Participants
Names and attendance follow the agenda masthead and the approved minutes. Where the dialogue file renders a name or speaker differently, the row says so. Students named on the recording are not listed.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Heather Whitney | Chair | Presides throughout; runs the consent agenda, citizens' comments and the public hearing; congratulates the Stevens bowling team (0:16:05); asks how the benchmark data compare with state averages (1:07:19); reminds the board that summer school loses its ESSER funding after this year (1:28:52); flags the 8:15 p.m. hour during the substitute-pay debate (1:44:24); adjourns by consent (2:00:10). |
| Frank Sprague | Vice chair; Finance subcommittee chair | Praises the new principals' reports (0:12:51); describes walkthroughs he did with Melissa Lewis (0:32:09); objects to "funding overages in other areas" from unfilled positions (0:47:10); asks about the food-service deficit (0:59:25); seconds the motion deferring the substitute-pay start (1:48:08); reports the Finance subcommittee will meet on ESSER (1:50:24). |
| Bonnie Miles | Member; Capital Improvement subcommittee chair | Present per the approved minutes, which record her as the mover of the $10,000 donation and as voting in favor on both substitute-pay votes. The dialogue file attributes no row to her; the donation motion is an Unidentified "I'm making." at 0:02:57. |
| Whitney Skillen | Member; Policy subcommittee chair | Arrived 6:32 p.m. (minutes). Asks about a "smart scanner" for free-and-reduced forms (0:56:03); asks for the instructional-coach job descriptions' essential functions to be built out (1:29:42); argues teacher and paraprofessional sub pay should stay equal (1:44:58); reports the Policy subcommittee met that day (1:50:52). The approved minutes name her as seconder of the $125 motion; the dialogue file gives that Second. to Gallagher (flag 5). |
| Jennifer Gallagher | Member; Curriculum subcommittee and ad hoc Disruptive Behaviors committee chair | Asks whether families opt students out of school lunch to avoid charges (1:01:22); abstains on both substitute-pay votes (1:46:02, 1:48:41); reports the ad hoc committee has not met and asks whether it can work through the Policy subcommittee (1:51:53). |
| Arlene Hawkins | Member | Asks whether lower free-and-reduced counts mean incomes have risen (0:57:34); asks about Title I and tiered services (1:14:59); notes the substitute line has funds (1:37:59); asks the administration to look into permanent building subs (1:48:43). |
| Candace Crawford | Member; SRVRTC Visioning representative | Welcomes the financial report ("I love having this in my hot little hands") and urges spending every ESSER dollar (0:48:11); moves the $125 substitute rate (1:37:40) and its deferral to March 11 (1:47:41); gives the SREB progress update (1:55:03). The minutes record her as seconder of the donation motion. |
| Noelle Kronberg | School board clerk | Reads back the donation motion (0:03:11) and both substitute-pay motions (1:43:09, 1:48:27); submitted the minutes. |
| Nicole Bouchard, Kylee Plummer | Student board members | Not present; the chair skips the student report (0:01:57). The dialogue file renders the second name Kylie; the agenda spells it Kylee. |
| Christopher Pratt | Interim Superintendent (from January 12, 2024) | Superintendent's report, including the new principals' report template (0:08:03) and searches for a director of student services and a human resources director (0:10:18); teacher-evaluation update listing ten candidate programs (0:30:04); recommends $125 a day for substitutes (1:36:34); asks whether paraprofessional coverage gets the same rate (1:41:06). |
| Michael Koski | Assistant Superintendent | Reports a March 7 meeting with the union on evaluation criteria (0:37:40); presents i-Ready benchmark and summer-program data and the instructional-coach job descriptions (1:03:15). The chair's introduction renders his name as "Michael Coffee" (0:50:30), a known ASR garble. |
| Mary Henry | Business Administrator | First monthly financial update (0:38:24); free-and-reduced lunch update (0:51:02); food-service balance (0:59:39); asks the board to start the new substitute rate with the March 11 pay cycle (1:47:07). The opening of the row at 0:38:24 reads like the chair's introduction ("And Miss Mary Henry is going to be presenting") but is labeled Henry in the dialogue file. |
| Charlene Lovett | Presenter, American Legion Post 29 | Self-introduced as "a Stevens High School alum, 22 year Army veteran, and a current member of post 29 American Legion here in Claremont" (0:16:55). Presents Post 29's sponsorship of up to $1,000 per accepted student for military-academy summer programs. |
| Unidentified | Seated members and others | 75 of 887 rows. They include the donation motion (0:02:57), a speaker reporting a narrow House vote to raise free-and-reduced eligibility to 350% of the federal poverty level (0:53:05), and the roll answers. None is named here. |
