Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part, as named in the project's dialogue file. No minutes exist online to check spellings against, so non-members' names are as the transcription heard them and are marked where unverified. Members are listed first.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Frank Sprague | Chair | Chaired the hearing and meeting; added the student report, minutes and gift acceptance to the agenda; spoke on the state budget; set the joint council meeting, SAU meeting and retreat dates; explained the history of the P-plus grading scale and of class rank; asked that future agenda items be retired, not left on the list. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Vice chair | Thanked the Byrne Foundation; seconded the agenda; abstained on the September 4 minutes; praised the new student representative and the middle school program; asked for a school safety discussion on Department of Homeland Security recommendations; said too few AP courses were offered. Speaker identification medium-high (abstention and topics). |
| Michael Petrin | Board member; SAU 6 chair | Moved the agenda and the September 4 minutes; asked how the student representative is chosen; asked for the grading system to return to the agenda. |
| Heather Whitney | Board member | Asked that the September 4 minutes record the handbook-timing discussion; reported the policy committee's deferral; spoke for weighted ranking. Identification medium (by content). |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member | Questioned the governor's school funding claims; complimented the superintendent's report; proposed a plaque for the Byrne Foundation; said the safety committee would report at the retreat. |
| Jason Benware | Board member | Gave the two-year state aid figures and a projected $950,000 to $1.1 million shortfall; moved acceptance of the $20,000 gift; asked for school nurse data on head lice since the policy change. |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member | Named in the roll. The attribution report suggests an unidentified board-side voice (including the gift's seconder) may be his; not established. |
| Tyler Sullivan | Student representative (first report) | Introduced himself as a Stevens senior; reported on student voice training, the Craig Scott visit, college fairs and school events; spoke for spreading project-based learning and on class rank. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Superintendent's report: the Dartmouth Thayer School partnership, the Skillful Teacher course, the Medicaid and veto-override sessions and the continuing resolution; spoke on grading, class rank and AP scheduling. |
| Steve Moss | Curriculum specialist, grades 6 to 12, SAU 6 | Presented the middle school project-based learning initiative with a video. |
| Audra Buckland | Assistant principal, Claremont Middle School | Described how the schedule change was built, teachers' extra hours, a community response to a student project, and lower behavior referrals. |
| Mary Woodman | Clerk | Called the roll. |
| Unidentified | Board-side voices; group responses | Seconded the gift motion and the adjournment, asked about class rank and scholarships, and gave group ayes. |
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. An agenda existed: the chair refers to "a agenda in front of us" and to its lettered items. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:25 | Public hearing: Byrne Foundation donation to the SRVRTC | No citizen spoke: "Seeing none. I will close the public hearing." |
| 0:01:29 | Regular meeting: pledge, roll call | All seven names read. |
| 0:02:16 | Agenda | Chair added a student representative report, approval of minutes, and acceptance of the donation to the action items. Petrin moved as amended; Zullo seconded; voice vote. |
| 0:03:35 | Minutes of September 4, 2019 | Petrin moved; amended at Whitney's request to record the handbook-timing discussion; seconded; carried with Zullo abstaining. |
| 0:04:34 | Student representative report | Tyler Sullivan's first report. |
| 0:10:17 | Superintendent's report | Includes a presentation by Steve Moss and Audra Buckland on middle school PBL. |
| 0:41:36 | Citizens' comments | "I don't see any citizens." |
| 0:41:54 | Acceptance of the Byrne Foundation donation | Benware moved to accept $20,000 "with our heartfelt thanks"; seconded (unidentified); carried by voice vote at 0:43:54. |
| 0:44:03 | Policy approval | Deferred to the next meeting. |
| 0:44:23 | Future agenda items | Joint meeting with the City Council September 26 at 6:00; SAU board October 10; budget retreat; grading update at the first October meeting; school safety; head lice data; alternative program; class rank. |
| 1:04:34 | Other business; adjournment | Motion not clearly audible; seconded; voice vote. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Times are the start of the cited exchange, taken from the CSV's own second count. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell for the full entry.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:25 | Public hearing on a $20,000 gift | Citizens' comments on a donation from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation to the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center "in the amount of 20 $0" [$20,000, as moved later]. "Board policy requires us to have a public hearing when" the district receives a gift of that size. "Seeing none. I will close the public hearing." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:02:53 | Agenda amended | On adding the gift's acceptance: "we had, warned it last time, and we, announced we'd be talking about it tonight, so I think that's sufficient warning." A student report and minutes were also added. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:03:50 | September 4 minutes | Whitney: "there was a somewhat lengthy conversation that was parodied by Carolyn in regards to us receiving the books earlier." [presented or parroted; the word is as transcribed]. Added: the board would like handbooks earlier, preferably in the spring. Zullo: "I'm abstaining from that because I wasn't here on September 4th." | |
| 0:04:57 | New student representative | "So I am Tellus 11." [Tyler Sullivan] "I'm a senior at Stevens High School". National Student Voice sessions, a college fair, and the October 1 visit of Craig Scott: "Credit. Start is one of the survivors of the Taliban high school shooting." [Craig Scott; Columbine]. Asked how the representative is chosen: "It's by interested seniors." with the principal's involvement. | |
