While state law mandates these reimbursements to offset funds that districts lose in transition years (when there is a significant increase in tuition leaving a district to a charter school), the state is not meeting its obligation this year (and doesn’t most years). The shortfall means many districts are effectively subsidizing charter schools while also facing reduced funding for their own schools. The districts most impacted by charter schools are in the Gateway Cities, which host 51% of all Massachusetts charter schools. Once again Massachusetts lawmakers show us that they don’t actually care about the academic gaps that continue to grow between low income and high income students in our state, the largest increase of any state in the US.

A quick primer on how charter school funding works: Every district gets money taken from their chapter 70 state aid based on per pupil amount for each student that attends the charter school (by grade, plus ELL and low-income, as applicable) plus $1288 (for “facilities”). (It’s based on where students live, not where the charter school is.)  There is also a three year transition reimbursement for when a student leaves a district for a charter school. For the first year, 100% of the amount of state aid being transferred comes also as reimbursement to the district, the second year it’s 60% and then the third year it’s 40%.

Now we can have a WHOLE conversation on the need to fix charter school funding (and those have been had and continue to be had), but right now I’m focusing on the $900k $2 million Worcester stands to lose. It’s the third year transition reimbursement where the underfunding is happening. The budget funds just half of that third year reimbursement, and also uses different estimated enrollment numbers for the charter schools, which in a per pupil enrollment system makes what number they use vary the money considerably. The budget underfunds reimbursement by about $32 million statewide.

So what can we do? Email the governor and legislature to advocate to fully fund the reimbursement. AND hold people in our community who run charter schools accountable; ask them what they are doing to advocate at the state level to alleviate the harm for our kids in WPS.

Here are some email addresses:

Governor Healey

State Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler:

Abby Foster Kelley Charter School Board of Trustees

Learning First Charter School Chair of the Board, John Latino

The people below are affiliated with Worcester Cultural Academy Charter School (Old Sturbridge Village has a contract with a 7% administrative fee to run WCA):

• Executive Director of Old Sturbridge Village, Jim Donahue

• VP of External Affairs of Old Sturbridge Village, Kate McEvoy (a Worcester resident)

• Stacey Luster, founding member of the Board of Trustees. Her husband, Charles Luster, is running for Worcester City Council.

• Pamela Boisvert, founding member of the Board of Trustees and the Board Chair.

Worcester Public Schools.
There’s lots of ways to get involved and give your input to Worcester Public Schools that isn’t necessarily school committee.  While school committee is important, the Superintendent has a lot of power and control over decision making and the direction of the district.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  One incredibly important thing the current school committee did was hire the Superintendent.  She will be a stabilizing force.  And if you’ve appreciated her leadership and the direction she’s moving in, let her know that. Here are some ways to get involved that don’t have anything to do with school committee:

• Attend your school site council meeting. Sometimes starting small and hyperlocal helps with the overwhelm, and there’s a lot to learn about schools through the site councils.

• Go to Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council (CPPAC) Meetings and connect with the WPS Family and Community Engagement office.

• If you are looking for a community to talk about school issues, I highly recommend Knitty Council and Worcester Education Justice Alliance (WEJA).

The City.
Write your new district councilor and the at-large city councilors and ask them to support increasing funding for our schools, especially the capital budget. Let your city councilors know that education is important to you and you expect them to support it.

The State.
The majority of WPS funding comes from the state, so the state budget and statewide decisions have a massive impact on our district—as demonstrated by the approval of the new charter school and by the Student Opportunity Act.  Following what is happening there and advocating when you can is important. The best entry point to start doing this is to subscribe to Tracy O’Connell Novick’s blog or follow her on social media. She is someone the entire state, and the region, looks to on this stuff.

Journalism.
Support local writers and journalists who are covering public meetings and asking the tough questions.  The more eyes and ears the better. Engage with their work and let them know what’s important to you.

Engage with School Committee.
Engage with school committee members and advocate for what is important to you. Especially the person who represents your district or represents the district your child’s school is in. Ask them what their priorities are.  Ask them how they are going to take a leadership role in making sure we move the district forward for ALL students.

If you’re able to check agendas before school committee meetings to see what will be talked about, that’s great. Then you can make a plan to speak at public comment about issues you care about. I also do agenda previews. You can subscribe those by toggling it on here.

And finally, talk to your school community and your neighbors-ESPECIALLY when they don’t have all the information. That’s the power of this susbtack-I try to get as much accurate information about our schools out there as possible. We don’t all have the same priorities for our schools, but if we aren’t all working with accurate information, having those conversations can’t be productive.

WPS in Brief doesn’t have a ton of subscribers, but you all are dedicated.  The read rates on this substack are always north of 70% and that tells me that for one reason or another, whether you are a parent, an educator, a student, or an engaged citizen, you care about our schools. Thank you.

Just a friendly reminder that WPS in Brief has transitioned over to Worcester Sucks and I Love it. The agenda preview for the February 15 school committee meeting is now posted over there. Check it out!

Agenda previews won’t be sent out to the whole Worcester Sucks mailing list. If you want to receive them in your inbox you’ll need to subscribe to Worcester Sucks (if you aren’t already!), go to Manage Subscription and toggle agenda preview to green.

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

The next school committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 1. Executive session starts at 5pm and the general meeting is scheduled to start at 6pm, but actual start time depends on if there’s executive session and how long it takes. The full agenda is here. You can watch it via zoom or Facebook live.

Here’s a selected preview of the agenda:

Preliminary Budget Updates. There will be a report of the Superintendent on the FY25 budget (covers July 2024- June 2025) presented by Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen. This will give us the first glimpse of a budget year that will probably require some hard decisions. Preliminary estimates show that the general fund baseline budget for the 2024-2025 school year will have a $10.7 million increase.  The estimated budget cost increase (i.e. salaries, health insurance, retirement etc.) is $32.8 million. So we’re looking at a gap of $22.1 million. Here’s the presentation.

Reconsideration on graduation ceremony participation policy.
Member Maureen Binienda (at-large) filed for “reconsideration” on a policy item that allows students to walk at graduation if they are two credits short. The item passed 8-1 at the January 18th meeting, with Binienda the lone no vote.

Reconsideration can be filed within 48 business hours of a vote and according to the school committee rules, a reason needs to be supplied by the requesting member. Here are Binienda’s reasons (provided in the agenda backup):

As part of the January 18th meeting discussion about the policy, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Marie Morse—who has worked in WPS since 1988— explained, “our group, the executive directors, myself, polled the high school principals…and the high school principals agreed.” It appears through the above email that Binienda is implying that Dr. Morse mislead the committee and believes that “the correct information needs to be shared with the committee.” It’s not exactly clear what that “correct information” is.

For more context I asked WPS if they had an idea of how many students this new policy would apply to, and spokesman Dan O’Brien told me that there were six students who participated in the summer graduation ceremony last year. That’s just six students who did not have enough credits to graduate with their class, but had enough by the end of the summer. We’re talking a small handful of students here.

When this proposed policy was first discussed at the Governance subcommittee meeting, the administration wrote that there was no consistency between the schools and there was a need for district-wide guidelines. As Laura Clancey, previous school committee member who originally brought the item, said in her comments during the subcommittee discussion: “Graduation is a staple in a lot of our student’s lives and high school graduation sometimes is the only graduation that they will receive…So I think this will make a huge impact on students.”

In her comments against the policy Binienda said, “There’s rules in life you have to follow in order to achieve things.” I get the ‘rules are rules’ argument, although it did not sway any of her colleagues. I do want to note, though, that it’s an interesting one coming from someone who has already ignored school committee rules; as was the case when she voted for herself for vice chair, despite being ineligible.

Items on Discipline.

• Member Kathi Roy (district E) requests a report on the status of the “Turn it Around Drug Program”

• Member Dianna Biancheria (district C) requests an update on the “Safety Centers” for elementary and secondary.

• Member Binienda requests a report on the “number of hearings for discipline policy violations and number of students placed in alternative settings.”

Quinsigamond Elementary Traffic. Member Roy requests the administration work with the WPD traffic division to come up with a plan to relieve congestion at Quinsigamond Elementary during drop-off and pick-up.

Worcester East Middle. There is a public petition from ex-school committee member Jermoh Kamara to redesign Worcester East Middle into an innovation STEAM school that would include project-based learning.  It was on last meeting’s agenda but was held.

See you next month over at Worcester Sucks and I Love it. Please subscribe and support our work. Have a great week!

In lieu of tips this month, I hope you’ll consider a donation to my 40th birthday fundraiser for the Chandler Magnet/La Familia PTO to support a volunteer-run, bilingual school library.  I’m $820 away from my $4,000 goal–will you consider donating $40 in honor of my 40th?

Leer en español.

Ok, let’s dive in: 

One year anniversary and some news about the future.
Here we are, exactly one full year since I published my first post of WPS in Brief. When I started this newsletter there were no journalists covering school committee meetings and the offices of Communications and Family and Community Engagement did not exist.  From my perspective, there are more eyes on public meetings, families and students feel more engaged, and communication from the district has improved 10 fold. The landscape has changed drastically in a year. We’re moving in the right direction, but the work continues.

 As I approached this one year anniversary, I’ve been thinking about the role of WPS in Brief in this new landscape. From the feedback I’ve received from you all, I know there’s a place for this newsletter in breaking down the bureaucratic processes and sharing digestible, relevant information about the governance of our school district.  I want to continue to offer an entry point for you to feel informed without feeling overwhelmed.

And so, I’m happy to share that starting in February, WPS in Brief will move over to Worcester Sucks and I Love It, joining Bill Shaner and Shaun Connolly to write about the city we love. Good, local journalism is essential to a healthy city.  It leads to higher voter turnout and less political polarization. We don’t all have the same priorities, but in order to have productive conversations we need to be working with accurate information. In joining Worcester Sucks and I Love It, my hope is that even more people will be informed about the governance of our school district.  Please support our work and consider a paid subscription to Worcester Sucks.

Report of the Superintendent: Multilingual Learners.

Assistant to the Superintendent, Dr. Marie Morse, and the new Director of Multilingual Education, Jessica Mandes, reported on the current state of multilingual learners, and gave information about the audit conducted by American Institute of Research (AIR).  The gist is that English Learners are not faring well in our district, and while there are some strengths, there needs to be a more purposeful strategy.  At the end of the presentation Superintendent Monárrez emphasized this, saying: “When you see data that shows single digit outcomes for multilingual youth, you should be outraged. You should not be okay with it. We can do so much better, our children can do so much better, and we have to be intentional about what we do…So if you walk away with nothing else from this presentation about what this third party told us, it told us that we had a lot of great activities, but it lacked that intentionality.”  Next steps will be putting together a workgroup of stakeholders, prioritizing recommendations, and developing an implementation plan. 

Old Sturbridge Village field trips.
Despite the extensive media coverage of a “boycott”, WPS third graders will be going to Old Sturbridge Village for field trips this spring.  According to the Masslive article, the field trips will be partially funded by a state earmark and will have “exclusive access to field trips with exclusive Worcester-related programming.”  So what happened to the boycott?

If we go back to the language of the April item it says: “to request the administration arrange for an alternative LEAP (field trip) in lieu of the current trip to Old Sturbridge Village; further, request that the Administration ensures that no Worcester Public Schools funds voluntarily are allocated to Old Sturbridge Village, Inc., or its affiliates.” So the item was a request to the administration (administration is generally referring to the Superintendent and her “cabinet”) to consider alternatives, and the only power the school committee has here is in the approval of WPS funds.

Some background: WPS LEAP field trips for grade 1-12 are funded directly through the Worcester Education Development Foundation (WEDF).  WEDF is a 501(c)3 non-profit that offers a way for foundations/donors to donate money to support WPS when they cannot or do not want to donate directly to public schools. WEDF funds the field trips directly with the organizations, so field trip money from WEDF is not approved by the school committee like other donations or grants to the district are.

So it appears, perhaps because the role of philanthropy in schools is layered and complicated, that the administration has made a decision to continue field trips to OSV.  There are still two school committee items around assessing field trips on the docket for the Teaching, Learning and Student Supports subcommittee, so the field trips conversation isn’t over.

