Participants
Everyone heard or named as taking part. Names follow the district’s own documents where they exist, then on-tape self-identification and the chair’s or clerk’s address; a first name only is kept where nothing more is on the record.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Frank Sprague | Chair, Claremont School Board | Ran the meeting; read the nurses’ letter into citizens’ comments (0:02:44); called one roll himself when the clerk dropped off (0:59:44). |
| Heather Whitney | Board member | Joined late; thanked the administration for the presentation (0:51:27). |
| Rebecca Zullo | Board member | Absent; the chair said at the opening she would not be with the board. |
| Jason Benware | Board member | Joined late; moved acceptance of the retirements (0:57:36), the CCTV appointments (1:01:04) and adjournment. |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member | Present; seconded the return-to-school motion, per the chair. |
| Michael Petrin | Board member | Moved the agenda and the return-to-school motion (0:47:51); seconded the retirements and adjournment. |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member | Seconded the agenda and the CCTV motion; asked whether winter sports were included (0:43:55). |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Covid and academic report; recommended in-person return on Monday (0:40:23); presented the retirements and the CCTV nominations. |
| Donna Magoon | Assistant superintendent, SAU 6 | Covid follow-ups; briefed the board on the annual-meeting process (1:02:30). |
| Jeff Small | Technology director, SAU 6 | Ran the slides and watched for public hands. |
| Mary Woodman | School district clerk, recording secretary | Joined after the opening; called three of the four roll calls; clarified the filing deadline (1:18:25). |
| Prescott | Student representative | Student report, added to the agenda at a member’s request (0:19:05). |
| Rick Deschenes (spelling unverified) | Citizens’ comment; a coach | Asked the board to reinstate high school sports (0:17:03). |
| SAU 6 nursing staff (signatory’s name not recoverable) | Citizens’ comment, by letter read by the chair | Urged that schools stay remote longer (0:09:12). The dialogue file attributes the letter’s words to the chair, who was reading it. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda is on hand. The chair worked from one (“we have an agenda in front of us tonight” at 0:01:24), and a member had the student report added; the list below is reconstructed from the chair’s transitions.
Items in the order taken up, with dispositions.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:49 | Attendance | Taken by the chair before the clerk joined. Zullo absent; Whitney and Benware not yet on. |
| 0:01:24 | Agenda as amended | Student report added. Petrin moved, Towle seconded; adopted by voice vote, “All those in favor say aye.” (MEDIUM). |
| 0:02:44 | Minutes; citizens’ comments | Chair: no minutes from the previous meeting. Letter from the SAU 6 nursing staff read; one live speaker. Closed at 0:18:25. |
| 0:18:55 | Student representative’s report | Remote clubs, scholarships and school updates. |
| 0:20:48 | Superintendent’s report | Covid data, board members’ questions, grade-level data, recommendation to return in person on Monday. |
| 0:45:57 | Discussion and action: return to school | Petrin moved “that we follow the superintendent's recommendation, with return to in-person, for all schools starting Monday, February 1st, which would include the return to winter sports”; the chair named Lovett as seconder (0:48:23). Roll call 6–0, Zullo absent (0:53:15). |
| 0:56:21 | Board approval of retirements | Seven retirements on a list before the board. Benware moved, Petrin seconded; roll call called by the chair, 6–0 (0:59:44). |
| 1:00:12 | Board approval of CCTV board members | Two nominees. Benware moved, Towle seconded; roll call 6–0 (1:01:39). |
| 1:02:05 | Annual meeting informational | Magoon’s briefing on the February 1, February 4 and March 9 sessions. |
| 1:13:23 | Other business: meeting schedule | Chair proposed counting the February 1 and 4 sessions as the board’s February meeting and holding a goals retreat as the first March meeting; no vote (OBSERVATION). |
| 1:18:54 | Adjournment | Benware moved, Petrin seconded; roll call 6–0 (1:19:12). |
Discussion timeline
Times come from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/11216 SchoolBoard020321.mp4.CSV). Quotations are the transcript as it stands, ASR errors included; bracketed words are editorial.
