Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part. Names follow the project's dialogue file and the 2015 to 2023 roster; no minutes are online to check spellings against. Where the dialogue file says Unidentified, this page does too.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Sara Lowe | Chair (Unity) | Presided; had the phone members state their reasons; objected that the merit pool had not been used as voted; asked about the SAU building; co-presented the superintendent evaluation draft; announced the nonpublic session. |
| Marjorie Erickson | Member (Unity); evaluation subcommittee | Called the evaluation draft a "straw man" for feedback; hosted the subcommittee's working session; said she would not extend merit money until she saw an evaluation system. |
| Robert (Bob) McDevitt | Member (Unity), by phone | "I have business out of state"; asked that the agenda vote be taken by roll call; abstained on the March 29 minutes; defended the SAU's use of the merit pool. |
| Prudence McCormick | Member (Unity) | Named in the roll (surname only; first name per roster). No attributed speech. |
| Craig (surname not stated) | Member (Unity) | Named in votes; abstained on the March 29 minutes. The dialogue file attributes the Yes. after his name in the final roll call to Michael Petrin (see method footer). |
| Frank Sprague | Member (Claremont chair) | Moved the agenda, the March 29 minutes, Nester's appointment and the nonpublic session; asked what the SAU building costs to run; suggested a simple merit system. |
| Michael Petrin | Member (Claremont); evaluation subcommittee | Seconded the agenda and minutes; presented the five evaluation goal areas and the scoring. The attribution report rates his cluster medium; it absorbs other voices' onsets. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Member (Claremont) | Asked how staff with added duties are paid; put two community rumors about SAU offices to the superintendent; asked for a "transparent" budget. |
| Carolyn Towle | Member (Claremont) | Seconded Nester's appointment; said the equity adjustments "put the cart before the horse"; asked for job descriptions; commended the evaluation subcommittee. |
| Steven Horsky | Member (Claremont) | Proposed freezing the merit pool until an evaluation system exists; seconded the nonpublic motion. |
| Jason Benware | Member (Claremont), by phone | Stated he was working; voted by phone. |
| Michelle Pierce | Member (Claremont) | Answered the roll ("Michelle Pierce right here", as the dialogue file records it). No other attributed speech. |
| Middleton McGoodwin | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Nominated Ben Nester; introduced merit pay and the FY2020 budget item; answered the rumors; excused from the nonpublic session. |
| Cory LeClair | Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6 | Explained why an evaluation system had to wait for defined job responsibilities; described 15 properties reviewed for programs and offices. |
| Michael O'Neill | Business Administrator, SAU 6 (surname per roster) | Defended the equity adjustments; distributed detailed expenditure reports; said he had an RFP out to paint the SAU building. |
| Nathan (surname not stated) | SAU 6 human resources and accounting (formerly IT director) | Presented how the $17,500 merit pool was used for equity; promised an evaluation system as his "number one priority". |
| Ben Nester | Nominee, SAU 6 Director of Special Education | Spoke briefly before his appointment (spelled Nestor in the transcript). |
| Unidentified | Roll-call caller and others | The person calling the roll is never named. 68 of 568 rows (12.0%) are Unidentified. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this meeting is posted in any district share, so this list is reconstructed from the chair's transitions on the recording. The chair refers to a written agenda that cited the nonpublic exemption "on the very bottom". Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:06 | Call to order, pledge, roll with remote-participation reasons | See Board composition above; reasons stated at 0:01:41 and 0:02:18. |
| 0:02:30 | Agenda | Moved by Sprague (0:02:39), seconded by Petrin (0:02:43); voice vote at 0:02:45. McDevitt: "We need to take that in the roll call." (0:02:52); not retaken (flag 1). |
| 0:03:04 | Minutes of March 29, 2018 | Moved by Sprague (0:03:12), seconded by Petrin (0:03:17); voice vote with McDevitt and Craig abstaining (0:03:19 to 0:03:30). |
| 0:03:35 | Citizens' comments | None. |
| 0:03:40 | Action: nomination of SAU 6 director of special education | Ben Nester, effective July 1. Moved by Sprague (0:06:46), seconded by Towle (0:06:54); roll call 0:06:58 to 0:07:46, no no heard. |
| 0:08:02 | Merit pay | Presentation and discussion; no vote. Staff to return with an evaluation system before the budget presentation (0:24:16). |
| 0:39:19 | SAU 6 FY2020 budget | Expectations discussion; questions to be sent by the first week of June. No vote. |
