Participants
Everyone heard or addressed on the recording, plus the absent member. There are no minutes to check spellings or attendance against; names follow the project roster and the attribution report for this show, and first names stand alone where no surname is spoken.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Brian Rapp | Chair | Presides. Tells a public commenter that agendas are posted online (0:19:32), argues the transgender policy must not set criteria for identity (2:50:22), and asks for a policy codifying private changing options for any student (2:43:22). |
| Chris Irish | Vice Chair | Raises the athletics and safety question on the transgender policy at length (2:44:32, 2:51:31), asks that the athletic director be recognized (2:58:56), and questions the value of another joint meeting with the city council (2:57:21). |
| Frank Sprague | Member | Proposes making the private changing option in section F available to any student (2:39:03); asks how district growth goals will be measured (1:29:33). The attribution report marks one of his two voice clusters medium confidence. |
| Rebecca (Becky) Ferland | Member; SAU 6 chair | Moves the condom distribution first read (2:37:57), the transgender policy (2:50:36), the building rental procedure (2:55:32) and the background-check policy (2:56:05); confirms she handled paraprofessional bargaining alone the year before (2:09:32). The attribution report rates her label medium-high. |
| Brent Ferland | Member | Addressed as Brant in the transcript (1:19:16). Moves the agenda and minutes (0:02:25, 0:02:45), asks whether college completion is tracked (1:18:17), and argues locker-room privacy should be for everyone, not a “privileged class of people” (2:48:39). |
| Patrick Adrian | Member | Questions the district's testing culture (1:43:30), proposes clearer parental-consent wording in the condom policy (2:34:32), and says a conflict of interest kept him off the paraprofessional bargaining team (2:09:37). |
| Michelle Pierce | Member | Absent; the chair reports she emailed that she could not attend (0:01:19). |
| Middleton McGoodwin | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Gives the superintendent's report, requests the nonpublic session (0:54:28), presents the district goals (1:00:07), the FY2018 budget schedule (2:05:55), the bargaining teams (2:08:29) and five policies. |
| Cory LeClair | Assistant Superintendent | Announces the October 6 community event (0:10:51), gives staff-survey response figures (0:18:49), and explains the i-Ready assessment and curriculum website (1:33:01). |
| Chris (surname not established) | SAU 6 administrator, out-of-district placements | Introduced only as Chris (2:31:07). Reports on bringing students back from out-of-district placements and on the search for space for the alternative program (2:13:47). The diarizer merged this voice with Frank Sprague; manual overrides separate them. |
| Marian (surname not established) | Student representative | Welcomed by the superintendent (0:44:28); reads school reports and the fall sports summary (0:44:35). The diarizer merged her with the public commenter; overrides separate them. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Citizens' comments | Self-identified (0:13:45); says she worked for the district “for 15 or 16 years” and now works in Lebanon, and asks the board how it views staff culture. |
| Helen Costello | New Hampshire Food Bank | Self-identified (0:24:04); reports on the summer Children's Community Lunch program. |
| Megan (surname not established) | Children's Community Lunch coordinator | Introduced by Costello (0:31:27); describes outreach and plans for next summer. |
| Cindy Stevens | Managing director, Claremont Soup Kitchen | Self-identified (0:35:28); describes the kitchen's role in the lunch program. |
| Unidentified voices | Members and staff | Roll-call answers, seconds and short remarks the dialogue file cannot tie to a person (11.5% of rows per the attribution report), including the mover and seconder of the nonpublic motion. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda was posted to any surviving district share. The chair told a commenter that agendas were posted online (0:19:32); none survives. The items below are reconstructed from the chair's transitions. Dispositions are by voice vote unless noted.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:28 | Call to order; Pledge; roll call | Roll call 0:01:01; Pierce reported absent. |
| 0:01:31 | Agenda | The superintendent deletes the staff-nomination item and adds out-of-district placements (0:01:49); the chair notes a nonpublic session after item F6. Moved by Brent Ferland (0:02:25), seconded by Adrian (0:02:29); approved. |
