Claremont School Board & City Council, Joint Meeting — September 28, 2017
Joint meeting of the Claremont School Board and the Claremont City Council, presided over by Mayor Charlene Lovett, summarized from the Claremont Community Television recording and its speaker-attributed transcript; no school-side agenda, packet or minutes are posted in the district's online shares, and the city's records were not inspected. The two bodies heard updates on state legislation and the lead-poisoning bill SB 247, the school lead-screening policy and city screening results, the district's Gear Up grant, the One for All family center and a free preschool with transportation, and workforce training; the superintendent described the district's response to the late-August incident, and the mayor framed a shared commitment to "cultural change". The planned poverty discussion was deferred to a December 14 meeting. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
Bodies
Claremont School Board (seven members) and Claremont City Council (nine members, including the mayor), meeting jointly; the mayor presided
Date
Thursday, September 28, 2017 (date from the Cablecast title and file name)
Start time
Not stated on the recording. When the next joint meeting is set for December 14, a member says it "is at 630 again" (2:17:39), which suggests this meeting was also called for 6:30 p.m. Pledge at 0:00:20; joint roll call at 0:00:53; adjournment vote at 2:17:49. The recording runs 2:17:57.
Location
Not stated on the recording, and no notice or agenda is available.
School side: none located in the district's public shares, which hold nothing older than 2022 (MAP.md section 41, checked 9/26/26). City side: the city clerk's records were not inspected for this page. Approval of earlier joint-meeting minutes was tabled at this meeting (0:01:23).
Board composition
The joint roll (0:00:53) calls all seven school board members (Adrian, Pierce, Sprague, Zullo, Petrin, Irish, Rapp) and council members Towle, Pope (heard as "Scott. Keith"), Damren, Abigail [Kier], Temple, Nicholas and Simonds, with the mayor answering last (0:01:20). The responses run together in the transcript, so individual attendance is not fully established; each body's quorum is not separately confirmed on the record.
Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part. Names follow the project's dialogue file and the 2015 to 2023 roster; no minutes were available to check spellings against. Where the dialogue file says Unidentified, this page does too.
Name
Role
Participation
Charlene Lovett
Mayor, presiding
Ran the agenda; reported the legislative strategy workshop, SB 247 and city lead-screening results; framed the joint commitment to "cultural change" (2:03:45); set the poverty topic and the December 14 date.
Allen Damren
Assistant Mayor
Reported on the legislative workshop's outreach ideas (0:03:08) and a planned November 13 public forum (0:10:43). Medium-high confidence.
Carolyn Towle
City Councilor
Asked about the district's attendance rate (0:48:29). Medium-high confidence. (She later joined the school board, in March 2018, per the roster.)
Scott Pope
City Councilor; instructor at the regional technical center
Described a visit by Congresswoman Kuster, workforce training and soft skills (1:20:36, 1:36:36). The roll call's "Scott. Keith" is probably a garble of his name.
Nicholas (surname not on the record)
City Councilor
Spoke as a restaurant owner about soft skills (1:43:00); directed people to the demonstration's online event page (2:03:23). Medium-low confidence.
Abigail [Kier], Bruce Temple, John Simonds (spelling unverified)
City Councilors
Called on the joint roll; no attributed speech.
Brian Rapp
School Board Chair
Called on the roll; no speech securely attributed. The dialogue file suggests a school board voice that deferred Adrian and called the adjournment vote may be his.
Chris Irish, Frank Sprague, Michael Petrin
School Board members
Called on the roll; no attributed speech.
Patrick Adrian
School Board member
Asked whether SB 247's child-care provisions reach schools (0:39:30); spoke on soft skills (1:45:28); promoted the October 5 anti-bullying event (2:00:19).
Rebecca Zullo
School Board member
Urged attention to students' non-technical skills (1:38:59).
Michelle Pierce
School Board member
Praised the new food service; described her own trades training and asked about adult training (1:32:52). Low-confidence attribution; the dialogue file notes it could be Councilor Kier.
Middleton McGoodwin
Superintendent, SAU 6
Reported the lead-screening policy and its planned revisit, the new food service, Gear Up and the five-year growth goal, and the district's response to the late-August incident (1:50:58).