| Ben Nester, Jeff Small, Angela Vivian | SAU 6 directors (agenda masthead) | Listed on the masthead; no speech attributed. Pratt refers to the search for "Ben's replacement" (0:10:18). |
Agenda
Official agenda items in order, with the time each is taken up on the recording and its disposition. Agenda wording is quoted from the agenda; motions and votes from the approved minutes unless the recording is cited.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:03 | I. Call to order, Pledge | Agenda 6:30 p.m. |
| 0:00:32 | II. Roll call | Roll answers are garbled in the transcript; minutes list all seven present, Skillen from 6:32 p.m. |
| 0:00:50 | II. Consent agenda: agenda; minutes of January 17, 2024 and the January 29, 2024 working session; Youth and Government trip | Agenda: "Approve Minutes Approval- January 17, 2024 Board Meeting and January 29, 2024 Working Session" and "Approve Annual Youth and Government Trip to Concord led by Ms. Chastenay (Exhibit A)". No request to remove an item; the chair directs the clerk to record approval (0:01:40). Minutes: "Consent agenda approved". See flag 1 on the January 29 minutes. |
| 0:01:40 | Citizens' comments per Policy BEDH | The chair invites speakers; none. Minutes: none. |
| 0:01:57 | Student board member report | Students absent; skipped. |
| 0:01:57 | III. Public hearing: $10,000 donation to Claremont Middle School from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation (Exhibit B) | No public comment. Motion to accept (0:02:57); minutes: "Bonnie Miles makes a motion to accept the donation", "Candace Crawford seconds the motion"; "Voice vote taken: unanimously approved" (0:03:30). The agenda spells the donor Byrnes, the transcript Burns; the foundation's own letter in Exhibit B reads "The Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation". Flags 2, 5 and 9. |
| 0:04:02 | V. Superintendent report (Exhibits 1 to 7, principals' reports) | Report only. |
| 0:16:40 | VI.1 Student opportunity, presentation by Charlene Lovett (Exhibits C) | Presentation; Pratt to meet with the Stevens principal and counselors (0:27:11). |
| 0:29:14 | VI.2 Update on teacher evaluation development per SREA collective bargaining agreement | Discussion; agenda question "Where are we on the development of the teacher evaluation process?" |
| 0:38:24 | VI.3 Monthly financial update; FRL update | Discussion. The free-and-reduced item was nearly skipped and recalled by the chair (0:50:50). Flag 3. |
| 1:03:15 | VI.4 Achievement report (Exhibits D) | Presentation of i-Ready benchmark data, summer-program data and instructional-coach job descriptions. The chair introduced the item at 0:50:30 before the FRL update intervened. |
| 1:34:44 | VI.5 Substitute teacher pay (discussion and vote; Exhibits F) | Crawford moves $125 per day, per diem, effective March 1 (1:37:40); minutes: "Whitney Skillen seconds"; voice vote, six in favor, Gallagher abstaining (1:43:19). Crawford then moves to "defer the invocation of the teacher substitute pay raise to March 11th" (minutes wording), Sprague seconds (1:48:08); voice vote, six in favor, Gallagher abstaining (1:48:33). Flags 4, 5 and 10. |
| 1:49:22 | VI.6 School board subcommittees, including SREB progress update and ad hoc Disruptive Behaviors committee | Reports only. Flag 7. |
| 2:00:10 | VII. Other business; VIII. Future dates; IX. Adjournment | The chair gives the reminder about questions for the elementary principals and declines to read the future dates ("I really don't want to take the time to go through them"); adjournment by consent, no motion. |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/15585 SchoolBoard022124.mp4.CSV). Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:50 | Consent agenda | The chair reads the items, including "Approval of minutes of the working session on January 29th, 2024." "Is there any wish to move any of these items to the regular agenda? Seeing none." The session of January 29 has no recording and its minutes record no attendance, time or place. | MEDIUM |
| 0:01:57 | Donation hearing and vote | "The public hearing this evening is for to accept the donation donation of $10,000 from the Jack and Dorothy Burns Foundation to help fund the eighth grade Boston trip." No speakers. Motion: "I'm making." (Unidentified). The chair asks "Every eighth grader gets to." go; Pratt: "Yeah, that's the intentions." Vote by voice: "So all in favor of accepting the donation?" and "None opposed. The donation is accepted." | MEDIUM OBSERVATION POSITIVE |
| 0:04:02 | Superintendent's report | Job fairs, and "we're also going to try to coordinate our own job fair" in late March or early April; revamped onboarding for teachers, paras and subs; laptops and a ticketing system; a math assessment tool. Pratt "kind of created this, this template for the principals to fill out based on the the board's goals". Interviews under way for "Ben's replacement for the director of student services" and a posted human resources director's job, with board members invited onto the interview committee. | |
