Participants
Every seat on the agenda masthead, marked present or absent per the draft minutes, plus the administrators, the consultant and the members of the public who spoke. Spellings follow the agenda and minutes; transcript renderings are noted where they differ.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Arlene Hawkins | Chair; Claremont member; working committee member | Opened the recording before the gavel, read the mission and the family-engagement priority, invited a member of the public to speak (0:24:29), answered her at length (0:25:30), called the meeting to order (0:44:57), moved adoption of the plan herself (0:47:00), and proposed progress monitoring as a standing agenda item (0:50:12). |
| Rocco Ruggeri | Vice chair; Unity member | Read the vision (0:07:03); moved the agenda (0:46:18); seconded the plan (0:47:11). Rendered “Rocky Ridge” in the roll call. |
| Frank Sprague | Claremont member; superintendent evaluation subcommittee | Named staff effectiveness as the priority he was most excited about (0:21:09); in the discussion on the motion said the plan would supply “a pretty good set of ready made goals every year” for the superintendent (0:47:38); moved to adjourn (0:50:40). |
| Heather Whitney | Claremont member; working committee member | On trust and initiatives without “long term follow through” (0:23:28); seconded the agenda (0:46:22); thanked the participants (0:48:18). The minutes name her as seconder of the adjournment; the seconding voice on the recording is unlabeled. |
| Candace Crawford | Claremont member; working committee member | Read the staff-effectiveness priority (0:13:14); answered the roll (0:45:46); asked “You need to take the road?” [roll] before the vote (0:48:43). |
| Michael Petrin | Claremont member | Present per the minutes. No attributed row; his roll answer survives inside the clerk’s merged segment as “Michael. Peter. Here.” (0:45:47). |
| Shannon Popescu | Unity member | Present per the minutes. No attributed row; “Shannon. Here.” is inside the clerk’s segment (0:45:47). |
| Marjorie Erickson | Unity member; working committee member | Absent per the minutes. Rendered “Frederick Erickson” in the roll call. |
| Atonya Hart | Unity member | Absent per the minutes. |
| Kelly Simpson | Unity member | Absent per the minutes. |
| Bonnie Miles | Claremont member | Absent per the minutes. |
| Whitney Skillen | Claremont member | Absent per the minutes. Rendered “Wendy. Skilling.” in the roll call. |
| Chris Pratt | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Introduced the consultant (0:00:33); read the student-outcomes priority (0:10:28); on implementation risk (0:22:08); “until now, I haven’t seen a game plan” (0:28:18); answered on his separate parent group (0:38:48); closing appeal for parent involvement (0:49:06). |
| Michael Koski | Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6; working committee member | Handed a citizen’s question by the chair (“Mr. Kosky”, 0:26:25); explained the one-year-of-growth measure (0:26:39). Labeled “Mike Koski” in the dialogue file. |
| Noelle Kronberg | SAU 6 School Board Clerk | Read the roll (0:45:45); not named aloud. The attribution rests on the agenda’s “Secretary Roll Call” item and the minutes’ signature, “Respectfully submitted by Noelle Kronberg, school board clerk”. |
| Tess Nicholson-Powers | Director, District Management Group (DMGroup), consultant | Gave the whole presentation (86 of 199 rows). Raised the quorum question herself at 0:02:01: “So tonight we’ll see if we have a quorum to approve the strategic plan.” |
| Mary Henry, Michael McCosker, Patrick O’Hearn, Jeff Small | Business Administrator; Director of Student Services; Director of HR; Director of Technology (masthead) | Named on the agenda masthead; none speaks on the recording. Henry, McCosker and O’Hearn are on the plan’s working committee. |
| Liz Vogel | Member of the public; Maple Avenue School parent | Self-identified at 0:30:46 (“My name is Liz Vogel.”); asked how the plan will be evaluated and how often (0:31:29). Spoke before the meeting was called to order. The minutes record her question. |
| Unidentified member of the public | Member of the public (not named) | Asked how the plan measures pupils already at benchmark (0:24:36), pressed on differentiation (0:27:11, 0:27:29), and asked whether the superintendent’s parent group is one of the plan’s subcommittees (0:38:22). The minutes call her “A community member”; she is not named on the recording, so this page does not name her. |
One unlabeled voice reads the student-wellbeing priority after the consultant says “Go ahead Michael.” (0:14:51). Petrin and Koski were both in the room, so the reader is left unnamed. Another unlabeled voice reads the district-office priority (0:19:15). Twenty-seven of 199 rows are labeled Unidentified.
