Participants
Everyone heard or addressed on the recording. There are no minutes to check spellings against; names follow how speakers are addressed on tape and the project roster, and the participation cell says which. Students are not named on this page.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Brian Rapp | Chair | Calls the meeting to order (0:00:07) and every vote; addressed as Brian by the superintendent (1:15:34). Defends the board's budget study sessions of the year before (1:54:30) and states the track motion (2:33:13). |
| Chris Irish | Member (vice chair per the project roster) | Answers the roll (0:00:39); recognized as Chris by a commenter (0:31:15). Abstains on the April 5 minutes, "because I was not here" (0:02:13). Praises the student presentation, notes guidance-department turnover in the accreditation report, defends the board-only budget sessions, and explains field use as a member of the city's Parks and Recreation commission (2:27:49). |
| Patrick Adrian | Member | Addressed as Patrick by the superintendent (0:18:26). Asks how the high-school schedule blocks tech-center access, asks about school breakfast, faculty collaboration time and SB 193 eligibility, and supports board work sessions. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Member | Thanked as Rebecca by the superintendent after her request (2:11:07); says "I'm in occupational therapy" (0:56:44). Asks who will do the accreditation follow-up work, whether the board should meet without administration, and where the $11,787 would come from (2:36:35). |
| Michelle Pierce | Member | In the roll as transcribed "Shelf here." (0:00:46). No later speech is attributed to her by name. |
| Frank Sprague | Member | In the roll as transcribed Spray (0:00:46). No later speech is attributed to him by name. |
| Michael Petrin | Member | In the roll as transcribed "Patron here." (0:00:45). The chair's "Thank you. Mike." after asking for a second on the track motion (2:33:28) probably credits him. No later speech is attributed to him by name. |
| Middleton McGoodwin | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Superintendent's report (GEAR UP, River Valley dual credit, the Stevens scheduling committee), the principal nomination, a long presentation on SB 193, HB 356 and board practice, and the track proposal. |
| Cory LeClair | Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6 | Recognized as Corey (0:52:43); later "Corey LeClaire has been waiting" (2:40:47). Speaks on breakfast on delayed openings, home-school numbers and the 2017-18 calendar. |
| Michael O'Neill | Business administrator, SAU 6 | Named by the superintendent ("Michael O'Neill will elaborate", 2:26:59); the voice is identified with medium confidence; spelling follows the project roster. Speaks on school-meal rules, the food service RFP and the health insurance savings behind the track money. |
| Patricia Barry | Principal, Stevens High School | Introduced as "Pat Berry, principal of Stevens High School" (0:57:34); spelling per the project roster. Presents the accreditation visiting committee's report. |
| Dale Chenette | Nominee, principal of Bluff Elementary School | Introduced as transcribed "Mr. Cornette" and "Dale Shannon" (1:25:11, 1:25:40); spelling per the project roster. Thanks the committee and describes his half day at Bluff. |
| Lisa Draper | Citizens' comments, Ward 3 | "I'm Lisa Draper, I am a resident of Ward three" (0:25:20); works for TLC Family Resource Center and is a regional coordinator for GLSEN (transcribed Glisten). Thanks the board for its LGBTQ policy and describes the Rural Outright program. |
| Student presenter | Eighth grader, Claremont Middle School; state student ambassador for Fuel Up to Play 60 | Introduced by the superintendent (0:33:33); presents the club's survey of school meals and six goals for food service. Not named on this page. |
| Student representative | Student representative, Stevens High School | Reads the student report (0:02:30). Not named on this recording. |
| Mary Woodman | Clerk (inferred) | The dialogue file assigns the roll-call names to her by inference; a voice asks for "Miss Mary." before the closing roll call (2:43:46). |
| Unidentified | Various | 110 of 785 dialogue rows (14.0%) are unidentified, including members' motions and a member's SB 193 cost questions (2:02:45). |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda survives. The chair says "We have our agenda in front of us tonight" (0:00:57) and the superintendent refers to the packet and to items "as you can see in the agenda" (0:33:33); the items below are reconstructed from the chair's transitions. No vote tally is recorded on tape for any motion.
