The Board of Ed meets Tuesday in Revere

New chair Katherine Craven said they'd be taking the show on the road, and June's meeting is at Rumney Marsh Academy in Revere. The agenda is online here, and it's a lengthy one!

Most of the backups are posted but the one that might be of most general interest, the evaluation of the Commissioner is not. Nor is his report to the Board.

Those top the agenda after the usual public comments and the welcome from the Revere Public Schools.

There is a discussion and request for approval of the new arts standards. These are back from public comment, and linked off that page you can find the comments submitted, the response of the department, and the proposed standards.

Also back from public comment are the revised accountability standards. You can find a link to a summary of the comments submitted off that page; most resulted in no change, in some cases due to the federal law. You can also find a link to the document itself with highlighted revisions. Many of the changes in the document are simply recognizing time (it moves from intent to do to what is being done); the substantive changes are:

• subgroup participation will be calculated for ELA and math (and science where applicable) together, so as to raise the number and work to mitigate the impact of small numbers of non-participants
• Project Lead the Way is added to the list of advanced coursework (which is revised, in any case)
• two years of data are used for accountability with 2019 now weighed at 60%

Coming in for its first (I think?) Board update are the health standards; these, perhaps infamously, were last updated in 1999. The planned timeline is:

• Outreach and Planning (June 2018 – November 2018)
• Review, Revision, and Board Action (December 2018 – Winter 2020)
• Revised Framework Initial Implementation (Spring 2020 – Summer 2021)

The review panel has just finished meeting; they met six times since December (the list of panelists is here) with a focus on "the learning standards that outline what students should know and be able to do related to comprehensive health." The Department plans over the summer to "seek additional feedback from content advisors and other key stakeholders, as needed," with a plan to present initial frameworks in the fall to go out to public comment. The final frameworks would then be ready to be released, after public review, in winter of 2020, for implementation in the fall of 2021.

There is the annual "oh dear we wouldn't want to have to have you meet over the summer" delegation of authority to the Commissioner, with specific mention of the contracts of Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School and Roxbury Preparatory Charter School. 

There is a (revised) list of dates of next year's Board meetings.

Pioneer Valley Charter is (again) requesting a review of the Commissioner's decision to deny their expansion. The backup does a good job of reviewing their history, but here are my notes from last year's review before the Board, which did not go well (for them).

There will be an end of year report from the State Student Advisory Council.

There will be an update on the FY20 budget through the Senate's passage; the budget now, of course, is in conference committee.

Not for discussion but there is also an update on implementation of the LOOK Act and (one of my annual favorites) the list of non-operating districts; those towns will tuition out all of their studentsto other districts.