Agenda
Items as posted in “SAU#6 School Board Agenda 11.21.24.docx.pdf”, with the time each was taken up and its disposition from the recording and the draft minutes. The agenda body is headed “SAU#6 School Board November 14, 2024”; see flag 7.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:00 | III.1 presentation (taken first) | Agenda: “District Management Group (DMG)Strategic Plan Presentation (Discussion/Vote)”, scheduled 6:40 p.m. The whole presentation, the round-robin and every question from the public ran from the start of the recording to 0:44:50, before the meeting was called to order. See flag 2. |
| 0:44:57 | I. Call to Order and Pledge | Scheduled 6:30 p.m. The chair: “What I’m going to do now is call the meeting, our school board meeting to order at this time.” Pledge at 0:45:19. |
| 0:45:34 | II. General Business: cell phones; roll call | Roll read by the clerk at 0:45:45 in one merged segment; seven answers survive, matching the seven the minutes record present. No member is noted as arriving late, although the agenda provides for it and the minutes say the quorum assembled during the presentation. |
| 0:46:05 | II. Agenda: Amendments and Final Approval | No amendments. Ruggeri moved at 0:46:18 (“I’ll make a motion to accept the agenda as presented.”), Whitney seconded; voice vote, no count. |
| Not called | II. Citizens Comments | On the agenda as the last element of General Business. Not called on the recording: after the agenda vote the chair thanks the audience for coming (“Please stay in touch. Spread the word.”) and opens the only action item at 0:46:35. The draft minutes record “Citizens Comments-none”. See flag 1. |
| 0:46:35 | III.1 Strategic plan: the vote | Hawkins moved at 0:47:00: “I move that the saw six [SAU 6] school board accept the Saw strategic plan for 2020 25 [2025] to 2030, as presented this evening by the DM.” Ruggeri seconded (0:47:11). Discussion: Sprague, Whitney, the chair. Voice vote at 0:48:46; “Motion passes.” No count. Minutes: “Arlene Hawkins made a motion to adopt the strategic plan as presented, Rocco Ruggeri seconded the motion” and “Voice vote taken, all present voting in favor; the plan is adopted”. |
| Not reached | IV. Future Dates/Future Agenda Items | Agenda lists the SAU 6 FY26 budget hearing on 12/12/2024 and a Unity board meeting on 12/10/2024. It omits the December 3 SAU 6 meeting set on November 14. Not read out. See flag 10. |
| 0:48:58 | V. Other Business (not called as an item) | After the vote the superintendent appealed for parent involvement (0:49:06) and the chair proposed progress monitoring as a standing agenda item (0:50:12). The minutes record both under item III. |
| 0:50:38 | VI. Adjournment | Sprague first offered the motion at 0:48:56; the chair took the superintendent’s remarks and returned to him at 0:50:38. Minutes: “Frank Sprague made a motion to adjourn at 7:27pm, Heather Whitney seconded the motion”. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological topics. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction. Everything before 0:44:57 took place before the meeting was called to order.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:00 | Opening, before any gavel | Hawkins welcomes the audience “to a presentation of the strategic plan and implementation being provided by the DM Group that we have been working with.” No roll and no statement that the board lacks a quorum. | MEDIUM |
| 0:00:33 | The superintendent introduces DMGroup | “Since when do we start? In June.” The consultant corrects the month at 0:02:29: “Actually, I guess we started in May a little earlier than I thought.” At 0:01:18: “It’s pretty much the map, including the destination that we want to reach for saw six [SAU 6].” | |
| 0:02:01 | The quorum, raised by the consultant | “So tonight we’ll see if we have a quorum to approve the strategic plan. But regardless, want to make sure that everyone feels confident in the components of the strategic plan”. No board member responds. | MEDIUM |
| 0:03:52 | Engagement and the working committee | “most notably, 120 student responses to that survey at the high school.” At 0:04:21: “We then created a group just of stakeholders of district and school leaders and board members who took all of the input that was provided and actually got to work in drafting the strategic plan.” Its last meeting was “about a month ago in mid-October” (0:04:52). | MEDIUM |
| 0:05:14 | A public document | “this is going to be a publicly available document.” The plan had been posted to the packet folder at 2:00 p.m. that day. | MEDIUM |
| 0:06:31 | Mission, vision, theory of action | Hawkins reads the mission; Ruggeri the vision (0:07:03). The theory of action “really puts the onus on district leaders” (0:08:20), and “should really be used in the future to guide resource allocation aligned to what you’ve documented and believe.” (0:09:16) | OBSERVATION |