Topics in recording order.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:49 | Attendance by the chair | “So I am present. Heather Whitney is not with us yet. Rebecca Zulu won't be with us.” Lovett, Petrin and Towle are present. | |
| 0:01:24 | Agenda | Petrin: “we missed Prescott student. Report”; Magoon: the report was dropped “Only because it's not a regular meeting.” Agenda adopted by voice vote because the clerk was not yet on: “We don't have Mary here.” | MEDIUM |
| 0:02:44 | Nurses’ letter | The chair reads a letter from “the saw six nursing staff” [SAU 6]: Sullivan County “is considered extremely high risk, with an average of 23 cases a day”; the safest course would be “to stay out until after February vacation into March”; “If that means being remote for a bit longer, then so be it.” The signatory’s name is garbled in the transcript. | |
| 0:10:54 | Citizens’ comment: sports | Rick Deschenes, a coach, describes the fall season as “somewhat of a return to normalcy and a getaway for these, for these kids” and asks the board “to reinstate. Reinstate at least the sports piece. Immediately.” Magoon cautions that the state school dashboard “not always up to date”. | |
| 0:19:05 | Student report | Prescott on remote clubs, including youth and government “preparing for bills in preparation for the remote mock legislature in April”. | |
| 0:20:59 | Covid data | Tempesta: the pivot to remote followed “27 active cases in quarantine, really handcuffing us across several buildings”; Claremont cases fell “63 from 101 just a week before”. He says he sent the presentation to the board on Friday and revised it twice since (0:27:08). | POSITIVE |
| 0:29:54 | Board members’ questions | Tempesta: “these are questions that the members of the board have asked that we've tried to answer”; no plans to change vacations (0:31:04). | |
| 0:32:41 | Grade-level data | Principals’ figures by school and cohort, with schools labeled A, B and C “so that we're not pointing fingers”; “It is a consistent lagging in cohort C compared to the others.” “All this entire presentation will be on the website”. | POSITIVE |
| 0:40:23 | Recommendation | Tempesta: “our recommendation based on on all of these things is to continue and have have the students come back in person” on Monday. Winter sports “will start on Monday” with no spectators, live streaming and masks; Magoon: players will wear masks “on and off the court”. | |
| 0:43:35 | Clarification only | Chair: “This is simply a presentation.” He limits members to clarifying questions until the action item. | |
| 0:47:51 | Return-to-school motion | Petrin: the plan “technically is a hybrid because we still have in-person with the option of remote”, then moves the return. Towle notes the coming variants (0:50:29); Whitney: “statistically you're safer in school and you are in the general public”. Roll call 6–0. | |
| 0:54:22 | Vaccine and travel | A question from the chat on travel after vaccination; Magoon describes a two-week grace period after the second dose (0:54:33). | |
| 0:56:29 | Retirements | Tempesta: “There's no impact for the, the the bargaining unit.” and “we never identify the teachers”. Benware: “They're still going to retire, aren't they?” No early-retirement offer: “we anticipate a tough hiring season”. The clerk dropped off; the chair called the roll. | |
| 1:00:20 | CCTV board appointments | Tempesta presents two nominees: a journalist (the name is garbled in the transcript) for a one-year term and “our police chief, Mark Chase” for a three-year term. Roll call 6–0. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:02:30 | Annual-meeting briefing | Magoon: a letter went to all registered voters “this past weekend”; “February 1st is going to be our first of the three meetings that are going to consist of the annual meeting”. The budget is posted at the SAU office, Stevens, the Tech Center, City Hall and online (1:05:10); at the February 1 and 4 meetings “the community will not be able to speak”. | |
| 1:07:22 | Comments and voting | Magoon: submitted comments “will be read aloud at this meeting” on February 4; the postings include “all budgets for the default budget”. March 9 is drive-up voting with walk-up allowed (1:08:12), Ward 1 at Stevens, Ward 2 at the middle school, Ward 3 at Disnard; the first ballot question asks “Do you approve of this voting process?” | |
| 1:10:19 | Election workers | Chair asks for consideration for “the checklist people”; Magoon will meet the city clerk on the logistics (1:11:20). | |
| 1:13:23 | February and March meetings | Chair: “the special meeting we would have on the fourth would constitute our February meeting”; the first March meeting would be a goals retreat, which he says policy requires before a new board is elected (1:14:01). Magoon notes the third Wednesday would otherwise be a regular meeting (1:14:45). No vote taken. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:16:47 | Returning cohorts | Benware relays a question from someone who could not get onto Zoom; Magoon: families returning to cohorts “should have received a call from their school”. | |
| 1:17:50 | Candidate filing | Petrin: filing “Closes. When is it close? On Friday.”; the clerk confirms Friday as “the last day”. | |
| 1:19:12 | Adjournment | Roll call 6–0. | |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer’s aid. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one cites the rule or record it rests on, as that rule read on the meeting date, so a reader can check the reasoning. A flag marked OBSERVATION has no confirmed rule behind it; POSITIVE marks practice worth noting on the other side of the ledger.
