The Board of Education meets Tuesday, February 28

The Board of Ed, on a Presidents' Day shift from their usual third week schedule, meets next week. The agenda is posted here (not a lot of backups as yet).

Monday night's meeting is the votes on charter schools. They're voting on three new schools:

• Hampden Charter School of Science West, proposed for Westfield which got some interesting coverage in the Herald this week due to ties to the Gulen movement
• Map Academy Charter School, Plymouth 
• Old Sturbridge Academy Charter Public School, Sturbridge

...amendments to charters at:

• Alma del Mar Charter School, New Bedford 
• Community Charter School of Cambridge, Cambridge 
• Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, Hadley 
• UP Academy Charter School of Dorchester (Horace Mann), Boston

There are also updates on New Heights Charter in Brockton and a proposed renewal of the online TEC Academy. 

I'll add back in the details once those are posted. 

It's interesting to note, BTW, that public comment is not on Monday; it's on Tuesday morning. Thus the Board will not have to hear public comment on these proposed additions or expansions before their vote. UPDATE: The Board now will hear public comment prior to voting. 

Recall that the Governor's budget level funds charter reimbursement for FY18; this year it was about 54% of what it should be.

On Tuesday morning, after the round of comments from the Chair, the Secretary, the Commissioner, and the public, there is a discussion of the graduation and dropout rates for 2015-16.
There will be a vote on the new MCAS descriptors; this would be student test results, not district and school results.
There will be a discussion and a vote to send to public comment the Department's proposed freeze of accountability levels under the new test. There's also a "Technical Amendment to Regulations on Accountability and Assistance for Districts and Schools"...I don't know what that is yet.
There is a discussion and a vote for public comment on proposed changes to educator licensure and license renewal. There is also the proposed amendment to move the student impact rating out of a separate section of evaluation.
There is a vote on regulations on recovery high schools (which have completed their public comment period).
There is an update on the Governor's budget for FY18 and an update on Chapter 70.
I'll add more above once more is posted.

I have a meeting Monday night, but I'll be there Tuesday!