Meeting Moment.

Brian Allen gives the 600th (kidding) update on the plans to alleviate Roosevelt School traffic issues.  

$830,000 cut to the current school year budget.
As mentioned in my October post and in this month’s agenda previews, the state cut the school committee’s current budget by $830,000.  This is mostly because the final state budget underfunded the charter school reimbursement by $688,455.  To put it simply, the state is not meeting its financial obligation under the state statute and did not allocate the money due to WPS. As we have seen for years and years, Charter schools continue to be a financial drain on our district, while taxpayers have no say at all in their budget or governance.  To make up for the deficit, the committee transferred savings from the paraprofessional salary line due to vacancies.  Had there not been a surplus to draw from, it would have potentially meant cuts to programs or services. 

Recommended Reads.

Understanding your neighborhood schools. The Worcester Regional Research Bureau (WRRB) has come out with this wicked cool mapping tool showing the assignment zones for schools and data to go along with those zones.  As I mentioned back in the September post, redistricting is most likely on the horizon for the elementary schools, and this tool offers helpful insights for us as a community as we have those conversations.

If you want to understand some of the political, and personal dynamics that played out at the January 18th meeting, Bill Shaner covers the deliberation between the school committee members on a bunch of items, with videos included.  He also offers his analysis of the dynamics of the new committee. 

Electric School buses are coming to Worcester

10-year-old Worcester student hopes he can turn passion for music into a career

WPS News this month hosted by Claremont students

Telegram coverage of the Jan 18th school committee meeting.

FY 25 Budget.
(aka the “fiscal year” that runs from June 2024-July 2025, so next school year)

It’s budget season, arguably the most important time to be paying attention to WPS.  Some opportunities for giving input over the next few monthst:

• February 1: The Superintendent provides a preliminary budget presentation to the School Committee.

• February 27: WPS Budget Forum hosted by Worcester Equity Roundtable. On Zoom. Get free tickets here.

• March 5: Budget Presentation to Superintendent’s Teacher Advisory Committee

• March 7: Budget Presentation to Superintendent’s Student Advisory Committee.

• March 13: Budget Presentation to Family and Community Engagement Roundtable.

• March 27, 2024 (this date is subject to change.): Budget Presentation to Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Committee (CPPAC).

Upcoming Dates.

• School Committee Meetings are February 1 and 15, 5:30 pm

• Hopefully the Mayor will appoint chairs for Teaching, Learning and Student Success (TLSS) and Finance, Operations and Governance (FOG) soon so the committee can get to work! The Mayor appointed the subcommittees:

  • Finance, Operations & Governance (FOG): Chair Molly McCullough (district A), Vice Chair Dianna Biancheria (district C), Jermaine Johnson (district F) and Kathleen Roy (district C).

  • Teaching, Learning and Student Success (TLSS): Chair Alex Guaridiola (district D), Vice Chair Vanessa Alvarez (district B), Sue Coghlin Mailman (at-large) and Maureen Binienda (at-large)

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Also.
If your kid was born in 2019 or in 2020 it’s time for kindergarten and preschool enrollment. The updated enrollment page is easy to navigate, informative, and clear.   It’s like night and day compared to trying to enroll my oldest kid two years ago.  Props to the Communications and the Family and Community Engagement offices, and all the people who worked hard to put the site together. It’s a thing of beauty.

See you next month over at Worcester Sucks.  Please consider a paid subscription!

Subscribe now

The first full meeting of the new school committee is scheduled for Thursday, January 18th. Executive session starts at 5pm and the general meeting starts at 5:30pm. The full agenda is here. You can watch it via zoom or Facebook live. Mayor Petty canceled the January 4th meeting so this agenda has everything from that agenda.  The standing committees have still not been assigned, so it’s not clear when they will meet. 

Now to the fun stuff:

National Anthem. Nelson Place student, Angelo Gray, who sang the national anthem at the city’s inauguration exercises a few weeks ago, will sing it again at this meeting. In early 2023 the school committee started inviting students to sing and I have to say, it’s a much better way to start a meeting!

Buses (aka Transportation). The student advisory committee filed an item to review rules and regulations around buses and accessibility for all students, and also asked to consider changes to the amounts of students allowed on the bus.  For large school buses the secondary student capacity is 48 students (two per seat) and the elementary student capacity is 71 (three per seat). The current policy is that students who live under two miles from their school are not eligible for a bus. This is a strict cut off for middle and high school students, but for K-6 elementary students the policy says: "The district may also offer transportation to students living closer than two miles to the school to which they are entitled to attend for reasons of safety at the superintendent's or their designee's discretion." So in practice, if elementary students live more than a mile-ish from school, they probably will be eligible for a bus.  According to Massachusetts General Law, WPS is only required to provide transportation for K-6 students. And important to note from the WPS website re: preschool students: “bus transportation is not available for these programs unless your child receives transportation as part of their special education services.” Here is the full policy. 

There were two items similar to this discussed at the December Finance and Operations standing committee, one around decreasing the 2 mile distance for secondary students and the other a public petition (by me!) to consider a policy change around bus rider limits.  Both items were filed due to staffing shortages and budgetary constraints.

Worcester East Middle. There is a public petition from ex-school committee member Jermoh Kamara to redesign Worcester East Middle into an innovation STEAM school that would include project-based learning. 

Multilingual Update. There will be a report of the Superintendent on the Multilingual Program audit. It will be presented by Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Marie Morse, and the new Director of Multilingual Education, Jessica Mandes.

Two Namings. The committee will vote on two namings: to name the auditorium at the Durkin building after long time school committee clerk Dr. Helen Friel and to name the alternative program after Dr. Michael O’Neil.

Five administrative reports from at-large member Maureen Binienda:

• asking for a list of the 2023-24 allocation requests from all principals

• a report on the rental costs for all buildings, including the bus yard

• a report on the number of weapons/drugs confiscated and the number turned into the Worcester Police for the 22-23 and 23-24 school year 

• a report of the table of organization, names, salary and certification of all included

All these items will go back to administration to report on, except for the rental costs of all buildings will go to Finance, Operations, and Governance (FOG).

Roosevelt School traffic issues. District C member Dianna Biancheria requested an update on the work to be done to improve the Roosevelt School traffic issues. The last public update was at the September Finance and Operations subcommittee. If you want to hear the facilities department walk through all the potential solutions, you can watch that section of the meeting here.

Final FY24 (the 2023-2024 school year)

Budget Adoption.  With the city finalizing the tax-rate and accepting the city budget, WPS has a finalized general fund budget for the current school year. The final budget is $830,550 less than what had been adopted in June. This is mostly due to the final state budget underfunding the charter school reimbursement for Worcester by $688,455. To make up for the deficit, the administration is recommending transferring savings from the paraprofessional salary line due to vacancies. All this was initially reported at October’s finance and operations subcommittee meeting. 

New School Capital Maintenance Fund.  Also in the budget update is an update on a new capital fund established by the city with an initial $1 million appropriation. This fund will be used to supplement the annual capital (aka building) allocation, which is currently $4 million. The city council also approved an appropriation of $718,255 in a New High School Fund. The Superintendent has said that one of her goals is that by the end of June 2026 the district will have developed and identified an “on-going revenue stream for the WPS facilities master plan.” It seems this additional money is due to the ongoing meetings between the Superintendent, the City Manager, and their administrative teams.

If you made it this far, I’m proud of you! Have a great week.

This is my first attempt at previewing the school committee agendas. If you are a subscriber who only wants monthly updates about what happened at meetings, you can stop receiving these in your inbox by toggling it off. If you have feedback get in touch: wpsinbrief@susbtack.com

Now to the fun stuff:

January 2 Meeting
The school committee is officially inaugurated at 5pm on Tuesday, January 2 at South High School, but right before the ceremony they have a meeting at 4:30. There will be an “informal” vote to elect the Vice Chair, the seating order will be selected, and the committee will vote on adopting the new rules from the December 21 meeting. Here’s the agenda and here’s the link to zoom in.

The Vice Chair is the person who, in consultation with the Superintendent, works with the clerk to put together the agenda for each general meeting, ensuring that items on the agenda are in the purview of the school committee. The Vice Chair must also make sure that the student advisory committee meets every month and in the absence of the Chair (the Mayor) the Vice Chair runs school committee meetings.

January 4 Meeting.
The committee meets again at its normally scheduled time on Thursday, January 4. Executive session starts at 5pm and the general meeting starts at 5:30pm. The full agenda is here. You can watch it via zoom or Facebook live.

-Multilingual Update. There will be a report of the Superintendent on the Multilingual Program audit. No back up yet, but I will link it here if it’s up before the meeting.

-Two Namings. The report on the Governance and Employee Issues subcommittee brings two naming opportunities to a full committee vote: to name the Auditorium at the Durkin building after long time school committee clerk Dr. Helen Friel and to name the alternative program after Dr. Michael O’Neil.

-Five items from Maureen Binienda:

• asking for a list of the 2023-24 allocation requests from all principals

• a report on the rental costs for all buildings, including the bus yard

• a report on the number of weapons/drugs confiscated and the number turned into the Worcester Police for the 22-23 and 23-24 school year

• a report of the table of organization, names, salary and certification of all included

-Roosevelt School traffic issues. Dianna Biancheria requested an update on the work to be done to improve the Roosevelt School traffic issues. The last public update was at the September Finance and Operations subcommittee. If you want to hear the facilities department walk through all the potential solutions, you can watch that section of the meeting here.

-Final FY24 Budget Adoption. With the city finalizing the tax-rate and accepting the city budget, WPS has a finalized general fund budget for the current school year. The final budget is $830,550 less than what had been adopted in June. This is mostly due to the final state budget underfunding the charter school reimbursement for Worcester by $688,455. To make up for the deficit, the administration is recommending transferring savings from the paraprofessional salary line due to vacancies. All this was initially reported at October’s finance and operations subcommittee meeting.

-New School Capital Maintenance Fund. Also in the budget update is an update on a new capital fund established by the city with an initial $1 million appropriation. This fund will be used to supplement the annual capital allocation, which is currently $4 million. The city council also approved an appropriation of $718,255 in a New High School Fund. The superintendent has been clear that one of her goals is that by the end of June 2026 the district will have developed and identified an “on-going revenue stream for the WPS facilities master plan.” It seems this additional money is due to the ongoing meetings between the Superintendent, the city manager, and their administrative teams.

And props to the new clerk, Kristi Turgeon, who is linking backup items right in the agenda!

That’s it. Have a great weekend and happy new year!

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Let’s get to it:

Superintendent’s mid-year review.
It’s halfway through the academic year, so the Superintendent and members of the Cabinet presented a mid-year review on the Superintendent’s goals (for specifics see my original coverage of the goals back in September here.) Some mid-year highlights include:

• elementary reading data from the Star assessment is showing “very promising growth” with the mid-year data already meeting what the end of year data was last school year. This is the first year the district is implementing the new elementary language arts curriculum CKLA.

• the social emotional learning (SEL) assessment, Panorama, was administered to offer a “pulse check” on where students are around a positive, welcoming, and inclusive environment at their schools.  Compared to last spring there were significant increases across all questions at the elementary level (4-6 grades) and the secondary level (7-12 grades).

• this school year 23.7% of staff “identified themselves as being reflective of students that they serve.”  Last year the number was 18% and the current number exceeds the target for improvement, which is 23.5%. It was not specified what demographic criteria was used to come up with these percentages.

Also worth noting that the Superintendent was named in the National School Public Relations Association “Top 25 Superintendents to Watch” for her communication initiatives and accessibility to the public.

School Food.
The finance and operations subcommittee discussed an item on aligning school nutrition with student cultural and dietary needs.  The nutrition department has a plan to roll out some changes, but a huge challenge is staffing.  There are currently 100 unfilled positions in nutrition–or one third of the staff they need.  As many folks pointed out at the meeting, it’s incredible that they have been able to maintain normal operations. It was also announced that Ashley Hays, a long time executive chef who beat Bobby Flay, moved from her position in the administration and is now the Assistant Director of Nutrition.  She will be working on culinary innovation.  

