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A message from the
Massachusetts Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education

December 1, 2017
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News from Acting Commissioner Jeff Wulfson and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Contents

New Schedule for Weekly Update:


Starting today, the Commissioner's Weekly Update will be sent on Friday mornings in response to feedback from the field. Please note that while the update contains items of interest to districts, urgent communications will continue to be sent via On the Desktop emails directly to superintendents. So if superintendents prefer to wait until Friday afternoon or Monday to read the update, that's OK.

Board Meeting Recap:


The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education met November 28, 2017. (A video of the meeting is available online.) Members voted to send out for public comment proposed amendments to regulations about the MCAS competency determination. The recommendation is to hold students in the classes of 2021 and 2022 to an interim passing standard as the state moves to a next-generation version of the high school MCAS. The Board is expected to take a final vote on the regulations in February 2018.
 
The Board also voted to solicit public comment on proposed amendments to regulations about how financial and programmatic responsibilities are assigned to districts for students in foster care who have individualized education programs (IEPs). The proposed amendments are intended to clarify districts' responsibilities for the special education services of students in foster care and resolve a conflict between current state regulation and new provisions in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The Board is expected to vote on the regulations in February 2018.
 
The Board also discussed funding for commonwealth virtual schools (more on that is below) and updated the Board on progress toward revising the state learning standards in history and social science. The proposed revisions include a new full-year civics course in eighth grade. The Board is expected to send the revised history and social science learning standards out for public comment in January after members receive the full working draft of the revisions.

Tuition for Virtual Schools:


Between November 18, 2015 and October 14, 2016, the Digital Learning Advisory Council heard presentations from the state’s two Commonwealth of Massachusetts Virtual Schools regarding funding. Both schools were invited to comment on the adequacy of the current per pupil tuition rate and explain how they would use a tuition increase adjustment to better meet the needs of their students. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education discussed this at their November 28 meeting and could vote in December to increase the per pupil tuition rate for virtual schools beginning in FY19. The Department welcomes input on this topic. For more information or to provide feedback, please contact Kenneth Klau, director of the Office of Digital Learning.

Students from Puerto Rico:


Massachusetts public schools continue to welcome additional students from Puerto Rico. The Department continues to monitor these numbers through the Schools Interoperability Framework, and districts are reminded to please enter native Puerto Rican students promptly into the district's student information system and to indicate Puerto Rico as the students' place of birth. (Those districts not yet on SIF are asked to keep us apprised of incoming numbers.) Helene Bettencourt and Sarah Slautterback are heading up ESE's response team. Please contact them with have any questions or particular needs.
 
The Department recently was provided with a list of hotels being used by FEMA to shelter families. District leaders can check the link to help make sure they are aware of families arriving in their district. Children and youth in these hotels are homeless and need access to school and educational services.  

For districts that have enrolled over 50 students from Puerto Rico, Fund Code 313 was posted last night and offers a small amount of funds. Proposals are due December 15.

Picture of the Week:

On November 27, 2017, Commissioner Wulfson visited the Donald McKay K-8 School in East Boston, where he met with Principal Jordan Weymer as part of Principal Partners, a program run by Bank of America, Boston Public Schools, and BPE that brings leaders into schools. (Photo courtesy of Boston Public Schools)

Influenza Information:


As flu season approaches, districts are reminded of the legislative requirement for schools to provide education on influenza. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s (MDPH) Immunization Program created a resource entitled Flu Guide for Parents in English, Spanish, and Portuguese for school nurses to disseminate as a part of their efforts. For the most up-to-date information concerning influenza and additional resources, please visit the MDPH flu web site at www.mass.gov/flu or call 617-983-6800. School nurses might also be interested in the updated school immunization website that discusses individual school’s immunization and exemption rates and displays county level immunization maps with guidance on reading them.

Updated Guidelines on Implementing SEL Curricula:


Guidelines on the Implementation of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Curricula K-12 have been revised and can be found on ESE's Bullying Prevention and Intervention web page and ESE's SEL in Massachusetts web page. The updates include examples of ways to integrate SEL competencies into academic content. Please feel free to contact the Office of Family and Student Support via achievement@doe.mass.edu with questions or feedback.

Updated 2017–2018 Statewide Testing Schedule:


The Department has updated the statewide testing schedule, creating one combined document for grades 3–8 and high schools. The document contains test administration deadlines and recommended session lengths, including updated information for grades 3–8. District leaders are encouraged to share the schedule with their test administration teams for planning purposes.

2015 PISA Collaborative Problem Solving Results:


The National Center for Education Statistics recently released results from the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) collaborative problem solving tasks. Massachusetts participated in the 2015 as its own "nation", and the results show that only Singapore had a score that was statistically higher than Massachusetts' on this portion of the test. The 2015 PISA measured 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy. Fifty-one education systems, including Massachusetts, chose to take part in the collaborative problem solving portion of the test, which assessed 15-year-olds' ability to solve problems by working together.
 
(Reading, math, and science results from the 2015 PISA were released in December 2016.)

ESE Resource Corner: Help families save money for both K-12 and college expenses


The Department has compiled a wide array of ways in which parents can save money for their child's education. Please distribute this information to the parents and encourage them to look into savings options. Of particular note, parents of students with significant disabilities can now set up special tax-free accounts to use on a wide range of services throughout a child’s life. The site also lists a variety of college savings options, including tax-free accounts, early tuition options, local savings accounts, and more.

For your info:
  • LOOK Act: Governor Baker recently signed the Act Relative to Language Opportunity for Our Kids (LOOK), which gives public schools more flexibility in how they serve English learners and calls on ESE to develop a seal of bi-literacy. The Department has begun to discuss implementation and looks forward to working with districts on this subject.
  • Profile in Courage Essay Contest: The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is accepting submissions from high school students for its annual Profile in Courage Essay Contest. Students are asked to describe and analyze an act of political courage by a U.S. elected official who served during or after 1917. The deadline is January 4, 2018. 
  • Save the date for conference on bias-based incidents: The second annual Emerging Best Practices: Preventing and Addressing Bias-Based Incidents in Schools conference will be April 25-26 at the Boston/Dedham Hilton in Dedham. For more information, contact BiasFreeSchools@bedf.org. The event is hosted by the Boston Educational Development Fund and Boston Public Schools Office of Equity.
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