Participants
Names follow the agenda masthead, the roll calls and the draft minutes. The dialogue file gives the chair's cluster many sentences spoken by other members; this page attributes such sentences only where the chair names the speaker or the minutes do.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Marjorie Erickson | Chair (Unity) | Presides; presents the superintendent-evaluation procedure (0:21:17) and moves its adoption (1:05:53); defers the December 1 and January 17 minutes (0:02:22); raises the missed December budget schedule (1:14:19); reports counsel's view on exit-interview paperwork (1:22:49). Rendered Harrison in the opening roll. |
| Frank Sprague | Vice chair (Claremont) | Asks whether coaching walkthroughs touch the teachers' contract (0:08:05); offers Kearsarge's exit-interview wording (1:17:07); seconds adjournment (1:38:09). |
| Steven Horsky | Member (Claremont) | Asks for a counsel-drafted waiver for coaching participants (0:13:12); argues against a partial-year evaluation (0:47:43); wants exit-interview data in redacted form (1:20:51); moves the nonpublic session (1:32:01) and the seal (1:35:15); casts the lone No on the HR director (minutes). Rendered Steve Gorski in the roll. |
| Michael Petrin | Member (Claremont; Claremont board chair) | Says a waiver is not needed (0:20:02); conditions his support on a direct-report survey this year (0:45:12); moves the exit-interview policy to second reading (1:24:55); moves to leave nonpublic and moves the HR nomination (minutes). Rendered Mike. Patron. in the roll. |
| Heather Whitney | Member (Claremont) | Proposes a union statement instead of a waiver (0:20:09); wants administrators to evaluate the board (1:03:30); asks about exit-interview narratives (1:27:18); moves the agenda, the retreat minutes and adjournment (minutes). |
| Whitney Skillen | Member (Claremont) | "the only people who have fear are the non educators in the room" (0:20:33); favors a school-year calendar (0:35:23); seconds the evaluation motion (1:06:49), the policy motion (1:25:00) and the seal (1:35:35). Present on the roll (0:01:02, rendered Whitney still here) but missing from the minutes' attendance line. |
| Bonnie Miles | Member (Claremont) | Edits to the exit-interview form (1:19:25); asks about adding benefits (1:30:51). Answers the opening roll late (0:01:22). |
| Rocco Ruggeri | Member (Unity) | Favors the school-year calendar (0:36:08); asks how much weight a community survey would carry (0:54:21). Rendered Rothko in the roll. |
| Atonya Hart | Member (Unity) | Suggests adapting other districts' staff surveys (0:50:54). Called Tanya in the roll calls. |
| Shannon Popescu | Member (Unity) | Present per the roll and the minutes; seconds the HR nomination (minutes). No speech is attributed to her in the dialogue file. |
| Garry Bator | Member (Unity) | Absent (minutes). The chair refers to an outgoing member Gary who could complete a survey now (0:35:54). |
| Michael C. Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Calls the opening roll (0:01:02); distinguishes coaching from evaluation (0:09:15); reports on the Lupini recommendations (1:07:52); nominates Angela Vivian (1:36:35). Rendered Mister Tuesday at 1:34:12. |
| Stephanie Hurst | Literacy Specialist (minutes) | Presents TeachUNITED (0:04:13); answers on walkthroughs and waivers (0:08:26, 0:18:14). |
| Mike Koski | Assistant Superintendent | The minutes say he presented TeachUNITED with Hurst; no speech is attributed to him in the dialogue file. |
| Angela Vivian | Assistant to the assistant superintendent; nominated HR director | Confirmed as HR director (1:37:32); did not speak. |
| Chelsea Weatherford | Recording secretary | Submitted the minutes. |
Agenda
Items and wording from the posted agenda (created on Drive February 14, 2023); dispositions from the recording and the draft minutes. The board took the items in a different order from the agenda's.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:16 | I. Call to order, pledge | Called to order by the chair; pledge at 0:00:31. |
| 0:01:02 | II. Roll call; a. agenda; b. minutes; c. citizen comments | Roll read by the superintendent. Agenda approved by voice vote (0:02:22); Whitney moved and Skillen seconded (minutes). Agenda: "Approval of previous meeting minutes- January 26,2023": the retreat minutes approved by voice vote (0:03:05), with the December 1 and January 17 minutes held to the next meeting (0:02:22). Citizens' comments called at 0:03:24; none. |
| 0:03:31 | III.1 Teach United Presentation | Presentation and discussion; no action. |