School Year 2024-2025 Budget Input.

Budget season is here and arguably the most important time to be paying attention to WPS.  Above is the updated budget calendar leading up to the school committee budget meetings in June.  In red I’ve highlighted places for stakeholders and the public to offer input.  Many of these entry points for feedback are new. Note that individual school resource allocation requests must be in by January 30.  This means that at the January school site council meetings all principals should be reading over their school-based budget proposal for site council review. This is a great opportunity to learn what your school is prioritizing and offer input at the school level. There are no site council meetings currently listed on the public WPS Calendar, but you can always email your school principal to find out when the January site council meeting will be held. 

MSBA/Burncoat.
Exciting news that Burncoat Senior High School was finally accepted into the MSBA “pipeline.”   The school has been submitted by the district over a dozen times since 2008.  That's since this year's senior class was three years old.   On Talk of the Commonwealth the Superintendent spoke about creating facilities for the exceptional performing arts magnet and the potential for vocational tech in the arts such as sound and lighting and set design.  She also emphasized how stakeholder input, including staff, community partners, neighbors, and students will be vital to the process.  Estimates are that a new building would open in 2030/2031.

Final Strategic Plan.
The 2023-2028 Strategic Plan was approved by the school committee.  Worth a read in full if you can.  Or read my overview from last month’s newsletter here.

New school committee rules and new subcommittees.
Because next term will be a new school committee structure, the rules and the subcommittees needed to change (rules like 5 members make a quorum, versus the 4 that was needed before). Policy changes need to pass by a 2/3 majority, so after much back and forth, a new version of the rules were finally approved by the Committee. Some of the changes include (to be clear this is my paraphrasing.  Here are the new rules):

• that the Vice Chair of the school committee, as well as the chairs of any subcommittees, must have attended the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) Charting the Course program prior to being eligible.  State law says the orientation must be completed by all members within one year after initial election.  

• School committee members should notify the Superintendent or Executive Directors of visits to individual schools unless acting in their capacity as parent/guardian or vendor working with the school.

• The Chair of the School Committee (aka the Mayor) can approve an item after the deadline for the agenda, but before the 48 hours required by open meeting law, if the Chair determines that an item is time sensitive. Right now the deadline to get items on an agenda is the Wednesday a week before the next school committee meeting.  The Vice Chair is the one, in concert with the superintendent, who oversees what goes on the agenda.

Starting in January the four subcommittees will merge into two and consist of four school committee members each.  One committee will be Finance, Operations and Governance and the other will be Teaching, Learning and Student Success. 

Bits and bobs.

• The new contract for school bus drivers/monitors was finally approved and covers from July 1, 2023 through June 2026. 

• The controversial Gene Haus naming was held in subcommittee as requested by the administration.  They did not say why.

• When students return from break menstrual products will be available outside all the bathrooms at secondary schools.  They are still working on a plan for elementary schools.

• School committee accepted a grant that will help the district train teachers and educate families on the new IEP form rolling out for the fall of 2024.  This is the first time the form has been updated in 20 years.

• An item to change the transportation eligibility policy to lower the mileage cutoff for secondary students was filed due to not having sufficient bus drivers to expand it.

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Next school committee term.
This meeting closes out the current school committee term, one that Mayor Petty called “one of the best school committees I have worked with.”   I agree that this committee was high functioning, understood their purview, and got a lot of work done. As we move into the next term, it’s important for us to remember that the school committee has certain functions and responsibilities, including finance/budget, education policy and goals, curriculum, advocacy, and collective bargaining, to name a few. These are the things we need the school committee to focus on and be good at getting done. Specifically, I think the work that will be the most critical over the next two year term is:

• supporting the superintendent’s implementation of the committee’s five year strategic plan

• stewarding Student Opportunity Act money

• school culture and climate and student mental health

• facilities/building work

• educator support and retention, especially those in special education

• Advocating at the state level

If you’re looking for ways to get involved in WPS check out my post here.

Upcoming Dates:
All school committee meetings have virtual options with Spanish translation, see the school committee site for more information.

• Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council (CPPAC), January 24, 6:00PM at TBA. Guest Speaker is Chief Academic Support Officer Annie Arzaloza.

• School Committee Meetings are January 4 and 18, 5;30pm

• Standing committee meetings have not been posted yet for January.

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Also.
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Let’s get to it:

Strategic Plan Draft.
A draft of the strategic plan for 2023-2028 was presented to the Governance subcommittee. The plan envisions what WPS will be by the end of the 2027-2028 school year.  Just for context, that’s when kids born in 2023 will be finishing their pre-k year and current fifth graders will be completing their first year of high school.

In the plan there are six key priorities, with each key priority having two to four aims, and each aim having one or two goals with performance indicators.  In total there are 18 aims and 30 goals—though some are intentionally overlapping in more than one key priority. Here’s a sampling of some of the goals: 

By the end of the 2027-2028 school year

• schools will implement the WPS instructional framework to ensure that historically underserved students feel connected to the learning environment

• increase readiness at targeted grade levels

• all schools will implement the WPS Vision of a Learner

• schools in the district will improve two-way communication to help families understand expectations, track student progress, and where and how to seek support for their children

• schools will implement a restorative practice model to ensure that school communities grow and thrive

• increase annual retention of staff from 80% to 85%

• schools will implement a comprehensive evidence-based K-12 counseling model

• Increase spending on operations and maintenance to the foundation budget level as supported by state and local funding

• develop a 5-year capital plan using cost analysis of current building operations to prioritize projects

In addition to the five-year goals, there will be annual implementation goals in the district operational plan. Because of the transition to a new superintendent, the strategic plan process was a little delayed, so we are already halfway through the first year of the five-year plan. The draft plan will go to the full committee on December 7 for feedback and then the final draft will be presented on December 21.  Now is the time to give your input!  Email school committee members or consider speaking at public comment.

Safety Audit.
The school safety audit was finally presented to the school committee, and the consultant that conducted the audit said that a lot of the issues they saw were common in other school districts similar to Worcester, especially when it comes to the age of buildings and deferred maintenance.  There was a safety assessment done in 2015, but that was only in 15 schools and it appears that many of the issues were not fixed. So this is the first comprehensive assessment done in a long, long time.

One thing that did stand out to the consultant team was the antiquated door-locking hardware (both external and internal). This is one of the concerns raised frequently in the open responses from community members who filled out the safety survey. In that survey 58% of respondents felt very safe or somewhat safe in their building and 37% indicated that access to the building was not restrictive enough. 

Here are the areas of improvement: 

Areas of strength and where the district is making progress:

The administration explained that they made a school-by-school critical improvement dashboard from the audit report and are continuously adding items based on observation and conversations with school leaders. This dashboard will help make sure that safety issues get prioritized for maintenance support. They also created a safety drill dashboard to monitor that schools are conducting the necessary drills (fire, medical, bus, standard response) and mentioned that they would like to move to an electronic visitor check-in log.  The school committee voted to front load money in the FY24 (2023-2024) budget so that the district has funding to implement the recommendations from the audit.  

Quadrant Teams.

In a Superintendent’s report the administration described the Quadrant Support Team (known as a Q-team) model that they rolled out at the start of the school year. Q-teams are organized by district quadrants and are a comprehensive group of skilled individuals from multiple departments whose goal is to provide efficient and consistent support to students and schools.  The cross-department Q-team members rotate through the schools in their quadrant, and provide coaching, modeling, mentoring and guidance.  The goal is to work with schools to create systems and structures that meet the needs of all students and to solidify WPS as a cohesive school system.  At the end of the presentation there were almost 30 minutes of positive testimonials from Q-team members and school teachers about how the model saves time, improves communication and helps them feel supported. The majority of people on the Q-teams were already working in the district, so there is minimal fiscal impact on implementing this model.

Meeting Moment to Watch.

Burncoat Middle School students petitioned the school committee to reopen and revitalize their school bathrooms with a fun and thoughtful video.  Every middle school in Worcester has two bathrooms per gender, except Burncoat, which only has one for 700 students.  The other two non-working bathrooms are currently being used for storage. The petition was referred to finance and operations.

And while we’re talking about Burncoat-and unfortunately it probably won’t help Burncoat Middle- we should hear shortly about the status of the statement of interest to replace Burncoat High School through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).  Even if the Burncoat project is accepted today, it could be 2030 before it’s ready.  That’s when this year’s second graders will be entering the 9th grade. (Doherty was accepted into the MSBA pipeline in 2017 and will finally be open next fall, seven years later.) 

Chapter 74 Programs (Vocational Programs) at the Comprehensive High Schools.
The Teaching, Learning and Student support standing committee discussed an item on Chapter 74 programs at the comprehensive high schools.  These are vocational programs as described in Massachusetts Law Chapter 74, hence the name, and districts apply to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) for approval.  Here’s a list of the programs in WPS.  As you can see from the data below the enrolled students reflect the demographics of the applicant pool. This year is the first year that there will be an automated lottery rather than lotteries at individual schools, which should streamline the process. 

Another naming.
The Committee approved naming the Union Hill basketball court after Assistant Superintendent Dr. Marie Morse.  In terms of process, this one is confusing for me.  In the last few months there have been three other naming suggestions that have come before the committee: naming the auditorium in the Durkin Administration building after retired school committee clerk Dr. Helen Friel, naming a shop at Worcester Tech after Gene Haas, and naming a program at the alternative school after retired educator Dr. Michael O’NeilI. In each case it was made clear that the process was to “specify a consideration period that allows for public comment, following which the Committee will deliberate and vote on the name.”  Each of those namings were referred to the Governance standing committee and are still being considered. In this case, though, the Dr. Morse naming was immediately approved without a consideration period.

Recommended Reads.

Summaries of the two school committee meetings in the Telegram are here and here.

Channel 25 did an investigation into sexual abuse in public schools in Massachusetts.

Two WPS staff members were named Hometown Heroes by Worcester Magazine: 

• University Park Campus School Principal Kaitlin Kelley Snow 

• Burncoat Middle school teacher Samantha Smith.

Upcoming Dates.
All school committee meetings have virtual options with Spanish translation. See the school committee site for more information.

• School Committee Meetings are December 7 and December 21, 6pm

• Teaching, Learning and Student Supports is December 12, 5pm

• Finance and Operations is December 19,  5:30pm

• Governance and Employee Issues is December 20, 4pm

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Also.
Tracy O’Connell Novick writes in her personal blog that the FY25 budget (the budget for the 2024-2025 school year) is not looking great, mostly due to a low inflation rate for the foundation budget, and because the state revenue has been below projections for a few months now.  I know the budget can be boring and feel hard to understand, but my goal over the next few months is to break it down and help it be more accessible.  

Thanks for reading. If you’d like to support my work you can send me a tip. Those of you who have sent tips along, thank you so much! I really appreciate it!

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See you in December for the last two meetings of the current school committee term.

When we're talking about schools, we are talking about what the United States is going to look like in 13 years when today's kindergartners graduate from high school, the world that we're going to live in 20 years from now or 30 years from now, when today's kindergarteners are our future Congress, the mayors, and city council members of our communities, business leaders. So we're talking about the metaphorical future and we're talking about the literal future. -Jack Schneider

When I heard these words from education historian and policy analyst Jack Schneider, I appreciated how he succinctly conveys why we care about our public schools. We see our schools as our literal and metaphorical future, and especially in these uncertain times, we want to see our schools reflect our hopes for the future.

I didn’t plan to write anything post-election, but I got a bunch of emails from subscribers who were disappointed in the school committee election results and were wondering what they can do moving forward. I’m all about civic engagement so I love to see it. The reason why I started this substack was because I was hearing from parents and educators that they wanted to know what was going on, but the hurdle for engagement feels so high, and it’s hard to know where to start.  I get it, who wants to watch a subcommittee meeting where they talk about boilers for 30 minutes? (Well, besides me, obviously).  Just being here, reading about the governance of WPS is important.  Sometimes that’s all we have the bandwidth to do and that’s not nothing! If you feel like you can and want to do more, here are some suggestions.

