Participants
Everyone heard or addressed on the recording. Spellings follow the project's 2015-2023 roster where the transcript garbles a name; there are no minutes to check spellings against. Speaker labels come from the dialogue file and its attribution report.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Frank Sprague | Chair, Claremont School Board | Runs the meeting; reports that he and Mike [Petrin] are interviewing with Unity members for the interim superintendent; speaks on state school funding (0:03:39); presents the CCTV appointment and the summer hiring motion; will send a cell-phone-policy directive through the acting superintendent. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Vice chair | Arrives late; asks about Bridges staffing (0:22:09); corrects a nominee's school, "I think it's Dessner, not Maple." [Disnard] (0:48:45); praises the new SAU website. |
| Jason Benware | Member | Moves "that we accept the bridges program as presented to us." (0:35:06); seconds summer hiring and adjournment; reads a school's cell-phone procedure. Transcribed Benwell and Benoit. |
| Steven Horsky | Member | Questions how many identified students the Bridges classrooms leave out: "We can't just cherry pick." (0:41:48); moves the principal and staff nominations and adjournment. |
| Carolyn Towle | Member | Raises the September budgeting seminars, the police security date and the cell-phone policy (0:54:38). Transcribed "Carolyn Toll". |
| Michelle Pierce | Member | Called at roll; recognized by the chair (0:48:53); no speech attributed. |
| Michael Petrin | Member | Called at roll ("Michael. Patron"); no speech attributed. The chair says "Mike and I" have been interviewing interim candidates. |
| Michael (Mike) O'Neill | Business administrator, SAU 6 | Stands in for the superintendent's report; presents the Bridges cost model (0:24:53 to 0:27:52) and the Maple Avenue nomination; offers a CCTV tax-rate program for replay. |
| Ben (surname not spoken) | SAU 6 special education administrator, in a new role from July 2, 2018 | Introduces Bridges: "we are looking at an out of district placement that is just geographically happens to be located in Claremont" (0:11:04). The project roster lists a Ben Nester as special education director from December 2019; this page does not assume it is the same person. |
| Mike Kell (spelling uncertain) | Bridges program, Brattleboro Retreat (presenter) | "I am Mike Cal. I'm a retired administrator from Pennsylvania and New Jersey." (0:12:24). Describes the level 2 and level 3 classrooms. |
| Kathleen Bunnell | Maple Avenue principal nominee; SAU 6 curriculum coordinator | Approved as principal; "I already feel like it's our school already." (0:46:54). Transcribed "Kathleen Bonnell" and "Miss Pinnell". |
| Mary Woodman | School district clerk (recording secretary) | Calls the roll (0:00:53). |
| Alex Herzog | Director of the technical center (named, not heard) | Appointed the board's representative on the CCTV board of directors. |
| Gary Merchant (as transcribed) | Member of the audience (named, not heard) | Named by the chair as attending a candidate event with him (0:04:50). |
| Unidentified | Various | 55 of 371 dialogue rows (14.8%), mostly seconds and votes. No one speaks during citizens' comments (0:02:19). |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda survives, though the chair says "We have an agenda in front of us tonight." (0:01:09) and the business administrator refers to "the board's packet" (0:47:51). The list below is reconstructed from the chair's transitions.
