Participants
Everyone in the record, as named in the dialogue CSV. No agenda or minutes are available to confirm spellings; spellings follow the project roster, and the transcript's renderings are given where they differ. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Frank Sprague | Chair (re-elected this meeting) | Took the chair once elected ("It is my view" [meeting], 0:40:44). Asked at 0:22:58 that it be made clear the technology grant is "a grant that's coming in" ("We are not paying for this."). Explained the retreat and subcommittee practice at length, nominated Whitney for the second office (0:40:26), and reported his contacts on a Senate school-funding bill. Rendered Greg in Towle's nomination and Right. Spread in a roll call. |
| Heather Whitney | Board member | Seconded the chair nomination and the agenda and minutes motions. Pressed the superintendent twice on how many students were working at grade level ("What percentage of our students are functioning on grade level?", 0:23:58). Moved the amendment that became the reopening motion (1:04:32); proposed a board accountability subcommittee (1:14:22); moved to adjourn. |
| Michael Petrin | Board member | Moved approval of the amended agenda (0:43:17) and of the March 3 minutes (0:44:15). Asked for the fourth-quarter start date and urged the return of clubs such as Key Club and drama (0:59:20); asked whether pay-to-play for all students should be studied (1:29:42). Rendered Mike patron elsewhere in this corpus. |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member | Nominated Sprague as chair (0:39:12). Asked about the ratio of in-person to remote students (0:28:02); argued for a Sunday retreat; announced the revival of the capital improvement committee; had the agenda amended for a staff-development item and reported on Senate bills SB 145 and SB 158 and NHSBA webinars (1:18:51). The recording suggests she took part remotely for at least part of the meeting (the chair and a member cannot hear her at 1:12:49). Rendered Carolyn tall, Caroline. |
| Steven Horsky | Board member (returning) | Welcomed back by the chair. Asked whether the administration could adapt if a large number of students returned five days before a board meeting (1:01:15) and moved to give the administration authority to reopen (1:03:48). Asked about the needle exchange program's promised quarterly updates (1:34:27) and urged that any pay-to-play change wait for a new school year. Rendered Stephen Horsey by the superintendent. |
| Joshua Lambert | Board member (new) | Welcomed as a new member at 0:00:45 and 0:41:28. No row of the dialogue file is attributed to him; any roll-call answers he gave are among the unidentified Yes rows. |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member | Arrived during the superintendent's report ("Rob is here today", 0:32:48). Two roll-call answers are attributed to him (0:43:44, 1:05:47). Rendered Lord Lovat junior and Beloved junior in the clerk's calls. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Presided from the pledge until the chair was elected, including the officer election (0:38:50). Gave the superintendent's report: COVID trends and staff vaccinations, the strategic-plan goals, a six-week CARES-funded summer program, and the technology grant. Proposed the "maximum in-person learning" wording adopted in the reopening motion (1:04:02) and previewed a proposal to separate competencies from grades. |
| Donna Magoon | Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6 | Gave the staff vaccination count (225); noted there was no standardized testing this year; reported that the needle exchange program had asked to wait because of COVID (1:34:13); agreed to work on the 2021 special policy update (1:21:33). |
| Jeff Small | Director of Technology, SAU 6 | Ran the slides ("Mr. Small"). Answered Patrick Adrian on the purpose of the technology grant (0:51:01): "What can we do for going remote?" The dialogue file marks his block as a medium-confidence attribution interleaved with Adrian's diarization cluster. |
| Richard Seaman | Business administrator, SAU 6 | One line, answering the chair's estimate of state money at stake under the Senate bill: "In our case. Yeah, close to 400." (1:22:25; medium-confidence attribution). |
| Mary Woodman | School district clerk and recording secretary | Took the oath of office as school district clerk (0:33:44) and administered the oath to the new members; called every roll-call vote. Said she had not received the agenda (0:35:01). |
| Patrick Adrian | Citizens' comments, Ward 1 (former board member) | The only public speaker (0:46:07). Asked why the technology grant was focused on smart boards and how the districts in the joint application would share resources. Transcribed as "Patrick. Adrian work one". |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this meeting is posted in any district share, so this list is reconstructed from the presiding officers' transitions. The chair refers to "an agenda in front of us" and to an item "article D" under discussion and action items, so a written agenda existed. The order on the recording is not the agenda's order: the superintendent explains at the start that the meeting is going "out of order". Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:03 | Pledge; superintendent presiding | Led by the superintendent, who then says the meeting will go "out of order and go into the general business" because of "a little bit of a delay for the swearing in" (0:01:09). Roll call deferred. |