Worcester Public Schools.
There’s lots of ways to get involved and give your input to Worcester Public Schools that isn’t necessarily school committee.  While school committee is important, the Superintendent has a lot of power and control over decision making and the direction of the district.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  One incredibly important thing the current school committee did was hire the Superintendent.  She will be a stabilizing force.  And if you’ve appreciated her leadership and the direction she’s moving in, let her know that. Here are some ways to get involved that don’t have anything to do with school committee:

• Attend your school site council meeting. Sometimes starting small and hyperlocal helps with the overwhelm, and there’s a lot to learn about schools through the site councils.

• Go to Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council (CPPAC) Meetings and connect with the WPS Family and Community Engagement office.

• If you are looking for a community to talk about school issues, I highly recommend Knitty Council and Worcester Education Justice Alliance (WEJA).

The City.
Write your new district councilor and the at-large city councilors and ask them to support increasing funding for our schools, especially the capital budget. Ask Mayor Petty to appoint the people you think would be best for the Education Standing Committee (my vote would be for Jenny Pacillo, Thu Nguyen and George Russell). Let your city councilors know that education is important to you and you expect them to support it.

The State.
The majority of WPS funding comes from the state, so the state budget and statewide decisions have a massive impact on our distric—as demonstrated by the approval of the new charter school and by the Student Opportunity Act.  Following what is happening there and advocating when you can is important.  The best entry point to start doing this is to subscribe to Tracy O’Connell Novick’s blog or follow her on social media. She is someone the entire state, and the region, looks to on this stuff.

Journalism.
Support local writers and journalists who are covering public meetings and asking the tough questions.  The more eyes and ears the better. Engage with their work and let them know what’s important to you.

Engage with School Committee.
We now know who our new school committee will be. Engage with them and advocate for what is important to you. Especially the person who represents your district or represents the district your child’s school is in. Ask them what they plan to prioritize first.  Ask them how they are going to take a leadership role in making sure we move the district forward for ALL students.

If you’re able to check agendas before school committee meetings to see what will be talked about, that’s great. Then you can make a plan to speak at public comment about issues you care about. I have thought about writing up previews of what’s on school committee agendas each meeting. If I get enough subscribers, I’ll do it. You can sign up for that by toggling it on here.

And finally, talk to your school community and your neighbors-ESPECIALLY when they don’t have all the information. That’s the power of this susbtack-I try to get as much accurate information about our schools out there as possible.  Send this substack to others to subscribe. We don’t all have the same priorities for our schools, but if we aren’t all working with accurate information, having those conversations can’t be productive.

WPS in Brief doesn’t have a ton of subscribers, but you all are dedicated.  The read rates on this substack are always north of 70% and that tells me that for one reason or another, whether you are a parent, an educator, a student, or an engaged citizen, you care about our schools. Thank you. I’ll end with the wise words from Cara Berg Powers:

At the end of the day, change is not linear. A backlash often follows the kind of progressive pickups we had in 2021. It’s normal to be discouraged. And everyone do what you need to do this week to rest up, hydrate, and catch up on your email, because next week we get back to work.

See you at the end of the month!

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Let’s get to it:

Election 2023.
November 7th is Election Day for the city council and school committee. You can vote early at Worcester Public Library all this week or vote on Election Day (friendly reminder there’s no school that day!) Please make a plan to vote. You can read my 2023 school committee guide over on Worcester Sucks and I Love It.

Strategic Plan 2023-2028
The strategic plan process continues and the administration provided an update to the Governance subcommittee meeting.  The draft priorities include:

The full document, including priority statements, aims and goals, can be found here.  You can see videos of the strategic plan workshops and other updates on the strategic plan page.  Another report on the plan progress will come to the Governance subcommittee on November 28.  Then a draft of the strategic plan will go to the full school committee for review on December 7, with a final vote on December 21.

Superintendent’s Report: Student Performance.
Over two school committee meetings the administration reported on student performance and school accountability results.  The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) accountability system is used to measure schools against other schools in the state and the system has a number of indicators.  For elementary and middle schools the accountability scores are based on 60% Achievement (MCAS scores), 20% student growth, 10% English Language Proficiency and 10% chronic absenteeism.  For High schools the accountability scores are based on 40% achievement (MCAS scores), 20% student growth, 20% high school completion, 10% english language proficiency, and 10% chronic absenteeism and advanced coursework. These results are the first full school accountability determination since 2019. The administration shared that chronic absenteeism rates are going down, but are still higher than before the pandemic; advanced coursework percentage is also going down; and the graduation rate is holding steady and is higher than it was before the pandemic. Here are the glows and grows according to the administration:

In the presentation Dr. Marco Andrade, the Director of the Office of Research and Accountability,  broke down the data by different demographics. In terms of meeting or exceeding expectations, the percentage of Hispanic/Latino students, of students with disabilities, and of English language learners is consistently lower across all grades as compared to the district.  He also pointed out that for English learners, the higher the English proficiency level, the higher percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations. Also worth noting is that English language learner progress to proficiency has been on the decline since the pandemic.

Andrade also presented a chart (see above) showing the percentage of 3rd grade students meeting or exceeding expectations on the English Language Arts MCAS as well as on the STAR assessment.  He said that third grade is where “students should be transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn.”  The cohort of third graders represented in the 2023 data were in Kindergarten in March of 2020.   He said the district will continue to use STAR to monitor the progress of our students in reading, especially as we implement a new ELA curriculum.

Childcare for WPS Staff.
After conducting a staff survey and recognizing the need, administration gave an update that they are in the beginning planning stages for a childcare center for WPS employees.  There’s still a lot to be worked out, including a funding source, and they anticipate it wouldn’t realistically open until the 2025-2026 school year. 

Voluntary Uniform Policy update.
The voluntary uniform policy was updated to include a way to exit out of uniforms. A school site council must approve it and then it is brought to the school committee for a vote. Assistant Superintendent Dr. Marie Morse also suggested that it might be good practice for schools with voluntary uniforms to reassess every two to three years to keep a finger on the pulse of what schools are needing. There are seven schools with voluntary uniform policies, all elementary:  Burncoat Prep, Chandler Magnet, Clark St., Jacob Hiatt, Lincoln St., Union Hill and Woodland.  Some have had their policies for at least a decade and I would be interested to see if there’s any data from those schools that show what sorts of impact uniforms have on students or on learning.  Schools can request a voluntary uniform policy without any specific reason, and while the policy is voluntary, it’s not clear if that is actually the practice at all seven of the schools.

Buildings.

In the quarterly building maintenance and facilities report there were 14 projects presented, all in various stages. Check out the backup of the agenda for specifics. There was also an update on HVAC upgrades known as the “Honeywell Project,” the cost of which is $22.8 million and is being funded by Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Funds. The project is 46% complete with a full completion date of December 2024.  Here is a list of upgrades by school and the percent completed. 

Budget.
In an uncommon move the finance and operations committee approved first quarter transfers based on projections done by the budget office.  In early August the state budget was signed by Governor Healey, and it is providing WPS $830,550 less than the budget the school committee adopted in June.  To balance the budget change the Finance and Operations subcommittee voted to transfer savings from the paraprofessional salary line due to vacancies.  As of September 30 there were 95 vacant paraprofessional positions, the majority of which are in special education and multilingual disciplines.  The transfers still need to be voted on by the full committee. It was also mentioned that they need more staff in building and maintenance.  Current job openings for WPS are here.

Meeting Moment to Watch.

Student representatives requested the committee explore additional mental health resources for students beyond what is currently provided and to make a central location for students to be able to access those available resources.

Recommended Reads.

There was an hour of deliberation at school committee and lots of public debate about the potential naming of a shop at Worcester Tech. 

Big news that the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) is reopening its accelerated repair program and also increased how much it will fund per square foot.  These programs are critical to helping Worcester update our buildings.

Clark expands scholarships for students in Main South.

The Hanover Theatre Conservatory is piloting the first year of its Downtown Dance Program, and 31 students were selected and they represent 6 elementary schools in the Burncoat quadrant. 

Peabody recorded 865 illegal school bus passing in the first month of school. A proposed bill would allow the use of school bus stop arm cameras for ticketing. Write your legislators please!

Upcoming Dates.
All school committee meetings have virtual options with Spanish translation, see the school committee site for more information.

• School Committee meetings are November 2 and November 16, 6pm

• Special School Committee meeting on November 13, 5pm (at Durkin)

• Finance and Operations is November 13, 5:30pm

• Teaching, Learning and Student Supports is November 14, 5pm

• Governance and Employee Issues is November 28, 4:45pm

  ---

Also.
Make a plan to vote. Make plan to vote. Make a plan to vote. Make a plan to vote.  If you aren’t eligible to vote, remind everyone around you who is to make a plan to vote!

Thanks for reading. If you’d like to support my work you can send me a tip. See you next month when we’ll know who will be representing us on school committee for next term.

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Let’s get to it:

The superintendent reported on the start of the school year, and here are some things that came out of her report:

Air Conditioning and Facilities.
In the second week of school there were two early dismissals due to heat and the lack of air conditioning in 40 out of 50 school buildings.  News outlets reported on the heat wave and on the districts that had to cancel school, but most did not report on why and what those districts have in common: a historical lack of resources. For decades the state and federal government underfunded districts that have a large majority of high needs students, including Worcester.  In order to keep teachers in front of students and focus on programs, districts had to defer maintenance on buildings for many, many, many, years.  That is the main reason the majority of WPS buildings are in the state they are in today.  The Superintendent reiterated again that it is going to take many agencies (local, state, federal) working together to help WPS on facilities, and she committed to the goal that by the end of June 2026 the district will have developed and identified an “on-going revenue stream for the WPS facilities master plan.” 

Potential School Boundary Changes.
Along with deferred maintenance, the other facilities struggle is having physical space for students as enrollment in Worcester continues to grow.  According to the Superintendent, right before school started there were only 1,000 spaces left in total in the entire district. That can fill up quickly. As an example, Lincoln Street School and Chandler Street School lease space to help alleviate overcrowding, and Belmont Street is currently full and cannot take any more students. Dr. Monárrez also mentioned that when looking at facilities work they are paying attention to where housing developments are being built in the city and where we might have increases and over enrollment.  She said, “down the line we are going to have to look at some potential boundary changes, that no one likes to do, but we’re probably going to have to do that.  And If we continue down this route we are going to have to have additional schools.”  School Committee Member Tracy O’Connell Novick reiterated this at the finance and operations standing committee meeting, saying that changing school boundary zones is a top ten topic that will “light a school committee meeting on fire,” but that it’s a conversation that is well overdue in Worcester.

Transportation Systems Improvement and Changing Walk Zones.
The superintendent advocated for a system improvement for next year to post bus routes earlier in August for students and families.  It will definitely pose some challenges, but she has seen other districts do it and she thinks we can, too.  This year, for most students, the routes were shared a week before the first day of school.

There was also an item to look at changing the transportation eligibility policy to lower the mileage cutoff.  Currently, the cutoff for taking a bus for secondary students is 2 miles.  For elementary students, there is no specific mileage cutoff, but the policy says: “The district may also offer transportation to students living closer than two miles to the school to which they are entitled to attend for reasons of safety at the superintendent's or their designee's discretion.”  

Do note that preschoolers are the only population of WPS students who do not qualify for any transportation unless required by an IEP (individualized education plan). Legally, public schools in Massachusetts are only required to transport K-6 students who live two miles or more from school.  The item was sent to the finance and operations standing committee because a change would have significant cost implications.

New Director of Special Education and new Director of Multilingual Education.
Given Worcester’s student demographics, and the fact that MCAS data released this week showed that English Learners and Student with Disabilities scored “significantly behind students overall,” WPS hired two very important roles this month: Jessica Mandes is the new Director of Multilingual Education, who comes to WPS from the Ham (my hometown!) And Dr. Tammy Murray is the new director of Special Education. Murray is a trained occupational therapist, worked in WPS for over 20 years, and most recently was the Director of Special Education at the Central Massachusetts Collaborative.  Dr. Murray’s spouse, Tim Murray, is the Executive Director of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce and recently signed a memo to the Massachusetts Attorney General urging her not to certify an MCAS ballot question brought forth by the Massachusetts Teacher Association.

