Participants
Everyone in the record. Names follow the minutes; the dialogue file's labels are used for who said what, and where they differ both are given. 117 of 701 dialogue rows (16.7%) are unidentified.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Michael Petrin | Chair | Presided. Added the CCTV reappointments to the agenda. Said of the clerk vacancy, "instead of just assigning someone, we could assign someone, I assume. But instead of doing that, I'd like to put it out". Asked whether current food-service staff could stay on. |
| Heather Whitney | Vice Chair | Seconded the motion to leave nonpublic session (minutes), the seal (minutes), the February 16 minutes and the food-service motion. Asked about SAT comparability, the food-service debt, school safety meeting points, and how CCTV board openings are advertised. Voted against the CCTV reappointments (minutes). |
| Steven Horsky | Board member | Moved to leave nonpublic session (minutes), moved the 99-year seal, the agenda, all six sets of minutes and the food-service change; seconded adjournment (minutes). On the data: "the ball has been getting dropped kind of sadly, regularly on certain topics"; asked for a five-minute curriculum update at every meeting. Raised retroactive pay for the clerk. Voted against the CCTV reappointments (minutes). |
| Joshua Lambert | Board member | Asked that the January 5 minutes show he arrived late rather than absent; seconded minutes; asked whether the food-service company would charge more per lunch; asked that the clerk posting state the term. |
| Whitney Skillen | Board member | Seconded the agenda, the January 18 minutes and the CCTV motion (the chair: "Whitley" [Whitney]). Asked why so few AP scores reached 4 or 5, whether ESSER money paid for the Math in Focus update, and whether the new data and grants manager was a data scientist or a grant writer. Moved to adjourn (minutes). Abstained on minutes from before her term (minutes). |
| Frank Sprague | Board member | Present (minutes). The dialogue file attributes no row to him. The minutes give him the open-lunch question, the motion to appoint the CCTV members, and the only vote against the food-service change; the transcript's Hey at 1:44:52 is probably that Nay. Some curriculum questions the dialogue file labels Richard Seaman may be his (see the method note). |
| Bonnie Miles | Board member | Present (minutes). No attributed rows; the minutes give her a question about students who do not return from open lunch. Abstained on minutes from before her term (minutes, which also spell her "Mikes"). |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Reported the data and grants manager offer, the clerk posting, the graduation profile ("We kind of jumped the gun on that"), the revised police MOU and pass keys "in every cruiser", and graduation. Left for the Unity eighth-grade graduation during the meeting. |
| Dr. Mary Ellen Janeiro | Assistant Superintendent, Curriculum, Instruction, Innovation & Assessment (minutes) | Labeled Mary Ellen in the dialogue file; surname from the minutes. Presented SAT, AP, state assessment, DIBELS and i-Ready results and the curriculum plan: "there has not been implementation with fidelity"; Math in Focus updated; Mystery Science kits; social studies framework. |
| Richard Seaman | Assistant Superintendent for Finance, Operations and Human Resources | Presented the food-service RFP and scoring; recommended raising the clerk's $75 per-meeting pay. The dialogue file also gives this label to several curriculum questions (for example "When I was sitting on the board, ten years ago") and to the words "The CCTV, maybe, maybe second" inside the CCTV motion that the minutes give to Frank Sprague; those attributions are uncertain. |
| Mimi Rhines | Stevens High School staff; Ward 1 resident | Labeled Mimi in the dialogue file; the minutes name her Mimi Rhines. Answered on SAT retakes and DIBELS; in public comment on food service asked about the salad bar and whether students tasted the food. Her self-introduction is transcribed "You live in Ward one, I work at the high school". |
| Josh Reyes | Citizens' comments, Ward 2 | Labeled Josh in the dialogue file; the minutes name him "community member Josh Reyes". Asked why the SAT is used and for measures of spread; asked what the new food-service company would do differently and whether the $25,000 surplus is enforceable. |
| Josh Nelson | CCTV representative | Also labeled Josh in the dialogue file; the minutes name him Josh Nelson. Explained CCTV's board seats, terms and application process from the audience. |
| "Jeff" | Staff (took the attendance roll) | The chair: "Jeff took the initial roll call for you." Probably Jeff Small, director of technology; not confirmed. |
| Melissa Small | Recording secretary | Not present for the roll; submitted the minutes. |
| Hannah Petrin | Student representative | Not present (finals week). |
| Named, not present | Others in the record | Mary Woodman (district clerk, resigned); Danielle Skinner (food-service evaluator, "D Skinner" on tape) and principal Melissa Lewis (site visits); CCTV reappointees Eric Zengota and Mark Chase (police chief, retiring). |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this meeting is posted in any district share. The items are reconstructed from the chair's transitions and the headings in the minutes, which follow an agenda with six discussion items.
