Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part. Names follow the project's dialogue file; no minutes exist online to check spellings against, so non-member spellings are as heard and marked where unverified. Members are listed first. No member of the public spoke.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Frank Sprague | Chair | Presided. Added the summer-school update; supported the administration's reopening plan and declined a roll call; recalled the district's earlier alternative program; publicly corrected his earlier statements on education freedom accounts. |
| Heather Whitney | Board member | Proposed paying parents to vaccinate at a back-to-school clinic; seconded the reopening motion; moved the Puerto Rico senior trip; seconded the amended pay-to-play motion. |
| Steven Horsky | Board member | Moved the amended agenda; questioned visitor masking at the minimal level; questioned the graduation data at length; moved the pay-to-play arrangement, amended to non-cut sports; asked for a new policy committee member; moved adjournment. |
| Michael Petrin | Board member | Seconded the agenda, moved the July 21 minutes and the reopening plan; said incentive payments would need board approval; raised the competing-programs concern on pay-to-play. |
| Nicholas Stone | Board member | Asked about credit recovery for incoming ninth graders and tracking of college completion; raised playing-time concerns for Claremont students. |
| Joshua Lambert | Board member | Seconded the senior trip motion per the chair; brief questions on pay-to-play (identification rated medium in the attribution report). |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member | Presence uncertain. The clerk reads his name at roll call with no audible answer, and no row of the dialogue file is his. On August 18 he had the minutes of this meeting corrected because they recorded him voting when he was not present. The attribution report lists him present; see the records flag. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Presented the reopening recommendation (masks optional except on buses) and state data; summer programs; the Monday community forum on elementary restructuring and schedule alignment. |
| Mimi Rhimes | School counselor and summer school coordinator, Stevens High School | Reported summer school enrollment and credits recovered. Spelling unverified (transcribed I mean me, Ryan's). |
| Nicole Gordon | Assistant Principal, Stevens High School | Presented the graduation and completion follow-up: 67% completion for the class of 2021 against 78 to 79% in 2017 to 2019, and the breakdown of non-completers. |
| Patricia Barry | Principal, Stevens High School | Described the former alternative program and its closure; presented the save-a-life driving program and the proposed April 2022 senior trip to Puerto Rico. Some of her rows and Gordon's are merged in the diarization (see method note). |
| Ben Nester | Director of Special Education, SAU 6 | Spoke for an alternative program: in one year, 25% of a graduating class had been alternative-program students; described earlier intervention at the elementary level. |
| Sean (surname not stated) | Athletic Director, Claremont Middle School | Presented the proposal to let tuition-area and home-schooled students from other districts join teams for a fee. |
| Doug Belgrave | Athletic Director, Stevens High School | Co-presented the pay-to-play proposal. Name as heard in the transcript; low-to-medium confidence and spelling unverified. |
| Mary Woodman | Clerk | Called the roll. |
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 the summer-school update as item one B, so a written agenda existed. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:22 | Call to order, pledge, roll call | Roll call by the clerk; see the Board composition row. |
| 0:01:27 | Agenda amended | Summer-school update added as item 1B. Horsky moved, Petrin seconded; approved. |
| 0:02:24 | Minutes of July 21, 2021 | Petrin moved, Horsky seconded; approved by voice vote. |
| 0:02:41 | Citizens' comments | None; the chair noted the audience was school staff. |
| 0:03:05 | Superintendent's report | Reopening recommendation and data, summer programs, the Monday forum. |
| 0:35:12 | Action: reopening of school recommendations | Petrin moved "that we plan on reopening schools based on the matrix provided to us tonight", Whitney seconded; passed by voice vote with dissent; tally not clear. |
| 0:42:55 | Summer school update | Report; no vote. |
| 0:48:24 | Stevens High School graduation rate follow-up | Report; no vote. |
| 1:32:18 | Senior class trip, April 2022 | Whitney moved, Lambert seconded per the chair; approved by voice vote. |
| 1:42:58 | Athletic committee: out-of-district pay-to-play | Horsky moved, Whitney seconded; amended to non-cut sports only; approved by voice vote with one abstention, as an interim arrangement pending a formal policy. |
