Participants
Everyone in the record. Spellings follow the agenda; no minutes of this meeting are public to check them against. Roll-call answers are as heard on the recording.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Michael Petrin | Chair | Presides; delivers the chair’s address on public comment and decorum (0:06:30); reports for the budget subcommittee; announces the grant. |
| Heather Whitney | Vice Chair | Answers the roll (Whitney here); moves the agenda; seconds the minutes; reports for the ad hoc parliamentary procedure group (0:19:06); asks whether tech-center programs make students work-ready. |
| Bonnie Miles | Member | Answers the roll; corrects the October 19 minutes (0:02:34); reports for the capital improvement committee. |
| Whitney Skillen | Member | Answers the roll (transcribed “Skilling here”); seconds the agenda; moves the minutes; asks about the state’s policy-manual review and about passing time in the draft schedule. |
| Joshua Lambert | Member | Reports for the curriculum committee (0:13:37); moves to adjourn. |
| Frank Sprague | Member | Asks that budget subcommittee documents go to the whole board (0:11:57); questions the schedule model; asks that the SAU organizational study be posted. |
| Steven Horsky | Member | Called in the roll (0:01:55, “Steven.”); no answer is heard and he is not heard again. The chair says he was not at the budget subcommittee’s meeting. The December 7 draft minutes record him abstaining on approval of these minutes, which fits absence but does not establish it. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Gives the superintendent’s report; presents the elementary restructuring next steps (0:20:27) and the common schedule (0:30:06); explains the grant. |
| Dr. Alex Herzog | Director, Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center | Reports for the SRVRTC visioning committee (0:16:26; ASR “Doctor horse”); describes math support for tech-center students (0:45:44). |
| Unidentified | Roll-call reader | Reads the members’ names after the chair asks “Mike, could you. Mike or Mike? Roll call for us.” (0:01:37). The agenda lists two administrators named Michael (Tempesta and Assistant Superintendent Michael Koski) and calls for a “Secretary Roll Call”; which person read the roll is not established. |
| Unidentified | Speaker on tech-center academics | Describes the “related class” model of embedding academic credit in shop classes (0:44:48). Not named on the recording. |
| Kaylee Schuler | Public comment; Claremont Middle School student | Speaks on the elementary restructuring proposal (0:26:33). Name as she gives it on the recording; the spelling is not confirmed. |
| Hannah Petrin | Student representative (agenda) | Not present. The chair: “Our student rep had a conflict, so she will not be here.” |
| Unidentified | Several voices | Short interjections, votes and thanks that the diarizer could not separate (27 rows in all, roll-call readings included). |
Agenda
Items from the posted agenda (CSB 11.17.22 Agenda); dispositions from the recording. Votes were by voice and no count was announced.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:13 | I. Call to order and Pledge | Agenda: “6:30PM Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance”. Called to order by the chair. |
| 0:00:54 | II. Agenda approval | Agenda: “Agenda – Amendments and Final Approval”. Whitney moves “to accept the agenda as proposed”; the chair names the second: “Motion by Heather, seconded by Whitney.” Carried by voice vote (0:01:14). The roll call had been skipped and was taken next. |
| 0:01:37 | II. Roll call | Agenda: “Secretary Roll Call of Attendance of Board Members”. Answers heard from Whitney, Miles and Skillen. Lambert’s name is read as “Josh. Lambert.” in one unattributed row; an unattributed Here follows Sprague’s name; no answer is heard for Horsky. |
| 0:02:05 | II. Minutes, October 5 and October 19, 2022 | Miles corrects the October 19 minutes: the capital-improvement line says the roof at Bluff Elementary is leaking, “That's an error. The roof at Disney [Disnard] was leaking.” Skillen moves both sets, the October 19 minutes “as amended by Bonnie”; the chair: “The motion by. By Whitney. Second by Heather.” Carried by voice vote (0:03:52). |
| 0:03:59 | II. Citizens’ comments; student representative report | “Anybody from the public would like to speak. Seeing none.” The student representative report is dropped from the floor, after the agenda was approved, because of the change of night; no motion to amend the agenda is heard. |
