Public comment before the Board on the proposed charter school

 (if you've been paying attention, you know this is largely Brian Allen's work)

The no-bid management contract is already in conflict with the Department’s own “Charter School Administrative and Governance Guide,” which states:

Boards should follow their normal procurement procedures, use sound business practices, and “shop around” to maximize competition when choosing an EMO.

The proposed charter board will instead be presented with a fait accompli at their very conception.

By year 5, the no-bid contract will send $470,000 annually to Old Sturbridge Village for a school with 61 total employees. Last evening, this was described to you as “well within the range of reason;” the application states “this fee is less than if the school hired personnel for all of these positions.” Both of these statements are false.  Most of these functions are served in much larger school districts at a fraction of the cost.

It was never about the school, in any case. OSV Executive Director Jim Donahue wrote in his introductory letter of the FY22 Annual Report of Old Sturbridge Village:

The academies will provide reliable, contractual revenue to the museum, safeguarding us against fluctuations in uncontrollable factors that impact admission revenue such as weather and public health.

This is an unethical diverting of public school funds to support a private entity, which is a violation of the public purpose limitation of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. 

This conflict was anticipated when, in the same governance document cited above, the Department stated:

After a Board has chosen an EMO, it must continue to maintain its independence from the company. For example, it is very unwise for a representative of an EMO to serve on the Board of Trustees of a charter school.

Far from that independence being reserved, the Executive Director of the charter school is also the Executive Director of the management company. Of the 17 listed founding members, 2 are on the OSV Board of Overseers, 5 work for Old Sturbridge Village, 3 work for Old Sturbridge Village Academy, and one for EL Education, which will also be making thousands of dollars from the proposed charter school.

In every case, this is in direct contradiction of the Department’s own guidance, and a serious ethical conflict.

If as was stated last night, this model is “very common,” you as a Board have much larger issues than the matter before you today.

As a result of the above, the Worcester School Committee has already requested an investigation by the State Auditor, the Office of the Inspector General, and the Ethics Commission.

"This does not mean, however, that applications must be perfect to be awarded a charter."

Well, you said it, Commissioner Riley, not me.

The above is taken from Commissioner Riley's recommendation that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approve the application for the Worcester Cultural Academy Charter School, in a letter which makes no acknowledgement of nor any response to the substantive and significant issues with the proposal raised by public testimony in Worcester, the video of which is here.

And so here we are. 

I am irate, but let's for now stick to facts.
You can find the agenda with relevant documents here. 
There's a special meeting of the Board Monday evening, which is virtual and only deliberation, at 5 pm.

The meeting of the Board at 9 am on Tuesday morning is live in Malden at the Department. At that meeting, they will take public testimony (if signed up ahead of time and with limited time) and vote.

The Board, for what it's worth, can be reached through information here. 

What happened at week's Worcester School Committee meeting

This would be the February 16 meeting, held very much in hybrid form, as we had two members and the superintendent* participating remotely. The agenda is here; the video of the meeting is here.

Hey, go listen to that great edition of the National Anthem!

Please note that we continue to have at every meeting discussions in executive session regarding negotiations with collective bargaining units.

The report of the superintendent was the second of the two-part presentation on special education. Note that this part included some discussion of the Multi-tiered Systems of Support (inevitably abbreviated as MTSS, this being education): 

Note that part of what is going on (not only in Worcester, but many places) is work around making more of what is done in schools the universal supports (and making sure they truly are supports!); this was part of the response to my question on how the district intends to work to eliminate bias in the referral process. 

This leads into the next steps for the district:

Governance reported out, which means that we've now adopted goals for Dr. Monárrez for this school year as follows: 

District Goal

By June 30, 2023 collaboratively develop WPS handbooks and guiding documents to improve district systems in the topics of portrait of a graduate, student wellness and support and family and community engagement with equitable fiscal resource allocation to support implementation. 

  

Student Goal

By June 30, 2023 an inclusive learning environment for WPS staff, families and scholars will be established and/or strengthened through the development of district level documents.

Professional Goal

By June 30, 2023 participation in New Superintendent Induction Program (NSIP) year 1 will have been completed with all required projects submitted. 

These are REALLY IMPORTANT because this is what the School Committee will evaluate her on this summer. This is one of those "don't assume that adopting the subcommittee report doesn't matter" things!

PLEASE NOTE: while Member Clancey did report out, and we did adopt, a change to district policy which now only requires communication from a caregiver for an excused absence for illness, the overall district absence policy was recommitted back to Governance, and otherwise has not changed. This is because what we were looking at was the policy in the student handbook; our absence policy also lives in our district policy manual, and right now, those things don't agree with each other. Thus you'll be seeing more on this one! 

The Committee (without me; I recused myself) adopted the Mayor's request that MASC "work with local school committees to increase funding for the MSBA and to work with communities to get the MSBA accelerated repair program that was delayed this year restarted." This of course hits everything from Burncoat High's replacement to Worcester East Middle's windows to if we'll get a new roof on Union Hill. Badly needed!