| 0:21:11 | III.2 Superintendent Evaluation Process proposal | The chair moved to adopt the procedure, tool, school-year calendar, two alpha surveys and a first read of policy CBI (1:05:53); Skillen seconded (1:06:49); carried by voice vote (1:07:01). The minutes' version of the motion is longer and more specific than the words on tape; the chair said "You'll have to reread this in the minutes." (1:06:56). |
| 1:07:13 | III.4 Status on Addressing Recommendations from the Lupini Report | Superintendent's status report; no action. To remain a standing item. |
| 1:13:58 | III.5 Proposed SAU 6 Board meeting calendar | Members to email the chair suggestions; draft for the next meeting. |
| 1:15:09 | III.6 Policy GCQ: Personnel Exit Interview, first read | Agenda: "Policy GCQ: Personnel Exit Interview, first read" (transcribed GCU). Petrin moved to second reading as amended, Skillen seconded (1:24:55, 1:25:00); voice vote (1:31:29). |
| 1:32:01 | Nonpublic session (not on the agenda) | Horsky moved under RSA 91-A:3, II(a), reading its text; Petrin seconded (minutes); roll call all Yes (1:32:46 to 1:33:14). Return by roll call (1:34:44 to 1:34:54). Seal moved by Horsky, seconded by Skillen, roll call all Yes (1:35:15 to 1:35:56). The minutes head the item "Non-Public Meeting: RSA 91-A:3, II(a)". |
| 1:36:22 | III.3 Nomination of Human Resources Director | Superintendent nominated Angela Vivian (1:36:35); Petrin moved and Popescu seconded (minutes); voice vote with one No (1:37:32, 1:37:45), Horsky per the minutes. |
| 1:38:02 | VI. Closing activities | Adjournment by voice vote; Whitney moved, Sprague seconded (minutes). |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/14911 SAU6021623.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:02:22 | Minutes held over | The chair: "We still need to approve minutes for the December 1st meeting and the hearing for January 17th." They are deferred to the next meeting. | |
| 0:03:54 | TeachUNITED | The superintendent: "Both Unity and Claremont have received it." Hurst: "only 15 schools were able to participate in. Six of our schools were chosen to participate", all elementary schools, the middle school and Unity K-8; three to six teachers per school trained as teacher leaders in year one, coaches in year two (0:04:35). | |
| 0:08:05 | Walkthroughs and the contract | Sprague: during bargaining the union asked for a hold on walkthroughs, and "I noticed that there is a walkthrough component to this". The superintendent: "there would be no evaluation piece tied with teacher knighted [TeachUNITED]" (0:09:15). | |
| 0:13:12 | A waiver? | Horsky asks for "a waiver drafted by Matt Upton so that they're waiving that provision of their contract", and asks, "are you willing to wager a lawsuit on it?" (0:16:38). Hurst: "if they have to sign a waiver to work with me, that's going to cause some distrust" (0:18:34). Petrin: "I personally don't feel that the waiver is needed" (0:20:02). The minutes list an action item to ask counsel. | |
| 0:21:17 | Superintendent evaluation | The chair walks through the retreat slides: why evaluate ("we haven't really been very good at that in the last few years", 0:23:38); the process; "We have a superintendent evaluation subcommittee that developed a draft set of goals and an evaluation process." (0:28:49); nine goal areas; a spreadsheet tool (0:30:28). | |
| 0:31:54 | Which calendar | Election-cycle against school-year calendars. Ruggeri: aligning "the whole evaluation process in line with the school year, with the data that's being evaluated, just seems cleaner" (0:36:08). Petrin and Skillen also prefer the school year. | |
| 0:40:05 | Policy CBI | The chair proposes rewriting policy CBI to set out the adopted process, with the evaluation subcommittee chair responsible for the tool (0:42:22). | |
| 0:45:12 | Surveys | Petrin objects to a community survey ("could be a lot of people with an ax to grind") and says "I need to have that survey this year for direct reports" (0:46:04). The chair: "perfect, is the enemy of doing something" (0:48:18). Whitney: "We get our evaluations every three years, so either we get reelected or we don't." (1:03:30). Sprague: "people don't feel safe coming in to, to talk to us" (1:04:26). | |
| 1:05:53 | Evaluation motion | "I make a motion to adopt the procedure and tool as presented to include a school year calendar as presented, the spreadsheet evaluation tool as presented." with alpha surveys of direct reports on the superintendent and on the board, and a first read on CBI. Carried by voice vote (1:07:01). | |
| 1:07:13 | Lupini report | "Status of addressing recommendations from the Luchini [Lupini] report". The superintendent: the HR director nomination is on tonight; Tyler software cross-training; exit interviews; "there was a recommendation very specifically to put in the indirect costs", already implemented (1:13:07). The chair: position descriptions were last updated "back in 2018" (1:08:55). | |