| 0:02:40 | Minutes of the previous meeting | Moved by Brent Ferland (0:02:45); approved (0:02:52). |
| 0:03:10 | Superintendent's report | Parish fair thank-you letter, River Valley Community College partnership, middle school service learning. No action. |
| 0:10:41 | Assistant superintendent's items | October 6 community event; homework support site; new staff member. No action. |
| 0:13:20 | Citizens' comments | One speaker (Rebecca Zullo) on staff culture; the staff and culture survey is promised as a future agenda item. |
| 0:23:49 | Discussion: New Hampshire Food Bank children's community lunch program | Report by the Food Bank, the coordinator and the Claremont Soup Kitchen. No action. |
| 0:44:06 | Student representative report | School news and fall sports. No action. |
| 0:54:24 | Nonpublic session | Requested under “RSA 91 a three Roman numeral two see”; motion by an unidentified member (0:54:43); roll call (0:54:51). Return and a garbled seal reference at 0:59:34; motion to come out (0:59:42). See flag 2. |
| 1:00:02 | Discussion: moving toward excellence (district goals) | Superintendent's presentation of growth targets; discussion. No action. |
| 2:04:20 | Discussion: school district strategic action plan | Committee roster presented. No action. |
| 2:05:25 | River Valley College middle school computer program | Information only. |
| 2:05:55 | FY2018 budget schedule (draft) | Dates to be corrected; no action. |
| 2:08:29 | Negotiation teams | Patrick Adrian added to the maintenance and transportation teams (2:11:19). |
| 2:11:29 | Discussion (added): out-of-district placements | Update by the SAU 6 administrator. No action. |
| 2:31:23 | Policy, first read: condom distribution | Moved by Becky Ferland (2:37:57); approved for first read (2:38:36). |
| 2:38:42 | Policy, third read: transgender and gender nonconforming students | Moved by Becky Ferland (2:50:36), seconded by Sprague (2:50:44). The vote call is heard only as “Opposed thank” (2:55:19); no tally is audible. See flag 3. |
| 2:55:22 | Policy, third read: procedure for building rental | Moved by Becky Ferland (2:55:32); approved (2:55:46). |
| 2:55:51 | Policy, third read: background investigations and criminal history records check | Moved by Becky Ferland “as written” (2:56:05); approved (2:56:16). |
| 2:56:26 | Policy: volunteers | Legal reference corrected; moved by Brent Ferland (2:56:47), seconded by Adrian (2:56:52); approved (2:56:53). |
| 2:57:00 | Joint meeting with the city council | November 15 preferred over November 1. |
| 2:58:46 | Future agenda items; adjournment | Recognition of the athletic director requested (2:58:56); adjournment moved (2:58:44) and approved (2:59:42). |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/8648 SchoolBoard092116.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:01:19 | Absence | Chair: “Michelle did email me”. Six of seven members present. | |
| 0:01:49 | Agenda changes | Superintendent: “we are not going to have a need for Roman numeral seven, a nomination for new staff”; out-of-district placements added. | |
| 0:04:18 | Parish fair letter | The superintendent reads a thank-you to Stevens teams and students who helped at the St. Mary's parish fair, which “we were able to raise over $10,000”. | |
| 0:05:32 | River Valley Community College | The superintendent describes a closer partnership and a meeting on a program modeled on “IBM P tech model”. | |
| 0:13:45 | Citizen on staff culture | Zullo: “How do you think the overall culture of Sussex is now?” (SAU 6 is transcribed as Sussex). LeClair: “we have 179 teachers, roughly 105 pairs”; then “we had 64 responses from the middle school and the high school, and we had approximately 13 number from the elementary school”. The superintendent: “it would be inappropriate to have a public discussion about individuals”. | |
| 0:19:32 | Where agendas are posted | Zullo asks how to follow future agenda items; chair: “Our agendas are are posted online”. | MEDIUM |
| 0:28:42 | Summer lunch program | Costello: “we were able to serve over thousand 300 meals this summer”, with a single-day high of 67 children; “We had over 38 volunteers”, many of them district staff. | |
| 0:44:35 | Student representative report | Maple Avenue Meet the Teacher night and literacy award, a yearbook editor's visit, a Civil War diaries project, and fall sports results. | |
| 0:54:28 | Nonpublic session | Superintendent: “under RSA 91 a three Roman numeral two see going through nonpublic for a brief meeting please”. A member: “Make a motion. We go into nonpublic under” “what he said second”. Roll call follows; on return the chair says “This is a to seal”. | MEDIUM |