| 0:12:48 | Board reaction to the reports | Sprague: "It's it's really great." Whitney notes one elementary school "has their school goals with actual measurable goals in terms of data" and adds "This will help us drive the budget." | |
| 0:16:05 | Bowling team | The chair congratulates "Coach Fitzpatrick and our bowling team who are state champions", champions three times in four years, and names the departing seniors (names not reproduced here). | |
| 0:16:55 | Post 29 academy summer programs | Lovett: Post 29 voted "to sponsor them up to $1,000, which would include admission to the summer program, as well as travel costs"; programs at West Point, the Coast Guard Academy and the Naval Academy (fact sheets in Exhibit C). Admission "can range between 600 and $25 to 750" as transcribed. She describes a student who nearly missed a Senate program because the word did not reach her in time, and asks for the opportunity to reach juniors. Whitney asks Pratt to reinforce it at the school level; Pratt: "I'll meet with the the principal and the council is to see what we can do." | |
| 0:29:14 | Teacher evaluation under the SREA agreement | Whitney: the evaluation tool was "a topic of discussion" in the agreement and "the union representatives and the teachers were supposed to be working on this." Pratt has given principals ten programs to review ("We have unique we have observed for success. Power. Walk through classroom. Mosaic education walkthrough, embrace walkthroughs, Cognia and Teach boost.") and will invite the top three to present, then work with the union. He also proposes 360-degree evaluations for administrators. Koski: a March 7 meeting will produce "a definitive list of kind of the unions viewpoint"; "I think we can get to a decision come spring." | |
| 0:38:24 | Monthly financial update | Projected balance "roughly $829,000", which will move "as I'm reconciling SR three" [ESSER III]: "I think I'm up to October or November right around there". Out-of-district tuition up "Roughly $400,000"; special-education transportation "up over budget, about $220,000". "And the numbers within the spreadsheet don't exactly line up within the actual budget itself." The mental health counselor "was not in the budget. I don't know why". "I'm finding things like a duplicate or a duplicate purchase order was entered for 90,000." Under budget: substitutes ("roughly 190,000 left"), health insurance (about 311,000), combined wages ("roughly $322,000 under budget", 109,000 of it maintenance). Regular instruction has "$951,000 in it that we haven't spent" while special education is "955,000 over", which "leads me to believe that somewhere within those budget lines, there are things sitting in the wrong place." "Overall right now we've spent 97% of our budget." | MEDIUM |
| 0:47:10 | Unfilled positions | Sprague: "So so my only my only concern is that we're funding overages in other areas due to the fact that we have unfilled positions. That's worrisome to me." Henry: "I don't disagree with you" but out-of-district placements are beyond the district's control. | MEDIUM |
| 0:48:11 | ESSER spending | Crawford: "I concerned that we want to spend all of that esser funds that runs out, I think September 1st." Koski: 3030 (as transcribed). Crawford: "we have to kind of spend it by the 15th in order to actually get it. I just want to make sure we can spend every cent." Henry is going back through payroll "so that we can make sure we get every" penny, checking "how much money if we've over claimed, we've under claimed". Sprague: "That would be hard to explain to the public." | MEDIUM OBSERVATION |
| 0:51:02 | Free and reduced lunch | "roughly 628 kids that qualified this year" against "roughly 730 kids" last year; more qualifying students in the high and middle schools than in the lower grades, "which is unusual." An Unidentified speaker reports a House vote "to increase the eligibility for Fahrt to 350% of the federal poverty level" but is not confident it will become law. Henry: free and reduced "Is a big driver now on, adequacy aid", and the October deadline overlaps the grace period, with most forms entered by hand. Hawkins asks whether incomes rose; Henry: "If you go to Walmart and make 19, $20 an hour, you don't meet the levels." | |
| 0:59:25 | Food-service deficit | Sprague asks the deficit; Henry: "Last I checked, it was around 15,000, so it wasn't horrible." Letters and calls have gone out, and "I will be taking people to court to get money." On whether students can be refused: "We cannot deny a student a meal, and we can't tell them they have to have something else." | |
| 1:03:15 | i-Ready benchmarks | Koski: fall and winter benchmarks, with a spring round to come; "What we're looking for is a year's worth of growth over the course of the year", more for students behind. "We are below national percentiles". "In terms of growth it's large. Yeah. In terms of status, we have one third of our kids at grade level." Students behind in reading are tested every two weeks. | |
