Participants
Members, staff and absences on the recording. Names follow the project's 2015-2023 roster, the meeting's attribution report and the project's CSV corrections ledger; there are no minutes to check spellings against.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Michael Petrin | Chair, SAU 6 Board (Claremont member) | Opens and closes the hearing (0:00:03, 0:08:56); notes “there is no public here” (0:06:00); recognizes the second on the hearing motion, “Good. Jason. Good. A second.” (0:08:18; the dialogue file labels this row for Frank Sprague, and the project's corrections ledger reassigns it to the chair); summarizes the evaluation plan (0:32:20, 0:46:46); reads the meeting reminders (0:57:48). |
| Marjorie Erickson | Vice Chair, SAU 6 Board (Unity) | Asks what Unity's share of the infrastructure money is (0:15:41); objects to a second reading of policies received that morning (0:22:12); raises the superintendent evaluation and whether goals were ever set (0:26:21, 0:39:01). |
| Jason Benware | Member (Claremont) | Moves the agenda, the December 5 minutes, the hearing motion, the policies and the budget (0:02:01, 0:02:25, 0:06:49, 0:23:59, 0:25:06); asks whether hearing notices now state their subject (0:58:29); moves to adjourn (0:58:51). |
| Frank Sprague | Member (Claremont School Board chair) | Claremont update on contracts and the NHSBA delegate assembly (0:11:19); presents the draft SAU policies (0:18:01). The attribution report assigns this block to him by content (medium confidence). |
| Rebecca Zullo | Member (Claremont vice chair) | Explains the hearing-to-meeting sequence (0:07:49); proposes an evaluation process of independent scoring and a joint discussion (0:31:10). |
| Carolyn Towle | Member (Claremont) | Wants the evaluation process documented for future boards (0:30:57); suggests starting from the superintendent's entry plan (0:42:29); raises the governor's Medicaid letter (0:56:09). Two of her rows were reassigned from Erickson's cluster on the chair's recognition. |
| Heather Whitney | Member (Claremont) | Says joint goal-setting “is actually a requirement in the contract” (0:39:42); seconds the adjournment (0:58:53). Her label rests on limited cues (attribution report: low to medium). |
| Gary Bader | Member (Unity) | Recognized as Gary (transcribed Terry); argues a teacher survey measures climate, not the superintendent's performance (0:37:27). |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Member (Claremont) | Called in the roll (0:01:07). The Capital Improvement Committee update (0:14:13) is unidentified; the attribution report names Lovett or Whitney. |
| Shannon Popescu | Member (Unity) | Called in the roll (0:00:59); no remarks attributed by name. |
| Prudence McCormick, Robert McDevitt | Members (Unity) | Not called in the roll and not heard; whether they were absent cannot be confirmed without minutes. |
| Richard Seaman | Business Administrator, SAU 6 | Presents the budget at the hearing (0:02:58); explains the allocation to the districts after adoption (0:07:59). |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | No formal report (0:09:26); describes his entry plan and Massachusetts evaluation practice (0:40:00, 0:49:53); puts the Medicaid stake at “about 700 grand” (0:57:29). |
| Mary Woodman | Clerk / recording secretary | Calls the roll (0:00:59). |
| Unidentified | Various | 64 of 492 dialogue rows (13.0%), including the Capital Improvement Committee update and several seconds and ayes. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda survives. The chair says “the times are a little mixed up here” on the printed agenda and takes the hearing first; the order below follows his transitions.
