Dear Claremont Community,

Thank you for your support as we transitioned Bluff Elementary into both Disnard and Maple Avenue Schools last week.  We absolutely appreciate all the teachers, paraprofessionals, and staff for their amazing work during this transition! We recognize that this has presented additional challenges for families, and we truly appreciate your patience and support.  We thank you for also allowing us to work out a few kinks with the busing situation.  Once Officer Simonds made us aware of the need for more support, I sent Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Chennette to assist with the bus transitions for the mornings and afternoons.  We do hope this has been smoother. If not, please let us know. 

A giant shout-out to Steve Holt, Cash Caswell, and the entire maintenance and custodial teams, including John Bonneville, John Spencer, Melissa Raymond, Ed Gregory, Fran,  Eric Dubreuil, Diane Mallett, RJ Johnson, Mark Perry, and Nolan Roy, for their hard work and dedication in facilitating the move of Bluff Elementary School into Disnard and Maple Avenue Schools.  They worked for days to ensure that items were moved and ready for the first day in their new homes on Tuesday, October 14th. Thank you!

As mentioned during the Claremont School Board meeting, we have a few announcements.  First, I would like to thank Ms. Jennifer O’Neill, as she has accepted the offer of Interim CMS Principal for the remainder of the year.  She and Ms. Courtney Steele, Assistant Principal, will be at the helm of CMS.  I am grateful to both of them for carrying forward our CMS work.  I know that they will work closely with all students, staff, family, and community members.  Ms. Laura Labrie will also be at CMS as the School Nurse, first on a part-time basis, but should be full-time beginning in January.  We thank her for this transition and for the support from the other nurses.  

Today is Assistant Superintendent Michael Koski’s last day at SAU #6.  We thank him for his years of service and wish him well in his future endeavors.

Patrick O’Hearn and Samantha Miller have left our SAU # 6 offices, but we are pleased to welcome Chelsea Weatherford as the Acting Interim HR Manager.  Thank you for your patience as Ms. Weatherford is transitioning into this new role and also assisting as my Executive Assistant.  We thank Chelsea for jumping right back into HR and this new role.  Additionally, we will be working in conjunction with Primex Insurance to complete an HR Audit and determine the next steps for our HR office and its needs.  Please contact cweatherford@sau6.org if needed.  We also welcomed back Ms. Heidi Sprague as the SAU #6 Billing Specialist.  She is back on Broad Street and began looking at Medicaid and other billing needs.  Welcome back!

Soon, we will be conducting a Technology Audit to review all of our subscriptions and costs.  We want our teachers and students to access the tools that they need for learning, but we also want to be as cost-effective as possible. There will be more on this as we complete this assessment.  

We will soon be sharing the personnel list with salaries and benefits.  We are first ensuring that our attorneys approve the column headings.  The board members did receive this list at Wednesday’s Claremont School Board Meeting.  There will be a link to this on our SAU # 6 website, and it will be included in our Annual Report each year.

We continue to thank Mr. Dick Girard,  Ms. Carolyn LeBlanc, Mr. George Ward, and so many others for their ongoing work in support of donations, in-kind goods and services, and money for all of our programs and schools.  We will soon have an updated list of what has been donated and by whom.

I personally saw the massive Durgin and Crowell donation of 2,000 board feet of lumber brought to CMS by the McAllister and transported by Moote Property management.  Mr. Hill and his students worked with Ms. Ferland to unload, move, and stack all of these boards last week.  We thank you for keeping our programming moving forward.  The pine lumber is a fantastic width, and it cuts easily, allowing students to practice joinery such as half lap, miter, and box joints.  The 8th graders are already using the wood to build boxes inspired by the classic ‘6 board box’ design.  Again, we thank you for this donation for Industrial Arts at CMS. 

We continue to work on our tax assessment projection. Mr. Angell has shared that the amount for the tax rate to be set could be upwards of 9% with the low amount at 6%.  We will share the final amount as soon as possible.   We will have a longer communication about this number in a future memo.  Mr. Matt Angell, Mr. James O’Shaughnessey, and I presented the Claremont Revolving Loan Fund information at the Senate Education Committee Hearing on October 14, 2025, in Concord at 1 Granite Place.  Also present in the Hearing was the House Education Funding Committee.  We thank all of the senators and representatives for their support, especially Senator Ward, for allowing this bill to be presented.  During the Hearing, we shared a PowerPoint presentation on the Claremont Financial Crisis in support of our Bridge Loan request, which aims to help us access State Adequacy Aid ahead of schedule, on a revolving basis, thereby providing a buffer to cover our current and future bills.  We met with members from the House and Senate, and the Commissioner of Education and the State Treasurer were also in attendance.  No action was taken that day, and the vote was deferred until a later date.  Finally, we shared that the former Business Administrator, Ms. Mary Henry, is on unpaid leave. 

Kerry S. Kennedy, Interim Superintendent SAU #6