Participants
Names and roles follow the agenda masthead. There are no minutes, and the roll call as transcribed names four of the six sitting members, so attendance is stated only as far as the recording supports it.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Heather Whitney | Board chair | Presided; stated the purpose of the meeting; called the roll; noted “And we have no minutes to review.”; offered the friendly amendment and called the voice vote; previewed coming agenda items; adjourned. 8 segments. |
| Arlene Hawkins | Board member; SAU 6 Board chair | Asked how many positions, the cost, benefits, where the person would work and whether a job description existed; made the motion and accepted the amendment making it “pending a job description”; raised contracting SAU administrative services for the rest of the year and moved that discussion to the SAU 6 meeting that evening. 23 segments. |
| Loren Howard | Board member | Named first in the roll call (“Lauren Howard here” in the transcript). No other attributed speech. |
| Candace Crawford | Board member | Named in the roll call. No other attributed speech. |
| Michael Petrin | Vice chair | Not established. Not named in the roll call as transcribed and no attributed speech; one of the unnamed Here responses may be his. |
| William “Bill” Madden | Board member | Not established, on the same basis as the vice chair. |
| Noelle Kronberg | School Board Clerk | Not present. On maternity leave, as the chair announced on October 1. No clerk pro tem or minute-taker was named on the record. |
| Kerry Kennedy | Interim Superintendent, SAU 6 | Presented the substitute secretary request and answered the questions on it; said the job description was not ready; announced three central-office resignations. 27 segments. |
| Matt Angell | Senior Comptroller / Interim Business Administrator | On the agenda masthead; does not speak on the recording. Named as having agreed the post was necessary (“Mr. Angel” in the transcript). |
| Unidentified | Voice at the table | One quip after the Pledge at 0:00:23. |
| Unidentified board member | Board member | One question at 0:10:29: “Question is, do we need to meet earlier.” |
No member of the public speaks. Named but not present: Patrick O’Hearn (Human Resources Director), Michael Koski (Assistant Superintendent; “Mr. Kosky” in the transcript) and Samantha Miller (human resources), all announced as resigning; Jessica McLeod (named as acting in an assistant superintendent capacity; the district’s October 15 draft minutes spell her McCleod). At 0:01:21 the interim superintendent began to name an employee on a recall list and stopped herself (“it’s out of order, I apologize”); that name is not reproduced here.
Agenda
Items as posted in “CSB Agenda 10.6.25”, with the time each was taken up and what the recording shows. Two items printed on the notice were never taken up.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:00 | I. Call to order and Pledge | Agenda: “5:30 PM Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance.” Done. The transcription of the Pledge is garbled and is not quoted. |
| 0:00:47 | II. Roll call | Agenda: “Secretary Roll Call of Attendance of Board Members.” Called by the chair: “And I’m going to do roll call.” Four surnames are transcribed (Howard, Hawkins, Crawford, Whitney) with three unnamed Here responses. By-law 2.05: “the clerk shall call the roll.” |
| 0:00:47 | II.a Consent agenda | Agenda: “Consent Agenda (vote required)”, with amendments and final approval of the agenda, approval of minutes and approval of the manifest. Not taken up. The chair said only “And we have no minutes to review.” No motion, vote or manifest. See flag 5. |
| 0:00:47 | II.b Citizens’ comments | Agenda: “Citizens Comments-Please reference CSB Policy BEDH- Public Comment & Participation at Board Meetings.” Never called; the chair went from the roll to “Go ahead, Miss Kennedy, with the explanation for the meeting.” See flag 1. |
| 0:01:21 | III.1 Approval of Substitute Secretary Position (Discussion/Vote) | Presented by the interim superintendent; moved by Hawkins at 0:04:54, restated at 0:05:28, amended to add “pending a job description” at 0:05:59; carried by voice vote at 0:06:29. No second is audible, no count was taken, and no cost was stated. |
| 0:06:40 | IV. Other business | Three central-office resignations announced; Hawkins raised contracting SAU administrative services and a rewritten assistant superintendent job description, and moved that discussion to the SAU 6 agenda. No vote. See flag 6. |
| 0:11:19 | V. Future dates / agenda items | Agenda: “Claremont School Board Meeting: 10/15/25.” The chair listed metal detectors, staffing, the Maple Avenue Masonic Temple building, the future of Bluff and the budget. |
| 0:12:04 | VI. Adjournment | “If there is no other discussion or no other requests, no other business. Meeting adjourned.” No motion. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological topics. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction. The diarizer merges the chair’s, the superintendent’s and Hawkins’s voices in places, so short replies inside another speaker’s segment are not attributed.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:26 | Why the board met | Whitney: “We only have one item on our agenda this evening. Miss Kennedy called me shortly after our last meeting. We had failed to reinstate a position. Yes. And we need to, as a board, approve of a position that we eliminated before we can reopen that position. Because it doesn’t exist.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:00:47 | Roll call; comment period skipped | “And I’m going to do roll call. Lauren [Loren] Howard here. Hawkins Candace Crawford is here. Here. Here, here. And Heather Whitney is here. And we have no minutes to review. Go ahead, Miss Kennedy, with the explanation for the meeting.” | HIGH OBSERVATION |