| Taken up | Item | What was said and done |
|---|
| 0:00:03 | Call to order (public hearing); Pledge; roll call | “I'd like to call the January 2nd, 2020. C six, actually. Public hearing to order.” Roll at 0:00:59. |
| 0:01:33 | Agenda | Motion Benware (0:02:01); second unidentified; voice vote (0:02:12). |
| 0:02:12 | Minutes of December 5, 2019 | Benware: “I make a motion that we approve the minutes from December 5th.” Second not separately audible; voice vote (0:02:29). |
| 0:02:41 | Public hearing: FY21 SAU budget | Seaman presents $1,727,004.01. No public present (0:06:00). Benware: “I make a move that we move this to a vote.” at the regular meeting (0:06:49); second recognized by the chair (0:08:18); voice vote (0:08:47). Hearing closed at 0:08:56. |
| 0:09:09 | Superintendent's report | None formal, “because the holiday”. |
| 0:10:57 | Citizens' comments | None. |
| 0:10:57 | Claremont School Board update | Contracts, NHSBA delegate assembly, Capital Improvement Committee, infrastructure aid. |
| 0:16:42 | Unity School Board update | Budget and principal-search meetings rescheduled to January 6 to 8. |
| 0:17:38 | SAU 6 policies, first reading | Benware: “I'd like to make a motion to move these policies.” to a second reading (0:23:59); second not audible; voice vote (0:24:42). |
| 0:24:52 | FY21 SAU budget approval | Benware: “I'm going to make a motion, a motion to approve fiscal year 21, post budget of $1,727,004. I second that. One penny.” (0:25:06); the words “I second that.” sit inside his row and are probably another member's. Voice vote, Aye. heard and no opposition audible (0:25:34). |
| 0:25:53 | Future agenda items | Next SAU 6 meeting February 20, 2020 (0:27:06): policies at second reading, the superintendent's entry-plan report, the evaluation. |
| 0:55:59 | Closing activities | Governor's Medicaid letter; meeting reminders; hearing notices. |
| 0:58:51 | Adjournment | Motion Benware; second Whitney (0:58:53); voice vote (0:58:59). |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/10675 SAU6010220.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. The transcript renders SAU as C six, SO6, saw and see you.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:03:16 | The budget at the hearing | Seaman: “the recommendation for the budget for the saw is $1,727,004 and one penny. This is a reduction of 173,534 and $0.76 from the fiscal 20 budget.” The decreases are mainly technology positions and the superintendent's office; health insurance has been updated. “the only change that we made from our conversation from last month was a request by the board to reduce the increase for salaries for next year from 2.5% to 2.0%.” (0:04:13) The figure “is the same one that was endorsed by the board at our meeting last month” (0:04:45). | HIGH |
| 0:05:36 | No public, and how the hearing feeds the vote | Petrin: “Just for the record, there is no public here, so that's why we're not having any public Thomas [comments] right now.” (0:06:00) Benware moves the budget to a vote at the regular meeting; Seaman: “once this board approves the budget, then I'll go through the process of the allocation between Unity and Claremont school districts.” (0:07:59) Benware: “I just voted to move this to the regular meeting so that we could then vote on it.” (0:08:26) | POS |
| 0:11:19 | Claremont contracts | Sprague: “We have tentative agreements with the teachers and with custodians.” On the 2% SAU figure: “We did have to go higher on some percentages than that. As part of our negotiations to try to get all of the bargaining units over to off Blue Cross Blue Shield and to the same plan as everyone else.” (0:11:37) He and Towle will represent Claremont at the NHSBA delegate assembly on the 25th (0:13:49). | |
| 0:14:13 | Infrastructure money: “use every penny” | The Capital Improvement Committee “toured the Dow building”, is collecting bids, “we're focusing on roofs”, and “it looks like we'll be able to use every penny.” Sprague: “in talking to Matt Upton, it sounds like if if a job gets started, the money can be encumbered and can be completed at some future point.” (0:14:50) Erickson: “no mention has been made at any of our meetings that we're getting a pot of money.” (0:15:41) Tempesta: “there is an amount. I don't know the amount.”; Sprague 38. and Seaman “Thousand six.” (0:16:24); Sprague: “It has to be spent this year.” (0:16:33) | |
| 0:17:38 | The first SAU-level policies | Petrin: the SAU has “always kind of borrowed” Claremont and Unity policies. Sprague: “Donna did 99% of the work.” He removed policies about students, parents and teachers and kept those on superintendent supervision, quorums and ethics (0:19:04); “I would really encourage people don't do not rubber stamp this.” (0:20:24) Erickson: “we really haven't done a first read. I mean, most of us just got them this morning with no opportunity to look at them.” (0:22:12) Benware: “I saw this for the first time today, but it said it was sent to me on the 31st.” (0:23:03) Moved to a second reading (0:23:59). | OBS |
| 0:24:52 | The budget adopted | Motion to approve $1,727,004.01 (0:25:06); an unidentified member: “To second the whole thing.”; voice vote (0:25:34). Erickson: “On this page, it's missing one.” (0:25:41), apparently the penny. | HIGH MED |