Superintendent’s Goals.

The school committee approved the superintendent’s goals for the 2023-2024 school year.  The process is similar to how other school administrators are evaluated, with a key difference that the superintendent is evaluated by a collection of people (the committee), and it’s done in public meetings. The process here is important, because when done well the goals serve as a roadmap and are a vital mechanism for accountability and communication throughout the rest of the school year between the superintendent, the school committee, and the public.

The two district goals are:

• 100% completion of highest priority emergency projects identified in the safety audit.

• narrowing the gap between overall student and staff demographics by 10%. 

While not explicit in the text of the goal, based on the data the superintendent presented that 28% of staff are BIPOC and 73% of students are BIPOC, the implied demographic for the goal is race.

The student goals include:

• increasing grade 3 reading performance demonstrated by the STAR assessment

• increasing the percentage of secondary (grades 7-12) students who self-report that they are engaged in school

You’ll note on the student goal slide that there is a section talking about increasing DESE accountability scores (which is mostly based on MCAS data-80% at the elementary level and 60% at the secondary level). Since the scores do not come out until September and the superintendent’s goals must be achieved by June 30, the committee voted to take those measures out of the superintendent’s goals, but do plan to evaluate them September 2024 when the data is released.

Meeting Moment to Watch

School Committee Member Jermaine Johnson shares his experience having just one black teacher during his time as a student in WPS, and then reflects that his daughter has never had one.  He says, “Damn, thirty something years later, my daughter is now in 9th grade and she has not sat in front of a teacher that looks like her. Thirty something years later and we’re having this conversation.”  These comments were in reference to the Superintendent's district goal to narrow the gap between overall student and staff demographics by 10%.

Subsidized Driver’s Ed.
Through grant funding, there will be an opportunity for 100 students to have subsidized driver’s education classes in the evenings starting in January 2024. The total cost will be $199, which is $100 for the class and $99 for the license test fee.  Priority will go to students in vocational programs (also referred to as Chapter 74) so that they can have access to more internship, apprenticeship, co-op or other career opportunities. 

Roosevelt School Traffic Issues.
In the quarterly facilities report during the finance and operations standing committee meeting, the facilities department gave an update about dozens of projects completed at schools over the summer, including the Elm Park gym floor and ADA (American Disabilities Act) upgrades at Worcester Arts Magnet.  There was significant discussion on the continued Roosevelt School traffic issues, with the facilities department walking through all the potential solutions, none of which are perfect.  If you want updates on that issue you can watch that section of the meeting here.

Recommended Reads.
The state updated health and sex education standards for the first time since 1999!

There was a forum for at-large school committee members last night.  Here is video and notes

The school committee will look at cell phone policy and also at cultural dietary needs of students. 

Upcoming Dates.
All school committee meetings have virtual options with Spanish translation, see the school committee site for more information.

• School Committee Meetings are October 5 and October 19, 6pm

• Governance and Employee Issues is October 3, 4:45pm

• Teaching, Learning and Student Supports is October 10, 5pm

• Finance and Operations is October 24, 5:30pm

Also.
The strategic planning process is underway with the first report scheduled for the Oct 3rd Governance and Employee Issues standing committee meeting.  You can see updates here: https://worcesterschools.org/about/superintendent/strategic-plan-updates/  

Thanks for reading. If you find this newsletter valuable please share with WPS parents, students, staff, your school’s PTO, neighbors and friends. If you’d like to support my work you can send me a tip. See you in October.

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A special welcome to the influx of new subscribers from Worcester Sucks and I Love It!  If you’re new here, I highly suggest you learn why I started this newsletter back in January and how I hope it can be helpful to you.  If you missed it, here’s the piece I contributed to Worcester Sucks and I Love It a few weeks ago.  Thanks to Bill Shaner for hosting me there (and paying me!)

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Let’s get to it:

School Committee Election.
Election season is here and this year will be unprecedented given that there will be six district members and two at-large members, versus the six at-large members we have currently.  It means there will be at least three new people on the committee come January 2024. If you don’t know what school committee district you are in, look it up here.  

A few weeks ago was the first public forum for school committee candidates, hosted by the Worcester Community Labor Coalition.  For an overview of the questions and candidates’ responses, check out my summary on twitter or if you’d like to watch the whole thing you can see the recording here.   Another great resource is this curated list of candidate interviews from Nicole Apostola. 

There are four candidates running at-large: incumbent Laura Clancey for her third term, incumbent Sue Mailman for her second term, incumbent Tracy O’Connell Novick for her sixth term and ex-superintendent Maureen Binienda. (If you missed it, here’s what I contributed a few weeks ago about the Worcester bus saga and Maureen Binienda’s leadership.)  Another race that impacts the school committee is the mayoral race, as the Mayor is the chair of the school committee. There are three candidates running for Mayor: Guillermo Creamer, Khrystian King, and Joe Petty.  I’ll do a roundup of the at-large and mayoral candidates in the next newsletter.

For the districts, District E is the only one that has a preliminary on September 5.  The candidates are Nelly Medina, John Patrick Reed, and Kathleen Roy. To learn more about the candidates you can watch the district E specific forum here or see district E resident Nicole Apostola’s notes from the forum here. Do note that Kathi Roy did not attend the Worcester Community Labor Coalition Forum or the District E forum (which was via zoom). 

Four of the six districts only have one candidate: incumbent Molly McCullough in A, incumbent Jermaine Johnson in F, newcomer Alex Guardiola in D, and newcomer Vanessa Alvarez in B.  Since there are no write-ins on general election ballots, we can assume that the four of them will most likely be on the committee.  And that leaves District C, which has two candidates: incumbent Jermoh Kamara and Diana Biancheria, who served on the school committee previously, but lost in the last election.

Neal McNamara at the Patch is doing some great short profiles of candidates. While there are no school committee candidates up yet, there will be, so keep an eye out!  

Please vote in the preliminary next Tuesday. You can also vote early at the Main Branch of the Worcester Library from Monday August 28-Friday Sept. 1. 

August Meetings.
This month’s school committee meetings were…interesting.  There were quite a bit of sidebar conversations while other people were speaking, lots of body language, confusion, conflict, and what appeared to me to be school committee members texting during the meeting.  And this was just from watching over zoom—I’m sure there was a lot more that the cameras did not show.  There’s occasionally a little bit of this at meetings, but this month it was a lot. I don’t know what to make of it necessarily, but it’s some context that I felt was worth sharing.

Superintendent’s Goals.

The superintendent presented a preliminary draft of strategic objectives as she works with the school committee to define her goals for the 2023-2024 school year.  As you might remember from the newsletter last month, the superintendent’s goals are approved by the school committee and are a significant part of her yearly evaluation.  The goals were presented as multi-year, and while the majority of the school committee appreciated the presentation, they also felt it was pre-empting the strategic plan process, which starts next month.  The majority of the committee also expressed wanting to see a more concrete district goal that builds on the structural work done over the last year, most specifically in terms of the impact on students.  In an op-ed by the superintendent published this weekend, she articulates clear priorities for the year, among them are increasing literacy at the elementary level and engagement at the middle school and high school level.

Five Year Strategic Plan.

At the Governance and Employee Issues Standing Committee meeting Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen presented the current five-year strategic plan process, including the task force members and the proposed timeline. The task force will meet for three days in September, an outcomes report will be presented to Governance on October 24 and again on November 28.  From there, a draft strategic plan would be brought to the school committee for review on December 7 and a final draft on December 23.  This is an important process for us as a community to pay attention to and I will keep you updated along the way.

Bits and Bobs.

• The school committee extended the superintendent’s contract to June 2027, as I mentioned last month this demonstrates a huge vote of confidence in her by the committee. 

• The committee finally approved the clerk position description.

• The administration introduced the new administrators for the year.

• The committee voted to request the administration look into starting an LGBTQIA+ affinity group for caretakers and families.

• WPS has a new Chief Equity Officer. 

Recommended Reads.
Burncoat finally has bleachers! Props to the student representatives who continued to advocate for this, despite them knowing they would never get to see them during their tenure. 

Worcester starting school year with more bus drivers than 2022.

Program gives high school students insight into mental health, incarceration, homelessness

Superintendent’s interview with Talk of the Commonwealth.

Meeting Moment.

Manny Alvarado interviewed Superintendent Monárrez. Obviously this isn’t a moment from a school committee meeting, but I do think it’s worth your time to watch the first 10 minutes where Manny talks with the Superintendent about identity, adoption and Latinidad. 

Also.
Does your school site council meet?  Are meetings well-attended?  Do you have community representatives?  I’m interested in hearing about your experience-email me back and let me know! wpsinbrief@substack.com

Thanks for reading. If you find WPS in Brief valuable, please share it. Thank you, thank you to those who sent me tips last month. If you’d like to support my work you can also send me a tip.  See you in September.

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Welcome to the July issue of WPS in Brief. This month covers key topics from two school committee meetings. If you’re new here, it might be helpful to learn more about this newsletter.

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Before we start, maybe throw a few dollars to teachers trying to get school supplies for the start the of the school year.

Let’s get to it:

Superintendent Evaluation.
The school committee evaluated the superintendent and she received an overall rating of “proficient,” which is defined by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) as “to be fully satisfactory..this is the rigorous expected level of performance. It is a demanding, but attainable level of performance.”   The short of it is that the committee thinks that the Superintendent has done an excellent job this year in meeting the established goals, and lauded her skills in relationship building, her shift of the professional culture, and her strength in building systems to support students and teachers. In their comments, the committee highlighted her connections with the community, her strong working relationship with the committee, the lack of grievances taken up in executive session, and her priorities brought forth for this year’s budget. It was clear that the committee and the superintendent took this process seriously. 

The meeting ended with the committee going into executive session to review the Superintendent’s contract.  Mayor Petty commented that it was “to show our support and make sure that at the end of the day we have you [Dr. Monárrez] here for the long term.” So, I’m speculating it was to negotiate to extend her contract, which currently runs until 2025.  That is a pretty big show of confidence. It felt wicked weird to watch a public meeting in Worcester where there was so much hope and positivity that wasn’t contrived.   But repeat after me: Worcester can have nice things.

Meeting Moment.

In lieu of summarizing every committee member's comments, I thought Tracy O’Connell Novick’s were representative of what the others said.  In her day job as a field director with Massachusetts Association of School Committee (MASC), she works with school committees across the state in the superintendent search and evaluation process, so her comments also comes from a place of expertise.  

New Elementary Course.
The committee approved a new elementary world culture and language course to start for this coming school year.   The course will be taught in K-6 grades and they are currently hiring teachers and training them to teach the course.  Assistant Superintendent Dr. Marie Morse explained that they made the course to have something meaningful to fill the time created by the new teacher contract, where every teacher will now have five prep periods.

Staffing changes.
You can read about some big staffing changes in Tracy O’Connell Novick’s blog, but just to highlight two: WPS is hiring a new Director of Special Education and a Director of Multilingual Education.  Check out all of Worcester Public Schools job postings here.

Another huge change is that the clerk of the school committee, Dr. Helen Friel, is retiring after 57 years working for WPS.  The process for hiring the clerk job will be public, much like it was to hire the superintendent. There is a proposal on the table to change the position so that they report to the school committee rather than the superintendent.

Recommended Reads.
The new charter school, Worcester Cultural Academy, released it’s enrollment data.  It’s about 70 students off the desired enrollment in their application.  Tracy Novick did a financial breakdown of why this is a problem (that many folks predicted.)  They were only able to fill two classes at the Kindergarten level, with just one class each planned for 1st-4th grade. 

A Holy Cross professor was appointed to the state board of education (the same board that approved the charter school).  Glad to see Worcester representation.

Listen to Sue Mailman talk about pay disparity for the school committee.

