On my dad

My dad Bill O'Connell, me, and my mom

My dad died Saturday.

We buried him today. Here is what I said at his funeral:

Attorney General's office finds the MA Board of Elementary and Secondary Education violated the Open Meeting Law at their January meeting

 In a finding issued yesterday, the Attorney General's office found that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education violated the Open Meeting Law at their January meeting, when Chair Craven invited a panel of speakers to address them on antisemitism without any public notice. 

My notes from that portion are here; a comment from me is here.

Things you won't read about this week's Board of Ed

 While there's been no lack of coverage of this week's Board of Ed meeting--of which you can read MASC's full coverage here--there's a number of things that happened that certainly didn't make headlines and in some cases didn't make the coverage at all.

The Board of Ed is back

 ...and they meet both Monday night (entirely remotely) and Tuesday morning.

Monday evening is an accountability system review. We're into MCAS and accountability release, it appears from the agenda. 

Tuesday, in addition to that, the Board will elect a vice chair for the year; update on the Commissioner search; have an update on pandemic recovery and literacy, as well as literacy launch; and receive back the charter (voluntarily surrendered) of the Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy Charter Public School.

The agenda for all of that is here. 

Liveblog from me is going to be remote and possibly a little choppy, as I have a meeting Monday and an appointment Tuesday morning.

On Southbridge

 The T&G  has a lengthy piece on Southbridge today; Southbridge is the district most recently put into receivership, a vote taken in 2016, meaning 'recent' here is quite relative. I think it's fair to say that the major hole in the section of the law on receivership--that there's no path OUT--is as true there as anywhere. Acting Commissioner Russell Johnston is quoted here, as he has been on Holyoke, talking about governance: 

"The extent of which a school committee is ready to resume its authority, its responsibilities for the governance it can provide for a district, that is a key thing we are looking for," Johnston said.

I think it is also fair to say that this wasn't how prior leadership framed the question.  

Moms for Liberty lawsuit and MA schools

 It's possible you've caught that the Kansas case filed by Moms for Liberty and others reached beyond the district of federal court in which it was filed. The New Bedford Light looks at what this means for the Massachusetts schools named: 

...in Massachusetts, state law already offers the same protections for transgender students that Moms for Liberty is challenging at the federal level. So Massachusetts schools will still be able to uphold their current policies, legal experts say. 

If you've been following Brockton

 ...Mayor Sullivan released the report created by Nystrom, Beckman & Paris, a law firm, today at noon in advance of tonight's Brockton School Committee meeting, which did not discuss it. The report is dated August 15.

RSM, auditors hired by the school department, completed this report, which was released this evening during the Brockton School Committee meeting, at which it was discussed.

As it was the earlier, most reporting so far is on just the first: The Enterprise; MassLive; Boston Globe (which missed half the points)...updating as they come in. The Enterprise reporting on the School Committee meeting is here.

If I could make every school committee member, superintendent, mayor, school finance officer worker (of any level), city finance worker (of any level) read the report from NBP, I would.