| Taken up | Item | What was said and done |
|---|
| 0:00:10 | Call to order; Pledge of Allegiance; roll call | See Board composition. |
| 0:01:09 | Agenda | Motion not captured; "I second." (0:01:27); voice vote. |
| 0:01:28 | Minutes of June 20, 2018 | Moved, "Oh, second." (0:01:46); voice vote. |
| 0:01:48 | Student representatives' report; superintendent's report | "We can skip item three." Superintendent's report skipped (0:02:05). |
| 0:02:07 | Citizens' comments | "Seeing no one. I'll close citizens comments." |
| 0:02:28 | Discussion: interim superintendent search | Brief update from the chair. |
| 0:03:39 | Discussion: school funding presentation | The chair speaks on state adequacy funding and an August 14 presentation; no action. |
| 0:07:28 | Action: Bridges program | Benware moves to accept it "as presented to us" (0:35:06); voice vote (0:42:19). |
| 0:42:37 | Action: appointment to the CCTV board of directors | Alex Herzog; nomination and vote (0:43:39). |
| 0:43:44 | Action: summer permission to employ | Motion to let the acting superintendent hire over the summer; "Seconded." (Benware, 0:44:57); voice vote (0:44:58). |
| 0:45:08 | Nominations and resignations | Kathleen Bunnell, Maple Avenue principal: moved by Horsky, second, approved (0:47:38). Eight staff nominations read by Horsky (0:48:14), with Zullo's correction of one school; approved (0:49:00). |
| 0:49:10 | Other business | Head lice policy as an action item for the second August meeting; board goals and the tax subcommittee; budget seminars; police security date; a budget subcommittee for the first August meeting; cell phone policy directive. |
| 1:02:10 | "For the good of the order" | Zullo on the new SAU website. |
| 1:02:38 | Adjournment | Horsky moves; Benware seconds (1:02:40); voice vote. |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/9907 SchoolBoard071818.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 |
|---|
| 0:02:28 | Interim search | The chair: "Mike and I have been meeting with folks from the Unity board and have interviewed several people and are making progress. More to come at the Saw board meeting." | |
| 0:03:39 | School funding | The chair on "the state of New Hampshire's technically contempt of court, shirking their responsibility to provide adequacy aid"; a presentation by John Tobin and Tom Connor has been given to the board and another is set for August 14 (0:04:14). He and Benware met a candidate for governor, "I'm not going to endorse or endorse or make any comment about his political platform." (0:04:50), and he urges members and the public to hold "our elected officials responsible and our prospective elected officials responsible" (0:05:18). "So that's my moment on the soapbox." (0:06:34). | |
| 0:09:30 | Bridges: purpose | O'Neill: the work took "the better part of 8 or 9 months" and extra grant money covers setup. Ben: "this is the money saver is a big deal for me. This is number one priority for me." (0:10:40); goals include supporting "students with significant emotional and behavioral challenges" and reducing "district placement costs" (0:11:31), with "no additional cost to the taxpayer" (0:11:53). | POS OBS |
| 0:12:24 | Bridges: the program | Kell: level 3 classrooms for students "who have a higher acuity level" with one-to-one and therapeutic supports, and level 2 step-up assessment over "45 to 90 days" (0:16:42). Bridges students "go home at night" (0:13:44). | POS |
| 0:24:53 | Bridges: the money | O'Neill: level 3 out-of-district tuition for six students at $415 a day for 177 days "is a total of $440,730"; the in-district room "around $234,000" with operating expenses "$240,000" (0:25:29, 0:25:51). He calls the difference "cost avoidance because I'm really not saving money unless I budgeted it" (0:26:14). With a level 2 room, "a program that could possibly avoid costs of $385,000" (0:27:10). | OBS |
| 0:28:25 | Who gets a seat | Horsky: "we're cherry picking six students to come back into this program realistically?" Ben: principals and the acting superintendent "identified 19 students" (0:29:52). Horsky: "we're going to take care of a total of 12 out of 19" and worries about "double dipping" with district psychologists (0:30:11). O'Neill: "perhaps we don't have 19 students that really need to be in this program" (0:36:07). Ben: district psychologists are "at capacity" with evaluations (0:40:29) and he does not know "what criteria was used to identify 19" (0:41:21). | POS OBS |
| 0:34:43 | Bridges approved | Benware: start "at a manageable number". Horsky: "I have several concerns with it still" (0:35:18) but "We can't just cherry pick." and "So I'm ready to go forward okay." (0:42:04). Voice vote (0:42:19). | |
| 0:42:37 | CCTV board seat | The chair: the board "had kind of stalled on this last year with, with Joel Schneider retiring" [transcribed; the roster has a Joel Schneid]; "Typically the director of the technical center has been the rep on the CCTV board of directors." Alex Herzog is approved by voice vote. | |
| 0:43:44 | Summer hiring | The chair: "typically in the summer months, we've have, allowed the superintendent or in this case, the acting superintendent to hire without prior approval of the board." and "It's customary" because delays can mean "losing those people to another district" (0:44:21). Approved by voice vote. | MEDIUM |
| 0:45:14 | Maple Avenue principal | O'Neill reads the acting superintendent's email: Bunnell "was unanimous selection of the search committee, which was comprised of both staff and parents." The chair notes the teachers in the room likely see more than 19 students who would benefit from an alternative program (0:46:24). Approved. | |
| 0:48:14 | Staff nominations | Eight nominees for Maple Avenue, Stevens High School and the middle school (grade two, a nurse, English, science, fifth grade, special education and physical education positions), read by Horsky and approved. Names are on the recording; their spellings are not verified here. | |
| 0:49:10 | Policy and subcommittees | Horsky will meet "with the nurses" for the policy subcommittee; the head lice policy is set as "an action item for the second meeting in August" (0:50:07). The chair: "Carolyn, Jason and I are part of that. The tax subcommittee" (0:50:41). Horsky proposes a budget subcommittee "comprised of three people" for the first August meeting (0:54:04). | |
| 0:53:06 | Budget education | O'Neill offers a CCTV program he taped "About two and a half years ago" on how the tax rate is set, for replay at a board meeting (0:53:22). | |
| 0:54:38 | Cell phone policy | Towle: "we didn't hold them to task" (0:54:44). The chair will "write up something" to the acting superintendent asking each principal for "the procedures that they use in their building to enforce the cell phone policy." (0:58:06). | |
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 July 18, 2018, 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: neither share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023. The board approved a contracted special education program, a principal, eight staff nominations and a standing hiring delegation, and the recording is now the only public account. RSA 91-A:2, II, as in force throughout 2018, required minutes including "the 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". This page applies the MEDIUM limb of the project's severity rule because the record mitigates the gap: the agenda and a packet are before the board (0:01:09, 0:47:51), the June 20 minutes are approved on tape (0:01:28), and the district clerk is present (0:00:53).