| 0:01:40 | The need | “We had an emergency situation with one of the staff members, and it’s a long term absence.” At 0:02:18: “because we already cut one half of every department to begin with. So one person being out now leaves a void and nobody’s there to answer the door.” | |
| 0:02:37 | What the post would do | Coverage, and days off for secretaries: “It would also allow the secretaries to they could take a day off should they need it.” At 0:02:55: “it’s something for the rest of the year that we would have this be a full time position?” Hawkins at 0:03:22: “It’s a roaming secretary.” | |
| 0:04:09 | Cost asked, not answered | Hawkins: “How how much are you taking for that.” Kennedy: “So it’s the full salary and they can pull it up in a minute now.” Hawkins: “It’s just I mean, so it would be a full salary.” Kennedy: “And then some benefits.” No figure was given at any point. | MEDIUM |
| 0:04:26 | Where the person would work | “Where is this person housed?” Answer: “So they could be housed at any school that has supporting needs.” At 0:04:50: “It’s anywhere across the district that we feel there’s a need for coverage at the time.” | |
| 0:04:54 | The motion | Hawkins: “so I move that. We approved the lease, restore the position of substitute secretary.” Kennedy at 0:05:09: “But we, we created this void ourselves.” Restated at 0:05:28: “I move to approve the position of substitute secretary to be used throughout district. And is there going to be a specific job description available.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:05:41 | No job description yet | “That’s what we’re trying to make sure everything is all set with the union and things to right now. So absolutely, and I apologize. We were hoping to get that sooner tonight.” | MEDIUM |
| 0:05:59 | Friendly amendment | Whitney: “May I ask, do you want that to be amended to include pending a job description? … So I am on my motion to include approval of a substitute secretary position pending a job description. Perfect. If there’s no objection to a friendly amendment, you can vote.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:06:29 | The vote | “All in favor? As the motion as described by Miss Hawkins. Say, I. I’m not opposed. Motion is approved.” The transcription is poor; no seconder is named and no count is stated. | OBSERVATION MEDIUM |
| 0:06:40 | Three resignations | “One is from the HR director, Patrick O’Hearn. … And as of October 17th will be his last day.” At 0:07:01: “we also have a resignation from Mr. Kosky [Koski]. This is the superintendent. And so that would be effective October 20th.” At 0:07:47: “the third one is Samantha miller who’s an HR. She was effective October 1st.” Framed as “just a courtesy. Heads up.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:08:08 | Who is left | A merged segment labeled Hawkins: “We only have as far as administrative level staff. True administrative administrative level staffers. Mr. Angel and yourself. … Are we going to talk about any of these positions, none of these positions this evening.” The reply at 0:08:38 (“they were not planned to be on the agenda”) is merged into Hawkins’s segment and is not attributed. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:08:38 | Contracting SAU services | Hawkins: “What I’m wondering is the possibility of because saw [SAU] is changing its nature as of July 1st, perhaps looking at contracting services for the rest of this year.” At 0:09:45: “would you be bringing forward a modified job description for the former assistant superintendent job to say you six [SAU 6], and we can discuss salary at that point in time?” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:09:31 | Why now | Kennedy: “The budget season is coming up. … These are hot off the press is really say. So I want to make sure you get a heads up before we go into that.” Hawkins at 0:09:45: “But we can’t post until we discuss what we’re looking for.” | |
| 0:10:31 | Moved to the SAU 6 agenda | “We can talk about that. In fact we can talk about 30 minutes 15 minutes.” At 0:10:40: “And then the agenda to include under other business because we haven’t been making the decision.” At 0:11:02: “Just a discussion. These are a discussion.” The SAU 6 board, chaired by Hawkins, convened at 6:00 p.m. and added such a discussion item under other business (show 16882). | POSITIVE |
| 0:11:19 | Coming agendas | “Just going to give folks that are in the room and opportunity to let me know … if anybody has anything they would like put on the agenda.” At 0:11:37: “We’re going to be talking about the Maple Avenue Masonic Temple building that was purchased at the next meeting, as well as future plans related to utilization of bluff. … And and budget next, next meeting, which is on the 15th.” | |
| 0:12:04 | Adjourned | “If there is no other discussion or no other requests, no other business. Meeting adjourned.” | 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, as in force on October 6, 2025; an Observation rests on no confirmed rule.
