Participants
Everyone heard or recorded as present or listed. Names follow the agenda and approved minutes; transcript renderings are noted. No member of the public spoke.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Heather Whitney | Board chair | Presided (71 rows); asked to move the nonpublic session to the top of the agenda; moved to seal the nonpublic minutes; presented the Byrne Foundation gift; seconded the retiree list; reported on the NH Listens candidates’ forum. |
| Frank Sprague | Vice chair; Finance Subcommittee chair | Moved the agenda change; seconded the motion into nonpublic; moved to come out; raised the public-hearing point of order on the gift; presented the communication matrix and moved its adoption. Rendered “Craig. Sprague” and “Frank. Spray” in the roll calls. |
| Candace Crawford | Board member; Capital Improvement Subcommittee chair | Seconded the agenda change; asked when the audit report would be rescheduled; moved to accept the retiree list; proposed the change to the matrix. Rendered “Kangas” and “Bottoms and Stratford” in the roll calls. |
| Michael Petrin | Board member; Ad Hoc Communications Committee | Seconded the seal motion; moved to accept the gift; seconded adoption of the matrix and noted the ad hoc committee dissolves. Rendered “Michael Dietrich” and “Mr. Patron”. |
| Bonnie Miles | Board member | Moved to enter nonpublic session; seconded the gift and, per the minutes, the motion to come out; pressed for wider publicity of voting day. |
| Whitney Skillen | Board member; Policy Subcommittee chair | Absent per the minutes. The attendance roll at 0:00:34 is rendered “Whitney. Skillet online here”, and the nonpublic roll at 0:02:51 opens “What are you skilling?” with no answer; no minuted vote includes her. Unresolved; see the footer. |
| Arlene Hawkins | Board member | Absent per the minutes. |
| Patrick O’Hearn | Human Resources Director, SAU 6 | Called the attendance roll and the three roll-call votes; presented the retiree notification list. |
| Noelle Kronberg | School Board Clerk | Named on the agenda; signed the minutes. Not separately heard on the recording. |
| Christopher Pratt; Mary Henry | Superintendent; Business Administrator | Absent: “The superintendent Pratt, is at a conference, and Mary has an unavoidable, meeting that she has to attend” (0:01:56). No superintendent’s or finance report. |
| Miles Sheehan; Lilly Clark | Student board members | Not present; the chair said the student report “will not be given this evening” (0:01:56). |
| Plodzik & Sanderson, P.A. | District auditors (scheduled, virtual) | Did not appear; the chair said the presenter “had a family emergency” (0:00:48). |
Named on the record but not present: three retiring staff members (named only by the transcript, unreliably, and not by the minutes, so no names are given here); “Chelsea”, the SAU staff member liaising with NH Listens (surname not spoken); Scott Cargill of the city’s technology department (Miles at 0:17:43); and candidates William Madden, Loren Howard and Emily Sandblade (0:24:29). Nine rows are labeled Unidentified.
Agenda
Items as posted in “CSB Agenda 2.5.25.pdf”, in the order taken, with the time each was taken up and its disposition from the recording and the approved minutes.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:05 | I. Call to order and Pledge | “6:30 PM Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance.” |
| 0:00:34 | II. Roll call | Minutes: “Present: Michael Petrin, Bonnie Miles, Candace Crawford, Frank Sprague, Heather Whitney”; “Absent: Whitney Skillen, Arlene Hawkins”. |
| 0:00:48 | II.a.1 Amendments and final approval of the agenda | Audit presentation postponed; nonpublic session moved from item 5 to item 1. Sprague moved, Crawford seconded; voice vote at 0:01:35, all present in favor. |
| 0:01:56 | II.a.2 Minutes approval, 1.15.25 and 1.21.25 | Agenda heads the consent items “Consent Agenda (vote required)”. Taken without a vote at 0:02:22: “Seeing none, the minutes are forwarded.” Minutes: “Consent approval”. |
| 0:02:22 | II.b Citizens’ comments | “Please reference CSB Policy BEDH” (agenda). No one came to the podium. |
| — | II.c Student board member report | Not given. |
| 0:02:42 | III.5 (taken first) Nonpublic session, RSA 91-A:3, II(c) | The agenda prints the text of exemption (c). Miles moved, Sprague seconded; roll call at 0:02:51; in at 6:33 p.m. Out at 7:28 p.m. on Sprague’s motion (0:04:27), roll call at 0:04:41. Sealed for five years on Whitney’s motion, Petrin seconding, roll call at 0:04:59. See flag 1. |
| — | III.1 Results of FY 2021 Audit and FY 2022, FY 2023 Audit Progress Update | “(Discussion) Plodzik & Sanderson, P.A. (Virtual)”. Not taken up; the chair said “Next meeting” (0:01:53). See flag 3. |
| 0:05:04 | III.2 Retiree Notification List (vote) | Three retirees. Crawford moved, Whitney seconded (minutes); voice vote at 0:06:14, all present in favor. |