| 0:26:21 | Superintendent evaluation: when and how | Erickson wants “one more before the elections in March, before the board changes” and the evaluation on the agenda; the next meeting is set for February 20 (0:27:06). Erickson: “The only problem I have with that is it's not on the agenda for today.” (0:28:58) Petrin: the evaluation discussion “would have to be in nonpublic”; Zullo: “Well, technically it doesn't have to be if it, if he chooses it not to be, that's totally up to him.” (0:31:53) Consensus: members score the tool individually and meet on February 20 (0:32:20). | OBS |
| 0:34:28 | Should teachers have a say? | Erickson: “I'm not 100% sure that I feel comfortable with teachers evaluating the superintendent”. Benware would wait until the superintendent has been here a year (0:35:50). Bader: a teacher survey is “more like a client survey” of the working climate (0:37:27). Erickson later worries “it's going to be a biased sample” (0:51:22). | |
| 0:38:35 | Were goals ever set? | Erickson: “I'm not sure any of us ever sat down with Mike to set goals to begin with.” (0:39:01) Whitney: “Which is actually a requirement in the contract.” Zullo: “That the board and the superintendent develop goals together.” (0:39:44) Tempesta: “during the entry process I, I outlined a plan, met with everyone. I don't want the public to think that we didn't talk about completely rudderless.” (0:40:00) and “you hadn't really had a process like this on board for any of the previous superintendents and last decade or so.” (0:41:32) Erickson: “I think within six months we were supposed to have done that was to sit down with you to make sure we were all on the same page with goals.” (0:41:52) Towle: “Mike's entry plan was very specific and clear and very complete.” (0:42:29) | OBS |
| 0:49:53 | Evidence for the evaluation | Tempesta proposes a shared folder of artifacts against each indicator, as in Massachusetts; Whitney: “You know, a closed group and Google Drive.” (0:53:07) Petrin: the board fills out the tool, with perhaps a simpler survey for teachers and principals (0:53:18). | |
| 0:56:09 | Medicaid | Towle: “we got a letter, updated letter from Chris Sununu today about Medicaid.” Tempesta, for Claremont: “It's a big deal. It's about 700 grand.” (0:57:29) | |
| 0:58:29 | Hearing notices now say what they are about | Benware: “when we posting our public hearings on our agenda today, we are saying what the public hearings about.” Erickson: the notice is on the front page and puts “right on there exactly” what it is for (0:58:40). | POS |
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 January 2, 2020, or is labeled an observation where no verified rule applies.
HIGH The SAU 6 board adopted its FY21 budget on January 2, 2020; RSA 194-C:9, I requires adoption “At a meeting held before January 1”
RSA 194-C:9, I provides: “At a meeting held before January 1, the school administrative unit board shall adopt a budget”. The statute's exceptions do not reach SAU 6. ¶II covers units “comprising only one district”, and SAU 6 has two. ¶III covers districts that have adopted RSA 194-C:9-a, whose alternative, a separate warrant article under RSA 194-C:9-b, “shall not apply to a school administrative unit that includes a city”, and SAU 6 includes the City of Claremont. The board's own record treats tonight's vote as the adoption: the business administrator said the allocation to the districts would follow “once this board approves the budget” (0:07:59), and the regular agenda carried “the fiscal year 21 budget approval” (0:24:52), voted at 0:25:34. On December 5 the board had only moved the figure to a hearing.
This page grades the point HIGH because the record contains nothing that brings the adoption inside the statute: it is a missed statutory date, by two days. The December 5, 2019 page grades the scheduling decision MEDIUM, because on that date the miss was a choice still in prospect and the board was asking for the deadline; tonight it is a completed fact. Mitigating, and stated here for fairness: no member of the public came to the hearing that caused the delay (0:06:00); the superintendent described starting the year “with hardly anyone in the saw” [SAU] (0:41:08); and RSA 194-C:9, I's further step, certifying each district's share “Prior to January 15”, remained possible. The statute states no consequence for late adoption, and none appears in this record.
Sources: RSA 194-C:9, I-III (2019 codification; source note 1996, 298:3; 2003, 279:1, eff. Sept. 16, 2003); RSA 194-C:9-b, IV (2019 codification; not available to an SAU that includes a city)
MEDIUM No agenda, packet or minutes survive, and the seconds on the hearing and budget motions are uncertain on the recording
MAP.md records no Drive material for this meeting, and no SAU 6 folder of this age survives in either district share. RSA 91-A:2, II, in the text in force since January 1, 2019, requires minutes that include the names of members, persons appearing, the members who made or seconded each motion, and a brief description of the subject matter and final decisions, open to public inspection within five business days. On this recording the second to the hearing motion is known only from the chair's “Good. Jason. Good. A second.” (0:08:18), the second to the budget motion sits inside the mover's own row (“I second that.”, 0:25:06), and none of the seven votes has an announced count. Minutes would settle who seconded the adoption of a $1.7 million budget and whether any member voted no, and would show whether Unity members McCormick and McDevitt were absent.
