Participants
Board roster from the posted agenda (eleven members). No minutes exist, and the recorded roll calls are transcribed as one continuous speech by the chair with members’ answers absorbed into it, so attendance is stated only where the recording supports it.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Arlene Hawkins | SAU 6 Board Chair; Claremont board member | Presided (81 segments). Corrected the agenda’s nonpublic citation and amended the agenda; announced the clerk’s leave; had Whitney withdraw the first nonpublic motion so the resignations could be announced in public; invited the presenter; asked whether Claremont must fill its vacant seat; closed with future dates and a promised auditors’ report. |
| Rocco Ruggeri | SAU 6 Board Vice Chair (per the agenda); Unity member | One attributed segment, answering the sealing roll call: “The advice is to seal Minister five years per the attorney. Yes.” Rendered “Mr. Roger”, “Mr. Jerry” and “Mr. Ruggieri” in the roll calls. |
| Heather Whitney | Claremont School Board Chair; SAU 6 member | Moved the amended agenda, entry into and return from nonpublic session, and the five-year seal; asked how a board can tell whether the financial reports it receives are true (35 segments). |
| Candace Crawford | Claremont board member; SAU 6 member | Interjected on the annual audit; asked what a board may do when requested reports never arrive; raised the members’ signatures on the MS-25 (32 segments). |
| Michael Petrin | Claremont board vice chair; SAU 6 member | Named in the roll calls (“Mr. patron”, “Mr. Peterson”); the chair credits “Mr. Peterson” with seconding the return to public session. No separately attributed speech. |
| William “Bill” Madden | Claremont board member; SAU 6 member | One attributed segment: “Yes” in the sealing roll call. |
| Loren Howard | Claremont board member; SAU 6 member | Named and answering in each roll call (“Mr. Howard? Yes”); no separately attributed speech. |
| Shannon Popescu | SAU 6 member (Unity) | Thanked by the chair for seconding the seal (“Second. Thank you. Shannon.”). No separately attributed speech. |
| Atonya Hart | SAU 6 member (Unity) | The opening roll includes a name rendered “miss Art”, which may be Hart; not confirmed. |
| Darlene Ayotte; Kristel Davis | SAU 6 members (per the agenda) | Not identifiable in the recording. The sealing roll call also contains two renderings, “Mr. Ogier” and “Mr. PJ”, that match no name on the roster. |
| Noelle Kronberg | SAU 6 School Board Clerk | Absent: on maternity leave; the chair announced the birth of her son. |
| Kerry Kennedy | Interim Superintendent, SAU 6 | Called the opening roll; announced three resignations with effective dates; said she and Angell would attend the October 14 Senate hearing (8 segments). |
| Will Phillips | Staff Attorney and Director of Policy Services, NHSBA (invited presenter) | Delivered the roles-and-responsibilities presentation from 0:08:46 to 1:54:11, taking questions throughout: 253 of the 431 dialogue rows. |
| Hope Damon | Citizens’ comments — State Representative | Announced the Senate Education Committee hearing on a revolving loan fund for the Claremont School District, October 14 at 1:00 at Granite Place, and the veto-day route after it (13 segments). |
Named on the record but not heard: Matt Angell (Senior Comptroller; a financial update from him is promised for November 13); Patrick O’Hearn (HR director), Samantha Miller (HR department; “Mr. Mantha Miller” in the transcript, spelled Samantha Miller in the October 15 Claremont minutes) and Michael Koski (Assistant Superintendent), who had resigned; and the district’s attorney, rendered “Sarah Friedman”. Seven rows are labeled “Unidentified board member”.