Cory LeClair
Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6
Presented the One for All family center, summer meals, 55% free and reduced lunch, and the preschool program (0:50:04 onward).
John Cottier (spelling unverified)
State Representative; Ward 1 resident
Arrived late; reported on the House Finance work session on SB 247 (0:34:01).
Jason Benware
Member of the public, Ward 1
Asked about lead-testing trends and housing (0:30:53); spoke on affordable housing (1:31:02); described the October 5 anti-bullying event (2:01:58). Transcribed as "Ben", "Bender". (He joined the school board in March 2018, per the roster.)
Bernie Falter (spelling unverified)
Member of the public (ward as heard: "One, three")
Commented on automation and the future of work (1:24:36).
Unidentified
Several voices at the table
Asked for plain-language summaries of bills (0:08:53); asked for context on lead numbers; asked that the next agenda use memos for updates (2:16:34); moved adjournment.
Citizens' Forum
None recorded
The mayor opened the forum for non-agenda items, five minutes each (0:01:23); "Seeing none" (0:01:47). Members of the public spoke later during agenda items.
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this meeting is posted in the district's online shares, and the city's agenda was not inspected, so this order of business is reconstructed from the mayor's transitions on the recording.
September 15 legislative strategy workshop, a city legislative web page, the state education-funding committee, SB 247 in House Finance, and a DRA forum on November 13.
Gear Up, One for All, summer meals, preschool, workforce training; public comment from two residents; adult training to go on the next agenda (1:37:21).
Motion, a second recorded as "Michelle Pierce", voice vote (2:17:49, 2:17:54).
Discussion timeline
Chronological topics from the dialogue file. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording. Quotations are the transcript as recorded, ASR errors included. This page does not repeat details about the child involved in the August incident.
The September 15 workshop with area representatives and "Senator Martha Hennessy" (0:02:48). The state committee on education funding will look at "how does the state ensure that it's providing adequate providing funding for an adequate education?" (0:06:28). SB 247 on childhood lead poisoning is in House Finance because of a fiscal note of "I believe the amount was $3 million" (0:07:49, the mayor's description). A member asks for plain summaries of bills (0:08:53).
McGoodwin: "This lead screening policy was approved this past April." (0:13:34). After one parent's privacy concern "the school board is going to revisit the lead policy" (0:16:30) and "perhaps consider an opt out phrase" (0:16:55). New food service company this year.
Lovett: "We screened over 40 children." (0:22:46). The CDC recommends "no more than five micrograms per deciliter. The state threshold is ten." (0:24:13). The community has been "averaging every month as a community, 3 to 4 children being poisoned." (0:24:53). "84.1% of our housing stock in Claremont is built prior to 1978" (0:33:32). Figures are the mayor's statements.
Cottier: he attended the work session; "The full committee will probably not vote on the bill till sometime in November. They have until November 16th." (0:34:23). Adrian asks whether child-care provisions reach schools (0:39:30). Status as reported by the representative; not verified for this page.
McGoodwin: "Gear up is a is a federal grant." The district's goal: "100% of our students will demonstrate measurable growth." (0:43:27). Towle asks about attendance (0:48:29).
LeClair: "we have 55% free and reduced lunch across our district, so we have 1812 total students" (1:04:14). The One for All space "it's all grant funded" and "not in the local school budget" (1:16:12).
"We project to have 77 preschool children by the end of the school year." (1:07:29). "34 students who do not have disabilities and 18 students with disabilities" (1:08:31). "we also are the first district in the state offering transportation for our preschool program." (1:09:33, her characterization).
Pope on the Kuster visit and apprenticeships. Falter on automation (1:24:36). Benware: "there's very little decent, affordable housing" (1:31:32). Pierce asks about adult trades training (1:32:52); Lovett puts it on the next agenda (1:37:21). Zullo and Adrian on soft skills (1:38:59, 1:45:28).
McGoodwin: "It has been, an unprecedented time." He first heard of the incident from a reporter on August 29 (1:51:05); on September 11 "I put out a phone message" (1:52:08); a vigil at Broad Street Park on September 12 (1:52:33). "I believe what has occurred does deal with race." (1:54:27); an "opportunity to establish a serious commitment to engagement" (1:55:16); "I don't believe the answer is to have a guest speaker come in" (1:57:13).