| 0:10:28 | Priority 1: student outcomes | Read by Pratt. Five measures on iReady and graduation data. Growth: “that third one really focuses on growth.” Students with disabilities: “almost 1 in 4 students with disabilities in the district” (0:11:40). | POSITIVE |
| 0:13:14 | Priority 2: staff effectiveness | Read by Crawford. Retention has baseline data; for the other three “There actually currently was no baseline data consistently across the district based on staff feedback.” (0:13:26) | OBSERVATION |
| 0:14:51 | Priority 3: student wellbeing | “Go ahead Michael.” An unlabeled voice reads it (0:15:03). Chronic absence described as “students who have missed 10% of or more of the school year”, and a goal of “decreasing the number of bullying and harassment investigations” (0:15:14). The two survey measures are a “new data source to be created” (0:16:14). | OBSERVATION OBSERVATION |
| 0:16:52 | Priority 4: family and community engagement | Read by Hawkins. Renamed from “outreach” after community feedback (0:17:05). “So you can see here again, not actually data that has been collected in the past.” (0:18:29) | |
| 0:19:15 | Priority 5: district office cohesion | Read by an unlabeled voice. Staff feedback “that currently has not been collected” (0:19:50). Summary at 0:20:20: “you can see there’s a lot of baseline data to collect. And that’s okay.” | |
| 0:20:55 | Round-robin | “You saw a lot of red X’s, which is okay because we’re going to do new things.” Sprague: staff effectiveness, “I’m a former school administrator myself” (0:21:09). Pratt on implementation: “so it doesn’t fall by the wayside like it does in many places” (0:22:08). Hawkins: the priority is also for “those who are exceeding the outcomes” (0:22:36). | |
| 0:23:28 | Whitney on follow-through | “we’ve had a lot of changes over the decades where a lot of initiatives and there’s not this long term follow through.” | |
| 0:24:29 | The chair invites the public in | “Oh, this is a presentation. Please feel free. Yes. Please feel free. Please do.” A member of the public (0:24:36): the plan measures “the kids who are not yet meeting the benchmark”, but “do have kids who are above.” Hawkins answers on benchmark assessments “three points during the year” (0:25:30). | POSITIVE MEDIUM |
| 0:26:28 | Koski on one year of growth | “They’re at for 4.5 in the fourth grade, they should finish the year at 5.5.” On a program the above-level pupils outgrow (0:27:42): “Not within that. So you would use something different or have different materials.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:28:18 | The superintendent: no plan until now | “But until now, I haven’t seen a game plan. We’re going into it blindly”. The only mention of budgets all night comes in the same sentence: “if budgets are increasing or, you know, academic scores are going up or going down”. At 0:29:31: “We were just drawing cards and hoping that we’re going to get a full house.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:30:46 | Liz Vogel: how will it be evaluated? | “I’m curious about the course correction options. So what does evaluation look like?” At 0:31:29: “Is it every year every six months. Are we touching base because, Chris, to your point, these things often sit on the shelf and collect us [dust].” | POSITIVE |
| 0:32:03 | Implementation, and whether DMGroup stays | “you’re kind of maybe not even halfway done”. At 0:33:10: “we were in discussion about whether district Management Group will support with this.” No cost or contract is mentioned. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:34:34 | The board’s role; committees | “the role of the school board is to then allocate resources to hold the district accountable to meeting goals”. The working committee continues and divides into five subcommittees of “anywhere between 5 to 8 people”, meeting monthly (0:35:44–0:36:39). | MEDIUM |
| 0:38:22 | The parent group | A member of the public asks whether the superintendent’s parent group is a subcommittee. Pratt: “It could fall into this, but initially it was something separate because we didn’t have any in place.” “I got about 30 people responded.” | |
| 0:40:04 | Targets come later | “what’s going to be most important now is to set Smart goals.” At 0:40:55: “The reason we don’t put those in the actual strategic plan is it’s likely those will change”. At 0:41:37: “If you don’t know where you’re starting, then you can’t know where you’re going.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:44:30 | Final adjustments offered; handover | “if there are any final adjustments we need to make, of course we’ll do that”. At 0:44:50: “So I don’t know if we have a forum [quorum]. Okay. So I’ll let you all take it from here.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:44:57 | Called to order; roll; agenda | Gavel at 0:44:57, roll at 0:45:47 (“Frederick Erickson that’s on your heart. Bonnie. Miles. Michael. Peter. Here. Shannon. Here. Rocky Ridge here.”), agenda approved at 0:46:25. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:46:35 | Audience thanked; comment item passed over | “The first thank you, folks again for joining you very much. Thank you. Please stay in touch. Spread the word. Thank you. First item on the agenda.” | MEDIUM |
