WPS in Brief: August 2023
School committee election, superintendent’s goals and strategic plan
Happy back to school and welcome to August’s WPS in Brief. This month covers the school committee election, two school committee meetings, and one standing committee meeting. Apologies for this newsletter coming out a little late this month. Between a much-needed family vacation, toilet training a toddler, and helping my first grader transition to a new school, it’s been a little chaotic over here. Also my usual editor was not available, so this is a bit unpolished today.
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!)
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
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