| 0:02:18 | Superintendent's report | Taken before the swearing-in and the officer election. Slides on COVID trends, staff vaccinations, strategic-plan goals, CARES-funded summer programming and the technology grant; questions from Whitney and Towle. No action. |
| 0:33:01 | Oaths of office | The chair: "now we're getting ready to square Mary in. And then Mary shows where the new board members in." Mary Woodman takes the oath as school district clerk; the new members' oath is only partly audible (0:35:01). |
| 0:38:50 | Election of board officers | Conducted by the superintendent. Towle nominates Sprague as chair, Whitney seconds, roll call: "Motion was made by Carolyn, seconded by Heather, for the nomination of Frank Sprague to be chair." Sprague then nominates Whitney (0:40:26) for an office the transcript renders only as "Chair nomination"; roll call. Neither tally is audible. See flag 2. |
| 0:41:48 | Roll call of attendance | "Oh, no. We got to do attendance". Only two answers are audible; the names are not. |
| 0:42:54 | Agenda amended and approved | The chair adds, under discussion and action items, an item D at Towle's request on "staff development opportunities". Moved by Petrin, seconded by Whitney; roll call (0:43:25), all audible answers Yes. |
| 0:44:02 | Minutes of March 3, 2021 | "We have the minutes provided to us from March 3rd. That was our retreat." Moved by Petrin, seconded by Whitney; approved by roll call. |
| 0:45:26 | Citizens' comments | One speaker, Patrick Adrian (Ward 1), on the technology grant; answered by the superintendent and the technology director. |
| 0:51:53 | A. Fourth quarter: students back to school | Motion by Horsky (1:03:48), second Whitney, "to give the administration the authority to open school as soon as possible"; amended by Whitney (1:04:32), second Towle, to "the autonomy to open schools for maximum in-person learning within New Hampshire. Safety guidelines." Passed on a roll call (1:05:17); every audible answer Yes. |
| 1:06:24 | Scheduling the board retreat | Set for Sunday April 18, "ten to 10 to 1" (1:13:05), at the community center. No vote. |
| 1:14:05 | Subcommittees | Whitney proposes a school board accountability committee; the chair proposes subcommittee report-outs at board meetings; Towle says the capital improvement committee is "Going to resurrect". Sign-ups deferred to the retreat. |
| 1:18:40 | D. Staff development (added item) | Towle on Senate bills SB 145 and SB 158, NHSBA webinars and the 2021 special policy update. No action. |
| 1:25:46 | Future agenda items | Grading proposal (probably May), pay-to-play sports, the needle exchange program's missing quarterly reports. |
| 1:35:13 | Adjournment | Whitney moves to adjourn (1:35:38); the chair asks for a roll call on it. |
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 |
|---|
| 0:00:45 | Superintendent opens the meeting | "All right, so we have on chairing the meeting right now because we have a little bit of, of a delay and a change in the order of the, of the agenda." He welcomes "our new board members, Joshua Lambert and Stephen Horsey [Steven Horsky]". | |
| 0:03:39 | COVID trends and staff vaccinations | Slides from January 26 and March 12 compared: "The statewide vaccination for at least first dose up at 22%." Staff vaccinations were scheduled for Saturday; asked for the count, the assistant superintendent answers 225 (0:05:19), and the superintendent adds that staff were going to Dartmouth-Hitchcock. He notes the governor had announced the lifting of "some of the quarantine measures" that day (0:05:46). | |
| 0:06:21 | Strategic plan goals | Administrative goals first set "a year ago. Almost to the day", then interrupted: "we were pouring out, and then everything stopped." Focus areas include student achievement and "Increasing student time on learning". Hiring fairs and retirements mentioned. | |
| 0:08:37 | CARES money and summer program | Second-round CARES money for summer and extended-day programming, "we're going to have to take some aggressive measures" to catch students up. A six-week elementary summer program with the community center "from 830 to 430", intended to be "completely free of cost, including pick up and drop off at the homes" (0:17:30), with attendance expectations. | |
