Claremont School Board — October 5, 2022 | SB 420 hearing and regular meeting

Participants

Everyone in the record: the seven board members, central-office staff, a high-school administrator, the student representative, and every resident who spoke at the hearing or in citizens' comments. Names follow the dialogue file; where it says Unidentified, so does this table. Spellings from the district's documents are noted where they differ.
Name	Role	Participation
Michael Petrin	Chair	Presided. Added the tech visioning committee to the agenda; ran the hearing, delaying a vote so waiting residents could speak ("I personally would like to wrap up with some public comments that are still waiting to be heard"); proposed a second hearing on October 19 and moving the special meeting to November 3. The dialogue file notes the chair's early segments were re-attributed from a mixed voice cluster.
Heather Whitney	Vice Chair	Arrived 6:44 p.m. per the minutes. Supported the reserve allocation ("There has never been a capital reserve fund. It's shockingly we haven't had that"), then seconded the tabling motion and set its terms: "we want Matt Upton to write something out", and "clarification in writing from the Department of Education as well."
Steven Horsky	Board member	Author of the reserve-fund motion behind the draft: "it was done under the guise that we're not going to have to keep coming back to the taxpayers". Moved to table, withdrew to let the public speak (1:04:41), then moved again. Said "the state kind of slaps us in the face right now".
Whitney Skillen	Board member	First to question the draft against SB 420 ("I don't know if we're following the rules"), found the amounts did not add up, and argued for counsel: "The fact that no one at this table has legal experience is not a reason to rush into a decision without knowing if it's legal or not."
Joshua Lambert	Board member	Spoke for the reserves "from the teacher perspective" (1:01:12); asked about in-school suspension for five tardies at Stevens; moved adjournment. Present on tape but not in the minutes' roll; the minutes do record him abstaining on the September 21 minutes and seconding the agenda.
Bonnie Miles	Board member	Moved the September 21 minutes with a housekeeping fix (date on every page); asked about guidance counselors and the tech center; raised a resident's question about FY20 special-education money.
Frank Sprague	Board member	Suggested using some of the money for a roughly $50,000 tech-center renovation feasibility study; argued the money could supplant: "a grant can be used to supplement but not supplant. And with money, this money we can supplant"; reported on the CTE visioning meeting; moved both policies.
Michael Tempesta	Superintendent, SAU 6	Read the draft warrant, correcting the weekday on the fly; presented the strategic plan, AP and dual-credit data, the elementary restructuring models and the high-school schedule; answered on special-education out-of-district placements.
Richard Seaman	Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations	Defended the draft: "it's not a grant. It's additional adequacy aid"; "this is what's considered unrestricted dollars"; the state report "It's not an approval. It's it is a reporting." Gave reserve balances (capital about $500,000, transportation about $230,000), the propane lock at $1.57, the ESSER II balance and deadline, and the history of the FY20 special-education trust.
Michael Koski	Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum	The "team of one" curriculum presentation: i-Ready growth and state-test history. The minutes also credit him with answering Abby Hopkins on the lost summer-program data; the dialogue file leaves that answer unidentified.
Ben Nester	Director of Special Education	Identified by role only (never named on tape). Staffing: "Paris [paras] is paraprofessionals are short staffed in every district"; special educators "down three district wide"; no behavior or social-emotional program at the middle school or high school.
Mr. Pratt	Stevens High School administrator (schedule committee)	Answered on passing time and lunch periods in the proposed Stevens schedule: "It's a proposal at best." Title and first name not given on tape.
Unidentified (addressed as Hannah)	Student representative	School-by-school report; "I'm like the student council president this year". The agenda names the student representative as Hannah Petrin.
Abby Hopkins	Citizens' comments, Ward 3	Asked what "school year rollover" meant in the September 21 minutes, learned the summer program's assessment data had been lost (flag 3), and confirmed the warrant would be read aloud at the hearing. The minutes attribute her question to Arlene Hawkins; on tape she introduces herself as Abby Hopkins.
Cassandra Edwards	Citizens' comments, Ward 3	Reported that the tech center's accessible parking space has no curb cut to the sidewalk; later asked how school curriculum teams will align with the board's curriculum committee (the minutes: "Cassie Edwards (Ward 2)").
Candace Crawford	Citizens' comments and hearing, Ward 2	Repeated an unanswered question from September 21 about "$650,000 that had to be spent by September 15th"; at the hearing argued the statute names an extraordinary need grant, questioned the $60,000 gap to the state figure, and proposed holding the vote with the November 8 election.
Arlene Hawkins	Hearing, Ward 3	Read SB 420 into the record and asked "Where is the match of your proposal and your proposed allocations to satisfy that last sentence?" Called the reserve plan "a disservice to our children and their families." Rendered `Arlington Hawkins`.
David Putnam	Hearing, Ward 2	Former board member. Urged a legal opinion "which would come back to the board and the community"; said the Perkins grant is for programming, not building consultants; asked about the Johnson Controls performance contract and energy prices.
Tom Rock	Hearing, Ward 2	Asked how the money affects the tax rate, then read the board's mission statement back to it: "nowhere in there does it say that you would be so concerned about the budget that you would not take this money and use it for the education of the students?"
Rob Lovett Jr. (uncertain)	Hearing, Ward 2	Self-introduced as `Rob Leavitt, Ward two` (the minutes: "Rob Levitt Jr."); the dialogue file identifies him, with low-to-medium confidence, as former board member Rob Lovett Jr. Asked whether any option besides a tax cut or a rainy-day fund had been discussed "with teachers, parents, students".
Unidentified	Hearing speaker	At 1:04:50 asked whether the board had already voted in September not to return the money, and praised the request for a legal opinion.