| 0:06:30 | III.3 Donation, Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation, $14,000, CMS Boston field trip (Exhibit A) | Point of order on the public-hearing threshold at 0:06:58. Petrin moved, Miles seconded; voice vote at 0:07:33, all present in favor. See flag 7. |
| 0:07:33 | III.4 Subcommittees; (f) Ad Hoc Communications: Communication Matrix (Exhibit B) | Subcommittees (a)–(e) gave no reports. Matrix presented by Sprague; adopted with Crawford’s change on Sprague’s motion, Petrin seconding, voice vote at 0:16:49, all present in favor. |
| 0:17:01 | IV. Other business | Publicizing voting day; NH Listens candidates’ forum, March 4 at 6 p.m. in the Tech Center community room. |
| 8:25 p.m. (scheduled) | V. Future dates | Agenda: Claremont board February 19; SAU 6 board February 13; Claremont board March 5; voting day March 11. Not read on the recording. |
| 0:24:42 | VI. Adjournment | “If there’s no objection, I’d like to adjourn.” Minutes: “Consent adjournment”. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological topics. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction, and the transcript’s wording stays visible where a correction changes the sense.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:48 | Audit presentation postponed | “The the audit for 21, 22 and 23. The progression update is not going to happen tonight. Unfortunately, the presenter had a family emergency that had to be attended to.” Crawford at 0:01:45: “I would really like to know when the report audit report is going to be rescheduled.” Whitney: “Next meeting.” | MEDIUM |
| 0:01:56 | Minutes, absences, citizens’ comments | “Is there any objection to moving the four minutes forward?” At 0:02:22: “Seeing none, the minutes are forwarded. Citizens comments. Or is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak? Podium. Seeing no one coming to the podium”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:02:42 | Into nonpublic session | Miles: “I can make a motion to move into nonpublic.” Sprague: “I’ll second that.” Whitney: “Can I have a roll call, Michael?” The motion as spoken names no exemption; the agenda and minutes give II(c). | POSITIVE |
| 0:03:30 | The recording resumes before the motion to come out | About 55 seconds of conversation about when some event should be held and who watched it: “Still talking and started at 630.”; Crawford, “Well, I think we need to alternate Saturday morning versus evening.” (0:03:48); Whitney, “Whole problem was we we had so much pushback during the week.” (0:04:06); “You’re on the air the whole time? Yeah, they were watching.” (0:04:14); Crawford, “I wasn’t there, but I heard it was.” (0:04:23). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:04:27 | Out of nonpublic; minutes sealed | “I’d like to make a motion to come out of. Not in public.” Whitney at 0:04:31: “I have to roll call that we’re out of nonpublic at 728.” At 0:04:47: “And I would like to make a motion to seal the minutes for five years.” Petrin: “I’ll second.” Roll call, five yes. | MEDIUM |
| 0:05:11 | Three retirements | O’Hearn: “That I have three retirees to present, which is, fewer than most back and forth.” A long-serving Bluff teacher who served on the negotiating committee, a Title I teacher at Bluff (“It’s been here since 2017.”, 0:05:41) and a Stevens teacher. Accepted by voice vote. | |
| 0:06:30 | $14,000 Byrne Foundation gift | Whitney: the foundation gives to “so many other districts. And the dollar amount would be $14,000 for the eighth grade field trip.” Sprague at 0:06:58: “Isn’t that a public hearing?” Crawford: “The 20,000.” Whitney at 0:07:08: “We did pump it way up to prevent a lot of public hearings.” Petrin’s motion at 0:07:19: “accept the $14,000 donation for the eighth grade field trip from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:08:25 | The communication matrix | Sprague: the aim is to “Really kind of brighten the lines between what’s district communication and what’s board communication.” The matrix records means, audience, purpose, frequency and whether internal or external (0:08:54). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:09:30 | Who owns subcommittee information | Crawford at 0:10:21: “But the committee work, the owner of the the information is not the school district. It’s the school board that does.” Sprague: “Yeah. I mean, we could simply just change the D under owner to B.” | |
| 0:13:50 | Where the matrix should live | Whitney: “When we all go away. Where should this be found?” At 0:14:25: “there wasn’t a foundation or a scaffold for us to really function on”. Crawford: “This should be in the School Board handbook.” Sprague suggests the beginning-of-term retreat (0:15:07). | |