A board voice asks Adrian to defer to a school board meeting; Adrian: "It wasn't about the school board level." (2:00:19) and invites participation. Benware describes people "Holding up signs suggest, you know, don't bully signs" as middle- and high-school students walk home on October 5 (2:01:58, 2:02:18). The October 4 school board page records the principal's objection to the same event.
Lovett: "what we've all been talking about is a cultural change in which violence, racism, discrimination is not tolerated." (2:03:45). The school board will review bullying policies; the council will ask whether "our governing bodies, representative of the population in our community?" (2:05:58). "there is an agreement upon these with these two governing bodies" (2:08:00).
Lovett asks each member to "identify three top contributors to poverty" (2:10:26): "Everybody from the city council, please send your three top three ideas to, Dora." (2:11:15).
Joint meetings are "usually every three months" (2:14:49); next on December 14 (2:16:24). A member asks that updates come "in a memo for updates" so the time goes to discussion (2:16:34); Lovett asks for help with "the supporting documentation" (2:17:22).
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on September 28, 2017, cited as it then read. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. 3 flags follow, ordered by severity.
OBSERVATION No school-side agenda or minutes is online, and the city's records were not inspected
A joint meeting is two public bodies meeting together, each with its own notice and minutes duties and its own quorum. MAP.md section 41 records that neither district Drive share holds anything older than 2022 (checked 9/26/26); that is a limit of what the district posts online, not evidence that records were never made. The city's notice, agenda and minutes would sit in the city clerk's system, which was not searched for this page, so no city-side negative is stated. The recording itself shows minutes being kept for joint meetings: approval of earlier minutes was tabled (0:01:23). RSA 91-A:2, II as it read in 2017 required minutes naming members and "persons appearing before the public bodies", with a brief description of the subject matter and final decisions, open to inspection "not more than 5 business days after the meeting". The joint roll call (0:00:53) is too run together to confirm each body's quorum separately. The project's missing-records rule is applied on its online-availability limb.
OBSERVATION Members were asked to send their views on the next topic to a staff member between meetings
To frame the poverty discussion, the mayor asked each member to "identify three top contributors to poverty" and to send them to a staff member within the week (2:10:26, 2:11:15, 2:11:31); a councilor asked that everyone receive the compiled list (2:10:52). RSA 91-A:2-a, unchanged since 2008, provides that public bodies "shall deliberate on matters only in meetings" and that communications outside a meeting "shall not be used to circumvent the spirit and purpose" of the chapter. Gathering members' suggestions to set an agenda is ordinary preparation, and the stated purpose was to pick a focus at the next public meeting. It is recorded because the same exercise, if the compiled list circulated among a quorum and narrowed the choice before the meeting, would be the kind of sequential communication the statute addresses; publishing the compiled list with the agenda materials would answer that concern. What happened next is not shown in the corpus.
POSITIVE Residents were heard during the agenda discussion, not only at the opening forum
No one spoke at the Citizens' Forum (0:01:47), but the mayor and members recognized residents during the lead and workforce items: Jason Benware on lead-testing trends and housing (0:30:53, 1:31:02) and Bernie Falter on automation (1:24:36), with councilors responding on the record (1:31:02, 1:36:36). No New Hampshire statute in force in 2017 required a public comment period at these meetings (the thirty-minute comment rule of RSA 189:74 for school boards dates from 2022), so taking public questions within the discussion goes beyond what the law then required.
Sources: the recording at the times cited. RSA 189:74 as enacted by 2022, 333:1 (eff. Sept. 6, 2022), cited only to date the later rule.
No Drive material: neither the Claremont nor the SAU 6 share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (MAP.md section 41, checked 9/26/26). The City of Claremont's notice, agenda and minutes for this joint meeting were not inspected.
New Hampshire statutes, as in force on September 28, 2017.RSA 91-A:2, II (2016 codification, in force for all of 2017) (notice and minutes). RSA 91-A:2-a (unamended since 2008) (deliberation only in meetings). RSA 189:74 (2022, 333:1) is named only to show that no comment-period statute applied in 2017. SB 247 (2017) is described as speakers reported it; its status and later enactment were not verified for this page.