Agenda

From the posted Claremont School Board Public Hearing and Board Agenda 10.5.22, with dispositions from the recording and the minutes. Quoted agenda and minutes wording is marked as such.

Taken up	Item	Agenda text / disposition
0:00:19	I. Call to Order and Pledge	Called to order by the chair; pledge. The minutes give no time.
0:01:04	II. General Business: roll, agenda	No roll call is heard on tape. Minutes: "Present: Michael Petrin, Frank Sprague, Steven Horsky, Whitney Skillen, Bonnie Miles, Heather Whitney (arrival at 6:44pm) Absent:" (blank). Agenda amended to add item G, the tech visioning committee: minutes, "Steven Horsky makes motion to approve agenda with the amendment; Seconded by Joshua Lambert; all in favor via voice vote."
0:01:49	II. Minutes approval: September 21, 2022	Miles moved with the date added to each page; Horsky seconded. Minutes: "all in favor via voice vote with Joshua Lambert choosing to abstain."
0:03:20	II. Citizens Comments	"Citizens comments again at this time or for non-agenda items." Abby Hopkins, Cassandra Edwards and Candace Crawford spoke.
0:08:15	II. Student Representative Report	Agenda: "Student Representative Report - Hannah Petrin".
0:10:02	III. Public Hearing	Agenda: "PUBLIC HEARING (New Hampshire Senate Bill 420 (Additional Funds) Special Town Meeting (RSA 197:3) Warrant Posting". The draft warrant was read at 0:10:30. Horsky's motion to table at 1:03:52 was withdrawn at 1:04:41 for more public comment; renewed at 1:06:42, seconded by Whitney, and carried on a voice vote at 1:14:03. Minutes: "Steven Horsky makes a motion to table the warrant until further information is provided. Seconded by Heather Whitney; all in favor via vote voice."
1:14:29	IV. Superintendent Report	Strategic plan, 2020 SAT and AP results, dual credit, middle and high school schedules, elementary restructuring models and the advisory-committee survey.
1:32:08	V.1. Subcommittee report-outs (a to g)	Capital improvement meeting set for Friday; budget and policy nothing new; curriculum "met briefly"; visioning committee reported on its meeting with the state CTE director (the minutes: "Jeffrey Beard, New Hampshire CTE Director"; on tape `Doctor Beard`).
1:39:05	V.2. Third/final read: JICD and JICK	JICD (student discipline): Sprague moved, Horsky seconded, voice vote at 1:40:46. JICK: Sprague moved, Horsky seconded, voice vote at 1:41:18. Both approved.
1:41:39	V.3. ESSER II Update (R. Seaman)	ESSER II total $2,879,321, about $503,664 not yet budgeted, deadline September 30, 2023. No action.
1:44:31	V.4. Curriculum Team presentation; historical achievement data	Koski: i-Ready growth and NECAP / Smarter Balanced / NH SAS history. No action.
1:56:34	V.5. Elementary Restructuring; advisory committee	Models one and two; moving pre-K into the elementary schools. No action.
2:14:41	V.6. CMS/SHS/SRVRTC Schedule; advisory committee	Proposed Stevens schedule with two lunches and year-long core courses. No action.
2:32:48	V.7. Gifts/Donations (added to the posted agenda's list per the chair)	$500 from Claremont Savings Bank toward a gaga pit at Bluff Elementary. The recording has thanks but no motion or vote; the minutes likewise record the gift without a vote.
2:35:23	VI. Other Business	Special-education trust; special-education staffing; ISS for tardies.
2:44:52	VII–VIII. Closing; Adjournment	Lambert moved to adjourn. Minutes: "seconded by Whitney Skillen." The vote itself is not recorded in the minutes.