Don’t Touch My Podcast is doing a summer series with candidates running for election in Worcester.  Highly recommend their interviews with at-large incumbent Sue Mailman and incumbent Jermoh Kamara who is running in district C.  More school committee interviews to come, I’m sure. 

Upcoming Dates.

• School committee candidate forum at the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester, August 2, 6-7:30pm. Hosted by the Worcester Community Labor Coalition.

• School Committee Meeting, August 17, 4pm

All school committee meetings have virtual options with Spanish translation, see the school committee site for more information.

Also.
Make sure you note the new 2023-2024 school calendar, which includes days off for election days in November and March.

Thanks for reading. If you find WPS in Brief valuable, please share it with your friends. If you’d like to support my work you can send me a tip. See you in August.

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Let’s get to it:

The 2023-2024 School Year Budget (aka FY24).
The school committee approved a budget after about four hours of public deliberation over two meetings. For me, these budget meetings underscore how well the current school committee is functioning as a public body. They deliberate everything openly. They ask great questions, which not only holds the school department accountable, but provides valuable information to the public. They do disagree (a good chunk of the time, actually), but they work together well. They debate. They take action on items. It’s really heartening, especially in contrast to the Worcester City Council, which has no power to change the city’s budget.  They are only permitted to approve or not approve a budget proposed by the city manager, in its entirety.  It’s bonkers.  Anyway, if you missed it, read my review of the proposed budget from last month to see where things started.  Here’s what’s different in the final budget:

The superintendent’s team suggested a few adjustments to the budget between when it was published and when the school committee deliberated. Those changes that are:

• four proposed focused instructional coaches are on hold until the Chief Equity Officer is hired.

• they are not filling the role of Director of Climate and Culture and instead will hire four climate and culture assistants at the middle school level.

The school committee made changes with the intent of:

• hiring two additional nurses, in order to have a full time nurse in every school building.

• adding 20 paraprofessionals so that every kindergarten class will have one.

• increasing the budget for student-based instructional materials from $75 to  $100 per pupil.

The money for these changes was transferred from:

• two integrated coach positions that the administration decided they were no longer going to hire.

• ten proposed school-based clerical positions.  The administration proposed 20 secretaries to “provide student attendance oversight to provide information to School Adjustment Counselors and school administrators” but after deliberation, the committee felt like having one at every school probably wasn’t necessary, so they approved ten.

• one proposed communications position that the majority of the school committee did not think was needed.  Administration proposed two new communications positions. Novick motioned to transfer the salaries of both (essentially eliminating both positions), but that motion failed, with everyone but Novick voting no. The motion to transfer the salary of just one position passed, with Mailman, Johnson, and Petty voting no.

• $600,000 moved from transportation, because in-house transportation has saved the district money and there was a surplus. The transfer reflects realized savings.

• $180,000 from the literacy tutors salary line.

How money is allocated is for sure the most important part of all this, but what I briefly touch on above gives a glimpse into the deliberation that was happening, which is important context (and sadly not something our local news covers).  There was some solid deliberation on the clerical positions, on the communications position, on understanding facilities maintenance, and more than I could fit in this brief. (If you want to see more of what happened around deliberation for the non-salary accounts, check out my twitter thread here.)  This level of deliberation shows me that the school committee is taking its responsibility seriously.  

Some other tidbits of info that came up during the budget deliberations:

Middle School Sports.
Boys and girls flag football will be added to all the middle schools through the addition of 10 coaching positions. The Director of Athletics said they viewed middle school sports as feeders into the high school programs.   It is unclear whether there are equivalent opportunities for boys and girls in football at the high school level.

Current Vacancies.
The chart below shows open positions by budget category.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Allen said there is a vacancy factor of about $6 million built into the budget.

Preschool.
The administration's “desired state” is to move to full day preschool across the district, but a significant challenge is facilities.  They are adding two or three Specialized Approaches to Individual Learning (SAIL) preschool classrooms. And two of the Chandler Magnet preschool classrooms are moving to Clark Street and Elm Park.

SLO MOU Update.
Update on SLO MOU

Office of Academic Support.
Effective July 1st, school adjustment counselors will report to their building principals and school psychologists will report to the special education department. Psychologists will continue to report to their current supervisor, Dr. Gloria McKibbin. Here’s an updated organizational chart for the Office of Academic Support. 

Administrative Spending.
The School Committee has a written policy that puts a spending cap on the administration at 1.5% of the foundation budget.  For this current year's budget the district will “spend below the self-imposed administrative spending cap by more than $261,000.”

That’s all for the budget. 

Here’s what else happened this month:

Lunch Time.
The administration is asking all elementary principals to schedule 20-minute lunches for elementary schools next year. Middle and high school lunch times will not change.

Sex Ed Opt Out.
As of June 8 there are 3554 students opted out of the sex ed curriculum.  If using Oct 1st enrollment numbers, this represents approximately 14.6% of the student body.  There was talk about ways to communicate with caregivers to keep them informed about the curriculum, both through a virtual information session and at Fall open houses at individual schools.

Magnet Schools.
The standing committee on Governance and Employee Issues approved a revised handbook (it is not official until it is approved by the full committee). As part of that process, administration clarified that Chandler Magnet, Jacob Hiatt Magnet, and Worcester Arts Magnet are the schools they still consider magnet schools. Norrback Avenue School and City View Discovery school were taken off the list.

New School Committee Student Advisory Representatives.
Congrats to the new School Committee Student Advisory Reps:

Facilities.
At this month’s meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance and Operations there was a big update on facilities projects. (It’s in alphabetical order by school if you are looking for something specific).  There is a new Director, Richard Ikonen, and new assistant director, Ryan Hacker, both of whom started in May, and I just want to publicly thank them for taking on this cluster of a job. If you have been reading this newsletter for the short six months of its existence, you have probably picked up by now that deferred maintenance has created some serious facilities challenges.  For example, six years ago a facilities assessment recommended that 22 (out of 60) buildings be replaced or receive major renovations and the estimated cost was $70 million at the time.  We are trying to dig out of a very big hole and need some serious leadership and collaboration of municipal and state folks to tackle this.  Which leads us to….

Meeting Moment to Watch

At this City Council finance meeting the superintendent framed the current facilities predicament in an understandable way (she is an educator after all.)  It’s six minutes and worth a listen if you want to have a better grasp of the situation.

Recommended Reads.
Word is that the new teacher’s contracts are some of the best any Massachusetts district has seen in a while. Read the details here.

Congratulations to the class of 2023! Read about the valedictorians at each school.

Learn about student gardening programs put on by REC Worcester. 

Op-Ed From Representative Keefe about Worcester School buildings

From a fellow WPS parent, Kevin Koczwara, on what it’s like to send our kids to schools in the age of school shootings. I keep waiting for it to happen to us. (scroll down to find it).

School Committee Member Sue Mailman talks about pay equity and school committee salary.

Not Worcester specific, but this is a good read about why Massachusetts suburbs get funding for new schools over districts in higher need, like New Bedford (and Worcester)

Here is the final list of who is running for school committee.  More on that soon!

The superintendent reflects on her first year. 

Upcoming Dates.
All meetings have virtual options, see the school committee site for more information. 

• School Committee Meetings June 30, 8am and July 20, 4pm

Also.
Consider donating to some Worcester teachers to fund their projects now, so they can get supplies in time for the start of the school year. Help a first year Belmont Street teacher get classroom materials, a Chandler Elementary teacher replace her cracked white board, and donate to provide pencils and games for indoor recess for students at Rice Square.  Or check out all the Worcester projects and find one to support.

Happy summer vacation!  If you find WPS in Brief valuable, please share it with your friends. If you’d like to support my work, be the first to send me a tip. See you in July.

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Let’s get to the fun stuff: 

The Proposed Budget!
When I finished reading the 430 pages of the FY24 budget I honestly had no idea how I was going to briefly summarize it for you all.  And the truth is I don’t think I can do much better than the budget office with this infographic:

Lots of “adds” which is always a good thing to see when looking at a school budget.  The Telegram also covered aspects of the proposed budget. Before we dive in it’s important to have a foundational understanding of how funding for Worcester Public Schools works. If you already read my quick budget primer back in March,  skip down to the dollar bill image below.  But if you didn’t, or want a review: 

Worcester gets over half of its funding from the state. These funds are called “Chapter 70” and make up a good chunk of what is called the “foundation budget,” or what the state sees as the minimum foundation of what is needed to adequately educate our students. The funding formula used by the state to decide how much aid a district gets is determined by:

• Student enrollment on Oct. 1, 2022.

•  An inflation factor (this is capped by the state legislature at 4.5% despite inflation actually being 9.3%).

The state decides what the City of Worcester must contribute (called “net school spending”) based on local income/property tax wealth, which this year is about 28% of the foundation budget. The state then makes up the difference. The Student Opportunity Act (SOA), which was passed in Massachusetts in 2019, is a gradual change of that formula over six years, which increases the amount of funding based on real costs of educating low-income students, students with disabilities, English learners, as well as costs for health insurance.  Given our student population, this means increases in the foundation budget for Worcester.  In anticipation of this increase in funding, WPS started offering programs earlier by using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds (also known as the ESSER Funds) to bridge the gap until we reach year six of full implementation (FY24 is year 3 of 6). 

So, for each dollar received here’s a breakdown of where it comes from:

For FY24, the city contribution to WPS increased by 5.2 million for a total of $138.5 million. Taking out the allocation for charter schools and school choice, the city contribution that actually ends up in the WPS general fund is $129.2 million. According to the budget,  “It is estimated that the city’s contribution will meet the FY24 minimum spending requirement by approximately $1.4 million, or 0.3% above required spending.” 

For some statewide context, Worcester is very much an anomaly for having a significant enrollment increase.  WPS enrollment is up about 500 students, with Worcester actually accounting for 25% of the public school enrollment increase across the entire state. Other big districts (Boston, Brockton, Springfield) continued to see declines. This, combined with the Student Opportunity Act formula finally funding at actual cost, Worcester does not have to make the hard decisions that other districts, such as Brockton, are making. Still, WPS enrollment is 1100 students less than it was before the pandemic. 

Now that we know where the money is coming from, let’s talk about where they want it to go. I just want to reiterate that this is the proposed budget.  School committee deliberates at meetings on June 1 and June 15 before voting on a final budget.  No one from the public spoke at the budget hearing, but don’t worry you can still email the school committe your thoughts.

Let’s walk through some of the highlights.

Budget Highlights

There are a lot of increases this year. Inflation for health insurance, retirement assessments, and utility costs were all high.  I’m assuming the salary increases include the tentative teacher’s contract, and hopefully a new tentative paraeducators contract. According to the budget office, health insurance and OPEB are something to keep an eye on, and  “may have a significant future impact on the budget.”

Facilities

Before the Student Opportunity Act,  the state underfunded districts like Worcester, that have a large majority of high needs students.  So, in order to keep teachers in front of students, Worcester had to defer maintenance on buildings for many, many, many, years. Our school buildings are in desperate need of updating and $3.5 million a year is not even going to scratch the surface. At the joint meeting of the City Council Education Committee and the School’s Finance and Operations Standing Committee, Councilor Thu Nguyen shared that the city’s capital budget for the schools has not increased in FIFTEEN years.  (Thank you to Councilor Nguyen for putting in an order to ask the city manager to look into updating that.) Here’s where the 3.5 million is projected to be spent this year:

Early Childhood and Elementary

Before the Student Opportunity Act (SOA) was passed, Worcester estimated that they had a non-special education teacher gap of about 720 teachers.  Since SOA was passed, Worcester has hired 248. The potential addition of 59 more with this budget would fill about 43% of that gap. 

Of the 604 elementary classrooms for next year the vast majority (470) are projected to be less than 23 students. Only 9 are projected to be between 27-30 students. Average elementary class size continues to be the lowest in two decades.

WPS plans to lease space to alleviate overcrowding at Lincoln Street and that also allows for 4 new full-day preschool classrooms there. 

I really like this idea, and look forward to seeing what comes of it.  (Not that my opinion matters, but “preppy K” would not be my first choice in names.)