| 2:07:44 | Other business | Chair's correction on education freedom accounts; next-meeting items; policy committee vacancy; school meals. |
| 2:13:38 | Adjournment | Horsky moved; approved. |
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 |
|---|
| 0:01:07 | Roll call; agenda; minutes | Roll call: Whitney (Heather Whitman), Horsky, Lambert, Petrin (Michael Peacham), Stone and Sprague are heard; Lovett's name is read with no audible reply. Summer-school item added; July 21 minutes approved. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:02:52 | Citizens' comments | Chair: "Got a lot of people here, but I think they're all school staff. Seeing none." | |
| 0:03:30 | Reopening recommendation | Superintendent: "So what we want to recommend is that masks are optional, except for busses"; three-foot distancing to the extent possible; the draft went to the board "on Friday" and was amended because at first "Not one, district had said what they wanted to do precisely in terms of masking." At 0:20:11: "the most comfortable, least restrictive matrix we could have", with vaccination "towards that. 80% recommended by Doctor Chan." | |
| 0:21:14 | Vaccination incentive idea | Whitney: "could we use Covid money to financially incentivize parents coming and getting vaccinations at the back to school clinic"; "50 for first shot, 100 for a second?" Chair: "I don't think we can use cares money" and at 0:23:38, Claremont's rate is "about 42". Petrin at 0:26:27: "we can't move forward and offered to pay people to give access to no without the board approval." | |
| 0:27:14 | Summer programs; community forum | Superintendent: summer programs "incredibly successful", with concern about staff fatigue; the elementary restructuring forum Monday at 5:30 at Stevens: "It is not for next year." | |
| 0:34:41 | Forum warned so all members may attend | Chair: "I think three can go." Superintendent: "we can worn it as a non meeting and and not, not have discussion about it. And just as in be present." Chair: "So let's let's worn it as a non meeting. And that way everybody wants to go. Can go". | POSITIVE |
| 0:35:12 | Reopening plan adopted by voice vote | Chair: masks on buses, and "if you don't want to wear your mask, you're not riding the bus." Petrin moved; Whitney seconded. Horsky at 0:36:43 questioned masking visitors at the minimal level: "you don't have to wear them in the grocery store." Chair at 0:38:30: "Steve, I'd be right with you. If it was 67%." At 0:42:11: "I don't see any need for a roll call vote." The count is unclear: 5 to 1, your neighbor? then "So 3 to 214." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:43:29 | Summer school | Rhimes: runs July 12 to August 19; "137 students were invited to come and recover 200 credits"; "as of today we've recovered 76 credits." One of the "infamous group of 30" recovered his English credit and "he's now a graduate student" (as transcribed; the context is that he graduated). | |
| 0:48:44 | Graduation and completion rate | Gordon: 130 students projected to graduate; "there were 88, which is approximately 67% who completed"; historically "78, 79%", so "this year is unfortunately markedly lower". At 0:54:25: "43 students who were, non-compliant", including 18 short of credits; at 0:56:09 "16 who were dropped" at age 18 after sustained absence. At 1:04:41: of 16 students in the alternative program when it closed, "none of them, ended up graduating". | POSITIVE |
| 1:05:22 | The alternative program | Barry: "there was some budget cuts and a position was changed, the director's position was eliminated" and the program was shut "November 7th of that year". Nester at 1:10:01: "in one year, 25% of the graduating class were alternative program students." Chair at 1:12:18 recalled a grant-funded program after the compulsory attendance age rose to 18 ("Maybe SB 18"), later run in-house. Whitney at 1:15:07 asked whether students were being prepared "to actually function in a in a real world setting." | |
| 1:16:56 | Questions on the data | Petrin: "I just want to make sure we're comparing Stevens to Stevens." Gordon: the state four-year average "was somewhere between 85 and 87%". Barry at 1:24:36: "There's not we don't have a lot of leverage." An unidentified speaker at 1:25:18: "the state was not pursuing duty of a parent." | |
| 1:31:34 | Save-a-life tour; senior trip | Barry: a September 14 driving-safety program at Stevens. The 2020 trip was cancelled and "almost $9,000" in fundraising money recovered; tour companies "don't do bus tours anymore post-Covid"; the proposed Puerto Rico trip is "about $1,000 more". Whitney moved at 1:39:52; Horsky at 1:40:12 raised COVID-19 risk; approved at 1:42:44. | |
