Claremont School Board Transparency Project

Sample conversations showing CSBTP’s recite-and-cite answers across Claremont School Board records and NHDOE iPlatform data

by Kevin Tyson
Jan 26, 2026

Introduction

The Claremont School Board Transparency Project (CSBTP) is an attempt to employ modern information management tools and techniques to assist in the governance of the Claremont School District with an acceptable level of democracy. As I have described elsewhere, “Can Information Technology Save Democracy in a Small Town?”, “Field Guide to the Elites of Claremont““and “Procedures With Gravity: Michels’s Iron Law Meets Claremont”, the Claremont School Board is an oligarchy over which local elites contend. The organization’s structure, processes, and procedures serve to insulate the oligarchy from citizen input. The website is structured to make it difficult to achieve anything more than the most myopic view.

But they do produce a fair amount of agendas, minutes, reports, and a small amount of structured information on their websites and Google Drive repository. The New Hampshire Department of Education (NGDOE) provides open access to an extensive compendium of information through its iPlaform service. CSBTP is based on snapshots of these two sources of information. It is a ChatGPT-based research assistant.

The Data

The NHDOE data was obtained from iPlatform on December 7, 2025. This data is relatively static and will be updated when the NHDOE publishes updated data. This data is in Excel workbooks, each containing one or more worksheets. These were aggregated into a single workbook containing all of the source worksheets and a manifest that mapped source file names to internal worksheet names. Doing so reduced the number of files the research assistant had to process.

CSB data was captured from the SAU6 website and Google Drive folders on Jnuary 23rd, 2026. Adobe Acrobat was used to package the individual PDF files into larger collections, sized to strike a balance between the maximum file size (250MB) and the maximum number of files (15).

The Research Assistant

ChatGPT is the platform hosting the research assistant. It can be found in OpenAI’s GPT directory by searching for CSBTP. It is free to use. I derive no income from this. One must have an OpenAI account to run ChatGPT, but only a free account is required.

Some Common Questions:

• What is a “research assistant”?

  • It is an AI application built using ChatGPT that has been extended by the data listed above. That data is the first source of information it consults. Because of this, response times are slower than in other applications, as it has to read all the documents to respond to your prompts. The trade-off is that it doesn’t make things up; it recites and cites the record. That said, AI is just as vulnerable to Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) as any other information-processing system, and the government has provided all this information.
    

• Will this be kept up to date?

  • Yes, I will add the new PDFs that the district publishes weekly.
    
    

How To Use It

1. If you don’t already have one, get a ChatGPT free account from OpenAI.

2. Start a chat using this link; it should open a screen that looks like this.

3. Click on one of the four conversation starters or try one of the conversations listed in Sample Conversations.
   

Under The Covers

CSBTP has instructions and associated files. The following is CSBTP’s response to the prompt: “Explain how the instructions and files work with this GPT.”

How “instructions” and “files” work together in this GPT

1) Instructions = the rules of how I respond

These are the standing rules baked into this GPT’s setup. They do things like:

• Set formatting constraints (for example: you asked for no em dash).

• Require source-grounded answers (you asked that I always cite sources whenever I’m using documents or external info).

• Define special terms: in this GPT’s configuration, “iPlatform” means the contents of iPlatform20251207-clean.xlsx (even though your PDFs also use the word “iPlatform” to refer to the NH DOE portal, so I treat that as a separate meaning unless you tell me otherwise).

• Control tool choice: when your question is about the uploaded documents, I prioritize searching those files first; when your question needs fresh public info, I use web browsing.
  

2) Files = the evidence base I can pull from

You uploaded PDFs (committee minutes, packets, policies, budgets, salaries, and more) plus an Excel workbook. I can:

• Search inside PDFs to find the exact page or lines that answer your question, then cite them.

• Extract figures and tables and summarize or compare them.

• Do spreadsheet analysis on the Excel file (filtering, pivoting, totals, trend checks) and then describe results with clear references to what I used.
  

For example, your packet PDFs include financial schedules with totals and line items that I can cite directly when asked about revenues, expenditures, or variances. They also include policy text, which I can quote or summarize while citing the exact lines.

3) What you will see when you ask something

When you ask a question, I generally do this:

1. Search the uploaded files for the relevant section(s).

2. Answer using the exact content found.

3. Add citations that point to the document and line range, like:
   :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}
   

If you ask something like “What does the packet say about adequacy aid sources?” I can point to the specific lines where that appears.
If you ask, “What were total revenues in that schedule?” I can cite the line with the total.

If you want, tell me a sample question you expect to ask often (budget, policy, staffing, committee work), and I will show you exactly how I would answer it using your files and citations.

How to Extend CSBTP

As with any other interaction with ChatGPT, you are free to add your own information in the form of PDF, Microsoft Office, documents, JSON files, or other structured data. This added information can be used in prompts that reference both the information you supply and the information baked into CSBTP.