Wawecus is a small elementary school with about 130 students (one class per grade) in K-6.  82% of its students are classified as high needs. Interested to see how this model works and what innovations we’ll see implemented. 

School Safety

The school safety audit results still haven’t been released to the public, but should be in the next few weeks.

At an October school committee meeting administration spoke about piloting culture and climate specialists at North High (three of them) and Sullivan Middle (two of them.)  Looks like this is an expansion of that model.  

Teachers

Students with disabilities make up about 20% of the student population.

English learners make up about 30% of the student population.

Doherty currently has an Engineering Technology Academy as its Chapter 74 (aka Vocational) program, but will be adding others when the new school comes online.

Student Supports

It’s great to see resources going into student support services around physical and mental health and social emotional support, as Worcester students are struggling.  The challenge here will be finding people to fill these positions, which has been a struggle. A number of positions were vacant this whole school year.

At an October school committee meeting the committee approved a Dean of students job description, which was piloted at North High.  After a year of trying it out they want to add one to each of high schools for next year.

The budget also provides additional funds for transportation to support extracurricular needs for field trips, performances, athletics etc.  Another huge benefit to WPS moving transportation in-house is not just the cost savings, but being able to offer bussing for extra-curriculars, which allows for more access for students.

So that’s the budget highlights.  If you’re still reading this, I'm proud of you! Tune in on June 1st to see what the school committee thinks.

Meeting Moment. (Anyone know where we could get $3.5 million dollars?)

There’s traffic around all of our schools during drop-off and pick-up times, but Burncoat Middle/High and Roosevelt are by far the biggest clusters of them all. Roosevelt especially has been getting a lot of meeting time in the last six months, as parents, business owners, district 3 councilor George Russell, and district 3 city council candidate Feanna Jattan-Singh have all spoken at public comment about how unsafe the situation is. In April 2020, the city bought land for parking in order to alleviate the Roosevelt snarl, with councilors at the time saying it was a win-win. But the parking lot is not usable as is.  George Russell brought the issue up again at this week's city council meeting. 

In this video, Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen explains that there are engineering plans to alleviate the traffic problems at both schools and the projected costs for the projects are around $3.5 million each.  The problem is, there are no grants or other funding sources for work relating to school traffic, so unless someone can find $3.5 million, the projects stay in limbo and the traffic stays a cluster for the immediate future.  

Teacher Recruitment and Retention.
The Office of Human Resources reported on the current state of recruitment and retention of teachers and gave information about the desired state, strategies, and future steps. (See Telegram coverage here). Here are some stats from the presentation:

As you can see from the chart above, recruitment of teachers reflecting the demographics of the student body has been challenging, as has retaining teachers:

Hopefully the new teacher contract, along with some concerted efforts in these areas, things start to turn around.

Proposed Strategic Plan Committee.
The Governance and Employee Issues standing committee discussed the proposed members of the strategic plan committee.  The committee asked the administration to assess it for gaps in representation, but didn’t offer any specific criteria for those gaps. The district’s goal is to get this five year strategic plan done before the start of the school year. 

School Committee Elections.
School committee members are collecting signatures and we will know exactly who is on the ballot in the next few weeks.  According to the Patch,  there are four at-large candidates who have made it on the ballot: Susan Mailman, Tracy O’Connell Novick, Laura Clancey and Maureen Binienda. There is one candidate each in district A (Molly McCullough), district D (Alejandro Guardiola), district E (Kathleen Roy) and district F (Jermaine Johnson).  District C currently has two candidates: Jermoh Kamara and Diana Biancheria.  Districts B does not have candidates certified to be on the ballot yet, but they have until Tuesday, May 30 at 5pm to get signatures in. For a primary to happen, the at-large race would need five candidates and the district races would need 3 candidates. I’ll write more about the election and the new school committee districts this summer, but in the meantime, if you want to see what district you’re in, you can check here.

Upcoming Dates:
All meetings have virtual options, see the school committee site for more information. 

• School Committee Meetings to discuss the budget are June 1 and June 15, 4pm

• Teaching, Learning and Student Supports is June 12, 5:30pm

• Finance and Operations is June 20, 5:30pm

• Governance and Employee Issues is June 21, 5pm

Only three-ish weeks left of school!  If you find WPS in Brief valuable, please share it with your friends. If you’d like to support my work you can send me a tip. See you in June.

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.

Welcome to the fourth issue of WPS in Brief. This month covers key topics from two school committee meetings and six standing committee meetings. I always appreciate feedback or questions. If you are new here, it might be helpful to learn more about this newsletter.

Here we go:

Teachers Still Don’t Have a Contract.
Worcester educators held a huge rally outside City Hall last week to bring attention to the fact that they still don’t have a contract. I encourage you to listen to the interview with Melissa Verdier, President of Worcester’s educators union (EAW) to understand where things stand. They have been working on this contract for over a year.

As you may remember from my budget primer last month, Worcester contributes the bare minimum required by Massachusetts law to our public schools at 101% of net school spending.  The surrounding districts contribute 120-125%. It’s key to remember that it is the city manager, Eric Batista, who determines how much gets allocated to WPS.  Even the city council can only reduce or approve the budget that Batista presents, and the school committee just allocates the budget within the amount the city manager decides. The city manager said on the radio that this year’s municipal budget will be challenging.  A bit foreboding for how this budget season will go. 

Elementary English Language Arts Curriculum.

Based on two pilot programs this year, Amplify CKLA was the recommendation for the new elementary English Language Arts curriculum, to replace Fountas & Pinnell.  In discussion at the Teaching, Learning and Student Supports (TLSS) standing committee meeting, as well as the following school committee meeting, Members Jermoh Kamara and Sue Mailman raised concerns about the cultural responsiveness of CKLA.  The superintendent responded that no curriculum is perfect, and every curriculum would need to be augmented, as is the case with this one. The curriculum was voted down in the standing committee, but the full school committee voted to approve the curriculum (6-1, Kamara was opposed) and it will be implemented this fall. 

Despite data going back decades that teaching methods based on the “3-cueing system,” like Fountas & Pinnell, don’t teach kids how to read, it was something the previous administration defended pretty strongly So this is a huge step forward. As someone who assumed kids were learning to read how I had (phonics), I was baffled when I listened to this podcast and learned that the majority of US children are taught through the 3-cueing model Worcester was previously using.  If you have kids in your life who are learning to read, or will be soon, I highly, highly recommend you give it a listen.

Boycott of Old Sturbridge Village (OSV)
The school committee unanimously approved to stop field trips to Old Sturbridge Village, given that they have requested the state investigate the museum’s relationship with the new Worcester Cultural Academy (WCA) charter school. Incidentally, at the first meeting of the WCA Board they voted to hire OSV as their Education Management Organization (EMO) for pre-opening procedures and not one board member asked a single question about the contract, which pays OSV $12,500 a month.

Speaking of the new Charter School.

After I attended the Worcester Cultural Academy board meeting, I requested the public backup materials for the meeting, as I do for all public school meetings in Worcester.  In the document I received, the whole section on the facility was redacted. 

Given that there are major concerns with their lease with the Worcester Diocese for the old St. Joseph's School, and that just last month the Diocese of Worcester announced that WPS is no longer welcome to rent the building that houses the La Familia Dual Language School due to the Bishop not liking the health curriculum, this redaction definitely has me wondering.  (I did ask what exemption they were using under public records law for the redaction, but am still waiting for a response.)  
*Update: I just received the backup materials without the redaction. It’s a mystery to me why they redacted this:

Athletics Streaming
The administration presented a plan for WPS to stream athletic events.  The proposal would grant licenses for streaming at 8 sites: the gyms at South, Burncoat, Doherty, North, Worcester Tech and Claremont, the stadium at South High and Foley Stadium. The committee asked administration to explore additional site options to include more sports. Also note that streaming would only be possible for games at these sites, so games in other cities/towns would not be included in this.  Each site costs $4,000 to license, but streaming for viewers would be free. The money would come out of the Channel 11 budget, and would not come out of the general budget. 

Dress Code (again).
The updated dress code that was approved at the end of March was filed for reconsideration by Member Laura Clancey, something school committee members can do within 48 hours of a vote. This means that the dress code reverts to the old policy while reconsideration takes place. Member Clancey decided to bring the policy back to the Governance and Employee Issues standing committee after the committee members heard concerns from teachers about the new policy allowing hoods to be worn.  Their concerns included both safety reasons, as well for paying attention in class (like using earbuds and having the hood cover them). Allowing hoods was a suggestion that came from the superintendent's student advisory committee. The newest, hood-less version of the dress code was approved by the governance standing committee, but is not policy until it goes to full committee.

Vocational Education Chapter 74 Programs
At one of the Teaching, Learning and Student Supports meetings administration presented this chart about the vocational education programs at the comprehensive high schools, referred to as “Chapter 74.” I found it helpful in understanding the programs in a comprehensive way. 

Mental Health and and Social Emotional Competencies.

The Academic Support Office reported on the current state of mental health and social emotional needs of students, and gave information about future plans to develop and grow. National data shows that kids are struggling, and Worcester is no different.  Less than half of students report they can self-regulate. And only about half have self-efficacy beliefs (feel they can succeed in academic settings).  Stress and anxiety are the biggest issue for Worcester high school students.

Despite engaging with local organizations to help in this area, the severe lack of clinicians has made it challenging to have mental health agencies assist WPS. As they move toward future planning, there are currently ten(!) subcommittees working on a three-year strategic plan to support students and caregivers.

Meeting Moment to Watch.

In discussion after the presentation by the Academic Support Office, school committee member Jermaine Johnson tells a story about a student who had never met her guidance counselor during middle school until she had to select her classes for high school.  He brings up the worry about the students who may not be exhibiting extreme stress, but are not necessarily getting the support or information they need because of the more pressing needs of other students. 

Recommended Reads.
There was a presentation at the second April school committee meeting about the “vision of a learner” and the “spark plan” on how WPS will innovate for the future. The Telegram covered it well.

Lots of people pulled papers and are collecting signatures to get on the ballot for school committee.  Once we see who actually makes it on the ballot, I’ll write more about who is running and also about the new school committee districts.

Upcoming Dates:

• Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council (CPPAC) meets May 2 at 7pm at the Forest Grove Middle School Cafeteria. The guest speaker is Superintendent Dr. Rachel H. Monárrez

• School Committee Meetings are May 4 and May 18, 6pm

• Teaching, Learning and Student Supports is May 10, 5:30pm

• WPS FY 24 Budget Released, May 12

• Governance and Employee Issues is May 15, 5pm

• Finance and Operations is May 22, 5:30pm

• Budget Public Hearing, May 24, 6pm

Also.
Worcester educators are fundraising for graphing calculators, an easel, and a new cello, among 136 other projects on DonorsChoose.

If you missed it, here’s the March newsletter. It covers preliminary budget, homework policy, libraries, and the strategic plan, among other stuff. If you don’t want to miss a monthly update, subscribe to get WPS in Brief right into your inbox.

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Thanks for reading. See you in May.

Welcome to the third issue of WPS in Brief. This month covers key topics from two school committee meetings and four standing committee meetings. I always appreciate feedback or questions. You can email me at wpsinbrief@substack.com.

Let’s get to it:

Preliminary Budget.
It’s budget season, arguably the most important time to be paying attention to WPS.  Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen gave a presentation at the March 16th school committee meeting outlining the preliminary estimates for the FY24 budget (covers from July 2023-June 2024).  It’s still early, but the take home is that estimated costs are about $2 million above projected revenues.  The budget presentation was covered by the Telegram and Spectrum News, and in even more specific detail here by School Committee Member Tracy O’Connell Novick, who is the chair of the Finance and Operations committee, and a “seasoned budget watcher” in Massachusetts. It can be hard to follow if, like me, you’re new to all this lingo. So here’s a little breakdown on how the budget works. 

Worcester gets over half of its funding from the state. These funds are called “Chapter 70” and make up a good chunk of what is called the “foundation budget,” or what the state sees as the minimum foundation of what is needed to adequately educate our students. The funding formula used by the state to decide how much aid a district gets is determined by:

• Student enrollment on Oct. 1, 2022.

