WPS in Brief: March 2023
WPS in Brief: March 2023
preliminary budget, dress code update, homework policy, educator contracts, elementary libraries, strategic plan, charter school approval, new administrative hires
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!