| Taken up | Item | What was said and done |
|---|
| 0:00:07 | Call to order; Pledge; roll call | "Call the meeting to order." All seven members appear in the roll as transcribed. |
| 0:00:57 | Agenda, amended | The superintendent adds a 2017-18 calendar update and "a brief. Non public meeting at the end of the meeting. RSA 91 A three Roman numeral two C." (0:01:03). Unidentified mover: "To accept their agenda." Seconded; voice vote (0:01:43). |
| 0:01:54 | Minutes of April 5 | Moved by an unidentified member and seconded. Irish: "I'll abstain because I was not here." Chair: "All in favor? Aye. Opposed? And one abstention." (0:02:16) |
| 0:02:25 | Student representative's report | Stevens news. No action. |
| 0:04:57 | Superintendent's report | No action. |
| 0:25:09 | Citizens' comments | Lisa Draper, Ward 3. No other speaker (0:33:23). |
| 0:33:23 | Discussion: food service, students' perspectives | Student presentation and questions. No action. |
| 0:57:25 | Stevens High School 2017 accreditation report | Presented by Principal Barry. No action. |
| 1:24:01 | Action: personnel recommendation, Bluff Elementary School principal | The superintendent nominates Dale Chenette. Unidentified mover: "Accept a motion to accept." Chair: "Accept the nomination." Second by an unidentified member; voice vote, "Aye, aye. Opposed?" (1:28:04). No opposition heard. |
| 1:28:39 | Fiscal year 2019 budget presentation | The superintendent's slide presentation on SB 193, HB 356 and board practice; discussion. No action. |
| 2:14:36 | Food service RFP update | The vendor scheduled for tonight did not come. No action. |
| 2:16:50 | Meeting schedule and topics for the summer | Technology, security and capital improvements proposed for May 3. No action. |
| 2:25:43 | Monadnock track resurfacing | Chair: "somebody make a motion that, we pay" ... "11,787 purpose of, supplementing the city of Claremont, repairing the track. So. Moved." (2:33:13). Second credited "Thank you. Mike." (2:33:28). The vote is called at 2:39:28; no ayes or opposition are audible on the recording. See flag 2. |
| 2:40:05 | Lead screening policy, third read | "There's been no change." Unidentified mover: "I'd like to make a motion to accept." "Third and final." Seconded; voice vote, Aye heard, opposition called (2:40:27). |
| 2:40:44 | 2017-18 calendar update | LeClair: school starts September 5 for grades 1-12. No action. |
| 2:43:26 | Nonpublic session | Chair: "I'll take a motion for 91. A three Roman numeral two. See?" Unidentified mover: "I'd like to make a motion to go into it on public." Seconded; "All right. Roll call." (2:43:43). See flag 4. |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/9041 SchoolBoard041917.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording. Quotations are as transcribed; bracketed words are corrections, with the transcript's wording kept where the correction changes sense.
Chronological topics with the most concrete material first.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:02:30 | Student report | "We have 30 more school days left and 50 more days in total." A Stevens student's poster won the regional State House poster contest, and Stevens held the statewide seat belt challenge. School board members are invited to see machine tool and engineering projects before the May 3 meeting (0:04:20). | |
| 0:04:58 | Bargaining request | The superintendent received a memo from the Sugar River Education Association: "They are very interested in beginning collective bargaining for the 2018 2019 school year." He will ask the board "who's going to represent the school board" (0:05:23). | |
| 0:05:44 | GEAR UP New Hampshire | Claremont's seventh graders are among "a cohort of 505 seventh grade students" in a federal discretionary grant program to prepare low-income students for post-secondary education; the state's grant is "$1.6 million annually" (0:08:16). The district goal: "75% of our high school graduates will have applied to post-high school experiences" (0:10:15). | |
| 0:12:21 | Stevens scheduling committee | Created by a memorandum of understanding "signed by the school board and the sugar River Education Association back in January of 2017" to design the 2018-19 schedule, which "has to be affordable". He will not serve on it (0:13:22). "the collective bargaining agreement is being put aside. They are not going to create a schedule that matches the collective bargaining agreement." (0:15:22) | |
| 0:17:47 | Tech-center access | Adrian asks how the schedule blocks access. The superintendent: "This has been going on since I arrived 2011. Students do not have fluent access." (0:18:52) Irish: the answer is embedded credits, so a tech-center class can carry an English credit (0:22:43). | |
