed (0:46:48). A diploma sanction for meal debt is outside the cafeteria, and whether it squares with the statute's purpose is a question for counsel, whom the board asked to be consulted. The record also shows the district's own notice policy had not been followed until November (0:37:44), which bears on the "inform parents" duty. The motion was framed as a recommendation, and Pierce objected that the board was directing administration (0:50:17). What was done in January is for later pages.
OBSERVATION The administrators' three-year agreement was approved without its cost stated, then added to the budget the same night
The chair announced that the Claremont Administrators Association had ratified the board's proposal for "a three year contract" and asked for "permission from this board to go and sign the contract tomorrow" (1:00:41, 1:01:14); Pierce's motion carried (1:01:27). No cost was stated before that vote. During the budget item LeClair said the agreement put the increase "just over 430" thousand (1:10:03), O'Neill said "we added the CAA to the budget" (1:19:54), and the motion's figure changed on the floor ("We added 17,000." at 1:41:56). RSA 273-A:1, IV defines a cost item as "any benefit acquired through collective bargaining whose implementation requires an appropriation", and RSA 273-A:3, II(b) provides that "Only cost items shall be submitted to the legislative body" for approval. Whether the association is a certified bargaining unit is not established here. On the record the cost items did go to the voters: the February 6 deliberative session read Article 2 with the agreement's estimated increases for three years (see the deliberative session page). The observation is only that the public heard the cost after the board's vote, not before it.
POSITIVE The nonpublic motion named its exemption and was taken by roll call, and a member insisted on a roll call coming out
RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires that a motion to enter nonpublic session "shall state on its face the specific exemption under paragraph II" and be voted by roll call. Benware's motion cited "RSA 91. Dash a colon three. Subparagraph two a" [RSA 91-A:3, II(a)], and the clerk called the roll (0:05:03, 0:05:13). When the chair put the motion to return to public session as a voice vote, a member asked for a roll call and the chair retook it (0:06:11, 0:06:18). The statute does not require a roll call to leave nonpublic session; taking one exceeds the minimum.
POSITIVE A truncated set of minutes was held back and corrected, and the budget hearing was placed where it could be televised
The chair reported that the November 7 minutes had been "a truncated version" and were postponed until corrected (0:01:18). For the January 2 hearing the board chose the televised room over a larger auditorium where live streaming was not available, with childcare offered (1:47:59, 1:48:32, 1:49:24). The budget subcommittee described line-by-line meetings with every principal and director (1:02:09). None of these is required by statute.
No packet folder, agenda, budget binder, lunch-debt handout or minutes for this meeting is in the district's public Drive shares, whose year folders begin in 2022 (MAP.md section 90, checked 9/26/26).