Alpha Schools and a foot in the door

 I hope that you've been keeping up with Ben Riley's reporting on Alpha Schools and specifically the experience of students there; you can find his sixth report from last week here. The way that students have been treated should concern us all. 

Largely, though, I am posting to urge you to read the Texas Tribune's report on Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who oversees the public schools of Texas, working to get Alpha Schools into the public school system there. It's a collaborative report with ProPublica, which draws on months of public records' requests. 

Over the last year, Morath and his staff at the Texas Education Agency exchanged a flurry of emails with leaders of companies connected to Alpha about possible partnerships, visited their campuses several times, helped with a one-page explainer about the program to share with school districts and connected them with district leaders, according to communications obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune through public information requests. 

One email revealed that Morath offered to personally introduce an Alpha leader to the superintendent he appointed to lead the yearslong state takeover of Houston Independent School District, the largest in the state. 

“I’d also like to set up another site visit to visit both your Austin secondary and primary with my team,” wrote Morath. “The Superintendent of H.I.S.D. would also like to do a site visit, so l’ll connect y’all separately. And hopefully we can schedule them to happen on the same day.” 

The emails show that state education officials and Alpha affiliates approached at least 10 school districts about the AI program. After the coordination, at least three of those districts — Houston; Fort Davis, in West Texas; and Aldine, near Houston — launched pilot programs incorporating the AI tool. 

The full extent of Morath and his agency’s involvement, as well as the number of public school districts using the AI program, remains unclear. The TEA has not responded to questions about its efforts for months, initially failed to provide some of Morath’s emails in response to public information requests and continues fighting the release of additional communications.

It's bad enough that this is out there and sucking in families at all. That the influence of a state leadership is being wielded in its favor--and this in a state where the state board refused to allow Alpha Schools to open as a charter!--is worse. 

There are meetings in Worcester this week!

There are THREE Worcester School Committee meetings this week!

• Monday night is the third of the four of budget sessions to inform the plan due April 1 under the Student Opportunity Act. This one is at Doherty High and like the others is at 6.
• Wednesday night is the fourth of these sessions, this time at North High, also at 6.

Do remember that these sessions are open to ANYONE (and have food and have translators! And crayons, for that matter), so please do come.

Thursday at 7 pm is our REGULAR meeting (yes, we just did that last week, but February break always throws off the sequencing, which is usually the first and third Thursdays). While the agenda doesn't yet appear to be up (and no, that isn't an OML violation, as there's still more than 48 hours on business days before then), we do have ours, so let me give you the run through:

A few notes on Worcester School Committee and the superintendent's contract

As we now have a posted meeting for Wednesday night--UPDATE: this has now been moved to Thursday at 7 pm--(posted on Friday, as we can now see, thanks to the Worcester Sunshine Group) with a single-item agenda, I thought a few notes might be in order.

• The meeting is posted as an executive (closed) session, as it is contract negotiation with the superintendent. In Worcester, executive sessions commonly are held in the Mayor's office, as this one is scheduled to. However, all executive sessions must open in public session. Thus even as the meeting is held in the Mayor's office, the beginning of the meeting--the call to order, the roll call, the vote to go into executive session--is a public, open session.
• At the announcement of the reason for the executive session, the chair must also announce if the committee will return to public session. The committee can recess (end the meeting) straight from executive session, however--
• Votes of contracts--including that of the superintendent--must be made in public session. Thus the contract negotiations can and will be updated in executive session, but no contract vote is effective until it has been made in public session.

While superintendent contracts are public documents, to my knowledge, no one has made a records request for Superintendent Binienda's current contract. Thus the options open to the Committee at this point (bewilderingly) haven't gotten covered. A few points on that:

• the superintendent's contract has a renewal clause: the Committee had to inform her by December if they did not intend to renew. As such, simply not renewing is not an option they have at this point.
• The Committee can--and by all public indications has to chosen to--negotiate to renew her contract on whatever terms both parties agree to. However--
• there is also a clause in the contract allowing the Committee to renew for a single year. If they opt to do so, she can refuse, which would end her employment as of June 30.
• And committees do sometimes buy superintendent contracts out. See, most recently, Salem.

Cutting the New Bedford baby in half

Hey, remember this post about how the New Bedford/Alma del Mar Charter expansion wasn't one in which everyone was dealing as equal partners? Sometime between my last look at the Board's agenda on Friday afternoon and the Sunday morning of this holiday weekend, the memo to the Board giving more information on Alma del Mar posted.
And there's a plan B.
Way down at the end of that very long memo on charter schools, the Commissioner says this:

I am recommending two votes in this unique circumstance. In the first motion, the award of 450 seats is conditioned as described above. If the conditions are not met or necessary legislation has not been enacted, this increase in enrollment of 450 would become null and void. I recommend that we establish a second pathway forward for an enrollment increase if this happens. Therefore, I am asking the Board to also vote on an expansion plan that would take place only if the conditions for the collaboration between AdM and New Bedford Public Schools are not met.

