Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part. Names follow the project's dialogue file; no minutes exist online to check spellings against. Where the dialogue file marks an identification as uncertain, so does this table. Members are listed first.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Frank Sprague | Chair | Read counsel's prepared statement opening the hearing; answered Patrick Adrian that the board relies on "our legal counsel"; framed the contingent motion; warned members that "four of us" must not respond on social media and designated two who would; reported Medicaid rule changes; led the meal-debt discussion. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Vice Chair (identification medium) | The dialogue file identifies her from roll-call order and phrasing, not by name. Urged the public to ask questions at any time rather than on Facebook; suggested robocalls and plain language in notices; seconded the agenda; questioned the technical center director; argued the meal debt was worth addressing. |
| Jason Benware | Board member | Moved the agenda, both sets of minutes, the four policies, the motion carrying the hearing result to December 12 (and its condition), and adjournment; volunteered to answer questions on social media; pressed for January dates for the budget hearing and deliberative session; argued meal debt cannot be solved locally. |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member | Urged the parent who spoke to repeat her remarks at the December 12 meeting; seconded both sets of minutes and the December 12 motion; agreed to share the social-media role with Benware; asked for a Capital Improvement Committee presentation in January; reported raising meal debt with the New Hampshire School Boards Association. |
| Heather Whitney | Board member | Seconded the policies; asked for an update from the food service contractor, warning "In ten years, I think it'll be a culture of not paying." |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member | Answered the roll. The dialogue file assigns him, as uncertain, the remark at 1:16:02 urging robocalls: "I would rather saturate the market and have people come complain that we're telling them too much". |
| Michael Petrin | Board member; SAU 6 board chair | Answered the roll; no other words are attributed to him. |
| Unidentified | Board member | At 0:07:05 relayed that "Jason had some questions" about how the December 12 meeting would run and whether voters could simply ask questions. The attribution report suggests Rob Lovett Jr. as a possibility; not established. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Invited the parent who spoke onto the special education planning group; gave a short report on visits to out-of-district programs and a possible special education parent advisory council; said the district has "14 committees and subgroups". |
| Alex Herzog | Director, Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center | Gave an annual report: enrollment, adult and jail-inmate programs, college agreements, proposed program changes, the Newport partnership ending in 2022, renovation options, and state concern about the preschool's use of technical center space. |
| Ben Nester | Director of Special Education, SAU 6 (identification medium) | Answered the chair's Medicaid question: new rules would be final around February 27, so an update should wait until March. The chair had said at 0:20:56 that Dessner is not here; the dialogue file keeps the later rows as Nester at medium confidence. |
| Mary Woodman | School district clerk and recording secretary | Called the roll; explained that the December 12 meeting would use the same checklist as November 21. |
| Unidentified | Administrator or staff | At 1:17:27 described where meeting notices are posted, and at 1:18:17 said the December 12 meeting is under "RSA 4416" [RSA 40:16], not the statute Adrian read. |
| Tyler Sullivan | Student representative, Stevens High School | Gave the report as a slide show (Tala Sullivan in his self-introduction; spelling unverified); later asked whether the outside food service contractor costs the district more. |
| Patrick Adrian | Public commenter, Ward 1; reporter and former board member | Spoke "partly as a reporter, partly as a parent, and partly as a taxpayer"; read the special-meeting statute's notice rules and objected that the notice for this hearing did not say what it was about. |
| Cassie Burke | Public commenter, Ward 3; parent | Spoke at the hearing and again in citizens' comments as the parent of three children with IEPs, one facing an out-of-district placement; said she learned of the revote only that day. Transcribed Kasey Burke and Cassie Burke; spelling unverified. |
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 chair refers to a lettered item g and to a list of future-agenda bullets, so a written agenda existed. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:12 | Public hearing: the $650,000 and the December 12 special district meeting | Chair read counsel's statement; two members of the public and several members spoke. Closed at 0:20:01. No vote at the hearing. |
| 0:20:01 | Pledge and roll call | All seven members answer. |
| 0:20:56 | Agenda changes and approval | Item g struck because the special education director was absent; a vote on moving the hearing result to the special meeting added under discussion and action. Benware moved, Zullo seconded; approved by voice vote. |