| 0:47:00 | Motion and discussion | Hawkins moves; Ruggeri seconds. Sprague (0:47:16): the plan gives the superintendent evaluation committee “a pretty good set of ready made goals every year. And what gets written gets done.” Whitney thanks the participants (0:48:18); the chair gives “kudos to our superintendent for bringing this initiative forward” (0:48:22). | |
| 0:48:43 | The vote | Crawford: “You need to take the road?” [roll]. The chair: “I’m making sure we don’t have discussion. All those in favor.” One I [aye] is transcribed (0:48:50); “Opposed abstentions. Motion passes.” No count. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:49:06 | Superintendent’s appeal | “I wanted to say it while the people who attended tonight were here.” “We cannot do this alone.” At 0:49:29: parents are welcome “to get involved in the subcommittees that were trying to create”. | |
| 0:50:12 | Standing agenda item | “I can see this as a standing agenda item on our school board agendas, so that we continue the conversation and have some progress monitoring occurring as we move forward.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:50:38 | Adjournment | “Mister Sprague. You have a motion.” “To make a motion. We adjourn.” Second at 0:50:42; voice vote. | |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer’s aid, measured against the law in force on November 21, 2024. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; an Observation rests on no confirmed rule.
MEDIUM The citizens’ comment item on the agenda was not called, and the minutes record it as “none”
The agenda lists “Citizens Comments” as the last element of General Business. On the recording the chair takes the agenda vote (0:46:25–0:46:27), then thanks the audience for coming and moves straight to the plan (0:46:35). No invitation to comment is given after the gavel. The draft minutes record “Citizens Comments-none”, which reads as though the item was offered and no one spoke. RSA 189:74 requires a school board to “provide the opportunity for the public to comment on school district matters at a meeting of the school board held under RSA 91-A:2,” for no less than 30 minutes; its only exceptions are emergency meetings and meetings held solely for nonpublic session. Two limits keep this at MEDIUM rather than HIGH, a regrade from the archived page. First, members of the public did speak at length, at the chair’s invitation (0:24:29), during the pre-gavel session that flag 2 treats as part of the meeting once a quorum was present; no one was turned away. Second, the section is addressed to school boards, and whether it reaches the joint board of a school administrative unit is not settled by any authority located. The board’s own agenda carries the item, so the board should have called it or minuted that it was skipped.
Sources: RSA 189:74 (public comment period; 2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022); SAU#6 School Board Agenda 11.21.24; 11.21.24 draft minutes.
MEDIUM The only item of business was presented and discussed for 45 minutes before the meeting was called to order, and no record fixes when the quorum formed
The minutes state that there was no quorum at 6:30 p.m., that the presentation “came before the meeting was called to order”, and that “a quorum was present prior to the end of the presentation”. RSA 91-A:2, I defines a meeting as the convening of a quorum “for the purpose of discussing or acting upon” a matter within the body’s jurisdiction; there is no exclusion for a presentation or work session. From the moment the seventh member was present, the gathering was a meeting whether or not the gavel had fallen. Nobody announced that moment, the roll at 0:45:45 notes no late arrival although the agenda provides for it, and two of the seven members present never speak on the recording. The formal meeting therefore consisted of an agenda vote, a two-minute discussion and a voice vote, while the substance ran from 0:00:00 to 0:44:50. Mitigation: the session was noticed, open, broadcast, and narrated in detail in the minutes, so nothing was hidden from the public. Regraded from HIGH on the archived page: the notice, openness and minutes duties were met in substance, and the defect is the sequencing and the unrecorded start.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I (definition of meeting; 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023); RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (a school administrative unit is a public body); 11.21.24 draft minutes; Policy BBBH-S §C (quorum).
