September Board of Ed: comments from Secretary, Commissioner, Chair, election of vice chair

 ..and housekeeping...

agenda is still here

Tutwiler: lift up beginning of new school year
"seems to be incredible optimism"
excited 'because we believe what the budget will do for public schools"
full funding of phase of SOA, free school meals, early college
budget "that acknowledges that every child deserves an education, yes, but...deserves an education for a future that they so choose"

Riley: echo strong opening
echo free school meals for all
"great step...so they can thrive"
Worcester Cultural Academy: approx. 135 students
"fully met its opening requirements"
health and safety in buildings
WPS "working together on transportation students"
"encouraged by collaborative relationship" with the Worcester Public Schools (!)
BPS: recognize AC
will update on bathrooms and transportation at next meeting
migrant families: team at DESE for support
districts have an off-hour contact for troubleshooting
currently supporting 58 districts in total
will talk about funding at next meeting; there has been funding and more coming out
Craven: what specific can state do?
Riley: technical support, webinar, rolling out training
myriad of things doing, and will be bringing out more

Moriarty motions for Hills for vice chair, second by West
vote is unanimous

September Board of Ed: opening comments

 The agenda is here. The livestream will be here. 

updating as we go

opening introductions
Will be moving into public comment first

Let's talk about the September Board of Ed meeting

The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education resumes monthly meetings tomorrow. You can find the agenda here. 

It's the train in to Malden for me tomorrow.

The big news of tomorrow will be statewide--and thus district and school--MCAS scores, which will be released at the meeting ('though I'm certain that there is embargoed information around which will go to print and post tomorrow). The memo from the Commissioner notes: 

The 2023 district and school accountability results represent a full return to DESE’s accountability reporting practices for the first time since 2019. The U.S. Department of Education provided flexibility to the states from 2020–2022 due to the pandemic.

 I would bet you a hamburger that this means that we'll hear both the term "learning loss" and the Commissioner patting himself on the back regarding "sending students back into the classroom," despite there still not being evidence that this had much to do with where kids are now. 

And about facilities?

 Note this from CBS News:

A CBS News analysis of federal data found school districts with more Black students were able to invest far less money in buildings than majority-White districts — and often-unequal funding practices by state governments can make the problem worse.  

While Massachusetts isn't mentioned in the piece, note that the way the state has structured funding for school buildings through the MSBA--one or two projects at a time--combined with Massachusetts children of color being concentrated in the double handful of cities we have, means that schools attended by majority children of color are much less likely to see major renovation and repair. There's just more schools in the cities.

to read on homework

 Anne Thériault takes up homework in The Walrus:

 He cried as he struggled to finish the homework. I cried as I emailed his teacher to tell her he hadn’t been able to finish it. We both felt like we’d failed.

We were told that the work wasn’t mandatory, but that put me in a difficult position. I felt like, as a parent, I should be supporting what his teachers wanted from him, not acting against it. Besides, I believed that homework was necessary to set my son up for success. But it turns out that homework might not be as useful as we think.

on hot weather, New England, air conditioning, climate change, and, of course, schools

 Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?
Avril Lavigne

If you were in or around schools last week, there's a very good chance that you had one, if not repeated, conversations about the heat. 

and there's more from Brockton

 ...where the assistant financial officer has now claimed whistleblower protection:

...attorney Timothy Burke has said he plans to file a whistleblower lawsuit against the city of Brockton and its school committee on [assistant financial officer Christopher] Correia’s behalf, claiming Correia sounded alarms about the district’s overspending for months.