Agenda
Items as posted in “SAU6 School Board Agenda 10.6.25”, with the chair’s floor correction and amendments. The item list is the agenda’s; the dispositions are from the recording, as no minutes exist.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:06 | I. Call to order; pledge; roll call | “I’d like to call the October 6th, 2025 saw six [SAU 6] school board meeting to order.” Kennedy began the roll at 0:00:39 in the clerk’s absence and the chair finished it: “anyone not here is absent.” |
| 0:01:27 | General business: agenda amendments, minutes, manifests | The chair: “I do have one correction and two amendments. The correction is under discussion item action items number one, nonpublic meeting session RSA 91-A32 [91-A:3, II]. It reads a C and it should read L.” Amendments: citizens’ comments added as item II; an other-business item on SAU-level administrative positions, with “no decision made”. Minutes: “which we don’t have”. Whitney moved the amended agenda at 0:02:39; seconded; voice vote at 0:02:45. Manifests were not taken up on the recording. |
| 0:02:54 | II (new). Citizens’ comments | Opened and closed with no speakers (“Seeing none. I close citizens comments.”). A speaker was later taken at 1:55:07. |
| 0:03:53 | Announcement (not on the posted agenda) | After the chair asked Whitney to withdraw a first nonpublic motion (0:03:37), Kennedy announced the resignations of the HR director, a second HR employee and the assistant superintendent. |
| 0:05:31 | II.1 Nonpublic session, “RSA 91-A:3, II (a, c & i)” on the agenda | Whitney: “I would like to make a motion to move into nonpublic session RSA 91-A colon three. Roman numeral two, subset A, C and L.” Roll call at 0:05:44. Return moved at 0:06:13, roll call. Whitney at 0:06:45: “I would like to make a motion on advice of our attorney, Sarah Friedman, to seal the minutes for five years.” Seconded (Popescu); roll call from 0:06:55. Nothing of the session is recorded. |
| 0:07:27 | III. Roles and Responsibilities of School Boards, Will Phillips, NHSBA (Presentation/Discussion) | Hawkins: “In light of some new members and some potential appointees. I thought it would be a good time to clarify for us, as well as for the public, the roles and responsibilities of school board members.” Presentation and questions to about 1:54:43. No motion arose from it. |
| 1:55:07 | IV. Citizens’ comments (as scheduled) | “I did move citizens comments to the beginning of the meeting, but I see that Representative Damon is here.” One speaker, Rep. Damon. |
| 1:57:54 | V. Future meetings and dates; VI. Other business | Dates as on the agenda, whose SAU 6 entry reads “November 13, 2023” (the year is the agenda’s error; the chair read November 13). Financial update from Angell promised for November 13; an auditors’ report “at a future s a meeting to be determined”. Other business: SAU-level positions left with the superintendent. |
| 1:59:07 | VII. Adjournment | Motion by an unidentified member; voice vote at 1:59:11. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological topics. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction. Statutes named by the presenter are his spoken citations and are not verified on this page.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:57 | The clerk is on leave | “our, saw clerk, who normally takes the minutes, is proud new mama of Leo.” No one is named to take minutes in her place. | MEDIUM |
| 0:01:27 | The chair corrects the notice | “It reads a C and it should read L.” The posted heading reads “(a, c & i)” while the text printed beneath it is that of (a), (c) and (l). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:03:53 | Three resignations from the central office | Kennedy: “I’ve received recently the resignation from Mr. Patrick O’Hearn, the HR director. And that would be effective October 17th.” At 0:04:14: “Mr. Mantha Miller [Samantha Miller] has resigned from the HR department, and that was effective immediately”; “the resignation of Assistant Superintendent Michael Kosky [Koski], and that would be effective October 20th”. At 0:04:53: “it does leave Mr. Angel [Angell] and me, as the remaining doe [SAU office] occupants that are not of the administrative level.” | OBSERVATION POSITIVE |
| 0:05:31 | Nonpublic session and the five-year seal | Chair at 0:05:44: “You need a roll call vote to go into nonpublic.” Seal moved “on advice of our attorney” (0:06:45); Ruggeri at 0:07:12: “The advice is to seal Minister five years per the attorney. Yes.” No ground for the seal is stated. | MEDIUM POSITIVE |
| 0:08:46 | Why the board exists | Phillips: “I know this is not been an easy time for all of you.” At 0:10:45, citing what the transcript renders “RSA 1891 a paragraph one”: “fulfilling that duty is really your only function.” | |
| 0:15:31 | The board acts as a body | “what you can’t delegate to an individual or even to a committee, are those things that should be determined by the board itself.” Exceptions: student discipline hearings and the check manifest, where “either the board approves all payments made by the treasurer or two or more members so authorized by the board to do so” (0:16:25). | |
| 0:16:45 | Governance, not management | “The board’s job is not to run the schools, but to see that they are run well.” At 0:18:50, hiring and evaluating the superintendent is “probably the most important part”. | |