| 0:04:21 | III. Superintendent report | Garifuna Collective performance at Maple Avenue on Friday, November 4; the rest of the report is taken with items 3 and 4. |
| 0:06:30 | IV.1 Board Chair Address to Claremont School Board | Discussion only. Public comment on each discussion item to come after board discussion; members to be recognized by the chair. See flag 7. |
| 0:10:23 | IV.2 Sub-Committee Report Out (a)–(h) | (a) Capital Improvement; (b) Budget at 0:10:59; (c) Policy at 0:12:33; (d) Curriculum at 0:13:31; (e) Elementary Restructuring and (f) CMS/SHS/SRVRTC Schedule deferred to items 3 and 4 at 0:15:18; (g) SRVRTC Visioning at 0:15:39; (h) Ad Hoc Parliamentary Procedure at 0:18:57. Reports only. |
| 0:19:55 | IV.3 Elementary Restructure Proposal | Agenda: “Elementary Restructure Proposal, Consultants, REVISED Timeline and process”. Presentation; no board questions; one public speaker. No action. See flag 5. |
| 0:29:51 | IV.4 Common Schedule Proposal | Agenda: “Stevens High School, Claremont Middle School, Sugar River Regional Technical Center Common Schedule Proposal, Timeline, Positive Impacts for Students; Next STEPS FOR Scheduling Committee”. Presentation and questions. No action. |
| 0:47:14 | IV.5 Donations | Agenda: “Claremont Savings Bank Foundation Grant was awarded to Stevens High School Life Skills Program in the amount of $1,450.00.” The chair: “So no need for us to approve this.” No vote. See flag 4. |
| 0:48:55 | V. Other Business | Sprague asks that the SAU organizational study be put on the website; the superintendent says it is already there. |
| 0:49:43 | VI–VII. Closing; adjournment | Lambert: “Make the motion to adjourn.” The chair: “Motion by Josh. Second by Brittany.” No member of that name sits on the board; the seconder is not identifiable from the tape. Carried by voice vote at 0:50:00. |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/14728 Claremont School Board 11-17-22.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording.
Topics in recording order. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; brackets mark editorial insertions or corrections.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:01:37 | Roll call | The chair: “I skip past the roll call.” Names read: Heather, Bonnie, Whitney, Josh Lambert, Steven, Frank Sprague. Answers heard: Whitney here, Miles here, Skilling here [Skillen], and an unattributed Here after Sprague’s name. | |
| 0:02:34 | October 19 minutes corrected | Miles: “This is for the 19th. And the top of page five. And the capital improvements. The third row down and mentions the roof at Bluff Elementary is leaking. That's an error. The roof at Disney [Disnard] was leaking.” The posted October 19 minutes do read “The roof at Bluff Elementary is leaking” on page 5. | |
| 0:03:31 | Minutes motion restated | Skillen: “I'll correct my motion. My motion to approve. October 19th minutes, as amended by Bonnie and October 5th minutes.” Carried by voice vote at 0:03:52. | |
| 0:03:59 | Citizens’ comments; student report dropped | “Citizens. Comments. Anybody from the public would like to speak. Seeing none. We're removing the student rec report, and with a change of night.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:04:29 | Superintendent: Garifuna Collective | The Garifuna Collective “spent Friday the fourth at Maple Ave.” “Teachers, principals, kids were just up dancing”. Credited to “Principal Blunt”, who had worked with the group in Vermont. The posted report is mostly slides for items 3 and 4. | |
| 0:06:30 | Chair’s address: public comment | Arising from the parliamentary-procedure work with “Heather, Frank and I”: comments have come “from the public, from their seats and public just coming to the podium and trying to speak.” The change, to “help make that run smoother would be allowed [allow] the board to discuss during discussion and action items. Once that discussion amongst us dies down, open for public comments. Allow for the public comments and then and then close the public comments. For each item.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:08:27 | Chair’s address: decorum | “there have been board members that are interrupting each other, speaking over each other, and speaking out of turn.” Questions and comments “really needs to be directed through the board chair and be recognized.” “we try to follow the Robert's Rules of Order. They've gotten kind of loose, and and that falls on me again.” | |