| 0:10:45 | Superintendent: Dartmouth partnership; teacher training | "we're trying to showcase the teaching and learning that goes on in the schools". A five-year science and engineering partnership for the middle school with the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, with possible equipment loans. "24 people, including administrators and teachers, taking the skillful teacher course", eight full-day workshops funded by training grants. | |
| 0:19:51 | Medicaid and the governor's veto | "There's two funding meetings that are going on the 19th and the 20th." A legislative rules committee (transcribed JLC AR) on the Medicaid reporting threshold, opposed by a superintendents' and special education directors' letter, and a joint session on "overriding the governor's veto, which, of course, we would be very much in favor of in Claremont." Under the continuing resolution, "we're now in the precarious state", "to be operating at only a quarter of our budget that was promised for the year". | |
| 0:22:40 | What the veto means for Claremont | Towle on the governor's funding claims: "There are no numbers mentioned. That's the problem." Sprague: "It felt like a shell game to me". Tempesta: best case "I think we were looking at almost two, 2.3 or 2.4 million" more. Benware: the legislature's figure over two years "was about 4.3 million" against far less after the veto, "and we'd still be in the hole at budget season". Sprague: "the continued loss of stabilization grants, which is about a quarter of a million to us just for that." Benware: "we're going to be somewhere around 950 zero 0 to $1.1 million short going into budget season". "We're operating at a million less stabilization money than we were." | |
| 0:27:39 | Why the Medicaid change | Tempesta: "New Hampshire is going for reimbursement from the feds", so it wants every service fully vetted; the associations say it is premature and, read literally, would mean "somewhere in the vicinity of $28 million immediately" across New Hampshire communities. | |
| 0:29:46 | Middle school project-based learning | Moss: "So I'm Steve Moss on the curriculum specialist for Sussex for grades six through 12th grade." [SAU 6] "So we're in second week of our PBL initiative at the middle school." Teachers design projects tied to class competencies; students rank choices on a choice board; examples include a labyrinth and a car-buying and maintenance project. "the engagement level of these kids is off the charts". | |
| 0:36:08 | Buckland: how it was built | A multi-year schedule redesign; "it took many, many, many extra hours of work than what we pay them for as a district or as a school". A nursing home director praised students on a photojournalism project. "behavior referrals during this part of the day are incredibly down". Zullo said teachers had long felt they "seem to be trapped in what they're required to do and how they do it". Sullivan: "We need to get this to the high school, into the other schools." | |
| 0:41:36 | Citizens' comments | "We would transition now to citizens comments, but I don't see any citizens." (Two weeks later the board moved citizens' comments ahead of the reports permanently.) | |
| 0:41:54 | Gift accepted | Benware moved to accept $20,000 from the "Byrne Foundation with our heartfelt thanks." Sprague: "This is unbelievable what this foundation does for our district." Towle: "Is there a plaque made for them thanking them in appreciation of there should be." perhaps made by the tech center. Carried by voice. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:44:06 | Policy deferred | Whitney: "Was due to a myriad of personal situations we ended up having to defer to next week." | |
| 0:44:23 | Joint meeting, SAU quorum, retreat | "The superintendent and I met with the mayor the other day, and we came up with an agenda" for the joint meeting with the council on Thursday the 26th at 6:00. "Our next saw board meeting is the 10th." and members should say whether they will attend because "we see they're really close to having a quorum on those." The budget retreat: a single agenda item, 10:00 to 1:00 with a potluck breakfast. Sprague mentioned his e-Ticker op-ed urging calls to the governor: "These are our kids. This is our town." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:47:36 | Grading system | Petrin wants the grading system "which I would like to see go by the wayside and be something different". Tempesta: "it's great that we have the competency based initiative throughout the state that was mandated", but grades need not be linked to it. Sprague, principal when the scale was adopted, said letters were set so "it would resemble the grades that were on the kneecap" [NECAP] and "what you call the grade has nothing to do with competency based education". Set for the first October meeting: "An update on the grading system." | POSITIVE |
| 0:53:13 | School safety; head lice data | Zullo asked for "a conversation around the recommendations from the Department of Homeland Security" and how safety fits the capital improvement plan; Towle said the committee would report at the retreat. Benware asked for school nurse data on "whether or not our incidences of head lice over the last year were less or more or equal" since the policy change. | POSITIVE |
| 0:55:29 | Retiring future agenda items | Sprague: in the past there was "stuff that stayed on the future agenda items for forever", and he wanted items retired. Tempesta: "We want to have just a standing one so that we see it in each one templated, and then we remove it." | POSITIVE |
| 0:56:25 | Class rank | Sprague on the item's origin: a student who took performing arts instead of weighted courses, "this is a student who was a National Merit Scholar. Wound up 10th in the class."; the idea was honors groups rather than a linear rank. Sullivan: "Personally with valedictorian, it gives us something to shoot for." Whitney: "I would be furious if I was in a college level science course and someone thought that I was on par with them." Tempesta on AP courses in a block schedule; Zullo: "I think that's been a complaint for many community members, myself included, that we don't offer enough." | |
| 1:04:34 | Adjournment | "Any other business?" A second and a voice vote follow; the motion itself is not clearly audible. | |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on September 18, 2019. Several provisions cited below have since been amended, and each flag cites the text as it then read. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. Four flags follow, ordered by severity.