| 0:34:26 | Are policies being followed? | Whitney: “policies are only as so good as if they’re being implemented”; at 0:34:56: “how do we, as boards evaluate whether or not the policies that we put in place as a governing body are actually being actualized and followed?” Phillips at 0:36:48: “have the policy committee require reports on specific policies”. Whitney: “Internal audit, so to speak.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:53:08 | “Make sure you get an annual audit” | Crawford at 0:53:12: “That’s a that’s a major assumption right there. Annual audit.” Phillips at 0:53:21: audits “are the only place that where you’ve got a completely independent person coming in”. Crawford at 0:54:09: “what if a board asks for them and doesn’t receive them?” Phillips: “The board then pulls out the contract”. | POSITIVE |
| 0:56:46 | How can a board tell the reports are wrong? | Whitney: “how do you determine veracity? Like what are the red flags?” At 0:57:12: “we were receiving reports that was not reflective of our actual, financial situation.” Crawford at 0:59:18: “all of us sign an miss 25 [MS-25] … it takes a lot of energy and time for each of us to go back and verify that those numbers on that report are correct.” | POSITIVE |
| 1:00:04 | A finance committee with outside expertise | “the finance committee can involve people other than school board members.” Phillips at 1:01:17: the three such crises in his career all came where there had been no audit “in more than a couple of years”; “Oh, you haven’t had an audit in six years.” Hawkins at 1:02:04: the board should “hone in on the audit”, “because it was discovered in 2019 that those audits weren’t being done.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:22:48 | What leaves a nonpublic session | “if you have taken the confidential information in your official function, then mum’s the word.” “the only thing that comes out of nonpublic session are the minutes” and required actions. | |
| 1:24:17 | Handling complaints | “you get just enough information so that you can meaningfully pass that on to the person who’s responsible” (1:24:51). Asked why gather anything (1:27:47), he answered that “solving problems at the highest level is usually not the best use of resources” (1:28:34). | |
| 1:38:04 | Only nominees may be hired | “unless the superintendent has nominated that person, you can’t hire that person.” Support staff may be approved by the board or delegated, “So at least you know who’s working for you” (1:40:08). | POSITIVE |
| 1:43:52 | The board as a hearing body | “You expect a fair and impartial judge in the room”. A dismissal reversed on arbitration and in Superior Court at 1:48:36: “the person was reinstated. And guess what? You have to have a hearing. Again.” (1:48:57). | |
| 1:49:51 | Right-to-Know slides passed over | “I usually include right to know slides on here. It wasn’t really part of the discussion.” Hawkins: We live in right to know. The section was skipped. | |
| 1:51:04 | Must Claremont fill its vacant seat? | Hawkins: “A member resigned and, we were going to appoint someone. We were not able to do that.” At 1:51:36: “Or can we continue as a even number board from your perspective?” Phillips at 1:51:46: “there’s no absolute requirement that you fill it, depending on the challenges that a district is facing.” See the October 1 Claremont page. | |
| 1:55:36 | Revolving loan fund hearing | Damon: “the hearing before the Senate Education Committee on the proposal to create a revolving revolving loan fund for the Claremont School District is next Tuesday, the 14th at 1:00”. At 1:56:57: “the Senate will take it up on their veto day, which is October 23rd. If the Senate passes it, then the House will take it up on our veto day, which is December 17th.” Kennedy at 1:57:42: she and Angell “are prepared to go to that meeting on October 14th”. | |
| 1:58:21 | An auditors’ report, date to be set | Hawkins: “there will be an audit report presented by the auditors at a future s a meeting to be determined. But that will happen. And they do understand that they need to have everything up to date by June 30th.” | 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.
MEDIUM No minutes of this meeting exist in any district share
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to be “promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting,” naming the members, persons appearing, the mover and seconder of each motion, and, from August 22, 2025, the start and end time and the “name of the person who produced the minutes.” An SAU board is a public body under RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d). The chair announced at 0:00:57 that the clerk “who normally takes the minutes” was on leave, and no one was designated in her place. The search was two-stage, as recorded in MAP.md (2026-08-26) and not repeated for this page: the meeting’s own folder, 11. SAU6 10.6.25, holds only the agenda; the later SAU 6 folders 12. SAU6 11.13.25 (drafts for June 12, August 21 and September 4, 2025 only), 13. SAU6 4.9.26 and 14. SAU6 5.28.26 hold no minutes of this meeting; the Claremont Meeting Minutes share holds no SAU 6 file in any year folder. The consequence is sharper than usual: the recording omits the nonpublic session, and its roll calls are too garbled to establish attendance. Severity: the MEDIUM limb applies because the meeting was noticed and packeted and only the minutes are missing; the clerk’s leave, stated on the record, explains the gap but did not relieve the board of the duty.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025; text read 2026-09-25); RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (school administrative units are public bodies); folder 11. SAU6 10.6.25.