•  An inflation factor (this is capped by the state legislature at 4.5% despite inflation actually being 9.3%).

The state decides what the City of Worcester must contribute (called “net school spending”) based on local income/property tax wealth, which is about 28% of the foundation budget. The state then makes up the difference. The Student Opportunity Act (SOA), which was passed in Massachusetts in 2019, is a gradual change of that formula over six years, which increases the amount of funding based on real costs of educating low-income students, students with disabilities, English learners, as well as costs for health insurance.  Given our student population, this means increases in the foundation budget for Worcester.  In anticipation of this increase in funding, WPS started offering programs earlier by using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds (also known as the ESSER Funds) to bridge the gap until we reach year six of full implementation (FY24 is year 3 of 6). Stay with me, because I am learning that the budget is one of the best ways to understand what is happening in Worcester Public Schools.

Some key takeaways from the FY24 preliminary budget:

• WPS enrollment is up about 500 students, with Worcester actually accounting for 25% of the public school enrollment increase state-wide. For context, other big districts (Boston, Brockton, Springfield) continued to see declines. Worcester’s biggest increase was in Head Start (a federally funded preschool program for low-income families) and elementary, so these are the youngest students who will be with WPS for a while. Turns out it was good foresight to use ESSER funds to maintain elementary teacher positions when enrollment declined due to the pandemic, preventing layoffs. The use of ESSER funds in this way is often referred to at meetings as “hold harmless.”

• Requests from the school-level include $22 million in staffing increases, along with facilities improvements, instructional supplies & technology, and training and staff development. 

• Having in-house transportation is saving the district serious money, as other districts are seeing a 15-20% projected increase in contracted transportation costs for next fiscal year.  Worcester purchased buses in FY22 with ESSER money.

The public budget hearing for the public is May 24th. 

Dress Code.
An updated student dress code was approved, after getting input from principals and the student advisory group. It allows hoods, but not hats or bandanas. Students are not allowed to be removed from class for a dress code issue unless it is a direct violation of WPS code of conduct. In discussion, school committee member Tracy Novick pointed out that the voluntary uniform policy does not have a process for schools to eliminate uniforms once they have them, so she made a proposal to “suspend this policy unless and until we come up with some way for schools to extract themselves from the voluntary school uniform policy.”  She also noted that WPS requires families to purchase things for their kids to be in alignment with the vocational programs' dress code, and she encouraged that as a committee they work to “be active in trying to eliminate places where we are requiring families to spend money.”

Educators still don’t have a contract.
Before the March 2nd school committee meeting, the Educational Association of Worcester held one of its largest rallies, with more than 500 people in attendance.  During public comment they read this letter, in which they asked for a living wage, a daily prep for elementary teachers, smaller class sizes, among other requests. 

Old Sturbridge Village Charter School Approval.
At the end of February there were two meetings held by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, where they discussed and then voted to approve the Worcester Cultural Academy Charter School (WCA) proposed by Old Sturbridge Village in a a 7-4 vote.   

As someone who watched the meeting, and testified publicly in December (the first time I have ever done something like that, but I was really appalled at what a bad application this is),  I was discouraged by the way in which the public’s smart input and objections were summarily dismissed by the Board. For more context, read journalist Bill Shaner’s perspective as well as this WBUR story. Watching that meeting was depressing and is a strong reminder that it is in WPS’s best interest to be paying attention to what is happening at the state level.

The school committee also convened a special meeting and voted to request that the State Auditor, the Office of Inspector General, and the State Ethics Commission investigate the financial arrangement of Old Sturbridge Village with both Old Sturbridge Academy and WCA. The state auditor said she would. 

Homework Policy.
The request from the Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council (also known as CPPAC, an advisory to the school committee) to revise the homework policy was covered widely by local news outlets (here, here and here). At this month’s Teaching, Learning and Student Supports (TLSS) meeting Dr. Marie Morse, Assistant Superintendent, said that the policy is outdated and the administration will put together a homework task force to recommend a new one. In response to School Committee Member Sue Mailman’s concern that a task force might create a long process, Dr. Morse believes a new policy could be developed for the fall. 

Strategic Plan.
WPS’s current strategic plan ends in 2023, and so the process to start the next five-year strategic plan is underway.  Hanover Research, who will facilitate strategic plan work,  gave a presentation at the standing committee meeting for Governance and Employee Issues about how the process will go. It’s convoluted, as Hanover Research is contracted by Worcester Education Collaborative (WEC), and then WEC is contracted by WPS (this is funded through ESSER).  When this tangled process was brought up at the March 16th school committee meeting, Sue Mailman raised concerns around the contract with Hanover Research not having school committee approval, and Tracy Novick stressed that the strategic plan, by state law, should be driven by the school committee, and that the lines of authority need to be clarified. 

Personnel Updates.
There seems to be people leaving long time positions at other solid organizations to join WPS, which I think is a reflection of the Superintendent's strong leadership. 

• WPS has filled a chief communications officer position, an administrative director of college and career, and two new co-directors of family and community engagement, among others. You can see a full personnel update here.  

• Ivonne Perez, Chief Diversity Officer, is retiring at the end of the school year. A revision of the job description went before the school committee, and the position will now be called the Chief Equity Officer and will look more broadly across the district, and not solely focus on hiring. 

• Rob Pezzella, Director of School Safety, is also retiring at the end of March, and an updated position description was also approved by the school committee. 

Meeting moment: Elementary School Librarians.
Here is School Committee Member Jermoh Kamara speaking at the March TLSS meeting about her experience with libraries as a WPS student. She says, in part, “How I really understood what libraries do for people was when I was in college, when I worked in a library.  And that was when I realized all the things I had missed, and all the things the kids are missing in this district.”

WPS has not had full time elementary school librarians since 1991, and hasn’t had ANY librarians in elementary schools for more than a decade.  There is definitely a library access issue for the majority of schools, which comes as no surprise given budgetary constraints and severe space restrictions. It’s clear librarians won’t be back in elementary schools anytime soon, but the administration committed to do some outside the box thinking and now has consistent meetings with Worcester Public Library to collaborate.  The TLSS committee asked for updates every six months to monitor whether access is increasing.

Recommended Reads.
Affordable housing continues to be an issue in Worcester, and it’s no surprise it’s impacting our students too. There was an update at the March Finance and Operations meeting that the student in this article has since received transportation, and that there are just a couple of homeless students that have transportation requests that they are still not able to cover. 

The North High boys basketball team won the Division 1 state championship this month. Read this feel-good article about the players.

Superintendent Monárrez had an interesting interview with Manny Alvarado and another with Talk of the Commonwealth.

The superintendent addresses facilities, administrative hiring, as well as how identity is complicated.

Upcoming Dates:

• School Committee Meetings are April 13 and April 27, 5pm

• Teaching, Learning and Student Supports is April 11, 5:30pm

• Finance and Operations is April 26, 5:30pm

Also:
If you want to hear a preview of what’s on the agenda for meetings each week, School Committee Member Tracy O’Connell Novick does a live on instagram on Sunday evenings at 7.  

This was a lengthy one! Somehow March feels like the longest month of the year and there was a lot to get through. Thanks for reading and see you in April!

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Welcome to WPS in Brief. This month covers some key topics from six hours of meetings: two February school committee meetings and three standing committee meetings. If you are new here, it might be helpful to learn more about this newsletter.

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Let’s get to it: 

Attendance Policy Update.
A doctor’s note is no longer required to excuse an absence due to illness. Now, the school can be informed of an illness or medical appointment “with written or other phone call/email communication verification from the parent/caregiver or the student’s treating physician.”

Extending Lunch Times.
The Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports (TLSS) standing committee had two items about the elementary and middle/high school (referred to as “secondary”) lunch times. During lunch blocks students must get to lunch, get food, eat it, and then get to the next thing on their schedule.

Currently, elementary lunch is either 15 or 20 minutes (see schedules for lunch and recess by school). The administration said the goal is for kids to have enough time to eat, and the recommendation is 30 minutes for lunch. But no school currently has 30 minute lunches due to logistics and time on learning constraints. School Committee Member Molly McCullough made a motion that administration work with principals so that every elementary school has at least a 20 minute lunch.

For middle/high school students the lunch block is about 30 minutes. The unanimous response from principals was that extending lunch by even ten minutes would be difficult to do given the 7 period schedules and staffing constraints. The committee asked for feedback from the student advisory council.

Both elementary and secondary lunch items will come back to the committee in April.

Students With Disabilities (SWD).
The Office of Special Education reported on the current state of students with disabilities (SWD), and gave information about the desired state of special education, strategies, and future steps. (See Telegram coverage here). Here are some stats from the presentation:

As you can see from the chart above, students with disabilities in WPS are majority male across the board. The chart below shows Hispanic students are overrepresented when compared to the overall population (50.3% of SWD/45.8% overall) as are English Learners (36.8% of SWD/30.4% overall).

Strategies and future steps to reach the desired state include: closing opportunity gaps through data driven-practices, providing teachers with the tools they need to be successful, and engaging caregivers. Specifically, the presenters mentioned working to make the Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) more parent-driven (if you are interested in joining, contact the Office of Special Education). Over the next nine months the department also plans to complete an audit of the current programs.

Buildings.
In the quarterly building maintenance report there were 18 projects discussed (like boilers, gym floors, fire alarm replacement), all in various stages. A district-wide playground assessment was conducted and they will be coming forward with a funding plan for repairs soon.

Also, recommendations were given on how to use some ($22.8 million) of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Funds to improve the health and safety of school buildings by updating school HVAC systems, hot water systems, and installing water cooler/bottle filling stations. The work will go through 2024.

Menstrual Products.
The district has moved forward with the purchase of menstrual products and dispensers to be available at all secondary schools for easy access without students having to go to the nurse’s office.  Specific locations/dispenser options will be dependent on each school’s unique situation. They are still in discussions on what to do for students in upper elementary.

Meeting Moment to Watch.

This clip from the finance and operations meeting is an important reminder of how the school committee and administration can only work with the money allocated to them. Honeywell analyzed Worcester schools’ HVAC systems and identified approximately $200 million in HVAC upgrades needed. There’s only $4 million annually for school renovations in the City’s Capital Investment Program and as Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen says, “that’s not really going to make a dent in the backlog.” WPS maintains 60 buildings. If you missed January’s newsletter read more about building maintenance funding here.

School Site Councils.
As budget season approaches it’s a great time to try to attend your school site council meeting. What is a school site council you ask? “A school council is a representative, school building-based committee composed of the principal, parents, teachers, community members and, at the secondary level, students, required to be established by each school pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 71, Section 59C.” Each school should have one that meets regularly. Learn more here.

Recommended Reads.
A proposed bill would allow the use of school bus stop arm cameras for ticketing. If you happen to follow me on twitter there’s a good chance you’ve heard me scream into the void about how many people drive through the bus stop sign when my kid is getting on or off the bus, so this one is personal. Write your legislators please!

Worcester educators still don’t have a contract.

Education advocacy groups are suing the state over vocational school admissions practices. The Worcester Tech admissions policy was last updated in October of 2022.

Burncoat Dance Team placed as semi-finalists at the National Dance Team Championships.

Also.
We should hear about the application for the proposed charter school in Worcester any day now. If you haven’t heard about the proposed charter school and how it would impact WPS, read this, this, and this.

Upcoming Dates.

• Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council (CPPAC) meets March 7 at 7pm at Worcester Tech. Guest speaker Brian Allen will be presenting the budget.

• School Committee Meetings are March 2 and March 16, 6pm

• Teaching, Learning and Student Supports is March 14, 5:30pm

• Finance and Operations is March 20, 5:30pm

• Governance and Employee Issues is March 21, 5pm.

If you missed it, here’s January’s newsletter. It covers buildings, transportation, enrollment, and multilingual learners, among other stuff. If you don’t want to miss a monthly update, subscribe to get WPS in Brief right into your inbox.

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If you find these helpful, please help spread the word. See you in March!

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