MEDIUM The agenda and the 22-page plan reached the public packet folder at 2:00 p.m. on the day of the vote
Drive metadata (read 2026-09-25): the folder “3. SAU6 11.21.24 Strategic Plan Presentation” was created at 1:51 p.m. Eastern on November 21, 2024, and both the agenda and “SAU Strategic Plan_2025-2030 (1).pdf” at 2:00 p.m., four and a half hours before the 6:30 p.m. start. RSA 91-A:2, II requires 24 hours’ notice of the time and place, not an agenda or documents, and the SAU website as it stood in 2024 cannot be inspected, so no statutory violation is asserted. The board’s own rules set a higher bar. Policy BEDB, adopted at first reading on November 14, 2024, provides that “The agenda and supporting materials should be distributed to Board members at least seven days prior to the Board meeting” and that “both the agenda and the supporting materials may be reviewed by the public prior to the meeting.” Mitigation: the plan’s substance had been through community meetings and surveys, and the consultant said the draft had been sent out before (0:44:30).
Sources: Drive folder metadata; Policy BEDB (Exhibit B, 11/14/24 packet); 11.14.24 draft SAU 6 minutes (BEDB adopted); RSA 91-A:2, II (notice).
MEDIUM The working committee that drafted the plan, with four board members on it, has no located notices or minutes, and its board membership changed between June and November without a recorded vote
The adopted plan lists a 15-member “Strategic Planning Working Committee”, including board members Hawkins, Crawford, Whitney and Erickson. The consultant says the group met “over the course of all of these meetings” (0:04:21), last in mid-October (0:04:52), and that it will continue as the implementation committee with five subcommittees (0:33:35–0:36:39). No notice, agenda or minutes of any of its meetings was located in the SAU 6 or Claremont packet shares or the Claremont Meeting Minutes share. Policy BBBH-S §I.5.f provides: “Minutes of all SAU Joint Board or Joint Board sub/advisory committee meetings shall be prepared and disclosed or sealed in accordance with RSA 91-A:2, II & III, and 91-A:3, III”, and RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) reaches an SAU’s committees and advisory committees. The June 2024 DMGroup deck (slide 14) listed board members Crawford, Hawkins, Frank Sprague and “Majorie” Erickson; the November plan replaces Sprague with Whitney. Mitigation: four of twelve is not a quorum, the administration assembled the committee, and no board vote creating it was located, so whether it is a board committee is a fair question; its roster is published in the plan and its product came to an open vote. Records may exist outside the shares this project can reach.
Sources: SAU Strategic Plan 2025-2030, p. 5; Exhibit F, DMGroup board introduction, June 2024, slide 14; Policy BBBH-S §I.5.f; RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, II.
MEDIUM The draft minutes reached the public share on the 14th business day, and no approved version was located
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be “open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting”, excluding national and state holidays. The fifth business day was Friday, November 29, 2024 (Thanksgiving, November 28, excluded under RSA 288:1). The draft was created in the SAU 6 folder “5. SAU6 12.12.24” at 4:00 p.m. Eastern on December 12, 2024, the 14th business day and about two and a half hours before the meeting at which the board was to approve it, together with the November 14 draft. No approved version is in either district share. Graded MEDIUM because the meeting was noticed and minuted and only timeliness is at issue (run-contract rule for missing records); SAU 6 files each meeting’s minutes with a later packet, which delays them structurally.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (five business days; 2023, 188:1); RSA 288:1 (legal holidays); Drive metadata for 11.21.24 DRAFT SAU6 meeting minutes.pdf (read 2026-09-25).
