Participants
Everyone heard or recorded as present, and officials named on the agenda. With no minutes, attendance is reconstructed from the attendance roll and the two nonpublic roll calls on the recording. Names follow the agenda; the transcript’s renderings are noted.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Arlene Hawkins | SAU 6 Board Chair (Claremont) | Presided; asked Koski to call the roll; tabled the minutes; summarized the TMS proposal and its three rates aloud; put every vote; allowed the whistleblower topic under Other Business. |
| Rocco Ruggeri | SAU 6 Vice Chair (Unity) | Present; first name called in both nonpublic roll calls (“Rocco. Ruggieri. Yes.”; “rock over Jerry” in the attendance roll). The agenda names him as presenter of both action items. Which motions he made cannot be separated from the unidentified voices on the recording. |
| Shannon Popescu | SAU 6 Board member (Unity) | Present; the chair credits her with seconding the agenda and the nonpublic motion (“Second Shannon”). |
| Kristel Davis | SAU 6 Board member (Unity) | Present; voted yes in both nonpublic roll calls (“crystal. Davis” in the transcript). |
| Atonya Hart | SAU 6 Board member (Unity) | Absent on the record: her name is read in the attendance roll, and she is not called in either nonpublic roll call. |
| Darlene Ayotte | SAU 6 Board member (Unity) | Absent on the record: “Darlene.” is answered “Nope.” and she is not called in either nonpublic roll call. |
| Candace Crawford | SAU 6 Board member (Claremont) | Present; voted yes in both nonpublic roll calls. |
| Michael Petrin | SAU 6 Board member (Claremont) | Present; voted yes in both nonpublic roll calls (“Michael. Patron” in the transcript). |
| Heather Whitney | SAU 6 Board member; Claremont School Board chair | Present; made the main argument for the TMS engagement: “there’s a moral imperative to do everything in our power to provide protections for the district.” |
| William “Bill” Madden | SAU 6 Board member (Claremont) | Present; argued against the engagement as premature; described unchecked time sheets; raised whistleblowers under Other Business. |
| Loren Howard | SAU 6 Board member (Claremont) | Present; voted yes in both nonpublic roll calls (“Lauren. Howard” in the transcript). |
| Michael Koski | Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6 | Called the attendance roll and both nonpublic roll calls in the clerk’s absence (labeled “Mike Koski” in the dialogue file; the start of the attendance roll is labeled Hawkins). |
| Noelle Kronberg | SAU 6 School Board Clerk | Absent. The chair opened by saying someone was “not going to be here today” and that the board would “need somebody to help with the, minutes”. The clerk is not named on the recording; the inference is from the agenda roster. |
| Chris Pratt | Superintendent of Schools, SAU 6 | Not present. Still listed as Superintendent on the agenda. His resignation was accepted by voice vote at 0:05:20; no terms or effective date were stated in public. |
| Kerry Kennedy | Principal, Claremont Middle School; offered the interim superintendency at this meeting | Not heard on the recording. Rendered “Carrie Kennedy”. Madden later refers to an interview with her, which took place in the unrecorded nonpublic session. |
| Patrick O’Hearn | Temporary Acting Superintendent / Director of Human Resources (agenda) | Not heard. Madden refers to “Patrick” as the person who was to give him “the internal procedures” on whistleblowers; the September 10 Claremont draft minutes record the chair directing that question to Mr. O’Hearn as HR. |
| Matt Angell | Senior Comptroller (agenda) | Not heard; Whitney refers to work “Mr. Angel is not completed”. |
| Mary Henry; Michael McCosker; Jeff Small | Business Administrator; Director of Student Services; Director of Technology (agenda roster) | Listed on the agenda’s central-office roster; not heard on the recording. |
No member of the public spoke: “Going on citizens comments. So. Seeing none. Move on.” Several SAU board voices, including the movers of all three action-item motions, are labeled Unidentified in the dialogue file and cannot be named without minutes.