| 1:13:58 | Board calendar and the budget | The chair: the board needs budget dates on its calendar "because we missed having a hearing for the say [SAU] in December, which is when we should have had it" (1:14:19). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:15:09 | Exit-interview policy | Sprague offers Kearsarge's wording: "a summary report and accompanying data to the board during April and October board meetings" (1:17:07). Horsky asks for redacted forms (1:20:51). The chair: "Matt Upton did say that it was basically illegal for us to have exit interview paperwork" (1:22:49), and of a board exit interview, "I need to find that out though, because I'm sitting on one and we need to do something with it." (1:30:41). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:32:01 | Nonpublic session | Horsky moves "to go into a non public meeting per s a Rs 8091, a." [RSA 91-A:3, II(a)], reading the paragraph: "the dismissal, promotion or compensation of any public employee or the disciplining of such employee" and the open-meeting proviso (1:32:08). Roll call follows (1:32:46). | OBSERVATION POSITIVE |
| 1:33:30 | Signing papers | Before the return vote, voices at the table discuss signing copies of an article and ask "is the default calculated correctly?" (1:33:47), noting "$600,000 more than the previous." (1:34:09): the Claremont default budget the Claremont board revised on February 15. | |
| 1:34:44 | Return and seal | Return by roll call: "We're back into our regular meeting" (1:34:54). Horsky: "I would like to make the phone [motion] to seal the nonpublic sessions minutes for not longer than 99 years, but to the date of my death." (1:35:15). Roll call, then the chair: "Sealed for not more than 99 years." (1:35:56). | MEDIUM |
| 1:36:22 | HR director | The superintendent nominates Angela Vivian, now assistant to the assistant superintendent: "She's really impressed us with her work ethic and perseverance and teamwork". The chair: "We don't need a roll call for this." (1:37:32). One No (1:37:45). | OBSERVATION |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer's aid, not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one cites the rule it rests on as that rule read on February 16, 2023; check the recording and the primary source before relying on any of them. Severity: HIGH, a likely breach of a binding rule or a missed statutory deadline; MEDIUM, a probable process gap or control weakness; OBSERVATION, notable with no confirmed rule; POSITIVE, practice beyond the legal minimum. This page carries no HIGH flag.
MEDIUM Nonpublic minutes sealed "for not longer than 99 years" or a member's death, with no statutory determination on the record
RSA 91-A:3, III, as it read on this date, lets a public body withhold nonpublic minutes beyond 72 hours only by a recorded two-thirds vote of the members present, taken in public session, that determines divulgence "likely would affect adversely the reputation of any person other than a member of the public body itself, or render the proposed action ineffective, or pertain to terrorism" (statute). The vote here was in public and unanimous by roll call (1:35:15 to 1:35:56), which meets the vote requirement. No ground was stated: the motion was "to seal the nonpublic sessions minutes for not longer than 99 years, but to the date of my death", followed by banter about the mover's death, and the minutes record it as "for not longer than 99 years or his death" (minutes), also without a ground. A term pegged to a member's life is not a period the statute contemplates. The subject of the session is not stated anywhere in the public record beyond the II(a) heading. The ten-year review in RSA 91-A:3, IV did not yet exist; it took effect October 3, 2023.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, III (2022 codification; source note ends 2021, eff. Jan. 1, 2022); draft minutes, item 6
OBSERVATION A nonpublic session not on the posted agenda, with no recorded times
The posted agenda lists six action items and no nonpublic session; the minutes add one as item 6. The meeting notice, not the agenda, is what RSA 91-A:2, II requires, and it covers "a nonpublic session" held at the noticed meeting, so the omission is not itself a breach. What the record lacks is duration: the minutes give no time for entering or leaving the session, and the recording passes from the entry roll call (1:33:16) to talk about signing documents (1:33:30) with nothing to show how long the board was out. The HR director nomination, listed as agenda item 3, was moved to after the session; the record does not say whether the two are connected, and this page does not assume they are. RSA 91-A:3, II(a) covers "promotion", while hiring is a separate ground, II(b).