| 0:25:20 | Citizens' comment: Lisa Draper | She thanks the board for putting "in place an LGBTQ policy for our district to protect our students" (0:25:48), reads harassment statistics, thanks the district for a bus to a statewide prom, says a middle school GSA is next and "in compliance with the Equal Access Act, we need to move on that right away" (0:29:33), and invites staff to a May 19 educator training. Asked by Irish whether the Stevens prom is inclusive: "Our problem [prom] is not inclusive. I'm sorry to say." (0:31:22) | |
| 0:34:26 | Student presentation on school meals | From the club's optional survey: "80% of the students have never had a school breakfast" and "70% of the students say that they aren't represented in their school meals program" (0:39:17). He asks for "at least two times to three times more students" than board members on the evaluation committee (0:40:30), more cooking, grab-and-go breakfast and less waste: about 75% of students threw away the pears served one day (0:43:20). | |
| 0:45:48 | Required fruit and vegetables | Asked whether taking a fruit or vegetable is state law, the student thinks so. Irish: "The law says we have to give it to them." O'Neill: "The law doesn't say they have to eat it." (0:46:55) On donating leftovers: "That gets a little dicey." (0:47:26) | |
| 0:51:34 | Breakfast participation | "on average, there's about 38 students that have school breakfast and that 48% of students are eligible for free breakfast" (0:51:46). LeClair: on delayed openings "breakfast is not served", and the district is stocking granola bars and planning food shelves with Rethink Health and the soup kitchen (0:52:44, 0:53:29). | |
| 0:58:05 | Accreditation report | The visiting committee spent three days at Stevens in October and returned "31 commendations and 34 recommendations" (0:59:39). Faculty grouped the recommendations around time to collaborate (1:00:06). The report "will be going on our website, it will be going out to the public via the newspaper" (1:02:42). Faculty have "two total hours" a month together (1:10:13). | POS |
| 1:15:54 | Guidance turnover and the contract | Irish: "we've lost 100% of our guidance department in the last two years." On the bargaining agreement: "throw the collective bargaining away, start from scratch" (1:16:51). Barry: the visiting chair told faculty the grading system "needs to be seriously revisited in order for it to not be harmful to our students" (1:18:10). | |
| 1:24:06 | Bluff principal nomination | "The committee of ten parents, faculty members, administration, community members were unanimous." (1:24:34) "There was a vetted process of 14 candidates." (1:25:11) The nominee speaks; the board accepts the nomination (1:27:54). | POS |
| 1:30:43 | SB 193 figures | The superintendent's slides: "Approximately $63 million destined for public schools in New Hampshire is part of the problem"; "a drawdown of about $25 million" for charter and home-school students (1:31:40) and "38 million would be dispersed to an estimated 12,000 private school students" (1:32:13). "Inflation has outpaced adequacy funding by 12% since 1999" (1:33:25). Claremont has "the largest property tax in the state of New Hampshire" (1:35:45). | |
| 1:36:00 | HB 356 amendment | A study bill on education funding was amended, he says, after "Senator John Reagan got up" (1:36:13); the amendment "would eliminate those four existing divisions" of the Department of Education and replace them with divisions "answerable only to the Commissioner" (1:36:38). | |
| 1:37:27 | The superintendent on board practice | "No private action that will compromise the board. You are a member of the board, and when you leave this room, you have no authority." (1:41:45) "But it's not your responsibility to appease or to comply." (1:45:26) On last year's board sessions: "If you as a board want to meet again like you did last year without administration, now, I would recommend you don't do that." (1:47:10) | |
| 1:48:34 | Board-only budget sessions defended | Adrian and Zullo support board work sessions. Rapp: "We had a buddy, a budget study sessions where just the board met and went through the the budget." (1:53:58) Irish: "it was it was all a very public meeting. We just met on a Saturday. It was open to the public." (1:57:26, 1:57:38) and over the years the board approved "hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars just because we ran out of time" (1:58:23). | OBS |
| 2:01:50 | SB 193 locally | The superintendent puts home-school students at about 100 and does not know private-school numbers (2:02:19). A member: "100 homeschool students would be about $350,000." (2:02:45) LeClair: "in May 5th, 2016, we had 126", likely higher now, and truancy enforcement prompts some families to begin home-schooling (2:02:54, 2:03:15). O'Neill: the district gets no adequacy aid for those students now (2:03:42). | |
| 2:08:44 | Informing the public | Zullo asks that the information be posted with legislators' names. The superintendent will send an informational letter: "it would not be please vote for this. It would be information, be inappropriate to use municipal funds to influence a resident" (2:10:44). Irish proposes a letter signed by the whole board (2:11:16). | |