| 1:01:29 | Superintendent evaluation subcommittee report | Draft vision, mission, five goal areas and rubrics presented for review. No vote. |
| 1:13:27 | Nonpublic session | Announced as under RSA 91-A:3, II(c) ("RSA 91, a colon three two C" in the transcript), superintendent excused. Moved by Sprague (1:14:34; the motion wording is garbled), seconded by Horsky (1:14:46); roll call 1:15:00 to 1:15:50. Recording ends. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Times are the start of the cited exchange, taken from the CSV's own second count. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell for the full entry.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:33 | Rules for phone participation | Chair: "we need to ask the two members who are on the phone to say their name and their reason that they need to be on the phone tonight, and then all of our votes tonight need to be roll call votes, because we have members who are on the phone." At 0:01:35: "To state the reason why you're on the phone and not present." Benware at 0:01:41: "this is how I run my business". McDevitt at 0:02:18: "I have business out of state and could not avoid not being there." | POSITIVE |
| 0:02:39 | Agenda approved by voice | Chair: "Those in favor? Any opposed? Okay." McDevitt at 0:02:52: "We need to take that in the roll call." Chair at 0:02:55: "Do we need to do all of them? I know any votes were taking. We need to know. I think we're okay with that." The minutes vote follows by voice at 0:03:19. | HIGH |
| 0:04:03 | Special education director | "it should be by the SA six school board, not the Claremont School Board as this is an SA six position." At 0:04:36: "He is an internal candidate, but that did not influence." At 0:06:58, after starting a voice vote: "Oh. Roll call. I think this we have to roll call. Vote. Sorry." | POSITIVE |
| 0:08:06 | Merit pay used for equity | Superintendent: "Part of that merit pay was used to offset that inequity." Nathan at 0:10:04: "for this fiscal year, it was $17,500." At 0:10:59: "I gave credit for 2% for every year of experience for each employee in the role that they currently have." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:18:49 | "Not what we voted on" | Chair: "that's not what we voted on that money to, to do with that money. We voted to have that money go into a merit pool system." At 0:20:00, Nathan: "contracts have gone out. They've gone out with 2% raises in lieu of a performance system." Chair at 0:20:58: "the board voted and the taxpayers voted to have something going as a merit pay, where raises will be based on performance. And that's not what happened." At 0:22:46: otherwise the money "goes back to the taxpayers". | OBSERVATION |
| 0:26:54 | Freeze proposed; staff response | Horsky: "I would suggest that we freeze the spending of that account on the merit pool till we have something concrete." LeClair at 0:31:38: "you can't evaluate performance if you don't know what the performance is supposed to be." McDevitt at 0:35:48: "nobody said that they could only use it for merit pay." Erickson at 0:30:01: "I'm not willing to extend money until I see that." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:39:30 | FY2020 SAU budget expectations | Meetings "June 14th, August 23rd, September 13th, October 18th, November 8th". O'Neill at 0:40:33: reports "which basically goes through every single invoice and every single account so that people can see where the money's going." At 0:53:58: "we're not looking at any staffing changes." Zullo at 0:59:02: "my expectation is just that you bring a budget forward that is transparent." | |
| 0:42:46 | SAU office building | Superintendent at 0:43:34: "It's been a discussion that started in 2014." At 0:44:24: "we came that close to that yellow building beside Stephen's High School, and then the price just went out of control." Sprague at 0:45:52 asked the monthly cost; LeClair at 0:52:39: renovating city buildings would be "600,000 to 1.2 million." Chair at 0:53:04: "that's a Claremont conversation". | |
| 0:47:02 | Rumors put on the record | Zullo: "community members are feeling like the tech center is being cleared out so that the saw six employees in the building can move into there." Superintendent at 0:47:20: "there was no plans to bring the saw to the tech center." Zullo at 0:48:16 on offices "on Pleasant Street above Frank's shop"; superintendent at 0:48:35: "That is not correct." LeClair at 0:48:56: she had looked at the space "two years plus ago". | |
| 0:55:39 | Building upkeep | Chair: "we are technically renting the building from the Claremont School D[istrict]" and "they were responsible for building type maintenance." O'Neill at 0:55:53: "I've put an RFP together to get the building painted." | |