Discussion timeline

Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Times are the start of the cited exchange, 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
0:01:04	Agenda; September minutes	Tech visioning added as item G ("It was on the originally, but must have fallen off"). Miles: "if she could put in the date plus 630 on the top of page two".
0:03:41	Citizens' comments: lost summer data	Hopkins: the minutes say summer scores "were not gotten due to school year rollover." Unidentified answer: "The rollover for the beginning of this school year, that data was lost and they weren't holding." The program was "Federal. By the federal."	OBSERVATION
0:05:24	Citizens' comments: accessible parking; the $650,000 question	Edwards: "there is no handicapped ramp cutout in the sidewalk." Crawford: "there was $650,000 that had to be spent by September 15th. Last meeting, I asked if that money had been spent or encumbered, or did we lose it because we didn't act in a timely way?" The chair: "we'll respond back on that."
0:10:30	Hearing: the draft warrant read	"on Wednesday. On Thursday. Excuse me, that's an error on that draft on Thursday, October 20th". Article 1 building capital reserve ($200,000), Article 2 transportation capital reserve ($100,000), Article 3 new energy expendable trust "pursuant to RSA 198 20 C" ($129,867.51). Horsky: "we can get rid of that extra thousand in between 100 and 29."	OBSERVATION
0:13:32	Why reserves	Horsky: "This situation gives us an opportunity where it's not going to cost us money, to have money set aside in an emergency situation". The energy trust is for "a very turbulent time when it comes to energy costs."
0:15:13	Does the draft follow SB 420?	Skillen: the law says "We shall provide a plan to the Department of Education outlining how district intends to improve outcomes", and "I don't know if we're following the rules." Seaman at 0:18:37: "this is what's considered unrestricted dollars, there isn't a restriction tied to it as far as how it's used". And at 0:20:18: "It's not an approval. It's it is a reporting."	OBSERVATION
0:20:57	Tech-center feasibility study	Sprague floats about $50,000 for a renovation study. Whitney recalls a prior motion setting aside $100,000 for the CTE committee; Tempesta: "we put it in activities" (ESSER). Horsky: the renovation cycle was missed once "during a previous administration" and again "due to Covid".
0:25:02	Hawkins reads the bill	"The primary goal of this grant is to improve student achievement, and to help the school district to have funding for successful best practice student learning approaches. Where is the match of your proposal and your proposed allocations to satisfy that last sentence?" State figure for Claremont "$489,872".	OBSERVATION
0:27:21	"Not a grant"	Seaman: "it's not a grant. It's additional adequacy aid." Reserves protect programs from surprises such as a "propane price is going up by 75%". Whitney at 0:30:06 supports it. Balances at 0:33:29: capital reserve "$500,000", transportation "Approximately $230,000".
0:33:55	Supplement versus supplant	Sprague: "a grant can be used to supplement but not supplant. And with money, this money we can supplant and I think is what we're doing."
0:36:21	Crawford: a grant, a gap, a ballot date	"in the title it says it is a grant." The warrant totals "something like 429,000" against the state's $489,872. Why not vote on "November 8th" with the general election "so that you don't incur additional costs"?
0:40:24	No lawyer at the table	Horsky: "I don't see anybody sitting at this table that's a lawyer." "we're trying to do it and build a safety net for this district that hasn't been there."
0:43:35	The deadline is the tax rate	Seaman: "The only deadline we have is that we need to provide information to the city in tax, when for taxes to be prepared."
0:44:50	Putnam; energy	Putnam: get "a legal opinion on it, which would come back to the board and the community". Seaman at 0:48:09: the middle and high schools heat with pellets and chips; "We did lock in a price at $1.57."
