December Board of Ed: ESSA

Johnston: met with stakeholders in spring: summer created: fall went back out (in Boston, Shrewsbury, Brockton, Holyoke, and Salem)
"quite a bit of stakeholder outreach"
"made sure we got parents, and teachers, and administrators there"
"pretty good job of 20% split" (teachers/admin/parents/advocacy...I think I missed a 20)
talked to them about three specific areas:

1. modifications to the accountability system
2. more of the programmatic areas "Safe and supportive schools, well-rounded programs and study"
3. programming to promote equitable access to high quality educators

"tons and tons of notecards"

broad support for accountability metrics that measure school climate

"we didn't hear a lot of we should do away with testing"

"making sure students participate in a high-quality, well-round curriculum"

lot of support for "social-emotional"

trauma sensitivity

"all sorts of behavioral supports"

building capacity of staff

"nearing end" of outreach:listing...

Curtin: regulations take effect in January 29

"as we've said many times, who knows what's going to happen" but we're going to continue to play by the rules

November regs in line with what was released last May

20,000 comments received

kept same framework for ESSA moving forward

Five parts

1. academic achievement, measured annually:  math science ELA
2. growth in elementary and middle school (MA will continue to use high school)
3. graduation rate in high school
4. English proficiency (which is a change from NCLB)
5. at least one measure of school quality or student success

states also need to establish "ambitious long-term goals" and focus on gap closing

first window for state submission is now April 3

schools ID'd as "comprehensive" or "targeted" support prior to 2018-19 year (that's a year later)

particularly important as a new assessment in MA this year; will have two years of data to do it

kept in 95% participation requirement; have given you a couple of different ways you can implement this

MA was "hoping to be a little less quantifiable in our state goals" but regs have now said quantifiable goals

challenge as state changes assessments

4 year graduation rate must be used for finding schools with rate below 67%

Peyser notes that this will primarily effect alternative schools: any sense of federal expectation?

Curtin: anything beyond 67%, some flexibility in IDing schools

super subgroups (high needs) cannot replace an individual subgroup

"we're going to make the argument that we're adding it in additional to the other subgroups"

could impact current MA system

former ELL in ELL for up to two years as now: final regs now allowed up to four years if we choose

new, this can including students with disabilities for up to two years when they come off of an IEP

comprehensive support: at least $500K; targeted supported: at least $50K from state

now states can provide less for smaller schools or less need

states complained that was too much money to require states require to districts

January: proposed model

March: plan, possibly to submit in April

HOWEVER, perhaps may look to more "extended timeframe" if it becomes necessary