| 2:14:44 | Food service RFP | The vendor booked for tonight had the wrong date. O'Neill sent the RFP to seven vendors, and "the one one in unity and one in Cornish are the only two" that seem interested (2:23:26). | |
| 2:16:57 | Budget briefings and summer meetings | Technology, security and capital improvements for May 3. Irish asks for a summer meeting "100% dedicated to nothing but the tech center" (2:19:26). The superintendent: "You can't you can't communicate over the email with your board members, but you can share it with me and I can share it with you." (2:22:06) | OBS |
| 2:25:47 | Monadnock track | The city manager asked the board to help resurface the track, overdue by two or three years, a job "for 81,700" (2:26:18). "we do have the $11,787 to partner with the City of Claremont and to resurface the track. This is three weeks old. We didn't talk about it when we were doing this year's budget." (2:26:59) A member: "I think we should think about it." (2:27:37) | MED |
| 2:27:49 | Who pays for the fields | Irish, on the Parks and Recreation commission: "we do not pay anywhere near what it costs to use the fields that we use"; "There's nothing in writing that says we we're allowed to use those fields." (2:29:30) The track was built mostly with an anonymous donation (2:30:38). O'Neill: the district pays one employee for mowing and lining, not infrastructure (2:31:47). | |
| 2:36:35 | Where the money comes from | O'Neill: the guaranteed maximum rate for health insurance "went down after the budget was set. So there is a this money left in that account." (2:36:52) He budgets for a rate that "will not increase more than 11.7%" and last year "It actually came in flat." (2:37:09, 2:37:26) | MED |
| 2:40:55 | 2017-18 calendar | Calendar talks with the teachers' association continue. School starts "September 5th for all students in grades one through 12" (2:41:27), with kindergarten the following week, and vacations aligned to the state's recommended calendar so students shared with Newport's tech center do not lose two weeks (2:42:13). | |
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 April 19, 2017, 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: the district's shares hold no year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023. The recording is the only public account of the principal's election, the $11,787 payment and the superintendent's SB 193 figures, and several motions on tape have no audible mover. RSA 91-A:2, II, in the text in force for 2017, required minutes that "shall include the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description" of the subject matter, "open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting". This page applies the MEDIUM limb of the project's severity rule because the record mitigates the gap: the meeting had an agenda and a packet (0:00:57, 0:04:58), and the board approved its April 5 minutes on tape (0:02:16), so minutes were being produced. The 2017 statute required minutes to be open to inspection, not posted online. What is missing is any public copy now.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2016 codification, in force for 2017; source note ends 2016, 29:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017)
MEDIUM An unbudgeted $11,787 payment toward a city track, funded from health insurance savings, with no appropriation identified
The superintendent proposed using $11,787 to help the city resurface the Monadnock track, a request "three weeks old" that "We didn't talk about it when we were doing this year's budget" (2:26:59). The business administrator said the money was left in the health insurance account because the guaranteed maximum rate came in below budget (2:36:52). The board voted on the chair's motion (2:33:13, 2:39:28); no ayes are audible. RSA 32:8, in force in 2017, provides that no school board "shall pay or agree to pay any money ... for any purpose in excess of the amount appropriated by the legislative body for that purpose, or for any purpose for which no appropriation has been made, except as provided in RSA 32:9-11". RSA 32:10 lets the governing body move an unexpended balance "to that appropriation" when it becomes "necessary to expend more than the amount appropriated for a specific purpose", and requires records from which "any citizen" can "ascertain the purposes of appropriations to which, and from which, amounts have been transferred". The record does not say which appropriation the payment was charged to, or whether a transfer was recorded. If an athletics or facilities line covered resurfacing a track the district uses, a transfer into that line would fit RSA 32:10; a payment straight from the health insurance line would not. The minutes and the district's FY2017 transfer records would settle it.