| 0:10:33 | Capital improvement | Miles: parts for the play area behind the Maple Avenue School “Have been ordered”; she asked “if it was safe for the children to use, but I haven't heard back”. | |
| 0:10:59 | Budget subcommittee | The chair: “Myself, Frank and Steven are on that.” “Frank was unable to attend. Stephen wasn't there, so it was myself and of administration.” “kind of a really a really kind of early look at where numbers are coming in”; administration will meet principals on their budgets. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:11:57 | Budget documents to the whole board | Sprague: “I think it's important that the whole board see everything that the budget subcommittee sees.” He asks that “Chelsea or Mike or someone Richard” send the documents received the day before to the entire board, and adds at 0:12:22: “Really? Not for public consumption. But I think it's important for the board to be part of the process right from the get go.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:12:43 | Policy subcommittee | Skillen asks whether the state has responded on the review of the policy manual. Tempesta: “we're on a eight month waiting list for that.” He will see “Will tomorrow” and try to “cajole him to to moving us up a few slots.” | |
| 0:13:37 | Curriculum committee | Lambert: “We actually just met this afternoon.” “Working on getting a policy drafted surrounding curriculum review and, implementation and adoption. So be looking for that probably by the end of the year, we said.” Whitney: “such a high caliber group of people.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:16:26 | SRVRTC visioning committee | Herzog: “We prepared a budget proposal for two additional programs for this upcoming year.” Talks continue with River Valley Community College on medical programs; next meeting December 8; a culinary luncheon on December 9 (“the cost is $5”). | |
| 0:17:27 | Are programs work-ready? | Whitney: “Are any of the programs going to have our students be work ready at the end of them?” Herzog: “all our programs are designed for students to be work ready when they come out.” An employer told the committee: “I have these CNC machines are $250,000. I'm not going to pluck a high school student and put in front of that machine.” | |
| 0:19:06 | Ad hoc parliamentary procedure | Whitney: Richard Seaman has joined; the group will “develop a calendar that will direct the board” on work and budget timelines “that we'll be able to actually publish to the public”, and is “codifying what our parliamentary procedure and our, board norms will be.” | |
| 0:20:27 | Restructuring: why Thursday | Tempesta: “we had to switch the nights because of the presentation for the. So we switched meetings. That's why we're on a Thursday.” The presentation of the night before was the SAU 6 board’s central-office study; see the November 16 SAU 6 page. | |
| 0:20:56 | Restructuring: slowed timeline | After “listening to the feedback from the about 22 people who showed up”, next steps are to keep “researching transportation feasibility with all the stakeholders” and to “use independent outside consultants”. The consultants’ “first impression was that this would be a, a, at least a year and a half type of study”. The report slide reads “TIMELINE FOR POSSIBLE IMPLENTATION: FALL 2024” (the district’s spelling). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:22:33 | Restructuring: consultants | “They are going to, reach out to preparing a scope of work”. At 0:23:29: “the folks that we have contracted with a doctor, Maura Hart”, “assistant director for capacity development for the Swift Education Center at the University of Kansas”, and “Lynn Howard” [Lynne Howard in the December 7 minutes], a literacy expert focused on K–6. Former Springfield, Vermont superintendents have also been contacted. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:24:43 | Restructuring: rationale | “it would be better to go slow and steady and have everyone agree on it”. The aim remains “the early literacy gains and trying to get universal all day pre-K”. The delay brings relief at the bus garage, which had been working against deadlines with new routing software. | |
| 0:25:57 | No board questions | The chair: “Sounds like we don't have any comments or questions from the board, but we have someone from public wants to come on up.” | |