MEDIUM Nonpublic minutes sealed for five years with no statutory ground stated in public
Under RSA 91-A:3, III, nonpublic minutes “shall 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” (statute). The recorded vote was taken in public (0:06:55), but the only ground spoken was the source of the advice: “on advice of our attorney, Sarah Friedman, to seal the minutes for five years” (0:06:45), and Ruggeri’s vote “per the attorney” (0:07:12). No member said which of the statutory determinations the board was making. Mitigation: the session was entered under II(a) and II(c), and the reputation ground is one of the statute’s own; counsel may have identified it; and the determination may be recorded in the sealed minutes. Because no public minutes exist, the public record contains no determination at all.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, II(a), II(c), III (2023, 189:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023; text read 2026-09-25).
OBSERVATION The posted agenda named the emergency-functions exemption; the board meant the legal-advice exemption
The agenda heads its nonpublic item “RSA 91-A:3, II (a, c & i)” and then prints the text of (a), (c) and (l) (agenda). Paragraph II(i) concerns preparation for emergency functions; II(l) is “Consideration of legal advice provided by legal counsel” (statute). The chair corrected the letter from the chair at 0:01:27, before any motion, and the motion at 0:05:31 named (a), (c) and (l). RSA 91-A:3, I(b) attaches the specific-exemption requirement to the motion, which was correct; no verified rule governs how an agenda must cite an exemption. The point is that a reader of the posted notice saw two different third grounds, and the correction reached only the room.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(i), II(l); SAU6 School Board Agenda 10.6.25.
OBSERVATION Three resignations leave two central-office staff; the auditors’ report has no date
Kennedy reported at 0:03:53 and 0:04:14 the resignations of the HR director (effective October 17), a second HR employee (effective October 1) and the assistant superintendent (effective October 20), leaving “Mr. Angel and me” (0:04:53). The board deferred replacements to the superintendent. At the close (1:58:21) the chair said an audit report would be presented “at a future s a meeting to be determined”, and earlier (1:02:04) that “it was discovered in 2019 that those audits weren’t being done.” RSA 194-C:4, II(a) lists audits among the services an SAU must provide, but before July 1, 2026 no statute set an SAU audit deadline (the SAU audit duty in RSA 198:4-d, VI arrived with 2026 N.H. Laws ch. 272). No verified rule sets SAU staffing levels. Recorded as a capacity observation.
Sources: RSA 194-C:4, II(a); 2026 N.H. Laws ch. 272 (SB 586), approved July 2, 2026, eff. July 1, 2026 (post-dates this meeting; cited only to show no earlier SAU audit deadline).
POSITIVE A board in a financial crisis held its training in public and put its own failures into the questions
The chair said the session was to clarify roles “for us, as well as for the public” (0:07:27), and it was broadcast. Members used it to state what had gone wrong: Crawford on the annual audit (0:53:12) and on reports requested and not received (0:54:09); Whitney that the board “were receiving reports that was not reflective of our actual, financial situation” (0:57:12); Crawford that members sign the MS-25 without the means to verify it (0:59:18). The presenter also put on the record that a board can hire only whom the superintendent nominates (1:38:04), which is the rule of RSA 189:39. No law required any of this to be done in open session.
Sources: RSA 189:39 (superintendents nominate and school boards elect all teachers); the recording at the timestamps above.
POSITIVE Personnel news announced before the door closed, and the nonpublic session entered by roll call on a motion naming the exemptions
When Whitney first moved into nonpublic session, the chair asked her to withdraw the motion (0:03:37): “We do have some announcements from Superintendent Kennedy that she would like to make before we move into nonpublic”. The three resignations were then announced in public with names and effective dates. The motion that followed named paragraph II and the subparagraphs (0:05:31); the chair required a roll call (0:05:44); the return and the seal were each roll-called. That is what RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires: a motion that states “on its face the specific exemption” and a vote “by roll call” (statute).
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b).
Appendix — source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: Special SAU #6 Board Meeting - 10/6/25 (show 16882)
- Drive folder: 11. SAU6 10.6.25 — 1 document, in the SAU 6 Schoolboard Packets share
- SAU6 School Board Agenda 10.6.25 the “(a, c & i)” heading and “November 13, 2023” are the district’s
- Minutes: none located (two-stage search recorded in MAP.md, 2026-08-26; see flag 1). Nonpublic minutes: sealed on the record.
- Same-evening Claremont meeting: folder 9. CSB 10.6.25 with CSB Agenda 10.6.25; recording show 16881
- Related pages: Claremont, October 1, 2025; Claremont special, October 6, 2025; SAU 6, November 13, 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:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025); RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(a), II(c), II(i), II(l), III (2023, 189:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023)
- School administrative units and staff: RSA 194-C:4, II(a); RSA 189:39
- Session law (post-dates the meeting): 2026 N.H. Laws ch. 272 (SB 586), approved July 2, 2026, eff. July 1, 2026, reenacting RSA 198:4-d