HIGH No minutes, agenda or packet for this meeting were found in any district share
A quorum met by Zoom and voted four times: to return every school to in-person learning and winter sports, to accept seven retirements, to appoint two members of the CCTV board, and to adjourn. MAP.md records that neither district Drive share holds a year folder older than 2022 and the Meeting Minutes share starts in 2023. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes open to public inspection “not more than 5 business days after the meeting,” recording the final decisions and the mover and seconder of each motion (statutory wording, 2019 codification). With every member remote, RSA 91-A:2, III(a) also required the minutes to state why in-person attendance was not reasonably practical.
Severity follows the project rule (html_briefing.md §5), unmitigated limb: the recording names no other place the minutes are kept. The minutes would also be the only record of whose retirements were accepted, since the superintendent said “we never identify the teachers”, and of the second CCTV appointee’s name. The finding is “not found”: pre-2022 records may survive outside the shares.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II and III(a) (2019 codification, in force January 2019 to October 2, 2023); MAP.md section 138 (plain text, unpublished).
MEDIUM The agenda was adopted by voice vote at a fully remote meeting
At 0:02:22 the chair said “We don't have Mary here.” and took the agenda vote as “All those in favor say aye.” RSA 91-A:2, III(e) provides that “All votes taken during such a meeting shall be by roll call vote” when members participate remotely (statutory wording), and Emergency Order #12 waived the physical-quorum requirement, not the roll-call rule. The vote was procedural and unanimous among those on the call, and every later vote was a roll call, including one the chair called himself when the clerk dropped off (0:59:44). On January 13 the same chair stopped a voice vote for this reason (show 11262, dialogue row 91).
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, III(e) (2019 codification); Emergency Order #12 (March 23, 2020); Dialogue/11262 SchoolBoard011321.mp4.CSV.
OBSERVATION The chair proposed that the voters’ annual-meeting sessions count as the board’s February meeting
At 1:13:23 the chair said “the special meeting we would have on the fourth would constitute our February meeting”, and at 1:14:55 that he would count “those days as the, as the, as the board meeting for the month of February”, skipping the regular third-Wednesday meeting. The February 1 and 4 sessions were sessions of the school district meeting, the voters’ legislative body, run by the moderator: on January 13 the moderator described deliberative sessions as hers to run (show 11262, dialogue row 255), and both sessions were opened and closed by her (see the 2/1/21 and 2/4/21 pages). A district-meeting session does not give the board a noticed board meeting for other business.
No rule found requires a February board meeting, and no vote was taken, so this is an observation. On the plan as stated, the board’s next meeting of its own after January 27 would be the March goals retreat.
Sources: Dialogue/11262 SchoolBoard011321.mp4.CSV (moderator’s remark); Dialogue/11276 SchoolDistrictMeeting020121.mp4.CSV; Dialogue/11281 SchoolDistrictMeeting020421.mp4.CSV.
OBSERVATION The record does not preserve the name of one of the two CCTV board appointees
At 1:00:20 the superintendent presented two nominees for the board of Claremont Community Television (CCTV) / Claremont Community Media Center (CCMC): the city’s police chief, named on tape as Mark Chase, for a three-year term, and a journalist for a one-year term whose name the transcript renders as “Erickson, go to”. The motion carried 6–0. With no minutes and no packet, the recording is the only public record of the appointment, and it does not settle who was appointed.
Disclosure: CCTV / CCMC is the source of every recording in this project and publishes these pages. The project’s maintainer, Kevin Tyson, later joined the CCTV board (2022); he is not named in this meeting’s records.
Sources: Dialogue/11216 SchoolBoard020321.mp4.CSV (dialogue row 262).
POSITIVE The administration put its decision data before the board in advance and said it would post it publicly
The superintendent said he sent the presentation to the board on the Friday before the meeting and revised it as new data arrived (0:27:08), answered members’ written questions on the record (0:29:54), and said “All this entire presentation will be on the website”. The grade-level figures were presented by school and cohort with schools labeled A, B and C, so no student or classroom could be identified. No rule requires any of this; it gave the public the same basis for the return-to-school vote that the board had.
Sources: Dialogue/11216 SchoolBoard020321.mp4.CSV (dialogue rows 114, 123, 130 to 135).
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: School Board live on 1/27/21 (show 11216; event date in the Cablecast record is 2/3/21, per MAP.md).
- Google Drive: no packet folder, agenda or minutes. Per MAP.md section 138, neither district 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 MAP.md.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Laws and rules cited on this page