| 0:26:33 | Public comment on restructuring | A Claremont Middle School student speaks against the restructuring, citing families with children in several schools, transportation and the bus routes, and asks the board for two weeks to gather a petition (transcribed “penetration”). Thanked by the board. | POSITIVE |
| 0:30:06 | Common schedule: overview | A “common, common schedule for the middle school. High school and the tech.” Herzog is working on “embedded credits”; Mr. Pratt’s staff are putting course competencies into “Odyssey where” [Odysseyware] “so that students can earn back credit”. | |
| 0:32:15 | Common schedule: blocks | Stevens: six fixed periods, “Each period is 59 minutes”, so staff can be shared, e.g. “an algebra one course could actually be taught by a middle school teacher or a high school teacher”. Tech center: “a 89 minute block, much longer than the current block of 78.” Tech teachers “would have 3.3 classes. Whereas another teacher would have at Stevens would have five classes.” | |
| 0:34:44 | Common schedule: next steps | “we have to work with the union on this.” A half hour after the first tech-center block could be used for embedded English and math. Later at 0:37:36: “We don't think that we're going to have any, any hiccups going along in terms of, you know, contractual language”. | |
| 0:38:14 | Board questions on the schedule | Sprague asks whether students in the second building-construction section get the same Odysseyware window. Skillen at 0:39:23: is “three minutes long enough for me to get from Stevens to the Tech Center”? Tempesta: “Not necessarily”; the grids “haven't been run through the computer”, and current schedules already leave gaps of “10 or 15 minutes”. | |
| 0:42:53 | Embedding academics | Whitney asks whether technical instructors would work in English. Tempesta describes work orders and menus as writing tasks. An unidentified speaker at 0:44:48: “one model I'm familiar with, it's a related class.” Whitney at 0:45:15: “how do we find the instructors that have the skill set”. Herzog at 0:45:44: math specialist “Mr. Elliott” helps; students had “a real problem with fractions”. | |
| 0:47:14 | Foundation grant | The chair: “a donation from the Claremont Savings Bank Foundation. A grant for $1,450. That's going to the Stevens High School, life skills program.” Tempesta: Kelly Fontaine’s program applied; “there were 86, 86 grant applications” and “60 establishments totaling 115,000 in grant monies were distributed.” The chair at 0:48:36: “So no need for us to approve this. Just a a thank you to the Federal Savings Bank Foundation” [Claremont Savings Bank Foundation]. | OBSERVATION POSITIVE |
| 0:49:12 | SAU study on the website | Sprague: “a couple of people who have asked about the Saw report” [SAU organizational study] and asks that it be put on the web page. Tempesta: “it's on the web page.” Not checked against the district website. | |
| 0:49:49 | Adjournment | “Motion by Josh. Second by Brittany.” The seconder is unclear on tape. Carried by voice vote. | MEDIUM |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer’s aid. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each rule-based flag names the provision it rests on and links to the text, as it read in November 2022; an Observation marks a point that no verified rule settles. Severity: HIGH (likely breach of a binding rule or missed statutory deadline), MEDIUM (probable process gap), OBSERVATION (notable, no confirmed rule), POSITIVE (practice beyond the legal minimum).
MEDIUM Minutes of this meeting were written and approved, but no copy is in any public district share
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be “open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting” and to record the names of members, persons appearing, and the mover and seconder of each motion (2019 codification, in force on this date). The packet folder for this meeting holds the minutes of October 5 and October 19, not of November 17, and the district’s Meeting Minutes share begins in 2023. Title and full-text searches of Drive found no copy. The record shows the minutes did exist: the draft December 7, 2022 minutes state that Frank Sprague “made a motion to approve the minutes as presented; seconded by Whitney Skillen. Steven Horsky abstained.”
Without them, three points on this page cannot be checked: whether Horsky attended, who read the roll, and who seconded adjournment (heard as “Brittany” at 0:49:49). The posted copy is what a resident can reach; a paper copy at the SAU office may have been available within five business days, and this page cannot rule that out.