| 1:43:22 | Out-of-district pay-to-play | Sean: out-of-district players had been allowed "under the radar" with "no formal policy on it". Proposal at 1:52:00: students from tuition areas, held to the same standards, where their own school lacks the program, paying a proportional fee ("it would be $245" on last year's numbers). Petrin at 1:56:33 questioned the feeder-program reasoning. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:01:04 | Pay-to-play adopted as a placeholder | Horsky: "I would like to make a motion to adopt the policy that's been presented" pending a formal policy. Chair: "let's call it a placeholder policy for now because we have to go through first read second or third read." Amended at 2:05:47 to "non cut sports only"; approved at 2:07:25 with "One abstention." | OBSERVATION |
| 2:07:44 | Chair corrects his statements on education freedom accounts | Chair: "a clarification on some statements I made about the state budget that were were inaccurate". Initially the account would have carried state adequacy aid plus local tax money, about $19,800; "it was changed to just the adequacy money". Eligibility at 2:09:29: "It's 300% of, of poverty"; the exemption for schools above "the 40th percentile" "also was removed." "So that was another inaccurate statement that I made." | POSITIVE |
| 2:10:47 | Next meeting; policy committee; meals | Chair asked for the Stevens handbook, elementary reopening details and quarantine procedures. Horsky at 2:11:58: "Donna was the other member of our policy committee. We need a new one." Petrin asked about federal meal news; chair: free meals through USDA are extended "through the end of the next year." Adjourned at 2:13:44. | |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on August 4, 2021. Each flag cites the text 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.
OBSERVATION The reopening plan was adopted by voice vote after the chair declined a roll call, and the tally cannot be recovered from the recording
The board's main decision of the night, reopening schools under the administration's matrix with masks optional except on buses, was put to a voice vote at 0:42:11: "I don't see any need for a roll call vote." The chair's count implies at least one no: he asks 5 to 1, your neighbor? and says "So 3 to 214."; neither the count nor the names of the dissenters can be recovered. Horsky had argued against masking visitors at the minimal level, which makes him a plausible no, but the recording does not show it.
No statute required a roll call at an in-person meeting in 2021. RSA 91-A:2, II then required that minutes "shall include the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions", and "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion". The mover (Petrin) and seconder (Whitney) are clear here. How each member voted is recorded only if the minutes chose to record it; the minutes are not available online. Two weeks later the board used roll calls for its matrix votes (August 18).
Sources: RSA 91-A:2 (2022 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, so the text in force in 2021), paragraph II.
OBSERVATION Out-of-district pay-to-play was approved in one vote as a "placeholder" ahead of any policy reading
The athletic directors reported that out-of-district players had been admitted informally in the past with "no formal policy on it" (1:43:54). At 2:01:04 Horsky moved to "adopt the policy that's been presented" and send it to the policy committee; the chair called it "a placeholder policy for now because we have to go through first read second or third read", and Horsky then said he "wouldn't even call it a policy". The motion, amended to non-cut sports, passed by voice vote with one abstention (2:07:25).
Treating the vote as an interim practice rather than an adopted policy is consistent with what the chair said about readings. Whether the district's own policy-adoption rules allowed an interim rule of this kind cannot be checked, because the board's policies for 2021 are not available online, and no statute verified for this page governs it. The practical risk is the one the members named: a practice that governs which children may play, set without a written policy. At the end of the meeting ({T(564)}) Horsky noted the policy committee was a member short.
Sources: No statute verified; the board's own policy-adoption procedure governs and is not available online.
OBSERVATION No agenda, packet or minutes are posted online, and one member's attendance is uncertain
MAP.md records that neither district Drive share holds a year folder older than 2022 and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (checked 9/26/26). That is a limit of what the district posts online, not by itself evidence that records were never made: the superintendent sent the board draft materials "on Friday" (0:03:30), and the board approves its July 21 minutes on this recording.
