On this brutally hot day in Massachusetts, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is having their June meeting. You can find their agenda here. The livestream will appear over here.
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| Should you wonder if DESE is backing down: no. |
I will update this as they go.
Note that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education not only meets tomorrow (for their regular monthly meeting); they meet TONIGHT for the first of two of what they're calling "study sessions" on vocational admissions. That meeting is only online and starts at 5.
The regular meeting is tomorrow, starts at 9, and includes:
(can we talk about this thing where Every Major Word Is Capitalized in Agenda Items?)
Agenda for all of that is here. Livestream will come up here.
...and they meet both Monday night (entirely remotely) and Tuesday morning.
Monday evening is an accountability system review. We're into MCAS and accountability release, it appears from the agenda.
Tuesday, in addition to that, the Board will elect a vice chair for the year; update on the Commissioner search; have an update on pandemic recovery and literacy, as well as literacy launch; and receive back the charter (voluntarily surrendered) of the Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy Charter Public School.
The agenda for all of that is here.
Liveblog from me is going to be remote and possibly a little choppy, as I have a meeting Monday and an appointment Tuesday morning.
You can find the agenda for today's Board of Ed meeting (indeed, all of this week's meetings!) here. This meeting will be livestreamed here.
I will update this blog post as we go.
The report of the superintendent starts on page 6 of the tonight's agenda (different than how they've been doing it). This is tonight's report; the meeting, public side, starts at 5:30 (ish).
The district shared a video of Dr. Monárrez speaking about the budget yesterday.
It's at Wellesley High School this month, as that's the school of Ela Gardiner, who is the student member.
And look at that: the agenda actually has topics the Secretary and Acting Commissioner are expected to address during the meeting! That's best practice...if only they could get the chair to do that, too...
Also on the agenda: the Commissioner's search; an update on safe schools for LGBTQ students; an update on the Department's vision; and a budget update.
No links as yet to backups
Liveblog will be coming your way.
Note that there is a Worcester School Committee meeting on Thursday:
https://worcesterschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/20240419.pdf |
| Please enjoy these daffodils from my walk from work in Boston. |
While school in Worcester was cancelled, the meeting was not; my meeting was, so I got to this one in person to find that the balcony now has some who are interested in good governance of the district attending in person to keep an eye on things. Excellent. Let me know if you're coming; I'm bringing snacks.
The agenda is here. The video of the meeting is here.
The agenda is here. The report of the superintendent is here. The video of the meeting is here.
The National Anthem was sung by City View Elementary School's chorus.
The consent agenda passed as proposed.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meets Tuesday, February 27 at 9 am; you can find the agenda here.
And while I again will not offer commentary, this week is going to be the week if we see if the Committee caves to being ombudsmen. As a reminder, items filed by members per rule 26 of the Committee:
...shall be under the purview of the Committee, focus on the business of the Committee, and should be concise and specific. Members shall not file items that can be disposed of via contact per rule 9. Items not following this rule shall not be placed on the agenda.
The agenda is here.
The report of the superintendent is on the implementation of the Family and Community Engagement framework.
Do note that there is a meeting of Finance, Operations, and Governance tomorrow at 5:45 pm, which is taking up the second quarter budget report and the quarterly facilities report.
Unfortunately, those are still being done via "view only" Google Drive links, rather than posted as part of the agenda.
I won't comment, but I will offer that the second quarter is really when the district gets a clear picture of how the budget is rolling out; it also can offer some insight into the following year.
And of course, the facilities report has photos!
With the agenda for Thursday's Worcester School Committee meeting now posted, it seems we may need a quick explainer on a Worcester (it's part of Plan E) process, as Member Maureen Binienda has filed for reconsideration of the motion to allow students to march in graduation who have yet to complete 2 credits or fewer, a vote which she lost at the last meeting, 8-1.
I wrote about this back in 2014, but let's walk through how this works for this upcoming meeting.
The Mass School Building Authority has their final Board meeting on Wednesday, and their agenda (which I've shared here) includes an proposed (subject to Board vote) invitation to Eligibility which will be of local interest (last in alphabetical order):
You can find this Thursday's agenda here.
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A few things of note:
Note that the Worcester School Committee has a special meeting this Thursday, August 10 at 6 pm. There are two items on the agenda:
no, not school weather related!
