Thursday, December 17, 2015

Board of Ed summary

I send this out to the School Committee and MASC list-serv every month. Posting here for those who might find it of interest.

The Board of Ed met Tuesday, and while, the main item on their agenda was the accountability report, their focus was much more on individual districts and schools.
Notes on opening comments by the Commisioner, Chair, and Secretary
Notes on public comments  which were either on charter schools facing some form of action or on the proposed computer science and digital literacy standards
The update on Holyoke which happens monthly not surprisingly focused mainly on the recent report on conditions for students at the Peck school; the Board in particular was concerned that they hadn't heard more from the Commissioner earlier, particularly as the district is under state receivership.
The presentation on accountability levels was fairly brief. While they didn't mention the increased risk of MCAS schools falling, they did mention the increased chance of PARCC schools rising.
The presentation on Southbridge did not recommend that they be put in state receivership, but (as someone who has now heard several rounds of these discussions) it sure sounds as though it is headed that way. There's a link there to the report; I'd strongly recommend reading the section on school committee leadership starting at page 20 in the PDF.
The initial presentation of the proposed digital literacy/computer science standards was at this meeting; the proposal is for them to go out for public comment in January. 

As per usual, errors mine, questions welcome. I also do have paper copies of the PowerPoint presentations, should anyone be interested in shots of those.

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