Attendance: at 0:01:12 the clerk reads Rob Lovett. Junior. with no audible reply, and no row of the dialogue file belongs to him. At the next meeting he had these minutes corrected: "it said I voted in favor of closing by phone. I love closing the meetings, but I was not present" (quoted from the August 18 recording, show 11825, not this one; see the August 18 page). The project's attribution report for this recording lists him present; this page treats his presence as uncertain. Six other members are heard, so a quorum was present either way. The limb of the project's missing-records rule applied is the online-availability observation.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2 (2022 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, so the text in force in 2021); Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 148.
POSITIVE Rather than limit attendance at a community forum to fewer than a quorum, the board chose to post notice so every member could attend
Discussing the administration's Monday community forum on elementary restructuring, the chair first suggested that three members could go (0:34:41), fewer than the four needed for a quorum of seven. The superintendent proposed instead to post notice of the forum and have members attend without deliberating, and the chair agreed: "that way everybody wants to go. Can go".
Under RSA 91-A:2, I as it read in 2021, a meeting is "the convening of a quorum of the membership of a public body" to discuss or act on matters within its jurisdiction. A forum on restructuring the district's schools is squarely such a matter, so a quorum present there risks being a meeting. Posting notice in advance protects the public's right to know either way. The label non meeting used on tape is not a statutory category, and the protection holds only if members in fact refrained from deliberating; the forum itself is not in this project's record.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2 (2022 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, so the text in force in 2021), paragraphs I and II.
POSITIVE The chair publicly corrected his own earlier statements about education freedom accounts, and the enacted statute bears out the correction
At 2:07:44 the chair said he had emailed members and wanted to correct on the record statements he had made about the state budget. His corrected account: an education freedom account carries only the state adequacy money, not a local share; eligibility is capped at "300% of, of poverty"; and there is no exemption for schools above a performance percentile.
The enacted law agrees on the two points this page could verify. RSA 194-F:1 defines an eligible student by household income "less than or equal to 300 percent of the federal poverty guidelines", and RSA 194-F:2 has the commissioner transfer "the per pupil adequate education grant amount under RSA 198:40-a, plus any differentiated aid", and the section names no local share. The chapter was enacted by 2021 N.H. Laws ch. 91, §431, effective August 24, 2021, three weeks after this meeting. The percentile point and the account of how the bill changed are the chair's characterization and were not verified. A public official correcting his own record, unprompted, is a practice worth noting.
Sources: RSA 194-F:1 (eligible student; 2021, 91:431, eff. Aug. 24, 2021); RSA 194-F:2 (funds transferred; 2021, 91:431, eff. Aug. 24, 2021).
POSITIVE The high school reported a sharply lower completion rate in public, with the breakdown behind it
At 0:52:52 the assistant principal reported that 88 of 130 students expected to graduate had completed, "approximately 67%", against 78 to 79% in 2017 to 2019 from the Department of Education's site, and at 0:54:25 broke the 43 non-completers into categories. The presentation also reported that none of the 16 students in the alternative program when it closed went on to graduate. Putting unfavourable outcome data before the board and the public, in aggregate and without identifying students, goes beyond any reporting duty verified for this page. The figures are the presenter's and were not checked against state data.
Sources: No statute verified; the positive is for disclosure beyond a legal minimum.
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 11793, "Claremont School Board Meeting of 8-4-21": Claremont Community TV. 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, matrix document, trip proposal, pay-to-play proposal or minutes were located.
- Related pages: August 18, 2021 (matrix adopted; these minutes corrected) and September 1, 2021.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/11793 SchoolBoard080421.mp4.CSV (584 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/11793 SchoolBoard080421.mp4Input/Transcripts/11793 SchoolBoard080421.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/11793 SchoolBoard080421.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 148
Laws and rules cited on this page
- New Hampshire statutes, as in force on August 4, 2021. RSA 91-A:2 (2022 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, so the text in force in 2021), paragraphs I and II.
- Enacted but not yet in force on August 4, 2021. RSA 194-F:1 (eligible student; 2021, 91:431, eff. Aug. 24, 2021); RSA 194-F:2 (funds transferred; 2021, 91:431, eff. Aug. 24, 2021). Enacted by 2021 N.H. Laws ch. 91, §431, eff. Aug. 24, 2021.