OBSERVATION A five-year plan was adopted with no cost or funding source stated, while the board’s own FY26 budget adds $305,000.54 and leaves every contracted-services line flat
No dollar figure is spoken in the 51-minute recording. The consultant says the plan “should really be used in the future to guide resource allocation” (0:09:16) and that the board’s role is “to then allocate resources” (0:34:34), and whether DMGroup would be paid to support implementation was still “in discussion” (0:33:10). The plan installs a monthly working committee, five subcommittees and new staff, student and family surveys for twelve of its twenty measures. The FY26 SAU budget before this board (Exhibit A, V1, November 14) rises from $2,489,151.00 to $2,794,151.54, an increase of $305,000.54, but its seven contracted-services lines total $23,800.00 in both years, unchanged. This board’s spending power is limited to that SAU budget (RSA 194-C:9); the classroom work the plan measures is funded by the Claremont and Unity district budgets, and teachers are elected by the district boards (RSA 189:39). No located rule requires a plan to be costed before adoption, and RSA 194-C:4, II(r) lists “consultant identification” among SAU services, so this is an observation. No contract, cost figure or board vote concerning DMGroup was located in the SAU 6 packets.
Sources: Exhibit A, SAU FY26 Proposed Budget V1; RSA 194-C:9 (SAU budget); RSA 194-C:4, II; RSA 189:39.
OBSERVATION The agenda body is dated November 14, 2024, and the minutes repeat it
The agenda’s masthead reads “November 21, 2024 6:30PM”, but the heading above the numbered items reads “SAU#6 School Board November 14, 2024 6:30 - 8:30 PM AGENDA Goodrich Community Room”, the previous meeting’s date. The draft minutes, built on the agenda, carry the same heading. The file name, folder and masthead give the right date, and no rule prescribes an agenda’s form, so this is an observation.
Sources: SAU#6 School Board Agenda 11.21.24; 11.21.24 draft minutes.
OBSERVATION Twelve of the plan’s twenty measures have no baseline, none has a target, and one counts investigations
By the presenter’s account, three of four staff measures (0:13:26), two of four wellbeing measures (0:15:40–0:16:14), all four family measures (0:18:29) and all three district-office measures (0:19:50) lack baseline data. Targets are deliberately left out (“it’s likely those will change”, 0:40:55) and, per the minutes, are to be ready for finalization in June 2025. One measure reads “Decrease the number of bullying and harassment investigations” (plan, p. 13): it falls if fewer reports are made or opened as well as if conduct declines, and RSA chapter 193-F requires schools to investigate reports. Setting targets after baselines is ordinary practice, and the consultant explained it.
Sources: SAU Strategic Plan 2025-2030, pp. 11–15; RSA chapter 193-F (Pupil Safety and Violence Prevention).
OBSERVATION The adopted text assigns oversight to a “Board of Education”, defines chronic absence differently from the presenter, and lists the Tech Center as an alternative program
The plan’s Next Steps page says “the Board of Education will provide essential guidance and oversight”; New Hampshire has no local board of education, and the bodies are the district school boards and the SAU board (RSA 194-C:5). The presenter defined chronic absence as missing “10% of or more of the school year” (0:15:14); the plan’s appendix says “Chronic absenteeism is defined as having 10 or more unexcused absences in a school year”, and the adopted measure carries no definition. The Fast Facts page lists “1 Alternative Program” beside the Sugar River Valley Regional Tech Center, a regional career and technical education center under RSA chapter 188-E. The consultant offered to make final adjustments (0:44:30); the plan was adopted as presented.
Sources: SAU Strategic Plan 2025-2030, pp. 3, 16, 20; RSA 194-C:5; RSA chapter 188-E.
OBSERVATION A bare quorum, an uncounted voice vote after a member asked about a roll, and a future-dates list that omits the December 3 meeting
Seven of twelve seats is the minimum quorum under Policy BBBH-S §C. Before the vote Crawford asked “You need to take the road?” [roll] (0:48:43); the chair took a voice vote with no count. RSA 194-C:8 weighted voting applies only “upon the demand of a majority” of members present and voting, which was not made, so the voice vote is not irregular. The agenda’s Future Dates list names the December 12 hearing and a December 10 Unity meeting but not the December 3 SAU 6 meeting the board set on November 14 to vote the budget (11/14/24 draft minutes); the item was not reached.
Sources: Policy BBBH-S §C, §D; RSA 194-C:8 (weighted votes on demand); 11.14.24 draft SAU 6 minutes.
