The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (Department) engages in numerous district and school reviews for a wide variety of purposes throughout the year. It is the Department's goal to ease as much of the burden these reviews place upon districts and schools as possible, while also maintaining the high quality of these reviews so that we fulfill our legal and public obligations.
To this end, the legislation that called for the creation of the Department's Office of School and District Accountability (now called the Office of District Reviews and Monitoring, hereinafter ODRM) requires ODRM to ensure that no school or district is audited during the administration of any statewide assessments, and shall coordinate with other entities in the department to ensure that a school or district is not subject to multiple comprehensive audits or reviews by the department or any accrediting body within a 9 month period unless the board specifically votes to do so on an emergency basis (M.G.L. c. 15, § 55A).
To help facilitate scheduling, the Department has created a database of all comprehensive reviews year by year, including Tiered Focused Monitoring by our Public School Monitoring Office, district accountability reviews by our Office of District Reviews and Monitoring (ODRM), and accreditation reviews by the outside agency New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). The reviews scheduled by the above offices did not include any potential overlaps for the 2019-2020 school year.
The Public School Monitoring Office and Office of Charter Schools and School Redesign worked proactively to avoid overlaps for their scheduled reviews. In addition, when selecting the districts for the accountability reviews required by state law, ODRM used the comprehensive reviews database as an element of its selection criteria and worked with the Public School Monitoring Office to avoid any potential overlap.
There are no overlaps with NEASC reviews for the 2019-2020 school year.
Last Updated: October 21, 2019
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 135 Santilli Highway, Everett, MA 02149
Voice: (781) 338-3000 TTY: (800) 439-2370
Disclaimer: A reference in this website to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm, or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the public and does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.