Participants
Everyone heard or addressed on the recording, plus the member whose resignation was announced. There are no minutes to check spellings or attendance against; public commenters' names are as transcribed from their self-introductions.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Brian Rapp | Chair | Presides. Announces the resignation as accepted, cites “I have two legal opinions”, rules a motion to reconsider out of order (0:11:39), reads the vacancy statute (0:18:30), and declines to place the rescission request on a future agenda (1:35:57). |
| Chris Irish | Vice Chair | Argues the emailed resignation is final (0:12:25), tells Brent Ferland he has a conflict of interest (0:21:06), moves the senior trip (0:42:25) and proposes the "authorized personnel" change to the condom policy (1:12:26). |
| Frank Sprague | Member | Answers the roll as Frank spray in the transcript (0:01:08). Asks to forgo a third reading of the condom policy (1:07:04) and moves its adoption (1:24:10), the six first reads (1:30:26) and the calendar change (1:33:08). |
| Michelle Pierce | Member | Asks how every senior could afford the trip (0:37:06) and how the opt-out would work (1:16:43); offers a motion to accept the resignation and move on, which the chair says is unnecessary (0:23:23). The attribution report rates her label medium (voice elimination). |
| Patrick Adrian | Member | Asks what the resignation item is for and whether other options were discussed (0:20:42); later asks to put the rescission request on a future agenda (1:35:36). |
| Brent Ferland | Member | Challenges the resignation under policy BBC (0:09:41), moves to reconsider (0:11:37), and asks whether leaving the table would itself be a resignation (0:21:39). He is Rebecca Ferland's son (project roster). |
| Rebecca (Becky) Ferland | Former member (resignation announced) | Does not speak on the recording. The Valley News reported that she resigned on October 3, 2016, by walking out of the SAU 6 meeting and sending an email that night, and that she attended this meeting. |
| Middleton McGoodwin | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Arrives late (0:43:01); presents the condom distribution policy on second read (0:53:09), six first-read policies (1:25:19) and the election-day calendar change (1:30:54). |
| Cory LeClair | Assistant Superintendent | Announces the early-childhood community conversation in the superintendent's absence (0:07:29). |
| Patricia (Pat) Barry | Principal, Stevens High School | Introduces the senior trip (0:29:57), presents the accreditation visit schedule (0:43:44), and endorses adding male staff to the condom policy (1:11:21). |
| O'Brien (first name not established) | Student representative; senior class president | Addressed as Mr. O'Brien (0:29:54). Gives the student report and presents the senior class trip (0:31:06). |
| Doug (surname not established) | Athletic director, Stevens High School | Called up as Doug (0:23:44); describes his Division III athletic director of the year award (0:25:17) and the co-op hockey team with Lebanon (0:26:00). |
| Maggie Monroe Castle (as transcribed) | Citizens' comments; executive director, TLC Family Resource Center | Self-identified (0:08:18, 0:59:15); speaks for the condom policy. |
| Willow Maureen (as transcribed) | Citizens' comments; nurse practitioner, Planned Parenthood | Self-identified (1:02:41); speaks for the policy and answers members' questions on opt-out programs. |
| Cassidy Kelly | Citizens' comments; Stevens senior, GSA | Self-identified (1:07:16); thanks the board for the transgender policy and supports the condom policy. |
| Richard (surname not established) | Citizens' comments | Self-introduced; the surname is transcribed as Feynman (1:09:07) and Simmons (1:12:34). Proposes that male staff be able to distribute condoms. The attribution report's Richard Seaman is a low-confidence guess and is not adopted here. |
| Heather Irish | Citizens' comments, Ward 3 | Self-identified (1:29:11); suggests Daughters of the American Revolution resources for Constitution Day. |
| Unidentified voices | Members and staff | Seconds, roll-call answers and brief remarks the dialogue file cannot tie to a person (12.4% of rows per the attribution report), including the mover and seconder of the minutes. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda was posted to any surviving district share. The items below are reconstructed from the chair's transitions. Dispositions are by voice vote unless noted; no recorded vote in this meeting has an audible dissent.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:17 | Call to order; Pledge; roll call | Roll 0:00:59 to 0:01:14. |
| 0:01:21 | Agenda | Chair adds a field trip as new action item A and, under discussion, “we can put that first resignation”. Approved (0:01:54). |
| 0:02:05 | Minutes of September 21, 2016 | Moved by an unidentified member (0:02:26); approved (0:02:32). |
| 0:02:42 | Student representative report | i-Ready testing of grades 9 and 10, spirit week, elementary news. |
| 0:07:25 | Superintendent's report | Deferred; the assistant superintendent announces the October 6 community conversation. |
| 0:08:05 | Citizens' comments | One speaker asks to wait for the policy item (0:08:18). Closed (0:08:45). |
| 0:08:45 | Discussion (added): resignation | Announced as accepted; motion to reconsider ruled out of order; vacancy to be advertised. No vote. See flag 2. |
| 0:23:39 | Athletic director | Division III athletic director of the year; hockey co-op; recruiting lecture. No action. |
| 0:29:40 | Action (added): senior class overnight trip | Wells Beach, Maine. Moved by Irish (0:42:25); approved (0:42:45). |
| 0:43:32 | Discussion: accreditation visiting committee schedule | October 23 to 26 visit. No action. |
| 0:50:12 | Discussion: school district strategic action plan update | No action. |
| 0:53:05 | Policy, second read: condom distribution | Public comment from four speakers; third reading waived and adopted with "school nurse" changed to "authorized personnel". Moved by Sprague (1:24:10); approved (1:24:46). See flags 3 and 4. |