| 1:01:15 | Cross-district curriculum | Superintendent: “even though our colleagues from Cornish are leaving at the end of this year”, the three districts' teachers built shared reading, writing and math programs and a curriculum website. | |
| 1:09:17 | District growth goals | “One of our goals is 100% of the students will demonstrate measurable growth reading, writing and math”; “We are looking 70% in math and 80% in reading” in grades 1 to 5; “We are looking for a 93% rate of attendance at Stevens High School”; 75% of Stevens students to be accepted to post-secondary programs (1:14:40). | |
| 1:27:09 | Five-year aim | “we want to be recognized as one of the top districts in New Hampshire because of our student growth”. Sprague asks how that will be known (1:29:33). | |
| 1:33:01 | Assessment and proficiency | LeClair on i-Ready and growth measures; Brent Ferland asks about grade-level proficiency and remediation (1:38:03). Adrian warns of an “assessment culture it really is stifling”; Irish and Rapp defend the new measures. | |
| 2:04:26 | Strategic planning committee | Ten members, including Adrian and Pierce for the board and “Richard Seaman, former school board chair, community member”. | |
| 2:05:55 | FY2018 budget schedule | A first draft; members note several meetings fall on Fridays (2:07:50). Superintendent: “Please don't log these in in your calendar yet”. | |
| 2:09:23 | Bargaining teams and a conflict | Chair suggests help for Becky Ferland on the paraprofessional team; Adrian: “I was going to do it with her. And then I was sort of a conflict. This one is conflict of interest things.” He is added to maintenance and transportation instead (2:11:19). | POSITIVE |
| 2:11:38 | A parent's transportation concern | Becky Ferland follows up on a parent who raised a student's transportation at an SAU 6 meeting; the superintendent declines specifics and says the problem is “having a staff member, an employee, be available at short notice”. | |
| 2:13:47 | Out-of-district placements | The SAU 6 administrator reports students brought back to district programs and others who left with their families' moves; decisions are “by a multidisciplinary team”. On space for the alternative program: “I may be able to get a property for 60, $70,000, but it's going to cost me 300 to get it up to code”. Counts of individual placements are not repeated on this page. | |
| 2:31:27 | Condom distribution policy, first read | Superintendent: “After reviewing several years of use youth Risk Behavior survey data” the policy follows Hanover's; “If we do not hear from the parent, the student does not have access”. Approved for first read. | |
| 2:38:42 | Transgender policy, third read | Superintendent: “The whole theme behind this is to protect the rights of all students”. Sprague proposes that any student may ask for a private changing area (2:39:33); the chair prefers a separate policy for that (2:42:18). | OBSERVATION |
| 2:44:32 | Athletics debate | Irish: “I can see where this is probably going to blow up in some school districts face at some point”. Superintendent: “I would recommend that we keep it in place”. Brent Ferland: “we are relying on people self-identifying”. Chair: “It is not up to us to put a criteria on how a person identifies”. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:51:58 | Legal framing | Superintendent: “you're confronted with some very clear law”; “You put the district at risk”. Chair: “I would love to see that show up in court”. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:55:19 | Transgender policy vote | The vote is heard only as “Opposed thank”; who voted which way is not recoverable from the recording. | MEDIUM OBSERVATION |
| 2:55:51 | Background-check and volunteer policies adopted | Superintendent: “I believe I have made the edits as requested”. Both adopted by voice vote. | |
| 2:57:21 | Joint meeting with the city | Irish: “why are we meeting again if we haven't done anything yet”; the superintendent urges keeping the process going (2:57:48). | |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer's aid, not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one names the rule it rests on, as that rule read on September 21, 2016, or is labeled an observation where no verified rule applies.
MEDIUM No agenda, packet or minutes for this meeting survive in any district share
MAP.md records no Drive material for this meeting. The recording is the only public account of a nonpublic session, the adoption of three policies, and a transgender-policy vote whose tally cannot be heard (2:55:19). RSA 91-A:2, II, in the 2016 text, required minutes with "names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions", "open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting" (statute text).