| 0:16:10 | Matrix adopted; ad hoc committee ends | Petrin: “Unfortunately, I think that ends the ad hoc subcommittee for communication.” Sprague at 0:16:31: “I would like to make a motion that we accept this communication matrix with the correction that Miss Crawford made.” Petrin seconds; voice vote. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:17:08 | Getting the word out about March 11 | Miles: “I wanted to talk more about really getting the word out, on voting day, because I don’t think we’re doing enough.” Poll-worker experience at 0:11:23: “oh, I just saw a sign.” She reports the city’s announcement of the school election was wrong (0:17:43–0:18:10). Sprague at 0:19:49: “it’s the second Tuesday in March.” Petrin at 0:21:39: “So I think we’ve done our duty to get the word out there. It’s not a hidden secret, right?” | |
| 0:21:50 | NH Listens candidates’ forum | “It’s going to be March 4th, at 6 p.m.. It’s going to be in this room”. CCTV coverage floated and set aside because of small-group breakouts (0:22:22); CCTV one-on-one interviews suggested instead (0:22:36). At 0:22:57: “New Hampshire listens, generates the questions, the forum, the discussion. We don’t play a part in that.” | |
| 0:24:29 | Three candidates for two seats | “We currently have three candidates. I think it’s William Madden. Correct? Yep. Lauren [Loren] Howard and Emily sand blade [Sandblade].” | |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer’s aid. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; an Observation rests on no confirmed rule.
MEDIUM Nonpublic minutes sealed for five years with no statutory determination on the record
RSA 91-A:3, III requires nonpublic minutes and decisions to be disclosed within 72 hours “unless, by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session, it is determined that divulgence of the information 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”. The vote met the procedural half: the motion “to seal the minutes for five years” (0:04:47) was seconded and carried on a public roll call, five of five present (0:04:59). Neither the motion nor the approved minutes (“Heather Whitney made a motion to seal the minutes for 5 years”) states which of the three determinations was made. The session was noticed under II(c), the reputation ground, so that is the likely basis; the record does not say so. Mitigation: five years is a short, stated term.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, III (text read 2026-09-25; 2023, 189:1 did not change the sealing standard); 16. Approved CSB meeting minutes 2.5.25.
MEDIUM The earliest copy of these minutes reached the public share on the seventh business day
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be “open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting.” Five business days from Wednesday, February 5, 2025 ran to Wednesday, February 12. The earliest copy located, 2.5.25 DRAFT CSB meeting mintues.pdf, was created in the February 19 packet folder at 7:00 a.m. on Friday, February 14, the seventh business day; the packet folder for this meeting was itself created the same morning. The approved minutes followed on March 3. Drive dates show when a file reached the public share, not whether a paper copy was available at the SAU office sooner, so this is graded MEDIUM rather than HIGH. A similar lag appears on the project’s November 20, 2024 page.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification, in force at this meeting); Drive creation dates of the draft and the packet folder, read 2026-09-25.
MEDIUM In February 2025 the board was still waiting to hear FY2021 audit results, with FY2022 and FY2023 in progress
The agenda item was “Results of FY 2021 Audit and FY 2022, FY 2023 Audit Progress Update”. It was struck at 0:00:48 because the presenter had a family emergency; Crawford asked at once when it would return (0:01:45). The postponement itself is unremarkable. What the item documents is the backlog: three fiscal years that ended June 30, 2021, 2022 and 2023 were still open. For a district that expends $750,000 or more in federal awards in a year, the single-audit reporting package is due “within the earlier of 30 calendar days after receipt of the auditor’s report(s), or nine months after the end of the audit period”, so March 31, 2022, 2023 and 2024 for those years. The business administrator described the federal clearinghouse filing to this board on October 18, 2023, when she also told the board the 2021 audit was done; this agenda still lists FY2021 results as pending, and the item heard on March 5, 2025 was retitled to FY2020. The record is inconsistent about which audits are finished. State law is permissive on timing: RSA 21-J:19 lets a school district hire an independent auditor but sets no deadline, so the lateness is graded on the federal rule. This meeting’s record does not state the district’s federal expenditure total, which is why the flag is MEDIUM.
Sources: 2 CFR 200.512(a)(1) (2023 annual edition); 2 CFR 200.501 ($750,000 threshold for fiscal years beginning before October 1, 2024); RSA 21-J:19 (permissive); CSB Agenda 2.5.25.pdf.