| Taken up | Item | Disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:09 | Call to order; nonpublic session (off tape) | Minutes: "Non Public RSA only 91-A:3(a)". The recording begins as the board votes by roll call to come out; then Horsky's motion "to seal the minutes from the non public for 99 years", roll call. |
| 0:01:39 | Agenda | Item 6, CCTV board reappointments, added. Horsky moved; Skillen seconded; carried. |
| 0:02:48 | Minutes: January 5, January 18, February 2, February 16, May 4 and May 18, 2022 | Each moved by Horsky and approved; newer members abstained on the older sets. "The April 6th is in process." |
| 0:06:18 | Citizens' comments | None on non-agenda items; the chair said comment would also be taken on each discussion item. |
| 0:06:49 | 1. Claremont district data presentation | Dr. Janeiro. Discussion only. |
| 1:04:19 | 2. Selection of food service provider | Horsky moved to accept Fresh Picks (Cafe Services) from July 1, 2022; Whitney seconded; carried, Sprague opposed (minutes). |
| 1:45:13 | 3. Resignation of district clerk | Mary Woodman thanked; the post to be advertised and the appointee to serve until the March election. Pay left at $75 per meeting for now. |
| 1:51:52 | 4. Stevens High School graduation profile | Not complete; update to come. |
| 1:53:22 | 5. Revised police MOU; safety planning | Information; no vote ("you don't need a motion"). |
| 2:01:09 | 6. CCTV board (floor addition) | Motion to reappoint Eric Zengota and Mark Chase; Skillen seconded on tape; minutes: carried with Whitney and Horsky voting no. |
| 2:08:24 | Superintendent's report | Graduations. |
| 2:13:33 | Other business; adjournment | None. Skillen moved, Horsky seconded (minutes); carried. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Times are the start of the cited row. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell for the full entry.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:38 | Out of nonpublic; minutes sealed | "The second, by Heather. Any further discussion? Seeing? None. I guess we need a roll call." Then Horsky: "To make a motion to seal the minutes from the non public for 99 years." Chair: "Roll call. Vote for that." Every name read answers Yes. No ground for withholding is stated. | HIGH MEDIUM |
| 0:02:48 | Six sets of minutes | Lambert: "I showed up like three minutes late, but it was marked absent." Seconds on tape: January 18 by Skillen ("Second by the Whitney"), February 16 by Whitney, May 18 "seconded by Joshua". "The April 6th is in process." | MEDIUM OBSERVATION |
| 0:06:59 | District data: SAT and AP | Janeiro: "we have very few data points for high school." AP: "We offered AP chem to seven students in AP Language Arts to 19 students". Skillen: "if you take an AP class and do your assignments and you are a diligent student, you should easily be able to score at least a three." Janeiro on semester-length AP courses: "the idea that we're trying to cram a an AP course into three and a half months is insane, frankly." | |
| 0:16:53 | Citizen question on the data | Reyes: "I'm just not sure how we use this as an indicator." Asks for "some measure of spread error bars of some sort." | |
| 0:31:25 | Early literacy and growth | "some really nice growth in first grade at 113% for reading and for math at 117%." DIBELS end-of-year test is harder than the beginning-of-year one (Rhines, relaying the Title I teacher). | |
| 0:33:56 | Curriculum: no implementation "with fidelity" | "there has not been implementation with fidelity. Teachers were did not have any mandates on." Mystery Science kits for every classroom; Math in Focus in use "from 2014 or 16", updated edition adopted; "the Esser funds have created this lovely gift". | |
| 0:50:25 | Funding and the new data and grants manager | Skillen: ESSER for Math in Focus? Janeiro: "There's a curriculum budget each year". Tempesta: "we offered the position and vetted the position". Skillen: "did we hire a data person or did we hire a grant writer or neither?" | |
| 0:54:14 | Board reaction | Horsky: "the ball has been getting dropped kind of sadly, regularly on certain topics." Whitney: "We didn't have an actual curriculum, which is what we kind of discovered roughly a year ago". Janeiro: the "single largest" problem "is in our teacher turnover". Horsky asks for "a five minute presentation every board meeting". | |