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2017 codification; the text in force for all of 2018)
MEDIUM Summer authority for the acting superintendent to hire "without prior approval of the board"
The chair described the motion as letting "the superintendent or in this case, the acting superintendent to hire without prior approval of the board" during the summer, calling it "customary" (0:43:44, 0:44:21); it passed by voice vote with no stated limits, end date or reporting requirement (0:44:58). RSA 189:39, unchanged since 1971, provides: "Superintendents shall nominate and school boards elect all teachers employed in the schools in their school administrative unit". A delegation that lets teachers be hired with no board election is in tension with that text. The tension is cured if the summer hires are brought back for election, and the same meeting shows the board electing nominees in the ordinary way (0:48:14, 0:49:00), so the practice may have been a timing device rather than a transfer of the board's power. The recording does not say which. This is MEDIUM: a probable process gap that the board's August nominations, if they list the summer hires, would close.
Sources: RSA 189:39 (2019 codification; source note ends 1971, 371:2, so the text in force in 2018)
OBSERVATION A contracted program was approved the night it was presented, on cost-avoidance figures and with the contract not in the record
The special education administrator thanked the board for "Allowing us to get this on the agenda on such short notice" (0:10:19). The business administrator projected that two classrooms "could possibly avoid costs of $385,000" (0:27:10) and was careful to call this "cost avoidance because I'm really not saving money unless I budgeted it" (0:26:14). The motion accepted the program "as presented to us" (0:35:06). The contract with the Brattleboro Retreat, its term and the staffing it buys are not described beyond the packet's cost model, which is not online, and no one stated how the identified students would be chosen (0:41:21). No rule verified for this page requires more before a board approves such a program, so this is an observation. The contract and the FY19 special education budget-to-actual report would show what was bought and what was saved.
Sources: Cablecast: SCHOOL BOARD MEETING 7-18
POSITIVE The board moved to educate students with significant emotional and behavioral needs in Claremont buildings rather than out of district
Bridges places level 2 and level 3 classrooms in district schools so that students who would otherwise ride to Brattleboro stay in Claremont; the business administrator said students in district are "much more likely to go back into the mainstream" (0:27:34). IDEA requires that, "To the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities ... are educated with children who are not disabled". A program that keeps students in their own district's buildings, with a planned transition back to regular classrooms, moves in that direction. Members also pressed on fairness, Horsky saying the district "can't just exclude" a family's child (0:42:04), and on whether district evaluators were being used (0:36:45). Whether any student's placement changes remains a decision for that student's IEP team, the point behind Horsky's "IEP question" (0:37:20). The presenter's own description of the program as "an out of district placement" located in Claremont (0:11:04) is a reminder that the classrooms are separate settings.
Sources: 20 U.S.C. §1412(a)(5)(A) (least restrictive environment; not amended after 2004)
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: SCHOOL BOARD MEETING 7-18 (show 9907; run time from the Cablecast API not retrieved, the API returned 403 to the build environment 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.
- The Bridges packet (Venn diagram and cost model) and the nomination list were in members' hands at the meeting; none is in the district's online shares.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/9907 SchoolBoard071818.mp4.CSV (371 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/9907 SchoolBoard071818.mp4Input/Transcripts/9907 SchoolBoard071818.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 75Scripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/9907 SchoolBoard071818.mp4.md (speaker attribution report)
Laws and rules cited on this page
- RSA 91-A:2, II, 2017 codification (in force Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2018): notice, minutes content and five-business-day inspection
- RSA 189:39 (1971, 371:2): superintendents nominate and school boards elect all teachers
- 20 U.S.C. §1412(a)(5)(A): least restrictive environment under IDEA