| 1:25:15 | Policies, first read: six policies | Access to minutes and public records, student transportation, video and audio recording, food service management, patriotic exercises, change of school assignment. Moved to second read by Sprague (1:30:26); approved (1:30:35). |
| 1:30:52 | School calendar change | No school November 7 (conferences) and November 8 (election); year extended one day. Moved by Sprague (1:33:08); approved (1:33:15). |
| 1:33:27 | Future agenda items; adjournment | DAR Good Citizen award (Irish); CMS enrichment (Sprague); request to discuss the rescission refused (1:35:57). Adjournment moved by Sprague (1:38:40); approved (1:38:45). |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/8679 SchoolBoard100516.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:01:35 | Resignation added to the agenda | The chair adds the item himself at the start of the meeting: “under discussion, we can put that first resignation”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:02:26 | Minutes approved | “I make a motion. We accept the minutes from September 21st.” Approved by voice vote. | MEDIUM |
| 0:04:03 | Student report | “All ninth and 10th graders are being tested in reading and mathematics”, about 300 students, on the i-Ready adaptive assessment. | |
| 0:08:57 | Resignation announced | Chair: “Rebecca Ferland attended a resignation at the saw six meeting and then after with the global email, and spoke with the press about her resignation” (by context, tendered); “It has been accepted”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:09:41 | Policy BBC challenge | Brent Ferland: “according to the school board policy BBC. There needs to be a letter of resignation” sent to the chair “with a copy of the district clerk”; “I think you are out of order by precluding an elected member from this board”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:10:58 | The email | Irish: “Email, it said, I resigned”; “Emailed everybody, which is more than a quorum”. Chair: “We do not vote on accepting anyone's resignation. The only thing that we could do would be to vote on whether we wanted to accept our her reconsideration.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:11:37 | Motion to reconsider refused | Brent Ferland: “Then I move to reconsider the.” Chair: “It's not on the agenda. We could possibly bring that up at a later date. But as chair, I'm not going to allow that tonight.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:14:23 | Legal counsel | Irish: “She resigned before she even sent the email, according to the legal counsel”; “There's nothing we can do to undo it without putting this entire board in jeopardy of breaking laws”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:16:16 | Vacancy to be filled | Chair: the term “Will expire March 2017”; an advertisement will run in the paper. To Adrian: “We're not going to have people get up and resign and then decide they're coming back”. | OBSERVATION POSITIVE |
| 0:18:30 | Vacancy statute read | The chair reads, nearly word for word, RSA 197:26: “So school board shall follow vacancies occurring on the on the board in another district offices” [shall fill vacancies occurring on the board, and in other district offices] and adds “we tend to interview, interview the candidates, have them speak, and then we make a decision”. | POSITIVE |
| 0:21:06 | Conflict of interest claim | Irish to Brent Ferland: “you really should look at the policy about conflict of interest”; “you should not be allowed to vote in any way”. Then: “This is the big boy table”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:23:23 | Motion offered and declined | Pierce: “can I make a motion to accept this and move on?” Chair: “There's no need for a motion. This is just a discussion only.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:25:17 | Athletic director honored | Doug: “it's an award from voted on by my peers”; the golf team plays its first state tournament in years (0:24:08); hockey is a co-op with Lebanon starting “November 21st”. | |
| 0:29:57 | Senior class trip | Barry: “In recent memory, we have not had an overnight field trip for senior class trip”. O'Brien: the class voted to fold its “senior skip day” into the trip; Elmwood Resort, Wells Beach; about 140 seniors; one chaperone per ten students (0:36:25). Barry: “it would not financially exclude a certain group of students”. Approved. | |
| 0:43:44 | Accreditation visit | Barry: a team of 12 arrives “Sunday morning, October 23rd”; the written report follows in about six months (0:47:21). | |
| 0:51:51 | Strategic plan statement | Superintendent: the committee settled on “we are committed to do whatever it takes to expand or increase each student's potential success”. | |
| 0:56:52 | Condom policy changed to opt-out | Superintendent: “there is an adjustment and the adjustment is the the opt out”; “The intent of the policy has not changed”. On September 21 the draft required parental permission (September 21, 2016 page). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:59:15 | Public comment on the condom policy | Castle: Sullivan County has “one of the two highest teen pregnancy rates in the state”; “There is no legal issue about the school providing this” (her characterization). Maureen: “Portsmouth has had condom availability programs since 1993”. Kelly thanks the board “for passing the transgender policy”. Richard asks that “a male can go to a male”. | POSITIVE |
| 1:07:04 | Third reading waived | Sprague: “To forego third reading, third reading?” Chair: “We can we can vote to waive the third reading and move for adoption”. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:12:26 | "Authorized personnel" | Irish: “replace school nurse with authorized personnel”. Sprague moves “final approval. With the change of school nurse to authorize personnel”; voices confirm “We're waving the third”. Approved by voice vote (1:24:46). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:25:19 | Six policies to second read | Including “Access to minutes and public records”. Irish reads the patriotic-exercises draft (1:26:50). Moved forward together. | |