| 0:21:38 | Technology grant announced | "We are going to net it's $1 million grant that you you need to use primarily on equipment. And we should be getting as we the proposal we put in when we partnered with them. We should be getting approximately $450,000 worth of technology equipment". The chair interjects: "Can I just say that that that's a grant that's coming in." ... "We are not paying for this." ... "We do have a 10%." The superintendent: "Yeah. Yeah we have a 10% match. So so basically 85% of this is, is free." (0:23:21). No vote is taken. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:23:58 | How far behind are students? | Whitney: "What percentage of our students are functioning on grade level?" The superintendent: "We we we don't have a metric or anything right now". Magoon: "There was no standardized testing this year." Whitney returns at 0:30:32: "I just have a high level anxiety about promoting kids that are not at grade level". Answer: tutoring, summer programs, and CARES money "layered out for two years". | |
| 0:28:02 | In-person and remote ratios | Towle asks about current ratios of in-person and remote students; the superintendent cites roughly 80% and credits "the adherence to all the protocols". | |
| 0:33:01 | Oaths of office | "Hey, Rob. Just so you know, we had to jump around a little bit, so. So now we're getting ready to square Mary in. And then Mary shows where the new board members in." Woodman sworn as "School district clerk" (0:34:03). She then says she had not received the agenda: "The last time I looked at my computer this morning, I hadn't gotten the agenda". | |
| 0:38:50 | Officers elected | Superintendent: "Election of board officers and for chair and vice chair." Towle: "I'd like to make a motion to nominate." "Greg [Frank Sprague] as the chairman of the board." Roll call. Sprague then: "I can make a motion to nominate Heather Whitney." Superintendent: "Chair nomination." ... "Or is it your meeting?" Two Yes answers are audible, and the superintendent remarks "Less enthusiasm there." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:42:54 | Agenda and March 3 minutes | Staff-development item added for Towle. Both motions by Petrin with Whitney seconding, each approved by a roll call read by the clerk. | POSITIVE |
| 0:45:26 | Citizens' comment on the grant | "Moving forward, citizens comments, Mr. Smalls, or is there anybody on on in the queue?" Patrick Adrian (0:46:48) asks "why the district decided to focus that spending on what says smart boards", and (0:47:27) how the districts in "the joint letter that we sent out a couple of weeks ago" would share resources. The superintendent credits Fall Mountain's superintendent and says the districts "contracted with them to write the grant" (0:49:37); Small: "That's really what the Russ Grant was." Adrian: the answer "actually kind of confirms what I already understood". | POSITIVE |
| 0:51:53 | Fourth quarter: bringing students back | The superintendent expects "probably ten, 10% more" students back and is "guardedly optimistic"; "We're already down to the three feet in New Hampshire." Sprague on crowded classrooms he toured in November; the possibility of placing a returning child in a different school (0:55:52). Fourth quarter begins April 12 (0:57:52). | |
| 0:59:20 | Clubs and activities | Petrin: "key club, drama club, all these other clubs that maybe they don't have the biggest voice like the sports programs do, that I think we still need to get behind and push to get those back up and running." Magoon: "Currently Key." "Club is virtual." Drama club at the middle school starting the following week. | |
| 1:01:15 | Reopening authority delegated | Horsky: "Are we prepared to make that decision with five days before our meeting?" The superintendent offers: "if you wanted to make a motion to just give me the autonomy to do that" (1:02:55). Horsky moves (1:03:48); the superintendent asks for "maximum in-person learning" rather than everyone back; Whitney's amendment: "we give the superintendent of the Claremont School District the autonomy to open schools for maximum in-person learning within New Hampshire. Safety guidelines." Roll call on the amended motion (1:05:17); the chair: "Yeah. I'm glad we did that." | POSITIVE |
| 1:06:28 | The retreat and how the board sets goals | Sprague explains the retreat to the new members: goals, a "whip around", subcommittees with "a wrangler, somebody to keep the doggies moving on these goals". He credits the capital improvement subcommittee with the board being ready "when the one time state money came in" for last summer's roof work, and names the budget subcommittee: "Mike and I and Jason, Ben where [Benware]" (1:08:33). Date settled as Sunday April 18, 10 to 1 (1:13:05). | |
| 1:14:22 | Accountability subcommittee proposed | Whitney: "a school board accountability committee, which is going to be developing a system by which other boards in the future can rely upon", including "a mechanism by which to easily look up every motion that was passed and every budgetary item or dollar expenditure was passed." "It'll be an extraordinarily boring committee." | |