POSITIVE The chair invited the public into the presentation, and their questions drew direct answers
When a voice from the audience began a question, the chair said “Please feel free” (0:24:29). A member of the public argued the plan measures pupils who are behind but not those ahead (0:24:36); the chair (0:25:30) and the assistant superintendent (0:26:28–0:27:42) answered concretely. Liz Vogel asked how and how often progress will be evaluated (0:31:29), which led into the implementation section. The minutes record both citizens’ questions and the answers. The corollary is flag 1.
Sources: the recording at the timestamps above; 11.21.24 draft minutes.
POSITIVE The plan measures growth as well as proficiency, and names students with disabilities
One outcome measure is “Increase the percentage of students who make at least one year of growth in literacy and math based on local benchmark assessment” (plan, p. 11); the consultant said districts do not always include one (0:29:43), and Koski used it to answer the citizen’s question (0:26:28). Another targets students with disabilities, 24 percent of enrollment per the plan’s Fast Facts, explained at 0:11:40.
Sources: SAU Strategic Plan 2025-2030, pp. 3, 11; the recording.
POSITIVE The chair proposed progress monitoring as a standing agenda item, and the minutes record it
At 0:50:12: “in order for this to be a living document, which it it needs to be, I can see this as a standing agenda item on our school board agendas”. It answers the follow-through concern Whitney (0:23:28) and Vogel (0:31:29) raised. Minutes: “Arlene Hawkins added that this should be a standing agenda item for progress monitoring”.
Sources: the recording; 11.21.24 draft minutes.
POSITIVE The minutes are detailed, name every mover and seconder, and disclose the missing quorum
Five pages for a 51-minute session: the presentation, the round-robin, both citizens’ questions and the answers. Each motion is minuted with mover and seconder, as RSA 91-A:2, II requires (“Rocco Ruggeri made a motion to accept the agenda as written, Heather Whitney seconded the motion”). The note that there was no quorum at 6:30 p.m. appears nowhere on the recording except in the consultant’s aside at 0:02:01; the clerk put it at the top of the minutes.
Sources: 11.21.24 draft minutes; RSA 91-A:2, II (mover and seconder; 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019).
Appendix — source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: SAU 6 Board Meeting - 11/21/24 (show 16158)
- Drive folder: 3. SAU6 11.21.24 Strategic Plan Presentation: 2 documents in the SAU 6 Schoolboard Packets share (folder created 1:51 p.m., files 2:00 p.m. Eastern, November 21, 2024)
- SAU#6 School Board Agenda 11.21.24.docx.pdf
- SAU Strategic Plan_2025-2030 (1).pdf (22 pages)
- Minutes: 11.21.24 DRAFT SAU6 meeting minutes.pdf, in 5. SAU6 12.12.24 (two-stage search: this meeting’s folder holds no minutes; found in the next budget-hearing folder)
- Other district documents relied on: Exhibit A- SAU FY26 Proposed Budget V1.pdf; Exhibit B- First Read-- BEDB_ Agenda Preparation and Dissemination - Google Docs (1).pdf; 11.14.24 DRAFT SAU6 minutes (1).pdf; Exhibit C- Revision BBBH-S .pdf; Exhibit F- DMGroup_SAU6_Strategic Planning Board Introduction (1).pdf (Claremont 6/5/24 packet)
- Not located: an approved version of these minutes; any notice, agenda or minutes of the Strategic Planning Working Committee; any DMGroup contract, cost figure or board vote on the engagement.
- Related pages: SAU 6 Board, November 14, 2024; Claremont School Board, June 5, 2024 (DMGroup introduction).
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/16158 SAU6112124.mp4.CSV (199 rows)Input/Videos/16158 SAU6112124.mp4Input/Transcripts/16158 SAU6112124.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 64
Laws and rules cited on this page
- Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, I and II (2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023; mover/seconder clause 2018, 244:1; the 2025 start-time, end-time and minutes-producer additions are not applied); RSA 288:1
- School boards: RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1); RSA 189:39; RSA chapter 193-F; RSA chapter 188-E
- School administrative units: RSA 194-C:4, II; RSA 194-C:5; RSA 194-C:8; RSA 194-C:9 (¶IV, 2024, 329:1, eff. Oct. 1, 2024, not engaged)
- Board policy: SAU 6 Policy BBBH-S (§C, §D, §I.5.f); Policy BEDB (adopted November 14, 2024)