0:50:09	Rock: how the tax side works	Seaman at 0:50:57: extra state aid "becomes a funding source. Thereby, if we get extra, it reduces the amount that needs to be raised in taxes." "The taxpayers only approve the expense side." Rock then reads the mission statement back to the board.
0:55:08	What the state said	Sprague cannot find the final bill text. Seaman: at a DOE/DRA session "that was stated several times from Doe as well as the Department of Revenue, that this is unrestricted monies". Putnam at 0:57:41: "it does not read like an unrestricted fund".	OBSERVATION
1:02:01	Skillen: get counsel, fix the total	"What's the consequence if we're wrong?" "If the amount really is 489, these numbers don't add up". Seaman: "I didn't create this number out of whole cloth".
1:03:52	Motion to table; withdrawn for the public	Horsky moves to table; the chair wants remaining public comment heard; Horsky: "withdraw my motion to allow further public comment." Two more residents speak, including `Rob Leavitt` at 1:05:40: "Are there any other options on the table right now that have been discussed with teachers, parents, students?"	POSITIVE
1:06:42	Tabled pending written advice	Renewed motion, second by Whitney. Seaman: tabling is "Purely procedural"; the FY20 precedent held its special meeting in December. Skillen: "I personally don't want to potentially disobey a law." Whitney: "we want Matt Upton to write something out". Carried by voice vote at 1:14:03; hearing closed.	POSITIVE
1:14:29	Superintendent's report	2020 AP: "11 kids get qualifying scores" versus "125 students got college credit" through dual-credit courses. Skillen asks about AP calculus, physics, chemistry: "No we don't. We only have 1 or 2 AP classes historically that we've run." Restructuring models and the advisory survey.
1:24:13	Staffing numbers on the restructuring slide	Sprague: "can you explain to me how how there can be one point for more teachers at the middle school than there at the high school?" Tempesta: academic centers and specials; "we can tease all that out".
1:34:08	CTE visioning; guidance and Naviance	Meeting with the state CTE director (`Doctor Beard`). Miles asks whether counselors do career counseling; Tempesta: they "follow the national guidance standards".
1:39:19	Policies JICD and JICK adopted	Whitney asks whether JICD aligns with the high school's restorative approach; Tempesta: "the regular discipline code applies." Both approved on voice votes.
1:41:51	ESSER II	"the grand total of 2 million 879. 321." "there remains 503,663 and $0.77 to budget". Deadline "361 days from now by September 30th of 2023." ESSER I closed with about $80 of a private-school allocation possibly unspent, "but everything else was spent in reimbursed".
1:44:42	Achievement history	Koski: i-Ready growth still "pretty well below" the national norm; state-test history through 2018. "it's not due to anything I've done, but, you know, Mike's been here for a couple of years and we're already starting to see some improvement." Sprague on No Child Left Behind as "fear based motivation".
1:56:34	Restructuring rationale	Tempesta: turnover of "20 plus percent of staff", curriculum alignment, early literacy; moving pre-K into the elementary schools; bus-routing software bought with ESSER. Whitney at 2:12:28: equity and concentrated poverty.
2:14:50	High-school schedule	Two lunches, 56-minute periods, year-long core courses, "16% increase in time on le[arning]". Pratt: "It's a proposal at best."
2:33:00	Gift	"it is 500 from the saving of bank towards the purchase of a gaga pet [pit]". Thanks, no vote.
2:35:34	The special-education trust	Seaman: "we received a 1.3 million of additional adequacy aid back in fiscal 20. We went through the same process we just went through here." Half went to a special-education reserve: "it was set at 650 and it is still at 650."
2:37:29	Special-education staffing	Skillen relays parents' reports of inadequate staff. Nester: "it really does boil down to staffing some of our compliance issues." At 2:41:41: "the biggest hole is behavior social emotional programing at the middle school. We don't have a teacher or paraprofessionals running that program."
2:44:10	ISS for tardies; adjournment	Lambert: "Are we suspending students at Stevens for five Tardis." To be explored. Adjourned on his motion.