| 0:22:05 | Minutes of November 20 and of the November 21 special district meeting | Each moved by Benware and seconded by Towle; approved by voice vote. |
| 0:22:48 | Student representative report | Slide show and a video. |
| 0:32:02 | Presentation: Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center | Annual report by the director; questions from members. |
| 1:05:53 | Citizens' comments | "About an hour later than normal"; one speaker. |
| 1:08:27 | Superintendent's report | Special education outreach and planning. |
| 1:11:47 | Policy approval | Four policies (heard as JLFGBEEBBD and GCO). Benware moved them toward final approval; the chair: "Well we have to go to third." Whitney seconded; voice vote with no ayes or nays audible on the transcript. |
| 1:13:13 | Added item: results of the public hearing to the December 12 meeting | Benware moved "that we move the results of the public hearing to the special district meeting on the 12th of December"; Towle seconded. Carried by voice vote at 1:21:00 as restated by the chair, "contingent upon learning from our attorney that we have, the concerns of Patrick Adrian are unfounded in this particular context." |
| 1:21:09 | Future agenda items | Meetings January 8 and 22, 2020; food service status; Medicaid update deferred to March; budget hearing and deliberative session dates; Capital Improvement Committee presentation. |
| 1:27:38 | For the good of the order: meal debt | Discussion only. |
| 1:34:23 | Adjournment | Benware moved; seconded by an unidentified member; approved by 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 |
|---|
| 0:00:12 | Counsel's statement read | The chair read attorney Matt Upton's statement: RSA 197:3-a requires website posting seven days ahead; the SAU 6 site "technically is not the district's website"; "Accordingly, no notice of the public hearing held on November 6th, 2019 was posted on the Saw six website." The meeting notice "was posted on the Saw website only six days prior to the meeting, rather than the seven days required by the statute." DRA recommended a second meeting "pursuant to RSA 40 colon 16 to cure any procedural defect defects". "While the school board still questions whether there is a legal requirement for the district to post notices on the website." | POSITIVE |
| 0:02:54 | Patrick Adrian: "We just did it wrong again" | He read the statute's 14-day hearing rule and its website rule, and said he learned what the hearing was about only by asking a member. "We just did it wrong again, because the special meeting is next week." "the posting for this public meeting doesn't say what it's about." "If the district can't follow the rules that the school board can't follow the rules, how can you expect the kids to?" | OBSERVATION |
| 0:07:05 | How will December 12 run? | A member relayed questions on whether the meeting would be "the meeting we had 2.0" and whether voters could simply ask questions. Zullo: "Don't ever wait for a meeting to ask questions". The chair: "it's essentially going to be 2.0". He agreed notices should carry enough information for people to "know if it's relevant to them". | OBSERVATION |
| 0:11:00 | Cassie Burke: a parent not told | "I only found out today that there was going to be another vote on the 12th, and it blew my mind." She has a son "being considered out of district right now" and said the November wording made it seem only "specific people" could vote. The chair: "You do have to be a registered voter to vote." The superintendent invited her onto the planning group. The clerk: "If you were not registered voter at that time, you will not be able to vote in the second meeting." | |
| 0:19:37 | Plain language | A member: "Language that we use is very confusing. When we post it." The chair: "And that use words like pursuant." Hearing closed at 0:20:01. | |
| 0:20:56 | Agenda and minutes | Item g struck; the vote on the hearing result added. Minutes of November 20 and of the November 21 special district meeting approved. | |
| 0:23:25 | Student representative | School events by slide show, then a video of a snow-day announcement from another district, offered as "a challenge" to the superintendent. | |
| 0:33:19 | Technical center: year in review | Summer middle school programs funded when the Kiwanis "came back with a check for $3,000"; a machine-tool program with the county jail; "about 78 participants" in adult high school equivalency. Plumbing graduates "make 40 to $50,000 with overtime their first year out of high school". | |
| 0:46:17 | Enrollment and program changes | "In 1819 last year we had 58 rolled in CTE programs" [2018-19]; "this year we have 82 enrolled in our CTE programs", plus "about 516" in introductory courses. Proposed: a one-year accounting program tied to Southern New Hampshire University, then finance, teacher preparation and criminal justice. | |