MEDIUM under the project's severity rule, because the record mitigates the gap: the board approves the prior minutes on tape (0:02:45) and the chair says agendas are posted online (0:19:32), so minutes and agendas were being produced. None survives in the district's shares now, and without minutes the nonpublic session and the vote on the transgender policy have no written record at all.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2015 codification; source note ends 2008, 303:4, so in force through 2016)
MEDIUM Nonpublic motion stated its exemption only by reference, and a seal was mentioned with no audible statutory finding
The superintendent asked to go into nonpublic “under RSA 91 a three Roman numeral two see” (0:54:28). An unidentified member then moved “We go into nonpublic under” and the motion was completed and seconded as “what he said second” (0:54:47). A roll call followed (0:54:51). RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires that the motion "shall state on its face the specific exemption under paragraph II" (statute text). A motion that adopts another person's words by reference does not state the exemption on its face, though the exemption was spoken aloud moments earlier.
After the session the chair says “This is a to seal” and an answer follows (0:59:35); the rest is garbled. RSA 91-A:3, III allows nonpublic minutes to be withheld only "by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session" together with a determination that disclosure would likely affect a person's reputation, render the proposed action ineffective, or concern terrorism (statute text, paraphrased after the quoted words). No determination is audible. With no minutes surviving, there is no record of whether the minutes were sealed, on what finding, or what was discussed. MEDIUM: a documentation gap on the record, mitigated by the spoken exemption and the roll call.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(c) and III (2016 codification; source note ends 2016, 30:1 and 280:1, eff. June 21, 2016)
OBSERVATION Transgender policy adopted after the federal guidance behind its legal framing was enjoined
The superintendent told the board the policy rests on “some very clear law” and that without it the district risks violating “a person's constitutional rights”; on August 17 he pointed to the policy's legal references (August 17, 2016 page). The references are not read into the record and no copy of the policy survives. The federal Departments of Education and Justice guidance of May 13, 2016 on transgender students was the most recent federal statement on the subject; on August 21, 2016 the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas preliminarily enjoined federal enforcement of it nationwide (Education Week reports the ruling as August 22), and an October 2016 clarification limited the injunction to restrooms and locker rooms (reporting). Nothing on the recording shows the board was told of the injunction.
The injunction did not bar a district from adopting its own policy, so this is not a finding against the policy. It is an observation that the legal basis described to the board was not current on the date of the vote, and that the vote itself has no audible tally and no surviving minutes. The policy text and its legal references would settle what the board relied on.
Sources: Education Week, Aug. 30, 2016, "Judge Blocks Guidance on Transgender Rights" (reporting); Connecticut School Law blog, Oct. 2016, on the scope clarification (reporting)
OBSERVATION Locker-room alternative for all students deferred to a policy not yet identified
Sprague proposed rewording the private changing option in the draft so that “Any student may enter these circumstances may ask for an alternative place to dress”, so that non-transgender students uncomfortable in a locker room could also use it (2:41:00). The chair and others agreed with the idea but preferred to place it in another policy (2:42:18), and the superintendent undertook to “review the policies and see if I can find a policy where that would be appropriate”. No rule requires it; the observation is that a change members agreed with was left to a follow-up the record does not show completed.
Sources: recording only; no rule cited
POSITIVE Member stepped back from a bargaining team over a conflict of interest
When the chair suggested a second member join the paraprofessional bargaining team, Patrick Adrian said he had planned to but “I was sort of a conflict” (2:09:37), and took the maintenance and transportation teams instead (2:11:19). The recording does not say what the conflict was. No statute verified for this page required him to step aside; declaring the conflict in public session and acting on it is practice beyond the minimum.
Sources: recording only; no rule cited
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/8648 SchoolBoard092116.mp4.CSV (959 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/8648 SchoolBoard092116.mp4Input/Transcripts/8648 SchoolBoard092116.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 14Scripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/8648 SchoolBoard092116.mp4.md (speaker attribution report)
Laws and rules cited on this page
- RSA 91-A:2, II, 2015 codification (source note ends 2008, 303:4; in force until Jan. 1, 2017): minutes content and five-business-day inspection
- RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(c), III, 2016 codification (source note ends 2016, 30:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017; 280:1, eff. June 21, 2016; the passages cited read the same in the 2015 text): motion states the exemption on its face, roll call; reputation exemption; 72-hour disclosure unless sealed by a recorded 2/3 vote with a determination
- Federal: U.S. Departments of Education and Justice guidance on transgender students, May 13, 2016 (withdrawn February 22, 2017), and its preliminary injunction in Texas v. United States (N.D. Tex., August 2016), cited from press reports only