Claremont School Board — September 23, 2020

OBSERVATION The October 5 motion went to a roll call whose result was never announced, and the lone "no" on the adopted motion cannot be identified

The acting chair called a roll-call vote on the October 5 motion at 2:04:19. The answers on the recording are fragmentary (a No no. at 2:04:53, Benware yes, "Rob Lovett no." at 2:05:04, Whitney yes at 2:05:26, and "She did not vote and I did." at 2:05:29), and no result was stated before Zullo made a new motion (2:05:50). The motion evidently failed, since a substitute followed and passed, but the recording does not show the count or how most members voted. The adopted October 19 motion carried "six yeses and one. No." (2:13:51); who voted no is not audible. For a decision that changed the school year for every family, the only public account of the two tallies is the minutes, approved on October 7 but not posted online (flag 5).

RSA 91-A:2, III(e), as in force in 2020, required that "All votes taken during such a meeting shall be by roll call vote" when members participate remotely; the board did take roll calls (flag 6), so the gap is in what the recording lets a reader recover, not in the procedure. Recorded as an observation.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, III(e) (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, in force until 2023): roll-call votes with remote participation.

OBSERVATION The adopted motion was composed on the floor by the assistant superintendent, made conditional on equipment the administration said it lacked, and restated with wrong words twice

Zullo's motion was open-ended ("I don't know if I can put that in there, actually", 2:06:16) and was restated as "September 19th." (2:08:40). The remote chair said "I have no idea what the motion is." (2:08:34) before the acting chair announced that "Donna's writing it down and she's going to restate it." (2:09:38). The text the board voted on was read by Assistant Superintendent Magoon at 2:11:23; when read back after the vote it said the high school will remain remote, corrected to hybrid (2:14:44). Its condition, "pending all necessary safety equipment is installed", followed statements from the superintendent that the district could not meet CDC six-foot spacing (0:58:25) and from Magoon that driver barriers ordered six weeks earlier had not arrived (0:48:32); the motion leaves to the administration whether the condition is met.

No statute governs how a motion is drafted, and the text was read aloud before the vote, which is good practice. The point for a reader is that the operative wording lives only in the minutes, which are not posted, and the recording carries two misstatements of it.

Sources: no statutory rule; dialogue rows at 2:06:02, 2:08:34, 2:11:23 and 2:14:21.

OBSERVATION A meeting held under the emergency remote-meeting order: the start was on a closed video session, remote members lost audio, the public was out of the room without a vote, and adjournment was not voted

Emergency Order #12 (March 23, 2020) allowed a public body to meet without a quorum physically present if it provided public access by telephone, gave public notice of how to access the meeting, provided a way to report access problems, and adjourned if the public could not access it. Three moments on this recording bear on those conditions. The acting chair's first opening remarks were made on a "pre meeting" video session that staff described as the one not open to the public (0:01:28); the meeting was restarted for the public at 0:02:56. Remote members lost the thread more than once: Towle dropped off (0:50:28), the chair could not hear an answer (1:02:38) and did not know the motion before the final vote (2:08:34); RSA 91-A:2, III(c) required remote participants to be able to "simultaneously hear each other and speak", a requirement the order did not waive. And a member noted that in-person public attendance had ended without any vote (2:17:33); the board agreed to restore it with registration from October 7. The adjournment was moved and seconded (2:20:00) but no vote is audible.

The public could call in and did (flag 6), and the notice of access details cannot be checked because no notice survives online. Recorded as an observation: nothing here shows the public was actually shut out.

Sources: Emergency Order #12 (March 23, 2020, under Executive Order 2020-04): conditions for meeting without a physical quorum; RSA 91-A:2, III(c) and (e) (2019 codification).

OBSERVATION High school busing was ended inside the reopening motion; state law made it discretionary, and no count of affected students was presented

The superintendent told the board that "it's not required that we we have to transport to the high school" (0:18:53) and that bus capacity was needed for K-8 riders; the adopted motion includes that "No bussing" will be provided for the high school (2:11:41). As in force from July 1, 2020, RSA 189:6 required transportation for "pupils in kindergarten through grade 8 who live more than 2 miles from the school to which they are assigned" and left grades 9 through 12 to the district "when it finds that this is appropriate", unless the commissioner directs otherwise. So the decision was within the board's discretion. No figure for high school riders was presented tonight; on October 7 a Stevens counselor asked the board to restore one or two high school buses (see the October 7 page). Recorded as an observation.

Sources: RSA 189:6 (as amended by 2019, 181:1, eff. July 1, 2020): K-8 transport beyond 2 miles required; grades 9 to 12 discretionary.

OBSERVATION No agenda, 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). The minutes of this meeting were moved, seconded and approved by roll call on October 7, 2020, so they exist or existed. In 2020 RSA 91-A:2, II required minutes open to public inspection "not more than 5 business days after the meeting", naming the members "who made or seconded each motion". Whether that was met cannot be tested from here. The limb of the project's missing-records rule applied is the online-availability observation. The notice of this meeting, which Emergency Order #12 required to carry the public's telephone access details, is likewise not online.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; text in force in 2020); Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 131.