| 1:01:44 | Evaluation subcommittee | "Us who met together." "Four of us." "Five of us." At 1:01:48: they "looked at a variety of ways that a superintendent evaluation might occur." Petrin at 1:02:48: "we wanted to find and come up with an evaluation for any superintendent that may be in that seat in the future." Chair at 1:11:31: "Thanks for opening her house and setting up a whole big screen". | OBSERVATION |
| 1:04:59 | Five goal areas | "a solid, respectful working relationship with the school board", "a solid, interactive relationship with the community", "trusting, respectful relationship with the district staff", "Responsible and transparent business and financial practices" and "provide sound instructional leadership." At 1:10:52: "each board member would score this for the superintendent, and then you would collect them and take an average". | |
| 1:13:27 | Nonpublic session | Chair: "The next item is a nonpublic meeting. Under RSA 91, a colon three two C so this is a meeting that the board wanted to have" and "we were going to excuse you, Middleton, from this piece." At 1:14:19: "We need a motion for that and a roll call vote to go into that." Sprague's motion at 1:14:34 is transcribed as "I'd like to think on a 91.931." Chair at 1:15:56: "We need to make sure we're off air." | MEDIUM |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on May 10, 2018, cited as it then read. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. 6 flags follow, ordered by severity.
HIGH With two members on the phone, the agenda and the prior minutes were approved by voice vote, after a member asked for a roll call
The chair opened by saying "all of our votes tonight need to be roll call votes, because we have members who are on the phone" (0:00:33). The agenda was then approved on a voice vote (0:02:45); McDevitt, one of the two remote members, said "We need to take that in the roll call" (0:02:52), and the chair answered "I think we're okay with that" (0:02:55). The March 29 minutes were also approved by voice, with abstentions called for (0:03:19 to 0:03:30). RSA 91-A:2, III, as in force throughout 2018, allowed remote participation only when attendance in person "is not reasonably practical" and provided in III(e): "All votes taken during such a meeting shall be by roll call vote." Graded HIGH because the rule is binding and unambiguous and the lapse is on tape. Mitigation stated fairly: the two votes were procedural, the remote members' views were audible (McDevitt's abstention is on the record), and the chair used roll calls for both substantive votes, Nester's appointment (0:06:58) and the nonpublic motion (1:15:00).
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, III(a) and III(e) (2017 codification; source note ends 2017, 165:1 and 234:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2018, so the text in force for all of 2018).
MEDIUM A nonpublic session on the superintendent was entered under the reputation exemption; the board's decision to end his tenure surfaced only through the press, and the seal vote reached the minutes five weeks later
The chair announced a nonpublic session "Under RSA 91, a colon three two C" [RSA 91-A:3, II(c)], with the superintendent excused (1:13:27); the motion itself is unintelligible on tape (1:14:34), though the chair said the exemption was cited on the agenda, and the entry vote was a roll call (1:15:00 to 1:15:50). On May 25 the Valley News reported a board letter telling Superintendent McGoodwin it would "pursue other leadership of SAU 6 effective at the end of the current school year", that a member confirmed "a nonpublic session at a meeting earlier this month", and that "The letter to McGoodwin does not say when or how the 12-member SAU 6 board ... voted". Three points follow under RSA 91-A:3 as it read in 2018. First, exemption fit: II(c) covers matters likely to affect adversely the reputation of a person "other than a member of the public body itself", while II(a) is the exemption for the dismissal, promotion, compensation or discipline of an employee; which fits depends on what was discussed, which the recording cannot show. Second, III required "Minutes and decisions reached in nonpublic session" to be disclosed within 72 hours unless withheld by a recorded two-thirds vote in public session with a stated determination. Third, the June 14 recording shows the May 10 minutes being completed by adding a motion "to seal the minutes for 99 years" (see the June 14 page, flag 1), so the seal vote, if taken on May 10, was taken off camera and not written down until June 14. Graded MEDIUM rather than HIGH because it is not established that the decision was reached on May 10, and the sealed minutes may record a determination that cannot be checked from here.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(a), II(c) and III (2017 codification; source note ends 2016, 30:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017; 280:1); Patrick O'Grady, report on the board's letter to the superintendent, Valley News, May 25, 2018 (reporting, not law).