Agenda
Items as posted in “SAU6 School Board Agenda 9.11.25 (1).pdf”, with the time each was taken up and its disposition. Dispositions come from the recording alone; no vote count was announced for any action item.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:03 | I. Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance | Scheduled 6:30 PM. “Like to call the meeting to order. Seeing that I do have a corn [quorum].” |
| 0:01:07 | II. General Business: roll call | Agenda: “Secretary Roll Call of Attendance of Board Members”. Taken by Koski. Present on the recording: Hawkins, Ruggeri, Popescu, Davis, Crawford, Petrin, Whitney, Madden, Howard. Ayotte answered “Nope.”; Hart not called afterwards. |
| 0:01:38 | II. Minutes: 6/12/25, 8/21/25, 8/26/2025 and 9/4/2025 | “I wasn’t able to open them. I was only able to open the minutes from, Let’s see. 826.” Then at 0:02:07: “We’re going to table all the review of minutes until we get some an opportunity to review them.” No motion or vote is audible. See flag 4. |
| 0:02:29 | II. Agenda: amendments and final approval | No edits. “I’d make a motion to accept the minutes. Excuse me. The agenda as presented. Second. Second.” The chair credits the second to Shannon Popescu. Voice vote; no count announced. |
| 0:03:01 | II. Citizens Comments | “Going on citizens comments. So. Seeing none. Move on.” |
| 0:03:24 | III.1. Non-public meeting session, RSA 91-A:3, II (a & c) | The agenda prints the text of exemptions (a) and (c). Motion: “Motion to move into non public meeting for under RSA 91-8 colon three comma two A and C.” Seconded (“Second Shannon”). The chair began a voice vote and stopped: “Oh we need a roll call if you don’t mind, sir.” Koski called eight members, all yes. Exit motion at 0:04:24, roll call again, all yes. No report, sealing motion or statement of actions taken followed. See flag 1, flag 3 and flag 6. |
| 0:04:48 | III.2. SAU#6 Office Administration Update (Discussion/Vote), Rocco Ruggeri, Vice Chair | Two votes. “I would like to make a motion to accept Superintendent Chris Pratt’s resignation. Second. Second.” Voice vote at 0:05:20; ayes only, no call for opposed. Then “I’d like to make a motion to offer the position of interim superintendent to Miss Carrie [Kerry] Kennedy.” Seconded; no discussion; voice vote at 0:06:17 with “Any opposed?” put and no count announced. Movers unidentified. See flag 2. |
| 0:06:34 | III.3. Consulting Services (Discussion/Vote), Rocco Ruggeri, Vice Chair | The chair described a three-part proposal from “Teams consulting”, later called “TMS consulting services”. Motion at 0:08:35: “I’ll make a motion to accept the proposal as written.” Seconded; twenty minutes of debate; voice vote at 0:27:44: “That passes.” No count; Madden had argued against. See flag 2. |
| 0:28:52 | IV. Future Meeting Dates | “So our next schedule saw [SAU] meeting is November 13th. Where? We should have some audits to review.” The agenda prints “November 13, 2023”; the wrong year is on the district’s agenda. |
| 0:29:11 | V. Other Business | Madden on whistleblowers and the absence of a district policy. See flag 5. |
| 0:30:56 | VI. Adjournment | “The other business. Second. All those in favor? Thank you.” No mover or count is separable on the recording. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological topics. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:35 | The clerk is absent; how minutes will be made | Hawkins: “So we’ll need somebody to help with the, minutes as we go along. She offered to, create the minutes based on the video. So I think for the public session, that’s what we’ll do that soon. And for, when we go in, a nonpublic will have to get a volunteer.” No volunteer is named on the recording. | HIGH |
| 0:01:38 | Four sets of minutes tabled | “Anyone else noticed that the formatting wasn’t too well? I wasn’t able to open them.” June 12, August 21, August 26 and September 4 minutes all tabled, the older three for the second meeting running. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:03:24 | Into nonpublic, by roll call | The motion names “two A and C”. The chair corrects herself mid-vote: “All those in. Oh we need a roll call if you don’t mind, sir.” Roll at 0:03:47: Ruggeri, Popescu, Davis, Crawford, Petrin, Whitney, Madden, Howard, all yes. | OBSERVATION POSITIVE |
| 0:05:03 | Pratt’s resignation accepted | “I would like to make a motion to accept Superintendent Chris Pratt’s resignation.” One remark in discussion, “Only wish, Mr. Patmore.” (unclear; “Patmore” is probably Pratt). Vote: “All those in favor of accepting Mr. Pratt’s resignation? Signify by saying aye.” No effective date, terms or severance stated. | MEDIUM |
