October Board of Ed: update on learning and Commissioner's goals

 Riley: shift from guidance to "more of a support and monitoring position here in the Department"
support districts under cyberattack
Chromebooks shipping
particularly Rob Leshin on food services
Bill Bell on navigating federal dollars
teaching and learning "standing up resources to use"
"also monitoring districts"
Letters to selected districts earlier this fall, concerned "particularly their misalignment with the metrics and the data"
pleased that most districts are either cleared or pending review
two districts that DESE review teams needs more information from
spoiler alert: they're Watertown and East Longmeadow

"other factors as well" will be monitored by the Department
and there's a slide 
in the following areas:
Learning model, learning time, academics, family communication, special student populations all being reviewed  for possible "audits to monitor access to quality instruction" during the school year

districts that are concerned that they have a college, prison, or nursing home
"hoping that when the new metric [from DPH] comes out, it will take that into account"
"have to think about that we have not seen robust transmission in our schools"
"have seen we're able to move on with instruction"
"as we've able to think about that, more letters from DESE will be coming out"
"using the best science and data going forward"

Several members had to leave, so they rushed straight to the next part:
Goals for this year: COVID response; supporting families and students; evidence based policy and practices to strengthen teaching and learning; deepen teaching and learning; strategic planning inside the Department
passed without much discussion