| 1:18:51 | Senate school-funding bills | Towle: "It's SB 145 and SB 158, and that's at the Senate on the Senate floor tomorrow." Sprague (1:21:55): a bill "by Senator Khan of Keene" to restore aid lost through declines in average daily membership and free or reduced lunch counts; Seaman estimates Claremont's share as "close to 400"; Sprague says it was "factored that into our budget as, as a deficit". | |
| 1:23:41 | State funding study and test scores | Sprague reports on a school-funding forum and his question whether statewide achievement data had been disaggregated to separate out students at private schools such as "Saint Paul's, K way [Kimball Union], Hampton School" (1:24:53). | |
| 1:26:28 | Future items: grades, pay-to-play | Superintendent: "the proposal to remove the linkage of competencies from the grading system at middle and high", probably for May. Pay-to-play sports raised; Petrin asks whether it should apply to all students; Sprague: athletics is "a big line item"; Horsky: "I would defer it to the policy committee" (1:33:44). | |
| 1:34:13 | Needle exchange updates never received | Magoon: the program "wanted to just wait on that" because of COVID. Horsky (1:34:27): "Have we had any of the promised quarterly updates?" Answer: No. Horsky: "they obviously haven't followed through on a promise they made three years ago." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:35:13 | Adjournment | "Anything else for the good of the order." Whitney moves to adjourn; roll call. | |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the state law in force on March 17, 2021, including the Governor's COVID-19 emergency orders then in effect. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. Six flags follow, ordered by severity.
OBSERVATION No agenda, notice or minutes for this meeting are posted online, though the recording shows minutes being kept
MAP.md records that neither district Drive share holds anything before July 2022 (checked 9/26/26), so this page rests on the recording alone. The recording itself shows the board approving the March 3 minutes at 0:44:02, and the April 7 recording shows these March 17 minutes being approved (see the April 7 page). In 2021, RSA 91-A:2, II required that minutes "be promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting" and that "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes." Whether either was met cannot be tested from here, and neither can the notice that Emergency Order #12 required for public access to a remote meeting. The limb of the project's missing-records rule applied is the online-availability observation, because the recording shows minutes being kept and approved.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2022 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, so this is the text in force in 2021): minutes within 5 business days, movers and seconders recorded; Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 141.
OBSERVATION The officer elections are on tape, but the second office and both tallies are not
The superintendent opened "Election of board officers and for chair and vice chair" at 0:38:50. The chair election is clear on its nomination and second (0:39:32: "Motion was made by Carolyn, seconded by Heather, for the nomination of Frank Sprague to be chair") but the roll-call answers that follow are not transcribed. The second nomination (0:40:26: "I can make a motion to nominate Heather Whitney") is followed by "Chair nomination." and no other statement of the office; the project roster records Whitney as vice chair both before (May 2020) and after (February 2022) this date, so vice chair is likely but is not on the recording. Two Yes answers are audible on that roll call, and the superintendent's aside "Less enthusiasm there." suggests at least one member answered differently. For a reader, the board's own minutes are the only record that could settle who was elected to what and by what vote; they are not posted.
Sources: no rule is engaged beyond the minutes requirement in flag 1; Scripts/roster_2015_2023.md (officer history); dialogue rows at 0:39:32 and 0:40:26.
OBSERVATION A federal technology grant worth about $450,000 was announced without an acceptance vote, and the local match was stated three ways
At 0:21:38 the superintendent announced a $1 million multi-district technology grant ("Russ Grant" in the transcript; the program name is not verified here) from which Claremont "should be getting approximately $450,000 worth of technology equipment". At 0:23:21 he said "we have a 10% match. So so basically 85% of this is, is free", two figures that do not agree with each other; on April 7 he gave the match as 15 percent, about $80,000, and said it was already budgeted. No motion to accept the money was made at this meeting. On April 7 the superintendent told the board that it should have been asked to approve the grant at that earlier meeting, and the grant was then taken through a public hearing added on the night (see the April 7 page, flag 1). Nothing was accepted or spent on March 17, so no rule was engaged at this meeting; the point for a reader is that the figures the board first heard were inconsistent.