| 0:50:21 | State rule on technical center space | "the building used by the state is specifically a citation for CTE spaces. And this is RSA 188 E to colon 311." He read that a renovated facility becomes district property "for the use by the Career Technical Education Center exclusively", and said "we've gotten a couple of letters about encroachment, about how the preschool is kind of taking over areas". Perkins: "this year we got 53,000 and we split that amount with Newport." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:55:03 | Newport partnership; renovation | The partnership "expires in 2022"; six guaranteed seats per program; about 21 or 22 Stevens students go to Newport for welding. Renovation: "usually the state provides 75% of the funding for that, and then 25% comes from the local community"; a single new regional center was also pitched. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:00:05 | Board questions | Asked whether graduates' job placement and income are tracked: "You know we don't. That's something we should look at." Zullo asked about health-care programs (the Newport LNA partnership); the chair asked why there is no computer networking program. | |
| 1:06:16 | Citizens' comments: Burke again | "I have three children, and none of them would use any of those programs or qualify for any of those programs." | |
| 1:08:39 | Superintendent's report | Visits to out-of-district programs; a possible parent advisory council for special education; "I myself, I'm a parent of a severely special needs child." "We have 14 committees and subgroups." | |
| 1:12:08 | Four policies | Benware moved them toward approval; the chair: "Well we have to go to third." Seconded by Whitney; voice vote. The chair thanked the policy subcommittee. | |
| 1:13:32 | Carrying the hearing result to December 12 | The chair: "we operate under the guidance of a of our council, our legal counsel." Benware: "I would suggest we approve this, temporarily until conditionally, until we've verified with our legal counsel that we are indeed where we need to be." Zullo: "And if we're not and we didn't know about it, that's a problem." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:15:06 | Reaching the public | Benware: "it's a reoccurring therm. Every every time we do something, they say, I didn't get told." Suggestions: the lighted sign by the police station, robocalls, a pamphlet home with students. Staff described notices posted at City Hall and at the meeting building's doors. | |
| 1:18:17 | Which statute governs December 12 | An unidentified staff member: "From my understanding, this meeting is RSA 4416 so it's not the same meeting, right?"; the 7-day and 14-day rules Adrian read "is from the RSA 197 colon three, not from the RSA 40." The chair: "I would feel better if we checked with with Matt." | POSITIVE |
| 1:19:45 | Answering on social media without a quorum | "We have to be careful that four of us don't respond." Benware ("I'd be happy to") and Towle designated; "And the rest of us stay away from it." Motion carried at 1:21:00; the clerk on the wording: "Not at all. Wordy." | POSITIVE |
| 1:21:36 | Upcoming meetings | SAU 6 the next night, the special meeting on the 12th, then January 8 and 22. A joint meeting with the City Council tentatively set for the 12th would not be combined. Benware asked when the budget hearing and deliberative session dates would be set. | |
| 1:22:55 | Medicaid | Nester: new rules final around February 27, so report in March. The chair: the feared loss was "three quarters of $1 million, potentially", but draft language looks "very favorable". | |
| 1:27:45 | Unpaid meal debt | Whitney: "In ten years, I think it'll be a culture of not paying." Benware: the problem exists everywhere under the law requiring every child be fed, and "you can't get blood from a stone." Towle has raised it with the School Boards Association. The chair: unpaid balances are a receivable to be written off in next year's budget; the superintendent: "Unfunded mandate." Benware: with an outside vendor an unpaid meal costs the district the full price, not the $1.12 cost. | |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on December 4, 2019, 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. Ordered by severity.
OBSERVATION A reporter and a parent said the notice for this hearing did not say what it was about; no statute verified here required it to
At 0:04:35 Patrick Adrian said "the posting for this public meeting doesn't say what it's about", and at 0:11:50 Cassie Burke said she learned of the December 12 revote only that day from a social media post. The chair agreed the notice should carry "sufficient information" (0:10:26). The legal question is narrower than the criticism. This hearing was the one RSA 31:5-b, II(c) requires before a curative meeting, "at which the reasons for the special town meeting shall be explained", and paragraph II(d) requires compliance with "all statutory notice and procedural requirements for holding special town meetings". The general meeting-notice rule, RSA 91-A:2, II as it read in 2019, requires notice of "the time and place". Adrian read a requirement of "time, place and subject" from RSA 197:3-a, but, as a staff member pointed out at 1:18:17, that statute governed the November hearing, not this one. This page found no verified rule requiring this notice to state its subject, so the point is recorded as an observation. The notice itself is not in any available record.
Sources: RSA 31:5-b, II(c)-(d) (2019 codification): hearing explaining the reasons; compliance with notice requirements; RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification): notice of time and place, 24 hours; RSA 197:3-a, IV (2019 codification).