| 1:05:05 | Food service RFP | "every five years ... you're required to go through an RFP process." Two responses, the Abbey Group (incumbent) and Fresh Picks (Cafe Services). Weights: financial 30, experience and references 20, accounting 10, personnel 10, marketing 5, involvement 5, menus and food quality 15. Scores 78 and 94 of 100 (minutes). Scored by Seaman "along with D Skinner", using "lists of questions that the state recommends." | POSITIVE |
| 1:10:19 | A guaranteed $25,000 | "How can you guarantee for five years a $25,000 surplus?" The incumbent guarantees break-even; "Cafe services are saying worst case you will have a surplus of $25,000." Unpaid meal debt remains the district's under either company. | |
| 1:25:03 | Contract length | "The contract is as much as five years. If we decide after one year. Wow, I really got duped here." "we aren't committed to five years." | POSITIVE |
| 1:34:54 | Public comment on food service | Rhines on the salad bar (Seaman: "A part of their everyday menu.") and student tasting. Reyes: is the $25,000 "in the contract and enforceable"? Seaman: "It's a contract. It is contract." | |
| 1:43:20 | Food service vote | Horsky: "To accept the. Recommendation of fresh picks going forward for our services." Whitney seconds. Chair: "Starting 20th July. 1st July first of this year." Carried; one voice after "Opposed?". | |
| 1:45:13 | District clerk vacancy | "Mary Woodman has officially given her resignation as of June 1st." Tempesta: checked with counsel, "We're doing it the right way." Lambert: does the posting say the term runs "until March"? Seaman: pay "has been at $75 a meeting for a very long time". Horsky raises making an increase "retroactive". Posting to go out unchanged for now. | |
| 1:53:28 | Police MOU and school safety | Revised MOU "emailed that out today"; pass keys: "There'll be one in every cruiser". Whitney asks about meeting points; Tempesta, "to to doctor narrows [Dr. Janeiro's] point", says those are not shared. Chair: "you don't need a motion". | |
| 2:01:09 | CCTV board reappointments | Chair: "the school board has two" seats. Whitney: "I had a citizen reach out, wondering what the process was and would like to be considered". Nelson: "People can apply at any time." "No one else has applied." "we're short three, three members of our board, one to be appointed by the city and two to be appointed by you guys." "We do know that there's a person who's applied recently for that city position." Motion to reappoint; Skillen seconds; carried. | OBSERVATION MEDIUM |
| 2:08:24 | Graduations | Superintendent's report after his return from the Unity eighth-grade graduation. Horsky: "It was fantastic." | |
| 2:13:33 | Adjournment | "Motion to adjourn the meeting." Carried. | |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the state and federal law in force on June 15, 2022, not today's text. 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. 6 flags follow, ordered by severity.
HIGH Nonpublic minutes sealed "for 99 years", with no statutory ground stated on the recording or in the minutes
RSA 91-A:3, III, as it read in 2022, required nonpublic minutes to be "publicly disclosed within 72 hours of the meeting, unless, by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session, it is determined that divulgence of the information likely would affect adversely the reputation of any person other than a member of the public body itself, or render the proposed action ineffective, or pertain to terrorism". Withheld minutes stay withheld only "until, in the opinion of a majority of members, the aforesaid circumstances no longer apply." The motion on tape is "to seal the minutes from the non public for 99 years" (0:01:11), passed by roll call (0:01:23). The minutes record "Motion to seal the Non Public Meeting minutes for 99 years made by Steven Horsky, seconded by Heather Whitney; all in favor via voice vote", followed by a list of names. Neither source states any of the three determinations the statute requires, and the statute provides no fixed term.