Sources: dialogue rows at 0:21:38 and 0:23:21; for the acceptance procedure see RSA 198:20-b, III(a) (2019 codification; unchanged until 2023, 38:1): prior public hearing for unanticipated funds of $5,000 or more.
OBSERVATION Quarterly reports promised as a condition of the needle exchange permission had not been received in three years
At 1:34:27 Horsky, who said he had opposed the program, asked "Have we had any of the promised quarterly updates?" and was told No. The assistant superintendent said at 1:34:13 that the program had asked to wait because of COVID. Horsky: "they obviously haven't followed through on a promise they made three years ago." The permission and its reporting condition were granted by the board in 2018 (the corpus records a 5–2 roll-call approval on September 5, 2018); its written terms are not in any available record. No statute governs the condition; the point is that a board-imposed condition went unmonitored for years. On April 7 the board revoked the permission after hearing that the program no longer operated at the hospital site.
Sources: no statutory rule; dialogue rows at 1:34:13 and 1:34:27; Dialogue/_backlog-attribution-report-2015-2023.md (2018 vote); April 7, 2021 page.
POSITIVE Every vote in this hybrid meeting was taken by roll call
The clerk called the roll on the officer elections, the agenda (0:43:25), the March 3 minutes (0:44:32), the reopening motion (1:05:17) and even the adjournment (1:35:47). The recording suggests at least one member took part remotely (at 1:12:49 the chair says "I can't hear" and Whitney "Can't hear you" while Towle is answering), and the public was invited to join from a queue. When any member participates other than in person, RSA 91-A:2, III(e) as it read in 2021 required that "All votes taken during such a meeting shall be by roll call vote." Emergency Order #12, in force for the whole state of emergency, waived only the paragraph's physical-quorum requirement, on conditions about public access; it did not waive the roll-call rule. On April 7 the board confirmed that it understood the reason for its roll calls and returned to voice votes once every member was in the room. Whether the minutes recorded the reason for any remote attendance, which III(a) also required, cannot be checked (flag 1).
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, III(a), (e) (2022 codification; text in force in 2021): reason for remote attendance stated in the minutes; all votes by roll call; Emergency Order #12 (March 23, 2020, under Executive Order 2020-04): physical-quorum requirement of RSA 91-A:2, III(b) waived for the duration of the state of emergency, subject to public-access conditions.
POSITIVE A citizen's questions were taken, including from a remote queue, and answered on the spot by the staff responsible
The chair opened citizens' comments at 0:45:26 and asked whether anyone was waiting remotely. Patrick Adrian's two questions about the technology grant were answered at length by the superintendent (0:48:13) and the technology director (0:51:01), and Adrian said the answer confirmed his understanding. No statute required a public comment period at a New Hampshire school board meeting in 2021: RSA 189:74 was enacted by 2022, 333:1, effective September 6, 2022. Taking and answering questions exceeded what the law then required.
Sources: RSA 189:74 (source: 2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022): school board public comment period, not in force in 2021.
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 11390, "Claremont School Board Meeting of 3/17/21": Claremont Community TV, CLAREMONT SCHOOLS gallery. 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, notice, slides or minutes for this meeting were located.
- Related pages: April 7, 2021 (technology grant accepted; needle exchange permission revoked; these minutes approved) and May 5, 2021 (grading change adopted).
- The March 3, 2021 meeting whose minutes are approved here, and the April 18, 2021 retreat scheduled here, have no recording in the project's corpus.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/11390 SchoolBoard031721.mp4.CSV (469 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/11390 SchoolBoard031721.mp4Input/Transcripts/11390 SchoolBoard031721.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/11390 SchoolBoard031721.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 141
Laws and rules cited on this page
- New Hampshire statutes, as in force on March 17, 2021. RSA 91-A:2, II and III (minutes; remote participation and roll-call votes; 2022 codification, whose source note ends with 2018, 244:1, so its text is the 2021 text). RSA 198:20-b, III(a) (unanticipated funds; 2019 codification, unamended until 2023, 38:1). RSA 189:74 (school board public comment period), cited only to show it post-dates this meeting (2022, 333:1).
- Emergency orders. Emergency Order #12 pursuant to Executive Order 2020-04 (March 23, 2020), effective for the duration of the state of emergency, which was renewed until it lapsed at midnight on June 11, 2021 (NHPR, June 10, 2021, reporting).