| 0:02:43 | Nonpublic first, finance report after | Koski: “I think it was going to be right after the nonpublic.” Whitney at 0:02:46: “Would there be any objection to changing to have Mary give us a brief chat after the nonpublic. Okay. Seeing none.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:03:43 | Out of session, and a roll call on the way out | The recording jumps from the roll call in to “Can I have a motion to come out of nonpublic, please?” A voice vote is corrected from the floor at 0:03:54: “I. No. Going to roll call. Roll call.” On sealing, at 0:04:05–0:04:12: “We want to make a motion to seal the minutes.” “Is there any? I don’t think there’s any.” “Reason to. No motion to seal the minutes.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:04:29 | Audio set-up on air | Henry: “Can you hear me?” Howard at 0:07:43: “Hey, Mary, will you talk quick just so we can see if we see the little bubble?” Working audio at 0:09:00: “We did it.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:09:47 | “in a deficit” and $2.3 million encumbered | Henry: “At this point, I know we’re going to study in, in a deficit, but I have not had an opportunity to go through all the purchase orders.” “Because right now I have $2.3 million in encumbrances. I know some of those encumbrances are going to go away.” At 0:10:08: she wants to go through them “before I release any of your numbers”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:11:13 | What the Finance Subcommittee will get | Whitney: “what the finance committee could expect on Monday? And if it were in a form that we can have out in the minutes? So every member of the board, since we’re not going to be having another meeting to August, has an opportunity to review what those are.” Summary at 0:15:50: health-plan options with draft calculations, end-of-May financials, barriers to finishing the 2022 audit, encumbrances. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:13:59 | The FY22 audit | Crawford: “I thought the 22 audit was complete.” Henry: “it’s not quite complete yet.” Crawford: “What’s what’s the holdup?” Henry at 0:14:14: “I’m not sure. I haven’t talked to my campus [Campo] as I went out”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:14:37 | Health insurance options | Henry at 0:15:06: “actually have six different options that we can look at.” At 0:17:22, a change is possible only for FY27, “because you’ve already signed an agreement with school care.” | |
| 0:17:55 | Handbooks deferred | Whitney: “We have two new principals new to the district that should have an opportunity, to have a say and input on these handbooks.” At 0:18:59: “A new copies or revised copies will be compiled by mid-July and presented to the board for approval or for request for revision at the first meeting in August.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:23:19 | “repetitive… redundant… punitive” and honor roll | Madden: “It’s repetitive, it’s redundant, it’s punitive.” At 0:24:32: “There is one for the high school, but it’s not implemented for the middle school.” Koski at 0:24:49: “Goes against middle school philosophy to have an honorable [honor roll]. We can have a discussion about that.” Whitney at 0:26:02 steers it toward a board policy. Madden to report in August (0:34:14); Sprague asks at 0:34:24 for permission to ask staff how grading is set up in PowerSchool. | |
| 0:36:31 | DMG’s Special Education Opportunity Review | Gallagher: “this is not for you to vote on for consideration this evening.” “We are here obviously at the request of Superintendent Pratt.” Method at 0:49:38: “for one week, staff logs and schedules around how much time they’re spending with students”. Tied at 0:44:31 to the strategic-plan measure for students with disabilities. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:54:08 | Cost, and “the 50 mile rule” | Madden: “What is what is the cost of this?” Gallagher at 0:54:19: “We sent a proposal to occur. Such typically for a district or size of the under $100,000, but around that Walmart.” Sprague at 0:54:47: “Are we are we going to employ the 50 mile rule.” At 0:55:13: “we can spend 100 grand and I’ll bet you their recommendations with match pretty closely to what I just wrote down here with about a 90% reliability.” Whitney at 0:55:54: “Fortunately, I wish Mr. Pratt was here this evening.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:57:09 | Professional development plan | Koski: priorities from a staff survey. At 0:58:08–0:58:39: “All of these are open to teachers.” “80% are open to Paris [paras] who can attend.” Funding at 1:09:13: “these are all funded through title, federal title, professional development grants.” | |
| 1:11:55 | Does it work? LETRS | Koski: “It’s the third year of teachers taking this. We’ve been limited to about a dozen spots per year.” “8,090% of our students are in grade level reading, which didn’t exist two years ago.” The figure is garbled and is not adopted here; the minutes say only “a significant increase in student reading proficiency”. At 1:12:58: “We’re using title money to to offer those same slots.” | |