If you would like assistance in applying these techniques to your school district, please reach out to me via the messaging form below.

Sample Conversations

This section contains some illustrative conversations with CSBTP.

• How do employee salaries in Claremont compare to the state-wide data in iPlatform?

• Where can I find the definition of per-pupil expenditure used by the NH DOE?

• List All References To Stipend

• Create a table that lists the events of the Claremont School District Budget Crisis, and the members of the school board who participated at each stage.
  

How do employee salaries in Claremont compare to the state-wide data in iPlatform?

According to New Hampshire Department of Education iPlatform salary reports for school year 2024-2025 (most notably the Teacher Average Salary report dated January 30, 2025), Claremont’s teacher pay is below the statewide average, while several SAU administrative salaries are above statewide benchmarks.

What the iPlatform data shows (Claremont vs statewide)

Teachers (average salary, 2024-2025)

• Claremont: $57,714

• State average (reported): $69,531.78

• Difference: -$11,818 (about -17.0% vs the state average)

• Claremont’s position statewide: about the 29th percentile among districts (district-level comparison).
  

Principals (2024-2025 report; salaries labeled “2025”)

• Principals (full-time): Claremont's average is very close to the statewide mean (slightly lower).

• Assistant principals (full-time): Claremont's average is below the statewide mean and median.
  

SAU administration (2024-2025 report; salaries labeled “2025”)

• Senior Education Official: Claremont is above the statewide mean and median.

• Assistant Senior Education Official: Claremont is near the statewide center (below the median).

• Business Administrator: Claremont is well above the statewide mean and median (high percentile).
  

Where can I find the definition of per-pupil expenditure used by the NH DOE?

NH DOE publishes the definition on its School and District Profiles “Glossary of Terms” page. Look up “Cost Per Pupil” (this is NH DOE’s per-pupil expenditure metric on the profiles site). (myNHDOE)

That glossary states that Cost Per Pupil is based on current expenditures from the district’s Annual Financial Report (DOE-25), with these key adjustments:

• Cost per pupil = (current expenditures − tuition − transportation − net food service revenue) ÷ ADM in attendance

• Capital and debt service are excluded because they are not “current expenditures.” (myNHDOE)
  

You can also see the same definition repeated on NH DOE’s Financial Reports page (Cost per pupil section) and in the notes on NH DOE’s published cost-per-pupil report PDFs. (New Hampshire Department of Education)

List All References To Stipend

According to documents dated November 15, 2023, through December 22, 2025, the uploaded packets include the following references to stipends.

CSB meeting minutes

• SREA MOU Stipend (11.15.23 CSB Meeting Minutes)

  • Special Education teachers paid a stipend for additional case load (percentage of salary); if the position is filled, the case load/stipend would drop.

  • Athletic Director changed to a part-time, stipend position; stipend is $8,500.

  • The board moved to a non-public session to discuss the special education stipend MOU; later, it requested that the Superintendent take the MOU request regarding special educator stipends back to the union for reconsideration.

• Potential audit-related discussion (11.5.25 DRAFT CSB minutes)

  • Mentions speaking with law enforcement, specifically regarding stipends, and recommending hiring a forensic auditor.

• SREA Contract Ratification discussion (11.20.24 CSB meeting minutes)

  • Mentions wanting to increase the pay for the teacher mentor stipend.

• Professional Development discussion (6.18.25 CSB meeting minutes)

  • Notes that teachers get a small stipend for participating (title funded).
    

Finance subcommittee/finance committee minutes (compiled in the Finance Sub Committee PDF)

• Mentions removing a “stipend for mileage in the Superintendent’s office.”

• Mentions a “Health salaries stipend” (context: no nurse at the tech center, nurse comes over from CMS).

• Stipends review and elimination discussion

  • Conducting a full review of stipends identifies non-board-approved stipends outside CBAs; reports that all LEA stipends are being eliminated; some stipends are as large as $10k/year; developing a matrix for equity.
    

Budget / line-item references

• “Mileage Stipend” appears as a budget line item (account 100.40.2321.292.5.00000) showing $4,250.00.

Source files: CSB Packets part A.pdf, CSB Packets part B.pdf, CSB Packets part D.pdf, Claremont Finance Sub Committee .pdf

Create a table that lists the events of the Claremont School District Budget Crisis, and the members of the school board who participated at each stage.

According to a document from August 14, 2025, the Claremont School District described a developing cash-flow and deficit crisis that led to emergency financial planning, borrowing discussions, and multiple special meetings.

Conclusion

If you have any problems, suggestions, comments, or criticisms of this GPT, I can be reached by using the message form below.

Photo Credit: Jesse Mann, "Message in a Small Bottle"