HIGH The agenda promised citizens’ comments and none was offered
RSA 189:74, I: “School boards shall 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. The public comment period shall be for no less than 30 minutes.” The statute excepts only emergency meetings and meetings whose sole purpose is a nonpublic session, and it does not distinguish regular from special meetings. This meeting was noticed three days ahead, was not declared an emergency, and held no nonpublic session. The agenda itself listed “Citizens Comments-Please reference CSB Policy BEDH”, and policy BEDH provides for comment “at all Board meetings” with the same two exceptions. On the recording the chair moved from the roll call straight to the superintendent (0:00:47); at no point was the audience invited to comment. The one invitation to the room, at 0:11:19, asked for future agenda items. By-law 2.04 speaks of comment “at each regular meeting”, but by-law 2.15 gives state law precedence over the by-laws. Whether the 30 minutes is a floor on elapsed time or on the opportunity is not settled by the text; here no opportunity was offered, and the whole recording runs under 13 minutes. That evening, opening the SAU 6 meeting in the same building, Hawkins as chair of that board amended its agenda to add a citizens’ comment period (show 16882).
Sources: RSA 189:74, I–III (2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022); CSB Agenda 10.6.25, item II.b; Policy BEDH; Claremont School Board By-Laws (adopted PDF), rules 2.04 and 2.15.
MEDIUM No minutes were ever produced, and the December catch-up skipped this meeting
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes open to inspection “not more than 5 business days after the meeting”, naming members, persons appearing, the subject matter and final decisions, “the start time and end time of the meeting, and name of the person who produced the minutes” (the last three from August 22, 2025), and the names of the members who made or seconded each motion. Counting from Monday, October 6 and excluding Columbus Day (October 13, a legal holiday), the fifth business day was Tuesday, October 14, 2025. No minutes exist. The meeting created a paid position, and the only record of who voted, who seconded and when the meeting began and ended is this recording.
This is graded under the mitigated limb of the project’s rule for missing records: the meeting was noticed and packeted, only the minutes are missing, and the record explains the gap. The clerk was on maternity leave, and at the October 15 meeting the district announced it was “Seeking individual to transcribe minutes for CSB while clerk in unavailable pay per meeting is $300”, with a candidate to “complete past meeting minutes” (October 15 draft minutes). The approved minutes of December 3, 2025 then approved the minutes of “9/17/25 & 10/1/25, 10/ 15/25, 11/5/25, 11/19/25” and thanked the substitute minute-taker. October 6 is not on that list. The catch-up covered every full-board meeting on either side of this one and left this one out.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025; mover and seconder clause in force throughout); RSA 288:1 (second Monday in October a legal holiday); 10.15.25 DRAFT CSB Meeting Minutes.docx.pdf; 12.3.25 Approved CSB Minutes. Search (MAP.md, 2026-08-29, two stages): the meeting’s folder 9. CSB 10.6.25, later Claremont packet folders, and the Meeting Minutes share.
MEDIUM A full-salary position with benefits was created with no cost stated and no job description, and the packet held only the agenda
Hawkins asked the cost at 0:04:09; the answer was “the full salary” and “some benefits”, with the figures to be pulled up later. None was stated for the rest of the meeting. No job description existed; the superintendent said at 0:05:41 that the district was still settling it “with the union”. The packet folder held one document, the agenda, so a member of the public could learn only the title of the item in advance. By-law 2.09 requires that “Any and all presentations by the administration to the board or any committee shall be contained in the agenda and made available to the public in its original format online”. Nine days later the interim business administrator projected a year-end deficit of “roughly 1.9 million” (October 15 draft minutes). Mitigation: the board made its approval conditional on a job description, and no statute requires a cost estimate before a position is created, which is why this rests on the district’s own by-law.
Sources: Claremont School Board By-Laws (adopted PDF), the second rule numbered 2.09 (agenda itemization and posting of presentations); 9. CSB 10.6.25 (one document); 10.15.25 DRAFT CSB Meeting Minutes.docx.pdf.