OBSERVATION A $17,500 merit-pay pool was spent on pay-equity adjustments with no evaluation system in place, and the board learned of it after the contracts went out
Staff explained that the FY2018 merit pool, $17,500, was reallocated to equalize pay, crediting "2% for every year of experience" (0:10:04, 0:10:59), and that next year's contracts had "gone out with 2% raises in lieu of a performance system" (0:20:00). The chair said "that's not what we voted on" and "that's not what happened" relative to what "the taxpayers voted" (0:18:49, 0:20:58), and asked that the money go back to the taxpayers unless a system is in place (0:22:46); Horsky proposed a freeze (0:26:54). McDevitt answered that "nobody said that they could only use it for merit pay" (0:35:48), and LeClair that performance cannot be evaluated before job responsibilities are defined (0:31:38). No vote was taken; staff undertook to return with a system before the budget presentation (0:24:16). Whether the original appropriation restricted the pool's use is a question about the SAU budget's terms, which are not online; no statute is relied on.
Sources: the recording at 0:08:06 to 0:37:10. No statute relied on.
OBSERVATION The superintendent-evaluation subcommittee met at a member's home; whether that session was noticed and minuted cannot be checked
The chair described a working session of "Four of us." or "Five of us." members (1:01:44) that drafted the evaluation, a vision and a mission statement, and thanked Erickson for "opening her house" (1:11:31). RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d), in force since 2008, makes "any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto" a public body, so a subcommittee's meetings carry the same notice and minutes duties as the board's, and a private home is not ruled out as a meeting place if it is the noticed location open to the public. Nothing on the recording says whether the session was noticed or minuted, and no subcommittee records for 2018 are online. Recorded as an observation for that reason.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (2019 codification; source note ends 2008, 354:1, so the text in force on this date); RSA 91-A:2, II (2017 codification).
OBSERVATION No agenda, packet or minutes online, and the recording stops at the door of the nonpublic session
MAP.md section 67 records that neither district Drive share holds anything older than 2022 (checked 9/26/26). That is a limit of what the district posts online, not by itself evidence that records were never made: the board approved these minutes, amended, on June 14. The loss matters here because the recording ends as the board goes off air (1:15:56), so the return to public session, any announcement of a decision, the seal vote and the adjournment are known only from the later amendment described in flag 2. RSA 91-A:2, II, as it read in 2018, required minutes to include the names of members and persons appearing and a brief description of "the subject matter discussed and final decisions", open to inspection within 5 business days; the mover-and-seconder requirement came later (effective January 1, 2019) and is not applied. The project's missing-records rule is applied on its online-availability limb.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2017 codification); Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 67.
POSITIVE Remote members stated their reasons for the minutes, and the appointment and nonpublic votes went to roll call
Before any business the chair had both phone participants give their names and "their reason that they need to be on the phone tonight" (0:00:33, 0:01:35): Benware was working (0:01:41) and McDevitt had "business out of state" (0:02:18). RSA 91-A:2, III(a), as in force in 2018, provided that "Any reason that such attendance is not reasonably practical shall be stated in the minutes of the meeting." The chair also caught herself mid-vote on Nester's appointment and switched to a roll call (0:06:58), and used a roll call on the nonpublic motion. The superintendent took care to put the appointment before the correct body, the SAU board rather than the Claremont board (0:04:03). These are the practices flag 1 finds missing on the two procedural votes.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, III(a) and III(e) (2017 codification).
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 9799, "SAU BOARD MEETING 5-10": Claremont Community Television. Every timestamp on this page links into this recording.
- No Drive material: neither the Claremont nor the SAU 6 share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (MAP.md, checked 9/26/26). No agenda, packet or minutes for this meeting were located.
- Press: Patrick O'Grady, Valley News, May 25, 2018, on the board's letter to the superintendent (read 2026-09-26).
- Related pages: Claremont School Board, May 2, 2018; Claremont School Board, May 16, 2018; SAU 6 Board, June 14, 2018 (these minutes amended and sealed; the superintendent's resignation).
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/9799 SAU6051018.mp4.CSV (568 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/9799 SAU6051018.mp4Input/Transcripts/9799 SAU6051018.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/9799 SAU6051018.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 67
Laws and rules cited on this page