This page applies the MEDIUM limb of the project's severity rule because the record mitigates the gap: the board approved its December 5 minutes tonight (0:02:25), so minutes were being kept. What is missing is any public copy now.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019)
OBSERVATION The first set of SAU-level policies reached members the morning of the meeting
The draft policies were dated December 31, but Erickson and Benware said they received them that day, Erickson “I received it today at 12. At 1120.” (0:23:35), and Erickson objected that “most of us just got them this morning with no opportunity to look at them” (0:22:12). The board resolved it by treating tonight as the first reading and moving the drafts to a second reading on February 20 (0:24:22), which gives members time to read them; Sprague himself asked members not to “rubber stamp” them (0:20:24). No statute verified for this page sets a distribution deadline for board materials, so this is an observation. The SAU's adopted policies, when found, will show whether a third reading followed as Erickson asked (0:22:38).
Sources: Dialogue/10675 SAU6010220.mp4.CSV (rows at 0:22:08 to 0:24:43)
OBSERVATION Members said the superintendent's contract requires joint goal-setting that had not happened six months in
Six months into Superintendent Tempesta's tenure, Erickson said she was not sure the board had ever sat down with him to set goals, Whitney said that “is actually a requirement in the contract”, and Erickson said it was supposed to happen within six months (0:39:01 to 0:41:52). The superintendent answered that his entry plan was shared with everyone and is online (0:40:00, 0:42:46). The contract is not in this record, so the requirement and its timing cannot be checked here; this is the members' characterization, recorded as an observation. Two procedural points from the same discussion: Petrin said the evaluation discussion “would have to be in nonpublic” and Zullo answered that it need not be if the superintendent chooses otherwise (0:31:46, 0:31:53). RSA 91-A:3, II(a) permits a nonpublic session on the dismissal, promotion, compensation or discipline of an employee, and even then not where the employee “(1) has a right to a meeting and (2) requests that the meeting be open”; nothing in it requires a nonpublic session, so Zullo's point is consistent with the statute. And Erickson objected that the process was being settled although “it's not on the agenda for today” (0:28:58); RSA 91-A:2, II requires notice of a meeting's time and place, not an itemized agenda, so the objection goes to good practice rather than the statute.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, II(a) (2019 codification; source note ends 2016, 30:1 and 280:1); RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification)
POSITIVE A public hearing the statute does not require, and hearing notices that now state their subject
RSA 194-C:9 sets no hearing requirement for an SAU budget; the board held one, presented the figures in full and recorded that no one came (0:06:00). At the close, Benware confirmed that the district's posted hearing notices now say what each hearing is about, and Erickson pointed to the wording on the notice (0:58:29, 0:58:40). That answers the complaint a resident made at the Claremont board's December 4 hearing that its posting “doesn't say what it's about” (show 10638; see the December 4, 2019 page). RSA 91-A:2, II requires notice of time and place only, so stating the subject goes beyond the minimum. The cost of holding the hearing, a missed adoption date, is flag 1.
Sources: RSA 194-C:9 (2019 codification; no hearing requirement); RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; notice of time and place)
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: SAU#6 SCHOOL BOARD Public Hearing 1-2-20 (show 10675; run time from the Cablecast API not retrieved, the API refused this environment on 2026-10-02)
- 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/10675 SAU6010220.mp4.CSV (492 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/10675 SAU6010220.mp4Input/Transcripts/10675 SAU6010220.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 120Scripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/10675 SAU6010220.mp4.md (speaker attribution report)Scripts/csv_corrections_2015_2023.md (entry for row 62, 0:08:18)
Laws and rules cited on this page
- RSA 194-C:9, I-III, 2019 codification (source note 1996, 298:3; 2003, 279:1, eff. Sept. 16, 2003; ¶IV added later by 2024, 329:1): SAU budget adopted “At a meeting held before January 1”; district shares certified “Prior to January 15”; ¶II single-district units; ¶III districts that adopted RSA 194-C:9-a
- RSA 194-C:9-b, IV, 2019 codification (source ends 2012, 7:3): “This section shall not apply to a school administrative unit that includes a city.”
- RSA 91-A:2, II, 2019 codification (source note ends 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019): notice of time and place; minutes content including movers and seconders; five business days
- RSA 91-A:3, II(a), 2019 codification (source note ends 2016, 30:1 and 280:1): nonpublic session for employee matters unless the employee requests an open meeting