| 1:19:55 | Preschool after the funding cut | McCosker: “the school board made a difficult decision to cut the funding for the current preschool program”; “we’re still under the obligation from idea [IDEA] to provide preschool services to children’s three through 5”. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:21:54 | The LEA determination | McCosker: “we came up with a grade, if you will, of needs intervention in three of the categories”, “due to preschool”. The approved minutes record the grade as “needs assistance”. At 1:22:31: “It affects federal funding. If we stay there long enough, nobody can tell me how long, but we have to be able to move that needle.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:27:03 | State approval applied for | McCosker: “I’ve applied to have a preschool special education approval for a self-contained preschool program with the State of New Hampshire Department of Education. Those processes typically take 2 or 3 weeks.” At 1:27:26: “a max of 12 students with one teacher”; format “still under consideration”. At 1:28:19: for children going to kindergarten in 2026–27 with multiple disabilities or global developmental delay. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:36:17 | “net zero to the budget” | McCosker: “We will be posting for a teacher. Patrick was working on that today. But that teacher will be net zero to the budget.” Sprague at 1:36:36: “How can it be net zero?” Lewis at 1:36:40: “I took a section of three of my third grades. I have three third grades. We’re combining them into two slightly larger class size.” At 1:37:00: “it’ll be 19 and 19.” Henry at 1:36:01: “I never touched the budget line for our transportation.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:40:55 | “this feels like an end run” | Sprague: “To me, this feels like an end run that the administration is. Or whoever is saying to the board, we’re going to do this even though you said no”. At 1:41:25: “I had asked for case loads for related service people a couple of times. Haven’t seen that.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:41:52 | “you took the funding away” | McCosker: “y’all tasked me to do a job to provide services for children in this community that federal law says we have to provide.” At 1:42:13: “And then you took the funding away for those services.” At 1:43:24: “We have 17 this year. Next year is going to be 29.” At 1:43:49 a figure transcribed “Cost could be upwards of over $22 million”, which the minutes do not carry and this page does not adopt. At 1:44:13: “58 students, 3 to 5 year olds.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:44:40 | The sharpest exchange | McCosker: “After you’ve given me a task to do and you’ve given me nothing to do it with. I find it very insulting and very degrading and very demeaning.” Sprague at 1:45:31: “So we know we’re giving out services kids don’t need.” McCosker at 1:45:38: “Kids do not get services unless a professional team says they need those services.” Sprague at 1:46:12: “I said in hundreds of IEP meetings, Mike, I know.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:48:18 | How many paraprofessionals? | Hawkins: “How many powers [paras] do we need?” McCosker at 1:48:26: “I don’t know without until we know who the 12 students are.” At 1:48:31: “We’re trying to build this plane as.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:51:26 | “about 32 policies” | Whitney: “We’re pushing on 9:00 now and we have about 32 policies to do.” Crawford: “We can’t.” Whitney at 1:51:33: “We’re going to have to do them tonight so they can be put into the handbook.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:52:48 | The chair on the fear of a repeat | Whitney: “the same language was used at that time to promote that program, that it was going to save the district money, that it was going to increase scores.” At 1:53:26: “And it and it failed to do so.” At 1:53:54: “we also have a massive structural deficit.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:58:47 | Six withdrawals in one motion | Hawkins: “All of these policies have already other policies have been adopted. Which which which are more current than these policies. That’s the reason for the withdrawal. That’s one motion for all of them.” | |
| 2:00:30 | Three adopted without a second read | Whitney: “So the grouping would be a motion to adopt. Not even going to second read”. Hawkins at 2:00:52 pulls the wellness policy: “there’s a lot of work that has to be done on that one with the administration.” Howard at 2:01:10: “I’ll second the motion as amended.” Voice vote at 2:01:57. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:06:37 | Policy DGA: a yearly list of bank-account signers | Crawford: “An annual report will be given to the school board listing designated signees for all district bank accounts. Any changes during the year will be reported to the board as part of the subsequent monthly VA report, given at the second meeting of each month.” Also DEA at 2:06:01: “hearings and board votes will be conducted as part of the acceptance process.” DIE at 2:07:31: “The audit report will be given by a representative of the auditing firm.” | POSITIVE |
| 2:10:33 | Adoption becomes a second read | Sprague moves adoption of the eight fiscal policies. Whitney at 2:10:56: “was it okay with the administrative team.” Crawford: “And there was no administrative team at the meeting, so I have no idea.” Sprague at 2:11:31: “Withdraw my motion and change it to move to second read okay.” The chair’s call of the vote at 2:11:34 ends “all those policies have been adopted”; the minutes record a second read. | POSITIVE |
| 2:15:59 | A drafting error caught in JIC | Hawkins: “Currently says requiring parents and then goes on it should say requiring notification to parents. That little phrase was inadvertently left out.” At 2:16:25: “I’ve already spoken to New Hampshire School Board Association and they said yes, it was an error.” Adopted as amended at 2:17:08. | POSITIVE |
| 2:21:14 | “a structural deficit” | Whitney: the policies “address, board oversight to help prevent what we have, which is a structural deficit from ever happening again.” | OBSERVATION |
| 2:23:03 | Subcommittee minutes “within 48 hours” | Whitney: “We will ensure that the minutes from the last meeting have been posted. Correct?” Crawford: “Yes they have.” Whitney at 2:23:16: “Those minutes will be posted within 48 hours.” Next board meeting August 6 (2:23:25). | POSITIVE |