Because, it is claimed, the Department lacks space to share the full back-ups (fix this one, people; as a matter of public record, we shouldn't have to ask and wait for this sort of thing), the full backup language isn't posted, but the motion reads as follows (I'm including a screenshot, putting the language in, as well):

Moved: enrollment increase to Alma del Mar Charter School (from 450 to 1044) in New Bedford "if the Commissioner determines that either good-faith negotiations on the memorandum of understanding between the school and New Bedford Public Schools have irretrievably broken down or the necessaary legislation has not been enacted in sufficient time for planning and implementation of the model proposed in the letter of intent among the parties."

This piece from Chris McCarthy at WSBM effectively captures where this leaves New Bedford (and all of us):

The state has weaponized the expansion process.
Mayor Mitchell and City Councilor Hugh Dunn have warned that adding the maximum number of charter seats to Alma del Mar would result in financial devastation to the City's finances. Tax increases and layoffs of police, fire, and teachers will be the result if the state grants the full expansion to the charter school. The vote on Tuesday will place the financial future of the City of New Bedford in the hands of Commissioner Riley.

I'd go further and say that it is already there. In creating a process where Alma del Mar gets the seats either way, he now has tied New Bedford--and every city's--hands when it comes to charter expansion.

Massachusetts Council of School Attorneys 2017 Annual Meeting

First up: Rhoda Schneider from DESE
"change is constant in this field...there's a reason we went into public education, or for many of us, school law...there are changes in education and in law every day...that keeps our practice dynamic"

New bilingual law: LOOK act
to design and tailor work with English learners
there will be guidelines and regulations: rolling out over the course of the next six months or so
"every reason to hope this law will be a benefit"

Update on the OML Worcester strategic plan complaint

My appeal to the Attorney General's office was mailed yesterday.

OH! And on Tuesday, the Worcester Public Schools twitter feed sent out this:

Join us for a Community Forum "Setting the Course: Creating a Strategic Plan for K-12 Education in our City" #WPSlearns pic.twitter.com/72jVHVQKWu

— Worcester Schools (@worcesterpublic) October 23, 2017

Note that Worcester East Middle is actually 420 Grafton, should you be heading there.
As it was the first notice, and I have a meeting tonight, I won't be there. But they suddenly appear to have decided that parents should come, as in the past half hour I have also received:

1. a computer-voice Connect-Ed urging attendance
2. a blank email: 

This...email is blank... pic.twitter.com/9IFbg2xd3i

— Tracy Novick (@TracyNovick) October 26, 2017

Too late to make it up to us on transparency... If you go, take notes!

TWO UPDATES:
Scott O'Connell went to the forum.
And Bill Shaner wrote a bit about the lack of public notice and input.

Public records law update (at MASBO) H4333

Rosann DePietro: Now four statutes instead of one
"probably coming your way, because what else do you have to do all day?"
the law takes effect for the most part this January(2017)
put templates in place before it takes impact
law didn't change the definition of a public record
"everything you have as an organization is a public record unless it isn't"
but now if you get it wrong and a requestor sues you, you not only have to proceed the record, you pay their attorneys' fees
part of updating the website goes into effect in July
most changes benefit the person making the request, not the person receiving the request
more timely access, at a reduced cost, with greater electronic access

MGL Ch.4 sec. 7 (26) is where the definition is
exemption C: personnel or medical files, or "unwarranted invasion of privacy"

School district must appoint and publicly identify a "Record Access Officer"
who that is must be "posted conspiciously" on district website and in administration offices
modifications to response timeframes
long all requests, how handled, fees
if producing records is unduly burdensome, must send written response in 10 days with explanation
25 days: need to offer modification to make request not unduly burdensome
provide project charge before moving on
Supervisor of Public Records may grant an extension, not beyond 30 days upon showing good cause
5 cents a page maximum
no fee if no response in 10 business days
population of more than 20,000, cannot charge first two hours
otherwise, can charge up to $25 an hour
municipality may petition state supervisor for exception
must respond electronically, unless records are not electronically or respondant doesn't want them electronically
common records should be posted online; response may not be a direction to the website
all records must be maintained in the custody of a Custodian of Records
requester may petition Supervisor of Public Records for a compliance determination if district has not complied
may compel you to comply, or get AG involved who can take you to court
if court disagrees with supervisor's ruling in your favor, you may not be assessed attorney's fees, BUT requester can bypass appeal to supervisor and go straight to court (so what then?)
recommend setting up a template to track requests
Read the law (it's chapter 121 2016 acts)
consider initial round doing for free to see how long it will take as a test
General response from group is that fees go to general fund and thus don't go to district at all
Maybe a revolving account is needed in future amendments?

Friday letters?

Lest you think that isn't public or transparent, they're all posted here.

(That's a link off the bottom of the WPS superintendent page.)

MASC 13: School Law 101

on Open Meeting Law, ethics, and public records
with apologies for the part missed in the middle; I had to take a phone call