| 1:30:54 | Election-day calendar change | Superintendent: “It would be in the best interest of the election process to cancel school on Tuesday, November 8th”; schools must serve as polling places, so “the school year is extended one day”. Approved. | |
| 1:35:36 | Rescission request refused for a future agenda | Adrian: “are we able to to request to put on the agenda to discuss the to you discuss the the request by Rebecca Ferland”. Chair: “No we're not we're going to move on.” Sprague: “I think she may have the option to rerun.” | OBSERVATION |
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 October 5, 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 how the board handled a member's resignation, a policy adopted with its third reading waived, and a calendar change. 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 September 21 minutes are approved on tape (0:02:26), and the next meeting approves this meeting's minutes (October 19, 2016 page). Minutes existed; no public copy survives.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2015 codification; source note ends 2008, 303:4, so in force through 2016)
OBSERVATION A member's resignation treated as final by the chair, and the board kept from voting on her request to rescind
The chair announced that Rebecca Ferland's resignation “has been accepted” and said the board does not vote on resignations, while acknowledging “The only thing that we could do would be to vote on whether we wanted to accept our her reconsideration” (0:11:12). When Brent Ferland moved to reconsider, the chair ruled: “It's not on the agenda” (0:11:39). The chair had himself added the resignation to the agenda at the start of the meeting (0:01:35). At the end of the meeting Adrian asked to place her request on a future agenda, and the chair answered “No we're not we're going to move on” (1:35:57). Neither ruling was put to the board.
No rule verified for this page settles when a New Hampshire school board member's resignation takes effect or whether it may be withdrawn. RSA 91-A:2, II required notice of the meeting's time and place, not an agenda, so the agenda ground was the board's own practice rather than the statute. Brent Ferland cited district policy BBC as requiring a letter to the chair with a copy to the district clerk (0:09:41); the policy is not available to check. Irish told him he had a conflict of interest because the resigning member is his mother (0:21:06); no recusal was ruled on. The Valley News reported that she resigned on October 3 by walking out of the SAU 6 meeting and emailing her resignation, which it quoted as citing "bully tactics of some members of the board" (reporting). The documents that would settle this are the October 3 email, the two legal opinions the chair cited (0:11:09), policy BBC, and the board's adopted parliamentary rules.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2015 codification: notice of time and place); Valley News, Oct. 6, 2016, Patrick O'Grady (reporting)
OBSERVATION Condom policy adopted on second read the night its parental-consent rule changed
The September 21 first read made access depend on parental permission. On second read the superintendent reported “the adjustment is the the opt out” (0:56:52), a reversal of the default for students whose parents do nothing. The board then waived the district's usual third reading and adopted the policy with a further change made at the table (1:24:10). The superintendent described three readings as the norm at the next meeting (October 19, 2016 page). No statute governs the number of readings; the observation is that the adopted text, with both changes, was never read or posted in its final form before the vote, and no copy survives.
Sources: recording only; no rule cited
POSITIVE Public heard on the policy before the vote, beyond any comment rule then in force
The chair opened the floor during the condom-policy item (0:59:07), and four speakers addressed the board, two of them answering members' questions (1:17:11, 1:19:24). A public commenter's proposal was adopted into the policy (1:12:26). In 2016 no statute required a public comment period at school board meetings; RSA 189:74's 30-minute rule dates from 2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022. Taking comment within the item, before the vote, exceeded the legal minimum.
Sources: RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022; not in force in 2016)
POSITIVE Vacancy to be advertised and filled by public interview
RSA 197:26 requires only that the board fill the vacancy until the next annual meeting, and RSA 671:33, II(a) that appointees serve until the next district election. The chair committed to an advertisement in the paper (0:16:29) and to interviews in which candidates “have them speak” before the board decides. An open, advertised process goes beyond what the statute requires. The process itself was set at the next meeting (October 19, 2016 page).
Sources: RSA 197:26 (2016 codification); RSA 671:33, II(a) (2016 codification; source note ends 2013, 114:1)
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/8679 SchoolBoard100516.mp4.CSV (693 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/8679 SchoolBoard100516.mp4Input/Transcripts/8679 SchoolBoard100516.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 15Scripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/8679 SchoolBoard100516.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): notice of time and place; minutes content and five-business-day inspection
- RSA 197:26, 2016 codification (source note ends RL 139:25): board fills vacancies until the next annual meeting; selectmen if the remaining members cannot agree
- RSA 671:33, II(a), 2016 codification (source note ends 2013, 114:1): board fills vacancies; appointees serve until the next district election
- RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022): public comment period; cited only to show it did not apply in 2016