| 0:05:57 | Kennedy offered the interim superintendency | “I’d like to make a motion to offer the position of interim superintendent to Miss Carrie [Kerry] Kennedy.” No discussion. No start date or pay stated, and nothing on who would run Claremont Middle School. | MEDIUM OBSERVATION |
| 0:06:34 | The consulting proposal, described aloud | “Teams consulting, is the company there? And they have provided a proposal to offer consultation regarded to leadership.” Three sections, “superintendent sir, support services, communication services and operational review services”, each with “a 30 day notification to cancel”. The proposal was not in the meeting’s packet. | MEDIUM |
| 0:08:50 | A member asks for the costs in public | “I think we should have discussion about the cost. So the public is aware of the process with the services”. The chair: six references, four called, all positive. | |
| 0:10:31 | Superintendent support: $1,500 a month | “They’ve offered to, meet with our interim, twice a week if needed.” “They have proposed a rate of $1,500 a month for those services.” At 0:10:43: “That will continue through June 30th, 2026”. | MEDIUM |
| 0:11:46 | Communications: $155 an hour | “Build [billed] monthly at $155 an hour to be canceled with 30 day notice, and unless canceled, will be available and in place until June 30th, 2026.” | |
| 0:12:30 | Operational review: $175 an hour, capped at $25,000 | “to identify what happened, what went wrong, and how to prevent it from ever happening again.” At 0:12:59: “They have offered this service at $175 an hour, with a cap of $25,000.” Deliverables at 0:14:04: “new job descriptions, new processes and procedures”. A member: “Best practice, not past practice.” | |
| 0:14:32 | What the board commits to | “if we don’t cancel them in the 30 days, the first one, we’re locked into having them until June 30th, 1500. Monthly”. Chair: “Correct. That’s the way it’s written.” At 0:15:07: “that’s like a minimum of 15,000 ish.” At 0:26:18, a member’s all-in estimate: “if we did ten months and be around $54,000.” | |
| 0:15:44 | Madden: premature | “there’s the quip that a consultant is someone you hire, you, give you a watch to them, and then they tell you the time.” At 0:16:04: “We just had an extensive interview with our new candidate that was just voted on it, Miss Carrie Kennedy.” At 0:17:52: “We don’t have controls anywhere on anything.” At 0:18:33: “So for those reasons, I think it’s premature.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:19:01 | Whitney: no systems | “my desire is, was to create systems because I felt there were no systems when I started on the board”. At 0:21:17: “those foundational administrative procedures were not done, period.” At 0:21:48: “I say in 30 days, they’re gone.” At 0:22:17: “there’s a moral imperative to do everything in our power to provide protections for the district.” | |
| 0:22:40 | Madden: controls exist and are not followed | “you have the controls there. But these guys are not following the controls.” At 0:23:22, on time sheets: “In most cases, the supervisors do not check it off in many cases.” At 0:24:00: “this is just a cursory review.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:25:14 | The case for the engagement | “It’s it’s relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things.” At 0:25:58: “if that’s the first step to something being uncovered that can be turned over to law enforcement, I think it’s worth the money”. At 0:26:58, a Unity member: “I think it will help us unity move forward” after “the separation”. | |
| 0:27:44 | The TMS vote | “All those in favor of hiring TMS consulting services, per the agreement on the contract. Signify by saying aye. Any opposed?” At 0:28:04: “And. Okay. All right. That passes.” No count, no roll call, no minutes. | HIGH |
| 0:28:22 | An item requested in advance, not on the agenda | Madden: “We’re going to discuss this. The whistleblower.” Chair: “No, that wasn’t on the agenda.” Madden: “But I even asked that we discussed it tonight.” Chair at 0:28:39: “Speak to it at other business if you want.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:29:16 | Whistleblowers and no policy | “I’ve been contacted by the intermediary who says he has a number of whistleblowers dynamic come forward.” At 0:29:47: “But he left in the morning. And there’s no policy”. Asked “What’s the RSA?”, he answered at 0:30:42: “Two seven, five, eight.” | OBSERVATION |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer’s aid. 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. The law applied is the law in force on September 11, 2025.
