Claremont School Board — January 5, 2022

OBSERVATION A district nurse used the citizens' comment period to answer two named critics and described a student's quarantine classification in public

Two speakers, the middle school basketball coach and a parent, criticized how a team cluster had been counted and how their calls to the nurse coordinator had gone (0:04:22, 0:07:10). The parent herself told the board that her husband had tested positive and that her son was unvaccinated. The nurse coordinator then came to the podium "not only as a citizen but also as an employee" (0:10:58), said the coach "started screaming at me" and that the parent had called her a liar, and stated: "Nobody classified her son as being positive. He's been classified as a household exposure because he has a family member who tested positive." She also mentioned another, unnamed student "who plays on that same team who was sent home sick today". Later, when the parent returned to the podium, the nurse said "I don't want to talk" (2:17:40) and the chair asked both to stop.

Two points for a reviewer. First, FERPA's consent rule, 34 CFR 99.30(a) as it stood in 2022, bars a school from disclosing "personally identifiable information from the student's education records" without written parental consent, subject to listed exceptions; a school nurse's record of a student's exposure status is the kind of information the rule concerns. The parent had already made the family's circumstances public, and the nurse's statement largely corrected how the parent had characterized them, so whether anything was disclosed in the regulatory sense is doubtful; this page does not reach that question. Second, the superintendent said at 2:20:18: "There is a degree to which we can never speak about the confidentiality." The better practice his remark describes, answering process questions in general terms and handling a family's case privately, was not followed at the podium. The chair did cut the exchange short at 0:14:28.

Sources: 34 CFR 99.30(a) (2021 annual edition, in force January 2022; last amended 69 FR 21671, 2004): written consent before disclosing personally identifiable information from education records.

OBSERVATION The chair said he had discussed a contract term with a couple of board members outside the meeting

Explaining the administrators' agreement at 0:45:55, the chair said: "I talked to a couple of board members ex parte, and that was important to them as well." RSA 91-A:2-a, I, in force on this date, requires a public body to "deliberate on matters over which they have supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power only in meetings", and ¶II bars using "communications outside a meeting, including, but not limited to, sequential communications among members" to "circumvent the spirit and purpose" of the chapter. The chair plus "a couple" of members is three of seven, short of a quorum, so no meeting occurred, and he disclosed the conversations on the record himself. The point to note is that the term in question, a superintendent's discretion to add up to $5,000 to a principal's salary, was settled in part outside the meeting before the public discussion of it. It carried by voice vote without further discussion.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2-a, I and II (2022 codification; source 2008, 303:4): deliberation only in meetings; outside communications not to circumvent the chapter.

OBSERVATION The finance officer described catastrophic special education aid as 90% of costs above about $60,000; the statute then in force set an 80% share, subject to proration

At 1:09:06 the assistant superintendent for finance said: "I believe once they go above $60,000 or something in that range, we the state, the state pays 90% of what's above 60,000." RSA 186-C:18, III, as it read in January 2022, made a district eligible when a pupil's costs exceed 3 1/2 times the state average expenditure per pupil, and left the district "liable for 3½ times the estimated state average expenditure per pupil ... plus 20 percent of the additional cost, up to 10 times" that average, so the state's share in that band was 80 percent, not 90. The statute also provided that an insufficient appropriation "shall be prorated proportionally based on entitlement", so actual reimbursement could be lower still. The $60,000 figure is a fair approximation of the 3 1/2-times threshold; the percentage is not. He framed it as his belief, and catastrophic aid is a revenue estimate rather than an appropriation voters approve, so this is recorded as an observation about the accuracy of information given to the public.

Sources: RSA 186-C:18, III(a) and (b) (2022 codification; source note ends 2021, 209:2, eff. Oct. 9, 2021): threshold of 3 1/2 times the state average, district pays 20 percent above it up to 10 times, pro rata reduction when underfunded. The 80 percent proration floor in today's text was added in 2025 and does not apply to this meeting.

OBSERVATION No agenda, packet or minutes for this meeting are posted online; the board had no minutes to approve, and a Sunday retreat was scheduled

MAP.md records that the district's 2022 Meeting Documents archive begins with the July 20, 2022 packet and that no Meeting Minutes year folder predates 2023 (checked 9/26/26). That is a limit of what the district posts online, not by itself evidence that records were never made. On the recording the chair says at 0:02:02: "We don't have any meeting minutes tonight due to some technical difficulties." RSA 91-A:2, II required minutes to be "open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting"; drafts suffice and approval has no deadline, so a single meeting without minutes to approve, with a stated cause, is recorded here as an observation. The same gap recurred on January 18 and February 2, when the chair described a backlog of several meetings; the February 2 page grades that pattern MEDIUM. At 2:39:02 the board also set a retreat for Sunday, February 6, at about 9 a.m. A retreat attended by a quorum is a meeting under RSA 91-A, requiring posted notice and minutes; no notice, minutes or recording of it has been located.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2022 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1): notice at least 24 hours ahead; minutes open to inspection within 5 business days; Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 159.

OBSERVATION A policy barred citizens' comments on agenda items, and was invoked while a speaker asked for budget detail

At 0:17:43 a member reminded the chair "that we've made a policy where you cannot speak on agenda items", after Patrick Adrian had asked that the budget's position cuts be named before the public hearing (0:16:34). The chair let the speakers finish and the Covid questions were taken up under the added item. The policy text is not in any available record. In January 2022 no statute set a minimum school board comment period; RSA 189:74 took effect September 6, 2022. The rule was therefore within the board's discretion, but its effect on this night was that the budget, the contracts and the Program of Studies could not be addressed by the public at this meeting, and the recording shows no public comment taken during those items. The budget itself went to a public hearing on January 18.

Sources: RSA 189:74 (source: 2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022): school board public comment period, not in force on this date; district citizens' comment policy (not located).