Sources: RSA 32:8 (2016 codification; source 1993, 332:1); RSA 32:10, I and II (2016 codification; source note ends 2004, 113:1, the text in force until Aug. 15, 2017)
OBSERVATION The superintendent offered to relay members' emails to one another
Asking members to send him their priorities for budget briefings, the superintendent said: "You can't you can't communicate over the email with your board members, but you can share it with me and I can share it with you." (2:22:06). RSA 91-A:2-a, as in force in 2017, required public bodies to deliberate "only in meetings" and provided that "Communications outside a meeting, including, but not limited to, sequential communications among members of a public body, shall not be used to circumvent the spirit and purpose of this chapter". Passing a list of requested briefing topics to the board is ordinary staff work. A hub that collects each member's views and shares them with the others is the kind of sequential communication the statute names, and it would become a problem if it carried discussion of a pending decision. The same evening, the superintendent advised against the board's meeting "without administration" (1:47:10); members said those budget sessions were public meetings held on a Saturday (1:57:26, 1:57:38). This page could not check how those sessions were noticed or minuted.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2-a, I and II (2016 codification; source 2008, 303:4)
OBSERVATION Nonpublic session entered under RSA 91-A:3, II(c); the roll call is garbled and nothing after it is public
The exemption was announced when the agenda was amended ("RSA 91 A three Roman numeral two C", 0:01:03) and restated by the chair with the motion (2:43:26), which meets RSA 91-A:3, I(b)'s requirement that the motion "state on its face the specific exemption". The roll call that follows (2:43:43 to 2:44:27) mixes Here and Yes with crosstalk, so the recording does not show how each member voted. The recording ends there. RSA 91-A:3, III required that minutes and decisions of the session be "publicly disclosed within 72 hours" unless the board withheld them by a recorded two-thirds vote in public session; no such vote is on tape and no nonpublic minutes survive. The same pattern appears on the April 5 recording.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(c) and III (2016 codification; source note ends 2016, 30:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017; 280:1)
POSITIVE A principal elected in public after a documented search, and an accreditation report presented and published
RSA 189:39 requires that "Superintendents shall nominate and school boards elect all teachers". For the Bluff Elementary School principalship the district went further in public view: the superintendent described a ten-member committee of parents, faculty, administrators and community members that screened 14 candidates with a rubric and was unanimous (1:24:34 to 1:25:40), introduced the nominee, who spoke, and the board voted in public session (1:27:54). The same evening the Stevens principal presented the accreditation committee's 31 commendations and 34 recommendations and said the full report would be posted on the school's website and published in the newspaper (0:59:39, 1:02:42).
Sources: RSA 189:39 (source note ends 1971, 371:2; unchanged throughout)
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: SCHOOL BOARD MEETING 4-19-17 (show 9041; run time from the Cablecast API not retrieved, the API returned 403 on 2026-10-02)
- Google Drive: no packet folder, agenda or minutes. MAP.md: "neither share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (checked 9/26/26)." Not searched again for this page, per the run instructions for meetings with no Drive material.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/9041 SchoolBoard041917.mp4.CSV (785 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/9041 SchoolBoard041917.mp4Input/Transcripts/9041 SchoolBoard041917.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 31Scripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/9041 SchoolBoard041917.mp4.md (speaker attribution report)
Laws and rules cited on this page
- RSA 91-A:2, II, 2016 codification (source note ends 2016, 29:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017; the text in force for all of 2017): minutes content and five-business-day inspection
- RSA 91-A:2-a, I and II, 2016 codification (source 2008, 303:4): deliberation only in meetings; sequential communications
- RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(c) and III, 2016 codification (source note ends 2016, 30:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017): nonpublic motion and roll call, reputation exemption, 72-hour disclosure
- RSA 32:8, 2016 codification (source 1993, 332:1): no payment beyond, or without, an appropriation except under RSA 32:9-11
- RSA 32:10, I and II, 2016 codification (source note ends 2004, 113:1): transfers between appropriations and transfer records
- RSA 189:39 (source note ends 1971, 371:2): superintendents nominate and school boards elect teachers