HIGH No minutes exist of the public or the nonpublic session at which the board ended a superintendency, filled it and hired a consultant
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes recording the members, persons appearing, “a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions, the start time and end time of the meeting, and name of the person who produced the minutes”, with the names of each mover and seconder, open to inspection within five business days. RSA 91-A:3, III requires that minutes of a nonpublic session “shall be kept” and be disclosed within 72 hours unless sealed “by recorded vote of 2/3 of the members present taken in public session”. SAU 6 policy BBBH-S applies both provisions to the joint board. This meeting has neither set of minutes. The search was two-stage: the meeting’s own folder 10. SAU6 9.11.25 holds only the agenda and earlier meetings’ drafts; the later SAU 6 folders (11. SAU6 10.6.25, 12. SAU6 11.13.25, 13. SAU6 4.9.26, 14. SAU6 5.28.26) hold no minutes of this meeting (12. SAU6 11.13.25 holds the June 12, August 21 and September 4 drafts); the Claremont Meeting Minutes share has never held an SAU 6 file; a Drive title search on 2026-09-25 found nothing dated 9.11.25 but the folder. The chair said at 0:00:35 that someone would “create the minutes based on the video” and that the nonpublic session would need “a volunteer”. That is a plan, not a record that minutes exist, so this page applies the unmitigated (HIGH) limb. On return from nonpublic session at 0:04:48 there was no sealing vote, so nothing was lawfully withheld. The consequence is concrete: all three action items were voice votes with no count, and the TMS vote at 0:27:44 followed a member’s argument against it. No record shows who moved each motion or how any member voted.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025; read 2026-09-25); RSA 91-A:3, III (2023, 189:1; read 2026-09-25); SAU 6 policy BBBH-S §I.5.f; packet index in MAP.md, sections 97 to 124.
MEDIUM The board voted to accept a contract “as written” that the public could not see until April 2026, and stated no terms for the resignation or the appointment
The TMS proposal was not in the meeting’s packet; the chair’s oral summary (0:06:34–0:14:04) was the only public description when the board voted at 0:27:44. The signed contract later surfaced as Complete_with_Docusign_20250912-Claremont-CO.pdf, created in the 13. SAU6 4.9.26 folder on 2026-04-08, seven months after the vote. It names the vendor as TMSolution, Inc. of Auburn, Massachusetts, and matches the rates stated aloud ($1,500 a month; $155 an hour; $175 an hour to a $25,000 maximum; 30 days’ notice). It differs from the oral summary in one term: the contract requires the mentor to “Meet with the interim superintendent a minimum of twice per week”, where the chair said “twice a week if needed”. It also directs the review to “hiring practices that led to putting unqualified and under-qualified individuals in positions of power”, which the chair did not mention on September 11 (she did at the September 17 Claremont meeting). The resignation motion (0:05:03) and the appointment motion (0:05:57) stated no effective date, compensation, separation terms or arrangement for Kennedy’s principalship. RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to record final decisions, and RSA 91-A:4 makes the underlying records available on request; with no minutes, neither the contract nor any separation or appointment terms were part of the meeting’s public record. Mitigation: a member asked at 0:08:50 that costs be discussed publicly, and they were.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II; RSA 91-A:4; Complete_with_Docusign_20250912-Claremont-CO.pdf; SAU6 School Board Agenda 9.11.25 (1).pdf.