OBSERVATION Board conversation is on the broadcast before the motion to leave nonpublic session, on a subject outside the exemption
The board entered nonpublic session under RSA 91-A:3, II(c) at 6:33 p.m. and moved to leave at 7:28 p.m. The recording is cut across that hour (the dialogue file marks the splice at 0:03:08) and resumes at 0:03:30, about a minute before the motion to come out (0:04:27). What it captures is members discussing when some event should be held (Saturday morning or evening), the “pushback” each option drew, and whether people “were watching” on air. An earlier version of this page identified the event as the February 1 deliberative session; Crawford’s “I wasn’t there, but I heard it was.” (0:04:23) does not fit that, since she presented at it, so the event is left unidentified. RSA 91-A:3, I(c) confines a nonpublic session to “the matters set out in the motion.” This is an observation because a spliced recording cannot show whether the confidential business had ended and the public had been readmitted before the formal motion; scheduling talk of this kind is open-session business either way.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b), I(c), II(c).
OBSERVATION The communication matrix the board adopted, and the gift’s exhibit, are not in the public packet, and the packet folder postdates the meeting
The agenda cites Exhibit A (the donation) and Exhibit B (the communication matrix). The Drive folder “14. CSB 2.5.25” holds three documents: the agenda and the draft minutes of January 15 and January 21. Neither exhibit is there, so the one policy product the board adopted that night, as amended on the floor, is not public in the packet. The folder was created February 14, 2025, nine days after the meeting, and all three files in it are dated August 22, 2025, so the Drive record does not show what was posted before the meeting. By contrast, the deliberative-session folder was up by January 28, four days ahead. The matrix remains a public record available on request.
Sources: RSA 91-A:4 (public records open to inspection); Drive metadata for 14. CSB 2.5.25, read 2026-09-25.
OBSERVATION Smaller points for a reader tracing the record
(1) The agenda heads the consent items “Consent Agenda (vote required)”; the agenda change was voted, but the two sets of minutes were taken without a vote (“Seeing none, the minutes are forwarded.”, 0:02:22), and the approved minutes record “Consent approval”. (2) The motion into nonpublic session as spoken names no exemption (0:02:42); the agenda printed exemption (c) in full and the minutes record the motion “under RSA 91-A:3 ©”, a symbol for (c). (3) The attendance roll at 0:00:34 renders Skillen as “Whitney. Skillet online here”, which could suggest remote attendance; the minutes list her absent and she answers no roll call. (4) The minutes record no adjournment time; the 2025 amendment requiring start and end times did not yet apply.
Sources: CSB Agenda 2.5.25.pdf; approved minutes; RSA 91-A:3, I(b).
POSITIVE A point of order stopped the gift vote until the threshold was checked, and the acceptance met every step the statute sets below $20,000
Before the board voted on the $14,000 Byrne Foundation gift, Sprague asked, “Isn’t that a public hearing?” (0:06:58). The board settled it on the record before taking the motion. A hearing is required at $20,000 or more under RSA 198:20-b, III(a). Below that, III(b) requires that the board “post notice of the funds in the agenda”, “include notice in the minutes”, and accept them “in public session of any regular school board meeting.” All three happened: agenda item III.3 names the donor, amount and purpose, the minutes record the acceptance, and the vote was taken in public at a regular meeting. The $20,000 figure is the statute’s since 2023, 38:1 (eff. July 18, 2023), which raised it from $5,000; III(b) lets a board set a lower notice amount, which fits Whitney’s account that the policy committee had changed the district’s figure. The record does not show whether the district meeting has adopted the enabling authority RSA 198:20-b, I contemplates.
Sources: RSA 198:20-b, I and III (2023, 38:1; text read 2026-09-25); approved minutes, item III.4.
POSITIVE The nonpublic session was noticed with its exemption, voted by roll call, and fully minuted
The posted agenda printed the full text of RSA 91-A:3, II(c) under the nonpublic item, so the public knew the ground in advance. Entry, exit and sealing were each moved, seconded and taken by roll call in public (0:02:51, 0:04:41, 0:04:59). The approved minutes name the mover and seconder of every motion that night, record each vote, and give the times of entering and leaving nonpublic session, which RSA 91-A:2, II asks of minutes (mover and seconder since 2019).
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(c); RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification).
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.
Laws and rules cited on this page
- Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification); RSA 91-A:3, I(b), I(c), II(c), III (2023, 189:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023); RSA 91-A:4
- School money and audits: RSA 198:20-b, I and III (2023, 38:1, eff. July 18, 2023); RSA 21-J:19
- Federal: 2 CFR 200.512(a)(1); 2 CFR 200.501