Items flagged for review

Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the state and federal law in force on October 5, 2022. RSA 198:40-f and RSA 91-A:2 have both been amended since; their 2022 texts are cited. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. 4 flags follow, ordered by severity.

OBSERVATION The draft warrant fit neither the grant's stated purpose nor, for its energy trust, the special-meeting statute; the board caught it before posting

The money came from the extraordinary need grant that SB 420 created (codified as RSA 198:40-f). As it read in 2022, paragraph II required that "In order to receive an extraordinary need grant, the eligible school district shall provide a plan to the department of education outlining how the district intends to use grant award funds to improve the educational achievement and growth of students", and stated that "The primary goal of this grant is to improve student achievement and growth". The draft sent all of it to a building capital reserve, the transportation capital reserve and a new energy trust. The business administrator said the state had described it as "unrestricted monies" (0:56:11); two residents read the statute to the contrary (0:25:02, 0:36:21). This page has not seen any written DOE or DRA guidance and cannot settle which reading is right; the statute ties the plan to the grant money, and the plan's subject is student achievement.

A second, narrower point the meeting did not raise: RSA 197:3-a, III requires the warrant to "specify ... the amounts of appropriations proposed for reduction, rescission, or increase from the operating budget or separate warrant articles, or both, adopted at the annual meeting." Article 3 would have established a new expendable trust fund, which is not an increase to anything adopted at the annual meeting. The draft also carried the wrong weekday, a spelled-out figure reading "ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TWENTY NINE THOUSAND", and a total about $60,000 short of the state's number.

None of this was adopted. The board tabled the draft for counsel, and on October 19 it approved a one-article warrant adding $482,094.01 to the operating budget "for the purposes of improving student achievement", which matches both statutes' terms. It is recorded as an observation because the draft never became the district's act.

Sources: RSA 198:40-f, II (2022 codification; 2022 N.H. Laws ch. 318 (SB 420), approved July 1, 2022, eff. July 1, 2022); RSA 197:3-a, III; Claremont Special District Warrant - 10.20.22 - FINAL.pdf.

OBSERVATION The minutes omit a member who was present and reached the public share one business day after the five-day mark

The minutes' roll lists six members and leaves Absent: blank; Joshua Lambert, who spoke several times and moved adjournment, is not listed, although the same minutes record him seconding the agenda and abstaining on the September minutes. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to "include the names of members". The draft first appears in the district's public Drive share on October 14, 2022, in the October 19 packet: the sixth business day after the meeting, counting Columbus Day (a legal holiday under RSA 288:1) out, against a requirement that minutes be "open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting". A Drive created time dates when the district assembled the next packet, not when the minutes were first available at the office, so this is an observation about online availability. On October 19 the board tabled the draft because members had not had time to check it; a corrected version was filed with the November 17 packet. The minutes do name movers and seconders, as ¶II requires.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2022 codification: names of members, movers and seconders, five business days, business-day definition).