OBSERVATION A candidate interview held under the employee-discipline and reputation exemptions, on an agenda that named neither the departure nor the appointment
The motion cited RSA 91-A:3, II(a) and (c). Madden’s remark at 0:16:04 shows the session included an interview of the person then offered the interim superintendency. The exemption written for that is II(b), “The hiring of any person as a public employee.” Because Kennedy was already a district employee, II(a)’s “promotion” limb is arguable, and a superintendent’s separation fits II(a); this page does not resolve the choice. Separately, the agenda described the action items only as “SAU#6 Office Administration Update” and “Consulting Services”. RSA 91-A:2, II requires 24 hours’ notice of the meeting; no verified rule requires item-level detail, so none is asserted.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(c), II(a), II(b), II(c); RSA 91-A:2, II (notice); agenda.
OBSERVATION Minutes for four meetings tabled, three of them for the second meeting running
The June 12, August 21 and August 26 minutes had been put off at the September 4 meeting because they were sent electronically with no paper copies; here all four sets were tabled because the files would not open (0:01:38, 0:02:07). Drafts of all four exist in the SAU 6 folders, so the duty to record minutes appears met for those meetings; RSA 91-A:2, II sets no deadline for board approval. The practice matters because the one meeting of this run that produced no minutes at all is this one.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II; the recording at the timestamps above.
OBSERVATION Whistleblowers reported with no district policy to receive them, and payroll time sheets said to go unchecked
Madden said an intermediary had told him “a number of whistleblowers” had come forward (0:29:16) and “there’s no policy” (0:29:47), and proposed the policy committee take up the New Hampshire school boards’ model. His citation, “Two seven, five, eight” (0:30:42), is quoted as transcribed; this page does not verify which provision he meant. New Hampshire’s Whistleblowers’ Protection Act is RSA chapter 275-E; its definition of “Employer” includes a “governmental entity”, and 275-E:2 bars retaliation against employees who report violations. The Act applies whether or not the district adopts a policy. Madden also described time sheets on which “the supervisors do not check it off in many cases” (0:23:22), calling it “a cursory review”; that is his characterization, unverified here. Both items were raised under Other Business with no action possible.
Sources: RSA 275-E:1 (definitions; 2012, 139:3); RSA 275-E:2, I (2010, 340:2), both read 2026-09-25.
POSITIVE The nonpublic motions stated the exemption and were taken by roll call, and every decision was debated and voted in open session
Both the entry motion (0:03:24) and the exit (0:04:24) were decided by roll call, and the entry motion named the paragraph II exemptions on its face, as RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires. The agenda printed the text of both exemptions in advance. The chair caught her own voice vote in time (0:03:38). The resignation, the appointment and the consulting engagement were all moved and voted after the board returned to public session, and the engagement drew a real debate in which the dissent was heard and answered on the merits (0:15:44–0:27:21).
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b); agenda.
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/16833 SAU6-091125.mp4.CSV (146 rows)Input/Videos/16833 SAU6-091125.mp4Input/Transcripts/16833 SAU6-091125.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 97
Laws and rules cited on this page
- Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025); RSA 91-A:3, I(b), I(c), II(a), II(b), II(c), III (2023, 189:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023); RSA 91-A:4
- Employment: RSA 275-E:1; RSA 275-E:2, I
- District policy: SAU 6 policy BBBH-S §I.5.f (joint-board minutes under RSA 91-A:2, II and 91-A:3, III)
- Cited by a speaker, not verified here: “Two seven, five, eight” (0:30:42)