Innovation school questions

do innovation schools have to meet the same accountability standards as the rest of the district?
yes, and more: the School Committee can only approve for up to three years, so schools must meet what they've promised
is there a way for community groups to know which schools might be applying for innovation schools to work on partnerships?
when prospectus comes in, might publicize
"sounds very exciting for the teachers to have more control over what's happening in their schools"

teacher at Sullivan: how can there be flexibility with curriculum when we must follow frameworks and now Common Core and responsibility for state and federal testing down the line?
Mulqueen: "lots of ways you can accomplish those"
"standard wouldn't change...but what you use to do that would be more up to you"
Biancheria asks if that would be in the proposal? Yes
She asks further if parents and teachers would be informed of this
Mulqueen says this decision making would take place within this school
Biancheria reads aloud from regs: there is the ability to suspend parts of the innovation plan

teacher at South: small schools did not have autonomy, a lot of that was curriculum; are you saying that we could just go and make those decisions without going to the administration for approval?
Mulqueen: you would have ownership of the decisions
autonomy is an important part

Monfredo: the proposal is going to drive the process, going to be looking at partnerships

Mulqueen talks about the local partnership group

principal at South High: I really think there should be equal represenation of these two schools, should be based on the conditions on the ground; would ask the committee to look at what the setup of this committee is

teacher at South High: if there's numerous proposal for one school, will the principal be able to review all of them? Might the principal extract best proposals to improve the school without going under innovation schools?
(there's some back and forth on this...it appears the answer is sort of yes, though Mulqueen maintains that there are advantages to being an innovation school)