OBSERVATION The only motion has no audible second, and the vote no count
By-law 2.07: “When a motion is made and seconded, it shall be considered by the Board and not otherwise.” Its friendly-amendment rule (the first 2.09) likewise begins “when a motion has been made and seconded”. Between the motion at 0:04:54 and the vote at 0:06:29, no second is audible, and the vote was an uncounted voice vote. The by-laws also let the chair adopt a motion “If there is no objection”, and the transcription of this stretch is poor, so a murmured second may have been lost. The statutory duty to record the seconder falls on the minutes (flag 2), which do not exist.
Sources: Claremont School Board By-Laws (adopted PDF), rules 2.07 and 2.09; RSA 91-A:2, II.
OBSERVATION The consent agenda marked “vote required” was never taken up, including the manifest
The agenda lists a “Consent Agenda (vote required)” with agenda approval, minutes and the manifest. None was put to the board; the chair said “And we have no minutes to review.” (0:00:47). The manifest matters most: under RSA 197:23-a the treasurer pays out district money “only upon orders of the school board” or of members it empowers. The October 1 draft minutes record the manifest as “Not addressed at this time”, the October 15 draft minutes say the same, and the December 3 approved minutes record “no manifest this evening”. Whether designated members were signing instead is not answered by this record. The meeting was also adjourned by declaration (0:12:04); by-law 2.07 lists a motion to adjourn as available rather than required, so that is noted only because no end time was recorded anywhere.
Sources: CSB Agenda 10.6.25, item II.a; RSA 197:23-a (treasurer pays only on orders of the board or of 2 or more members it empowers); draft CSB Meeting Minutes 10.1.25.docx.pdf; 10.15.25 DRAFT CSB Meeting Minutes.docx.pdf; 12.3.25 Approved CSB Minutes.
OBSERVATION A special meeting noticed for one item heard two others, and the board kept them to discussion
By-law 2.02: “Except by 2/3rds vote of all members, only matters contained in the notice shall be considered at a special meeting.” The notice named one action item. The board also heard the three resignations (0:06:40–0:07:47) and Hawkins’s proposal on contracting SAU services and the assistant superintendent job description (0:08:38–0:09:45). No two-thirds vote was taken. In the board’s favour: the notice carried an “Other Business” heading; the other 2.09 says items raised under new business “should be informational, requests for future meetings or agenda items”, which both were; nothing was decided; and Hawkins moved her question to the SAU 6 board, which has authority over SAU positions. Against: a heading that names no subject did not tell the public that the district’s human resources office was emptying. The live Google Doc of the by-laws carries the special-meeting sentence inside rule 2.01 rather than as 2.02; this page quotes the adopted PDF.
Sources: Claremont School Board By-Laws (adopted PDF), rules 2.01, 2.02 and 2.09; CSB Agenda 10.6.25; the same evening’s SAU 6 special meeting page.
POSITIVE The board reconvened within days to correct its own error, said so plainly, and conditioned the post on a written description
The chair opened by stating that the board had eliminated a position it needed and had to restore it before it could be filled (0:00:26); the superintendent twice said “we created this void ourselves” (0:05:09, 0:05:26). Members asked the right questions (how many posts, what cost, what benefits, where based, whether a description existed), and the motion was amended to approve the post “pending a job description” (0:05:59). The resignations were announced in open session. The SAU staffing question was moved to the board with authority over it, as a discussion item. Notice went up about 76 hours ahead against a statutory minimum of 24.
Sources: the recording at the timestamps above; RSA 91-A:2, II (notice at least 24 hours in advance).
Appendix — source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: Special School Board Meeting 10/6/25 (show 16881;
eventDate 2025-10-06, run time 774 seconds, per MAP.md)
- Drive folder: 9. CSB 10.6.25 — 1 document
- CSB Agenda 10.6.25
- Minutes: none located (two-stage search recorded in MAP.md, 2026-08-29); not among the sets approved on December 3, 2025.
- Policy BEDH, Public Comment and Participation at Board Meetings (linked from the agenda)
- Exhibit E- Claremont School Board By-Laws .pdf (adopted PDF; a live Google Doc copy differs in numbering and wording)
- Comparators: draft CSB Meeting Minutes 10.1.25.docx.pdf; 10.15.25 DRAFT CSB Meeting Minutes.docx.pdf; 12.3.25 Approved CSB Minutes
- Related pages: SAU 6 Board, Special Meeting, October 6, 2025 (6:00 p.m., show 16882, a different body and meeting); Claremont School Board, October 1, 2025; Claremont School Board, October 15, 2025
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Laws and rules cited on this page
- Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025)
- School boards: RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1); RSA 197:23-a
- Holidays: RSA 288:1
- District rules: Claremont School Board By-Laws 2.01, 2.02, 2.04, 2.05, 2.07, 2.09, 2.15; policy BEDH