| 1:16:56 | Tier one instruction | Whitney recalls an April presentation that found "an issue with tier one teaching" and asks how it is evaluated. Koski describes low-floor, high-ceiling math tasks from the district's math professional development. | |
| 1:23:11 | Summer program data | Spring-to-fall i-Ready scores for summer-camp students: "we don't see a lot of growth in this in this group" in early reading; larger gains in the upper grades. Next year "we're asking that parents sign up for all five weeks." Whitney: "this year is the last year that the summer program is funded by SR" [ESSER]. | |
| 1:29:35 | Instructional coach job descriptions | Skillen: "I would like to see a more development of the essential job function section." Whitney: "It's important that we're able to evaluate the effectiveness of the coaches, not that they're just doing a lot." | |
| 1:34:56 | Substitute pay: the recommendation | Pratt: survey rates "the lowest 80. The mid is 100. In the in the higher end is 125"; "we we recommend the 125." Current pay is put at "14 something an hour" and about $80 a day. Long-term substitutes are "paid based on the teacher salary scale based on experience." | |
| 1:37:40 | Substitute pay: motion and vote | Crawford: "raise the substitute, pay to $125 per day and base it on a per diem basis and have the new, range go into effect as of March 1st." Second. (labeled Gallagher; minutes say Skillen). Hawkins: "We have funds available." The clerk reads back "a motion to raise the substitute pay to $124 a day" (1:43:09); the chair calls "All in favor, say aye." Gallagher asks the clerk to note that "for the vote, I abstained" (1:46:02). | OBSERVATION OBSERVATION POSITIVE |
| 1:43:31 | Paraprofessional coverage and the start date | Henry: "you've passed it for teachers for $125. What about your other." Skillen: "I make a motion to make the pay for substitutes across all positions equal to the motion we just passed" (no second or vote follows; the minutes record only further discussion). Gallagher: "Is there not. Equal because they're not equal." Henry asks for "March 11th. Because that would be the start of a new pay cycle". | |
| 1:47:41 | Deferral to March 11 | Crawford: "defer the implementation of the teacher substitute teacher pay raise until March 8th", corrected to March 11; Sprague: "I'll second that." Clerk: "a motion to defer the invitation of the teacher substitute pay raise to March the 11th." Voice vote; Gallagher: "Jen abstains." Hawkins asks the administration to look into permanent building subs. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:49:22 | Subcommittee reports | Capital Improvement: Maple Avenue is the last building to visit. Finance (Sprague): will meet "when we have some, more Esser information". Policy (Skillen): "The policy subcommittee had a meeting today", "just a working session", aligning the manual with the NHSBA sample manual; one policy sent to the chair for first read. Curriculum: no updates. Ad hoc Disruptive Behaviors (Gallagher): "hasn't met" since her last report; she asks whether it can "just join with policy to do some policy work". Skillen asks for a list of policies to edit first. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:55:03 | SREB progress update | Crawford: three virtual meetings, "January 15th, February 1st and February 15th", with 16 to 20 community participants each; the study radius cut from 50 to 33 miles; on-site visits March 27 to 29; full report "late May June"; then an architectural assessment, "about $10,000", with "the goal is to have data" for the 2025-26 budget by the end of November. Sprague asks whether the timing matches state building aid; Crawford: "I don't know that answer." | |
| 2:00:10 | Other business and adjournment | Reminder to send questions to Miss Weatherford for the elementary principals presenting on the 20th; future dates not read; "if there is no objection, I'd like to adjourn." | |
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 21, 2024; 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 The board approved minutes of a January 29 working session that record no attendance, time or place
The consent agenda approved the "minutes of the working session on January 29th, 2024" without discussion (0:01:10). The approved document, Minutes from CSB working session 1.29.24 (1).pdf in this meeting's packet, runs three pages: it assigns slides of the deliberative-session presentation to Heather, Frank, Candy, Jenn and Bonnie, rewords the district's public case, reviews the business administrator's budget slides, and records the direction "Make sure to make a motion to restrict reconsideration of warrant articles at the very end". Five members named by first name is a quorum of seven, so the session was a meeting under RSA 91-A:2, I. RSA 91-A:2, II requires that minutes "shall include the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions". The document has no attendance list, no call-to-order or adjournment time and no location; no notice for January 29 has been located in the district's Drive packet folders, and the session has no Cablecast recording.