Limb applied (html_briefing §5): MEDIUM, because the meeting was noticed and packeted, the later minutes confirm minutes were produced and approved, and only the public copy is missing.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; minutes within 5 business days; mover and seconder); draft 12.7.22 CSB meeting minutes; 12.7.22 CSB Agenda (“Minutes approval: November 17, 2022”)
OBSERVATION Budget documents described as “Not for public consumption” were to be sent to the whole board
Sprague asked at 0:11:57 that the documents the budget subcommittee received the day before go to “the entire board”, adding at 0:12:22 that they are “Not for public consumption.” His point was that the full board should see the budget work early, which favors open deliberation. The legal status of the documents changes once that happens. Under RSA 91-A:1-a, III, “governmental records” include information “received by a quorum or majority of a public body in furtherance of its official function, whether at a meeting or outside a meeting of the body.” The draft-document exemption in RSA 91-A:5, IX covers preliminary drafts “not disclosed, circulated, or available to a quorum or a majority of the members of a public body.” Circulating the documents to all seven members would take them outside that exemption, although other exemptions might still apply to particular contents.
Nothing on the record shows a request for the documents or a refusal, so this is an Observation. The remark is recorded because it describes documents a resident could later ask for under RSA 91-A:4.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, III and VI(d) (2022 codification; records received by a quorum; subcommittees are public bodies); RSA 91-A:5, IX (drafts not circulated to a quorum; source note ends 2022, 122:3, eff. May 27, 2022)
OBSERVATION Subcommittee work reported tonight has no public notices or minutes in the district’s shares
Members reported a budget subcommittee meeting (0:10:59), a curriculum committee meeting held that afternoon (0:13:37), a visioning committee that meets monthly, and an ad hoc parliamentary procedure group whose work comes to the full board (0:19:06; the October 19 minutes record “three meetings so far”). A committee or subcommittee of a school board is itself a public body (RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d)), and its meetings carry notice and minutes duties under RSA 91-A:2. None of these bodies has a notice, agenda or minutes in the packet shares mapped by this project; MAP.md records that the first subcommittee packet ever posted there dates from August 2026 and that the district’s finance subcommittee folder is empty.
This is an Observation, not a finding. A “meeting” under RSA 91-A:2, I is “the convening of a quorum” of the body, and by the chair’s account the budget subcommittee session had one of its three board members present, which would not be a quorum. The membership of the curriculum and visioning committees was not established, and the project did not search for notices posted elsewhere, such as at the SAU office.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (2022 codification; “any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto”); RSA 91-A:2, I and II (2019 codification; meeting is the convening of a quorum; notice and minutes); CSB Hearing & Meeting Minutes 10.19.22
OBSERVATION The $1,450 grant was announced as needing no board approval
RSA 198:20-b, as it read in 2022, lets a school board “apply for, accept and expend” unanticipated money from a private source where the district has adopted an enabling article (¶I). Below $5,000, ¶III(b) requires the board to “post notice of the funds in the agenda” and to “include notice in the minutes of the school board meeting in which such funds are discussed”, and says “The acceptance of unanticipated funds under this subparagraph shall be made in public session of any regular school board meeting.” The agenda notice was given (see flag 6) and the grant was discussed in public session at a regular meeting. At 0:48:36 the chair said “So no need for us to approve this”, and no vote was taken.
The section does not say in terms whether acceptance requires a vote, and this page does not decide it. Two points remain open: whether Claremont voters adopted the ¶I enabling article (not checked), and whether the minutes carried the required notice, which cannot be checked because the minutes are not public (flag 1). The bank’s check is dated October 18, 2022, a month before the meeting.