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This is the "one on the MCAS" though note that updating the state's accountability regs is also on today's agenda, as is a bullying regulation change, and an update on the budget. Because this was not a regularly scheduled meeting, I will not be liveblogging it all, but will catch up later.
Posting as we go once the meeting starts...jumping in mid-public testimony
Interesting: the livestream missed this, but as the first panel was being introduced, there was a member of the public yelling about "no child is safe" though it was unclear on exactly what.
The Worcester School Committee meets twice during the summer--once in July, once in August--with our July meeting being this Thursday. You can find the agenda online here.
This is of course Dr. Monárrez's first meeting as superintendent, and thus the report of the superintendent is her entry plan, which is linked through the banner on the district website. It's set up with lots of listening in chapters:
To consider and approve a proposed reorganization of Central Administration positions to include the establishment of the positions of: 1.) Deputy Superintendent, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer; and 2.) Assistant Superintendent, Teaching and Learning; and to approve the proposed Job Descriptions for those positions.
The superintendent can organize her administration as she sees fit, but position descriptions are approved by the School Committee, and appointments to positions of deputy/assistant/etc superintendent PLUS business official positions are all subject to School Committee approval (and business official contracts are actually with the School Committee).
Thus we also have the following recommendations:
The agenda for today's meeting is here. It's a regulation-heavy agenda, with proposed updates on competency determination in MCAS (to vote), on certification of mastery (for initial discussion), education licensure for vocational licensure (for initial discussion), and for licensure (for staffing flexibility).
public comment
I missed Lisa Jeanne Graf's testimony which is here
Gerry Mroz arguing we need standards above competency determination; arguing that the system has "stagnated" and that the competency determination is a low bar
BPS panel caught in traffic, Charlestown High School teacher Sarah Grimmett arguing that receivership is a failed model
"saying 'no' to state receivership"
"can personally speak on success of early college and career pathways" program
"so many factors seeking to destabilize our school"
labels that were designed by those outside of our community
"please keep in mind what we actually need"
resources, inclusion done right, update to buildings
increased funding for wraparound services
listen to school communities and increase resources
"even holding the threat of receivership over us is taking valuable attention away from what is really important: our students"
Justin Perez: senior at Charlestown High School: values diversity of community
dreams of vocational learning there
taking a gap year; financial implications of college
"schools and BPS should be able to come up with plans on teaching their own populations"
"I really believe that if we give power to the state we diminish the community"
Jaden Pinet, senior at Charlestown High School, member of school site council
brought student perspective on hiring process, on budget
value the most our community and the diversity
"share and celebrate our differences"
"feel Charlestown feel like more than just a school"
"what needs to change is amount of support and resources"
what is at issue is not an issue of competency
Suleika Soto: no coincidence that just as Boston, a majority city of color, is moving towards an elected School Committee, state is moving towards receivership
notes lack of voice and resources in receivership districts like Lawrence
"why not give us more resources and give us a chance to work us out for ourselves?
"we need more social emotional support, not threats"
this Board should be upholding local voices
Sugey Scannell, mother of BPS students (who is testifying in Spanish)
as the mother of immigrant children, one of the main resources I moved here is the education of sons
want them to capable and competitive, get close to the American Dream
"I believe we have a school system that works. Like everything in life, it's not perfect, but it works."
have interpretation of ten languages in Boston meetings; wanted to testify at a prior DESE meeting and was denied
"I don't have the trust that you have the capacity to direct our schools...that DESE has the best interest of our children in their plans"
we have seen when the state intervenes, the indexes are not consistently improved
relationship of teachers and students get worse; more difficult to retain teachers
Best way of supporting staff is giving a raise
"we must update the infrastructure...expanding the curriculum...supporting...extra activities"
Boston has great universities, hospitals, "and the best public schools"
"the last thing that we need is instability that comes with receivership of the state"
Chair Craven: has asked for a task force on mental health
"important for the Board to be seen as having a proactive stance"
Secretary Peyser: budget update
House deliberating budget, dealt with education amendments last night
House fully funds early college expansion
expansion of MassGrant plus, of interest for graduating seniors
Thursday is STEM Summit
Commissioner: collaborating with MIAA, MASS call to action on addressing bias and hate seeing around athletics