OBSERVATION A public hearing was held before accepting the $20,000 Byrne Foundation gift; the statute's newspaper notice cannot be checked
The board opened with a public hearing on the gift (0:00:25), invited comment, heard none, and accepted the gift by public vote later in the meeting (0:41:54). The chair grounded the hearing in board policy. State law also required one: under RSA 198:20-b as it read in 2019, a school board could accept unanticipated money during the year only if the district had adopted the enabling article (¶I), and for amounts of $5,000 or more it had to hold a prior public hearing, with notice of its time, place and subject published in a newspaper at least 7 days before (¶III(a)). The hearing itself is on the tape. What the tape cannot show is the newspaper notice; the chair's remark that "we had, warned it last time, and we, announced we'd be talking about it tonight, so I think that's sufficient warning" (0:02:53) concerned adding the acceptance to the agenda, and an announcement at the previous meeting is not the published notice the statute describes. Whether the enabling article had been adopted is also not in this record. The gift was welcomed with thanks and no one objected.
Sources: RSA 198:20-b, I and III(a) (2019 codification; source note ends 2005, 188:1; threshold raised to $20,000 by 2023, 38:1).
OBSERVATION The chair said SAU 6 board meetings were close to lacking a quorum
Announcing the October 10 SAU 6 meeting, the chair asked members to say whether they would attend because "we see they're really close to having a quorum on those." and "That's helpful if we know who's going so we can actually have the meeting" (0:45:17). The SAU 6 board combines the Claremont and Unity boards, so a thin quorum there can stall the budget and contract work the SAU carries. No specific quorum statute for SAU boards has been verified for this page, and the October 10 meeting did proceed, so this is recorded as an observation about a governance risk the chair himself named.
Sources: Recording only; the chair's characterization.
OBSERVATION No agenda, packet or minutes for this meeting or its public hearing are posted online
MAP.md section 110 records that neither district Drive share holds anything before July 2022 (checked 9/26/26), so this page rests on the recording alone. That is a limit of what the district posts online, not by itself evidence that records were never made: the board approves its September 4 minutes here with an addition, and approves these minutes, amended to add Zullo's school safety request, on October 2. In 2019 RSA 91-A:2, II required minutes to be "open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting". The hearing notice discussed in flag 1 and any record of who seconded the gift motion would appear only in documents that are not online. The limb of the project's missing-records rule applied is the online-availability observation.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1); Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 110.
POSITIVE Members turned open-ended requests into dated agenda commitments and asked for evidence on an earlier policy decision
The chair said that items had in the past "stayed on the future agenda items for forever" and asked that they be retired (0:55:29); the superintendent proposed a standing template from which items are removed when done. The grading system was given a date, the first October meeting (0:52:57), and school safety was tied to the retreat. Benware asked for school nurse data to test whether the board's head lice policy change a year earlier had made a difference, "or if it was, just simply made people feel better" (0:54:19). Asking to measure the effect of one's own past decision is good practice, and no statute requires it.
Sources: Recording only; practice beyond statutory minimums.
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 10537, "SCHOOL BOARD meeting 9-18-19": Claremont Community TV. Every timestamp on this page links into this recording.
- No Drive material: neither the Claremont nor the SAU 6 share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (MAP.md, checked 9/26/26). No agenda, hearing notice, packet, Medicaid letter or minutes were located.
- Related pages: Claremont School Board, October 2, 2019 (these minutes approved as amended) and SAU 6 Board, October 10, 2019.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/10537 SchoolBoard091819.mp4.CSV (358 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/10537 SchoolBoard091819.mp4Input/Transcripts/10537 SchoolBoard091819.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/10537 SchoolBoard091819.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 110
Laws and rules cited on this page
- New Hampshire statutes, as in force on September 18, 2019. RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes; 2019 codification, source note ends 2018, 244:1). RSA 198:20-b, I and III(a) (unanticipated funds, $5,000 hearing threshold; 2019 codification, later amended by 2023, 38:1).