Sources: RSA 198:20-b, I and III(b) (2022 codification; source note ends 2005, 188:1; $5,000 threshold before July 18, 2023); 2022 CSB Foundation Grant SHS Life Skills Program
OBSERVATION Restructuring consultants are described as “contracted with” while the posted slide says they are preparing a proposal
At 0:23:29 the superintendent named “the folks that we have contracted with”, Dr. Maura Hart and Lynne Howard, after saying at 0:22:33 that they would be “preparing a scope of work”. The posted Superintendent Report CSB 11.17.22 says the consultants “ARE PREPARING A PROPOSAL” and includes a page describing Lean-In Consulting. No cost, contract or board vote on the engagement was presented at this meeting, and the December 7 draft minutes report only that the restructuring committee “Met with the consultant Maura Hart and Lynne Howard”.
No verified rule sets a dollar level at which this board must approve a consulting engagement, so this is an Observation. A reader following the restructuring question would want the engagement terms, the cost and the approving authority; the record of this meeting does not supply them. The revised timeline itself (study from December 2022; “POSSIBLE IMPLENTATION: FALL 2024” on the slide) was presented openly.
Sources: Superintendent Report CSB 11.17.22; draft 12.7.22 CSB meeting minutes; recording 0:23:29
POSITIVE Notice went up ten days ahead, and the packet carried the agenda, the slides and the grant paperwork
RSA 91-A:2, II requires notice of the time and place at least 24 hours before a meeting, excluding Sundays and legal holidays. The public notice for a Thursday, November 17 meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center has a Drive createdTime of November 7, 2022, ten days ahead, with links to the live broadcast. The agenda (created November 15), the superintendent’s slides and the bank’s grant letter and check were in the public packet folder, and the grant was listed on the agenda with its amount, as RSA 198:20-b, III(b) requires for sums under $5,000. createdTime dates a file’s arrival in the share; it is the earliest posting this page can show.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; 24-hour notice); RSA 198:20-b, III(b) (2022 codification; agenda notice of unanticipated funds)
POSITIVE The board takes public comment on each discussion item, beyond the comment period the law requires
RSA 189:74, in force since September 6, 2022, requires a school board to “provide the opportunity for the public to comment on school district matters” at its meetings, for a period of “no less than 30 minutes”. This board opened its citizens’ comment period at 0:03:59; no one came forward, so the 30-minute floor was not tested. In addition, the chair’s address at 0:07:56 commits the board to opening comment on each discussion item after members have spoken, and that is what happened on the restructuring item, where a student was heard at 0:26:33 and the chair asked for “Any further comments from the public on the restructure?” at 0:29:45. The same address asks members to speak only when recognized, a step toward the written norms the parliamentary procedure group is drafting.
Sources: RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022; public comment period of no less than 30 minutes)
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: Claremont School Board 11/17/22 (show 14728)
- Drive packet folder 9. CSB Regular Meeting 11.17.22 (6 documents per MAP.md; folder created November 7, 2022):
CSB Public Notice Ad 11.17.22.pdf (created November 7, 2022)CSB 11.17.22 Agenda (created November 15, 2022)Superintendent Report CSB 11.17.222022 CSB Foundation Grant SHS Life Skills Program (check dated October 18, 2022, and the foundation’s award email)CSB Meeting Minutes 10.5.22 (approved at this meeting; not opened for this page)CSB Hearing & Meeting Minutes 10.19.22 (approved at this meeting as amended)- Minutes of this meeting: none located in the packet folder, the Meeting Minutes share (which starts in 2023) or by Drive title and full-text search (October 29, 2026). Their approval is recorded in
draft 12.7.22 CSB meeting minutes, filed in the January 11, 2023 packet; see also 12.7.22 CSB Agenda.
- Related pages: SAU 6 Board, November 16, 2022 (the central-office study presented the night before); Claremont School Board, October 19, 2022 (the minutes corrected here)
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
- State: RSA 91-A:2, I and II (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1)
- State: RSA 91-A:1-a, III and VI(d) (2022 codification; source note ends 2008, 354:1)
- State: RSA 91-A:5, IX (source note ends 2022, 122:3, eff. May 27, 2022)
- State: RSA 198:20-b, I and III(b) (2022 codification; source note ends 2005, 188:1)
- State: RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022)