OBSERVATION Outcome data from a federally funded summer program were lost when the vendor rolled over its year

Answering a resident at 0:04:11, an unidentified administrator (the minutes: Mr. Koski) said the testing company rolled its data over at year end, "there was no contact to to tell them to keep that data", and "that data was lost". The program was "Federal. By the federal." (0:04:49). The September 21 minutes had recorded only that scores "were not gotten due to school year rollover." For a program whose purpose was student growth, the loss means its effect cannot be measured. No verified rule is cited; the flag is recorded because the district did not say whether the funding source required outcome reporting or what it did to prevent a repeat.

Sources: the recording at 0:03:41 to 0:05:10; Approved CSB Meeting Minutes 9.21.22. No legal requirement is claimed.

POSITIVE The board stopped a vote to hear the public, then tabled its own proposal until counsel answered in writing

The hearing ran more than an hour. When Horsky moved to table at 1:03:52, the chair asked to hear residents still waiting, and Horsky withdrew the motion "to allow further public comment" (1:04:41). The board then tabled on terms that were concrete: counsel's opinion in writing and, if possible, written clarification from the Department of Education. Several members who had supported the reserve plan voted to pause it. Two weeks later Sprague said of the residents who objected: "it turns out that for the most part, they were right" (October 19 recording). RSA 197:3-a, IV requires only one hearing at least 14 days before the meeting (the notice for this one entered the district's share on September 24, eleven days ahead); the board chose to hold a second. One caveat for the comment period generally: the chair introduced citizens' comments as "for non-agenda items", while RSA 189:74, in force from September 6, 2022, requires an opportunity to comment "on school district matters" of at least thirty minutes. No one was turned away tonight, and residents spoke at length on the agenda item in the hearing.

Sources: RSA 197:3-a, IV; RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022); CSB Public Hearing_Meeting Notice 10.5.22.

Appendix — source files

Official and public sources

Cablecast show 14654, "Claremont School Board of 10/5/22": Claremont Community TV. Runs 2:45:09. Every timestamp on this page links into this recording.
Drive packet folder "6. CSB Public Hearing & SB Meeting 10.5.22": 6 documents, listed below by their exact Drive names.
Claremont School Board Public Hearing and Board Agenda 10.5.22
CSB Public Hearing_Meeting Notice 10.5.22 (1).pdf: notice of the hearing "regarding the scheduling of a Special District Meeting to be held on October 20, 2022". Drive created time September 24, 2022.
Claremont Special District Warrant - 10.20.22 - FINAL.pdf: the three-article draft heard tonight, unsigned, uploaded the morning of the meeting (flag 1).
Superintendents Report Claremont School Board Meeting 10.5.22 and Curriculum Presentation 10.5.22: the slide decks presented.
Approved CSB Meeting Minutes 9.21.22: approved tonight as amended.
Minutes of this meeting: draft CSB Meeting Minutes 10.5.22 (in 7. CSB Public Hearing and SB Meeting 10.19.22) and CSB Meeting Minutes 10.5.22 (in 9. CSB Regular Meeting 11.17.22).
Related: the second hearing and the vote on the rewritten warrant, meeting page for October 19, 2022; the special district meeting that adopted it, meeting page for November 3, 2022.

Project files

Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.

Dialogue/14654 SchoolBoard100522.mp4.CSV (777 attributed rows; the basis of this page)
Input/Videos/14654 SchoolBoard100522.mp4
Input/Transcripts/14654 SchoolBoard100522.mp4.json
Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 177

Laws and rules cited on this page

New Hampshire statutes. RSA 198:40-f (2022 codification): extraordinary need grants; II (plan to the department; primary goal). RSA 197:3-a: special meeting for change in education funding; III (what the warrant may propose), IV (hearing at least 14 days before; hearing notice 7 days); source 2013, 197:1, unamended. RSA 189:74: school board public comment period of at least 30 minutes, in force from September 6, 2022. RSA 91-A:2, II (2022 codification): minutes. RSA 288:1: legal holidays, used to count business days.
Session law. 2022 N.H. Laws ch. 318 (SB 420), approved July 1, 2022, eff. July 1, 2022 (bill status).