Innovation school questions

Question if this would allow for innovation at the new North High
Mulqueen: the original thinking has been around the South quadrant (coming out of readiness schools), timing of North in line with innovation schools. "It may be that the school committee says this makes sense" for North as well
Question: what's the goal?
"always looking for how to boost student performance...might bring to the table some new thinking from teachers..to launch some really good practices..freedom, flexibility, self-governance...doing what they think is best...flexibilities built in that maybe other schools wouldn't have"
Flexibility in what manner?
Budget, staffing, curriculum, professional development, scheduling
who would be in charge of the school if the proposal gets in approved?
could be several models, says Mulqueen: maybe an assistant principal, another entity, (other places have teacher committees that run schools, though he doesn't mention this)
Mulqueen points out that teachers must opt in
what if the idea gets approved but no teachers opt in?
Staffing has to be part of the plan: no viability without teachers to staff

EAW president Len Zaluskas: why have I never been informed of this, the screening committee, why haven't you gone to South to have these conversations?
Mulqueen: "for me to go there, that was by invitation"
"I'm still open to doing that...I don't jump over the principal and his or her responsibilities with their staff; it's for them to talk about it with their staff"
"this is a proposal...we're just starting off here..the school committee could say, we're not really interested...haven't actually started the work...if you could just have a clean slate, what would that look like...if we got approval from the school committee, then it could move forward"
"my work to this point has been just to keep up with the legislation"
Zaluskas: Reville said if the building and the staff are the same, then it's not a new school
"if it went forward that way, it would be a real issue for us"
"how much funding is involved in this, and is the funding coming from Race to the Top?"
there is no funding
Zaluskas: you still want to start a school at South High?
Mulqueen: won't push past the principals
not every school needs to be an innovation school
a lot of good work over at Sullivan, for example
Zaluskas: you don't really know how many schools you want to do with this
Mulqueen: not for me
Zaluskas: should proceed cautiously, control model, try one and see how it works, "doing any more would be asking hastily"
O'Connell says it had been our intent for the EAW to invited, also reads from the regulations regarding conversion of existing schools