Graded HIGH because both the recording and the minutes are available and both lack the determination, which is what the statute makes the condition for withholding. The next day's SAU 6 board did the same thing for 90 years; that page grades it MEDIUM only because its minutes are not available to check. The recorded vote itself was taken properly, by roll call in public session.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, III (2022 codification; source note ends 2021, 163:1 and 172:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2022); CSB Agenda minutes 6.15.22 .pdf.
MEDIUM The minutes do not record the motion to enter nonpublic session, and cite no paragraph II exemption
RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires that "Any motion to enter nonpublic session shall state on its face the specific exemption under paragraph II which is relied upon", with the vote by roll call; RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to name who made and seconded each motion. The nonpublic session came before the recording starts, so the minutes are the only record. They read "Non Public RSA only 91-A:3(a)", then a list of names under "Roll call", then "Exit Regular Board Meeting for Non-Public". There is no motion, mover, seconder or vote result, and the citation names no paragraph II ground; "(a)" most likely means II(a), employee matters, but the minutes do not say so. Graded MEDIUM as a documentation gap: the recording cannot show what was said when the board went in.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b) and II(a) (2022 codification); RSA 91-A:2, II (2022 codification; mover/seconder sentence 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019).
MEDIUM The minutes misname seconders and omit one
RSA 91-A:2, II requires that "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion shall be recorded in the minutes." The minutes give every one of the six minutes approvals as "second by Joshua Lambert". On the recording the January 18 motion is seconded by Whitney Skillen (0:04:33, "Second by the Whitney") and the February 16 motion by Heather Whitney (0:05:14); only February 2 and May 18 are audibly Lambert's. The CCTV motion is recorded as "Frank Sprague made a motion to appoint Eric Zengota and Mark Chase to the CCTV board, all in favor except Heather Whitney and Steven Horsky who voted no", with no seconder; on tape Skillen seconds (2:08:08). The minutes also date the last set "May 16" where the chair said May 18. Mitigation: the minutes record the split votes on the food-service and CCTV motions by name, which the recording does not make audible.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2022 codification); CSB Agenda minutes 6.15.22 .pdf.
OBSERVATION Minutes approved up to five months late, and not online until July
The board approved minutes from January 5 through May 18 tonight, and the chair said "The April 6th is in process" (0:05:58). RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be open to inspection within five business days; approval can come later, and drafts satisfy the statute, so a late approval is not by itself a lapse. What the public can check online is narrower: the district's Drive archive begins July 21, 2022, when these minutes and this meeting's were first uploaded. This is a limit of what the district posts online, not evidence that the minutes were late.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2022 codification); Drive metadata for CSB Agenda minutes 6.15.22 .pdf (created July 21, 2022).
OBSERVATION The board's two CCTV seats were refilled without a posted opening, over a member's report of interested residents
The chair added the item at the start of the meeting (0:02:03). A member said a citizen had asked how to be considered and that another might be interested (2:02:12); CCTV's representative said "People can apply at any time" through the city, that the terms had "ended at the end of May", and that as a nonprofit CCTV does not "necessarily have to, you know, warrant things for multiple weeks in advance" (2:06:22). The board reappointed the two incumbents; the minutes record two members voting no. No statute governing these appointments has been verified for this page, so this is an observation about process, not a finding.
Sources: the recording at the cited times; CSB Agenda minutes 6.15.22 .pdf. See the maintainer disclosure in the footer.
POSITIVE A scored, documented RFP for the food-service contract, explained in public
Federal school-meal rules limit a contract with a food service management company to "no longer than 1 year", with renewals that "may not exceed 4 additional years", and require the procurement standards of 7 CFR 210.21. The finance officer explained that the five-year limit had been reached, that the RFP used state-recommended language and questions, gave the weights for each criterion, named who scored the proposals, described site visits to both companies' districts, and noted the district could rebid after one year (1:05:05, 1:11:48, 1:25:03). Residents asked questions before the vote. The scores were close to a judgment call, as he said himself ("How much is better worth?"), and the minutes record one member opposed.
Sources: 7 CFR 210.16(a) and (d) (2022 edition).
Appendix — source files
Official and public sources
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/13420 SchoolBoard061522.mp4.CSV (701 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/13420 SchoolBoard061522.mp4Input/Transcripts/13420 SchoolBoard061522.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 169
Laws and rules cited on this page