Severity: the statute's attendance requirement is binding, but the minutes exist, five members can be identified from the slide assignments, and no vote is recorded. That places this at MEDIUM under the project's rule for records that exist but are deficient, rather than the HIGH reserved for a missing record with nothing explaining it. The defect belongs to the January 29 session; what this meeting added was approval without correction.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I and II (2023 codification; source note ends 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023); Minutes from CSB working session 1.29.24 (1).pdf; agenda, consent item 2
MEDIUM The public packet reproduces the donor's cheque with its banking line legible
Exhibit B, Exhibit B- CMS JDB Donation 2.21.24.pdf, posted in the public packet folder on February 14, 2024, contains the foundation's letter and an image of its $10,000 cheque. The extracted text carries the drawee bank, the cheque number and the full machine-readable routing and account line. This page reproduces none of them. RSA 91-A:5, IV exempts "confidential, commercial, or financial information" from disclosure; it permits the district to withhold or redact such material rather than requiring it, so this is a control weakness in packet preparation, not a statutory breach. The same kind of exposure recurs in later 2024 packets.
Sources: RSA 91-A:5, IV (exemption permits withholding; source note ends 2022, 122:3, eff. May 27, 2022); Exhibit B (do not reproduce its numbers)
MEDIUM The business administrator reports budget lines that do not reconcile and an ESSER III reconciliation that had reached only October or November
In the first monthly financial update (0:38:24 to 0:47:37), Mary Henry told the board that the spreadsheet figures "don't exactly line up within the actual budget itself"; that "a duplicate purchase order was entered for 90,000"; that a mental health counselor position was listed without a dollar amount; that $951,000 unspent in regular instruction against $955,000 over in special education suggests "things sitting in the wrong place"; and that she was reconciling ESSER III only "up to October or November" in late February, with salary charges still sitting in the general budget to be moved into ESSER. She also said she would not trace every misallocated salary line "Unless someone tells me I have to". For federal funds, the Uniform Guidance in force in 2024 required "Identification, in its accounts, of all Federal awards received and expended" and "Records that identify adequately the source and application of funds for federally-funded activities" (2 CFR 200.302(b)(1) and (3), 2023 edition), and effective internal control over federal awards (2 CFR 200.303). Mitigation on the record: Henry describes the work as under way and promises a fuller report the next month, and the board receives a written report for the first time.
Sprague's objection to "funding overages in other areas" from unfilled positions (0:47:10) concerns transfers between appropriations. RSA 32:10 lets the governing body transfer between appropriations within the total voted and requires records that let a citizen see what moved where. Whether the offsets Henry described were made as RSA 32:10 transfers is not stated in the record.
Sources: 2 CFR 200.302(b)(1), (3) (2023 annual edition); 2 CFR 200.303 (2023 annual edition; internal control); RSA 32:10 (transfers of appropriations; 2017, 127:4)
OBSERVATION The motion was read back as $124 a day before the vote, and no opposing vote was called
Crawford moved $125 a day (1:37:40). Before the vote the clerk read the motion as "a motion to raise the substitute pay to $124 a day" (1:43:09); the chair called "All in favor, say aye." (1:43:19) and did not call for opposition before discussion resumed. The approved minutes record the motion at $125 and the vote as six in favor with Gallagher abstaining. Twenty minutes later the board voted to defer the effective date it had just adopted, from March 1 to March 11, at the business administrator's request so the change would start with a new pay cycle (1:47:07 to 1:48:33). Nothing here breaks a rule; the minutes are the record of what passed, and they read $125.