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (notice, including a nonpublic session); RSA 91-A:3, II(a) and II(b); agenda
OBSERVATION The chair acknowledges the SAU budget calendar slipped past December; the FY2024 SAU budget was adopted January 17, 2023
RSA 194-C:9, I provides: "At a meeting held before January 1, the school administrative unit board shall adopt a budget" (statute). The chair says the board "missed having a hearing for the say [SAU] in December, which is when we should have had it" (1:14:19) and proposes a board calendar to prevent a repeat. Two points of precision. First, RSA 194-C:9 requires adoption before January 1 and requires no public hearing; holding one exceeds the statute. Second, the draft minutes of the January 17, 2023 SAU 6 hearing and meeting (filed in the March 30 packet) record the FY2024 budget being amended to $2,396,000 and approved that night, after the statutory date. That defect belongs to the January 17 meeting; it appears here because the chair raised it and the board's response was a calendar item.
Sources: RSA 194-C:9, I (2022 codification; source note ends 2003, 279:1); draft SAU 6 minutes, January 17, 2023
OBSERVATION The minutes' attendance and vote records are incomplete in two places
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to "include the names of members" (statute). The minutes' Present line names nine members and omits Whitney Skillen, who answers the opening roll (0:01:02) and whom the same minutes name as seconder of four motions. The minutes' record of the roll call to leave nonpublic session lists seven Yes votes and omits Whitney, Sprague and Popescu, where the chair reads all ten on tape (1:34:54). The HR nomination vote is recorded as "all in favor via voice vote with Steven Horsky voting no" (minutes); the recording has an unattributed No (1:37:45), so the name rests on the minutes alone. None of these changes an outcome.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2022 codification); draft minutes
OBSERVATION A board-held exit interview with no procedure for its handling
During the exit-interview policy discussion the chair reported counsel's view that it was "basically illegal for us to have exit interview paperwork" (1:22:49), then said of an exit interview conducted through the board option in the draft policy, "I'm sitting on one and we need to do something with it" (1:30:41). The board did not decide where that document goes; the minutes record only an action to consult counsel. The page cites no rule because none was identified on the record; the point is that a personnel document was, by the chair's account, held by a board member pending advice.
Sources: draft minutes, item 5 and action items
POSITIVE The nonpublic motion stated its ground in full, every nonpublic vote was by roll call, and the minutes reached the packet within five business days
RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires a motion to enter nonpublic session to state on its face the specific exemption and to be decided by roll call. Horsky's motion read the text of II(a) into the record (1:32:08), and the entry, return and seal votes were each taken by roll call (1:32:46, 1:34:44, 1:35:44). The draft minutes, which name movers and seconders as RSA 91-A:2, II requires, were created in the meeting's packet folder on Thursday, February 23, 2023, the fourth business day after the meeting (Monday, February 20 was a state holiday).
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b); RSA 91-A:2, II
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/14911 SAU6021623.mp4.CSV (512 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/14911 SAU6021623.mp4 (local copy of the recording)Input/Transcripts/14911 SAU6021623.mp4.json (diarized transcript)Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 188 (video-to-document map)
Laws and rules cited on this page
- State, as codified for the meeting date: RSA 91-A:2, II; RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(a), II(b) and III; RSA 194-C:9, I; RSA 288:1 (state holidays, for the business-day count)
- Mentioned for dating only: 2023, 189:1 (added RSA 91-A:3, IV, eff. Oct. 3, 2023)