OBSERVATION The board's vote was made contingent on an unstated confirmation from counsel, and the outcome of that condition is not on the record
The motion to carry the hearing result to the December 12 meeting passed at 1:21:00 as restated by the chair, "contingent upon learning from our attorney that we have, the concerns of Patrick Adrian are unfounded in this particular context." Nothing on this recording says who would get the answer, what would happen if counsel disagreed, or how the public would learn the result. The special meeting did go ahead on December 12 (a separate recording). A conditional vote is not unlawful in itself; the point for a reader is that the decision that mattered was left to a later, unrecorded exchange with counsel.
Sources: the recording only; no rule applies.
OBSERVATION The technical center director reported state letters about the preschool "encroaching" on space the statute reserves for career and technical education
At 0:50:21 the director cited a statute (transcribed RSA 188 E to colon 311) and read that a state-funded facility becomes district property "for the use by the Career Technical Education Center exclusively", then said "we've gotten a couple of letters about encroachment" over the preschool's use of space. The wording he read matches RSA 188-E:3, II as it stood in 2019: the constructed or renovated facility "shall become the property of the school district or public academy, for use by the career and technical education center exclusively." The letters, the rooms involved and any state response are not in any available record, so this is an observation that the district had been put on notice of a possible compliance problem. Separately, his figure that "usually the state provides 75% of the funding" for renovations describes a funding practice; the statute itself fixes no percentage.
Sources: RSA 188-E:3, II (2019 codification; source ends 2015, 252:5): facility becomes district property "for use by the career and technical education center exclusively".
OBSERVATION No agenda, packet, notice or minutes for this meeting are posted online
MAP.md records that neither district Drive share holds anything before July 2022 (checked 9/26/26). That is a limit of what the district posts online, not evidence that records were never made: this recording shows two sets of minutes approved. In 2019, RSA 91-A:2, II required minutes to be open to inspection "not more than 5 business days after the meeting". The limb of the project's missing-records rule applied is the online-availability observation. It bears directly on flag 1, since the disputed notice cannot be read.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1); Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 117.
POSITIVE The district disclosed its own notice defects in public and followed the curative statute's timetable
The hearing opened with counsel's statement, read in full by the chair, conceding that the November 6 hearing notice was not posted on the SAU 6 website and that the November 21 meeting notice went up six days ahead instead of seven (0:00:56, 0:01:29). That is the explanation of reasons RSA 31:5-b, II(c) calls for at this hearing. The timing fits the statute: the hearing was eight days before the December 12 meeting, meeting the "Not less than 7 calendar days" rule of II(c), and December 12 is 21 days after the November 21 vote, meeting the "not ... less than 21 calendar days after the original vote" rule of II(b). A staff member correctly distinguished the curative meeting under RSA 40:16 from the RSA 197:3-a procedure Adrian had read (1:18:17). The board still questioned whether website posting was required, as it was entitled to.
Sources: RSA 31:5-b, II(b)-(c) (2019 codification; source 1989, 287:1): curative meeting at least 21 days after the original vote; hearing at least 7 days before, explaining the reasons; RSA 40:16 (2019 codification; source 1999, 86:4).
POSITIVE The chair kept members from forming an online quorum by naming two spokespeople for social media
At 1:19:45 the chair said "We have to be careful that four of us don't respond", designated Benware and Towle to answer public questions online, and told the rest "stay away from it." Four is a majority of the seven-member board. RSA 91-A:2, I defines a meeting as the convening of a quorum to discuss matters within the body's jurisdiction, and RSA 91-A:2-a, II provides that "Communications outside a meeting, including sequential communications among members of a public body, shall not be used to circumvent the spirit and purpose of this chapter." Limiting online responses to two members is a practical safeguard against a deliberation by a quorum outside a noticed meeting.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I (2019 codification): meeting is the convening of a quorum; RSA 91-A:2-a, II (2022 codification; source 2008, 303:4, unamended, so the same text governed in 2019): outside communications not to circumvent the chapter.
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 10638, "CLAREMONT SCHOOLS PUBLIC HEARING and SCHOOL BOARD of 12-4-19": Claremont Community Television. 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, counsel's statement, technical center slides, policy texts or minutes for this meeting were located.
- Related pages: November 6, 2019 (the hearing whose notice was defective); November 20, 2019 (counsel's advice and the vote to hold a curative meeting); November 21, 2019 special district meeting.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/10638 SchoolBoard120419.mp4.CSV (596 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/10638 SchoolBoard120419.mp4Input/Transcripts/10638 SchoolBoard120419.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/10638 SchoolBoard120419.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 117
Laws and rules cited on this page