Sources: approved minutes, item VI.5
OBSERVATION Movers and seconders: the recording and the minutes do not line up
The chair never named a mover or seconder aloud. On the donation the recording has an Unidentified "I'm making." (0:02:57) and the chair's "A second. Second." (0:02:58); the approved minutes name Bonnie Miles as mover and Candace Crawford as seconder, and the dialogue file attributes no row at all to Miles. On the $125 motion the dialogue file labels the Second. at 1:37:57 as Jennifer Gallagher, who then abstained; the minutes name Whitney Skillen as seconder. The minutes satisfy RSA 91-A:2, II's requirement that "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes"; the recording cannot confirm either name.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (mover/seconder clause from 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019); approved minutes, items IV and VI.5
OBSERVATION The ESSER deadline was stated as September 1
Crawford said the ESSER funds run out "I think September 1st" and that the district must "spend it by the 15th in order to actually get it" (0:48:11); Koski's reply is transcribed only as 3030, which may be "September 30". American Rescue Plan ESSER funds were appropriated with an availability date that the Tydings Amendment extends by one additional fiscal year, which is why the U.S. Department of Education gave September 30, 2024 as the obligation deadline and a 120-day liquidation period after it. The board was not misled into an action, but a board planning to spend "every cent" was working from two different dates.
Sources: 20 U.S.C. §1225(b) (Tydings Amendment: one additional fiscal year)
OBSERVATION A Policy subcommittee meeting held the same day has no notice or minutes in the packets checked
Skillen reported that "The policy subcommittee had a meeting today" as "just a working session" and that a policy had gone to the chair for first read (1:50:52); Gallagher reported trying to convene the ad hoc Disruptive Behaviors committee the same day (1:51:53). A board subcommittee is a public body: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) reaches any committee or subcommittee of a school district's board, so notice and minutes duties apply. No notice or minutes for a February 21 Policy subcommittee meeting appear in the packet folders for February 21, March 6 or March 20, 2024 as MAP.md records them. That is not an exhaustive search (Drive search on these shares is unreliable, and later folders were not enumerated), so this is a finding of not found, not of nonexistence.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) ("or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto"); RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification)
OBSERVATION The draft minutes reached the public share on the sixth business day
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be "open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting". Counting from Wednesday, February 21, 2024, the fifth business day was Wednesday, February 28. The draft in the March 6 packet carries a Drive modifiedTime of February 28 (about 4:19 p.m. Eastern) and a createdTime of February 29, the moment the March 6 packet folder was assembled. The modifiedTime shows the draft existed inside the window; the createdTime shows when the public could first see it on Drive. Whether a copy was available for inspection at the SAU office on February 28 cannot be told from here.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification); 2.21.24 draft CSB meeting minutes (1).pdf
POSITIVE A public hearing for a gift the statute did not require one for
RSA 198:20-b, III(a) requires a prior public hearing only for unanticipated funds of $20,000 or more (the threshold since 2023, 38:1, eff. July 18, 2023). For smaller amounts, III(b) requires that the board "shall post notice of the funds in the agenda", include notice in the minutes, and accept the funds "in public session of any regular school board meeting". The board did all three for the $10,000 gift and also held a noticed public hearing on the agenda (0:01:57 to 0:03:54). Whether Claremont's acceptance rests on a district article adopted under RSA 198:20-b, I was not checked for this page.
Sources: RSA 198:20-b, I and III (source note ends 2023, 38:1, eff. July 18, 2023); agenda, item III
POSITIVE The minutes name every voter and the abstention on both split votes
For both substitute-pay votes the approved minutes list each member voting in favor by name and record "Jennifer Gallagher abstained", together with mover and seconder. RSA 91-A:2, II requires movers, seconders and final decisions; it does not require a named tally on a voice vote. Gallagher asked on the record for her abstention to be noted (1:46:02), and the minutes honor it. The minutes also record Skillen's arrival time, as the agenda's roll-call note asks.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification); approved minutes, item VI.5
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/15585 SchoolBoard022124.mp4.CSV (887 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/15585 SchoolBoard022124.mp4 (local copy of the recording)Input/Transcripts/15585 SchoolBoard022124.mp4.json (diarized transcript)Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 226 (video-to-document map)
Laws and rules cited on this page