The Committee passed my item (and on the Mayor's motion, we also sent this to the joint committee with Council education) that we take the position of requesting an equal split on cable access fees between school, government, and local access channel. This is the fee from the Spectrum contract that pays for WEA-TV as well as the city channel and local cable access. Currently, that split is 20/25/55. Given rising costs, what the station staff currently does, and what we'd like them to do, it only makes sense.

Member McCullough's item that we look at the policies regarding the use of playgrounds on and adjoining school grounds was sent to Governance. (Did you know that Worcester Public Schools playgrounds are open to the public from dawn to dusk during non-school hours? They are!)

We also sent her item requesting collaboration on the use of Worcester Public Library space at Worcester Public Schools to administration. 

We also updated the wages for Certified Nursing Assistants from $25/hr to $30/hr and Licensed Practical Nurses from $35/hr to $40/hr effective February 1. That part wasn't clear from the backup and got sorted out in deliberation.

*Dr. Monárrez and Dr. Morse were at the National Conference on Education in San Antonio.

To read this vacation week

 Here are some longer pieces to read as you have a chance this week:

• The L.A. Times on the school nutrition program: great internal look at what it means to feed 107 million meals a year while juggling multiple sets of regulations, supply shortages, and the palates of lots of different students.
  
  
• Rachel Cohen's deep dive for Vox on after school programs (and the lack thereof): 
  About 8 million kids are enrolled in after-school programs today, but that’s less than a quarter of

  total demand, according to the nonprofit Afterschool Alliance. Research it led in early 2020, just before the pandemic, found that nearly 25 million more children would be enrolled in an after-school program if one were available to them, up from 19 million in 2014.  

• This New York Times piece (oddly in the Opinion section) covering what it means to be a parent of a trans young person in a state which thinks such children shouldn't exist. The family spoken with is in Missouri; you might also read this piece speaking with parents in Florida.
  
  
• The first of what will be ten pieces for the next ten years of school finance from Jess Gartner and Jason Becker at Allovue, this one on teacher compensation. I wish I could make everyone involved in any aspect of negotiations, including public perception, read this one:
  

  Because teacher compensation makes up such a large percentage (over 60%) of district budgets overall, meaningful teacher compensation increases are nearly impossible strictly through reallocation of existing resources. Reallocating dollars from student transportation, nutrition, facilities, student support services (counselors, nurses, psychologists, etc), professional development, and technology cannot close the teacher wage gap. 

   

• And finally, if you're feeling worn out this February, read "You are not okay and tomorrow will come [and you should eat a banana]" from Emily Kingsley: 
  

  ...idiot or optimist, I still come home with hope each day. 

  It’s because of this one little word: and. 

  Everything is terrible and I can still change the clock battery.

  
  

It isn't just Texas

 To read from Texas Monthly:

Someone was trying to rattle her, and the reason seemed clear. Day had unknowingly made one big mistake after moving to town. In 2019 she had run successfully for the Dripping Springs Independent School District’s board, a job that not long ago had been about as controversial as cafeteria lady. 

But that was then.

Fair warning: this one doesn't have a happy ending.

Early February Worcester Public Schools updates

 largely gathered from the weekly School Committee update from Dr. Monárrez but also elsewhere. 

Principal hiring has been more than opaque these past years, so I thought others might be interested in the hiring process being followed for principals in the ten schools and programs that will be open next year:

Families in the above schools received a call and email a few weeks back, inviting them to apply to be on the initial interview committees. 

Thursday, principals, district administrators, police liaisons, and Worcester Emergency Management attended a full day overview training of the emergency response system developed and codified by the I Love You Guys foundation; remember, that's the standard emergency response protocol the district is now using. 

For those who like to get such things on your calendar ahead: 

• Finance and Operations next meets Monday, February 13 at 5:30 pm
• Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports next meets Tuesday, February 14 at 5:30 pm
• Governance next meets Tuesday, February 28 at 5 pm

What happened at the first February Worcester School Committee meeting

 You can find the agenda here. You can find the video online here.

Note that we opened the meeting with an executive session involving a worker's comp case, litigation, and updates on seven collective bargaining negotiations.

We had the Rice Square Elementary chorus sing (pre-recorded) the National Anthem for us!

The report of the Superintendent--and really the main part of the meeting--was a report on special education. Do note that this report is the first of two parts. 

The presentation starts on page 21 of our agenda; the report starts about 5 minutes in on the video.
Something I have had to learn over my time on the Committee is how the various things we do in Worcester fit together; I think this visual is very helpful:

There's lots that was and could be said about special education--if this is of interest, do watch the video!--but I wanted to highlight the demographic data we received.
First, by gender:

yellow is boys

And then by disability by race and ethnicity; note the dotted lines across represent the overall district enrollment:

The above of course gets into the question we've seen raised of if children of color, especially boys, are over-identified for special education services, when it may well be that their needs are not that of special education. Definitely something the district is looking into.

We also did touch on the issue of supplemental services due to the pandemic, towards the end.

Because I try to cite my sources, the piece I was referencing from Vanderbilt about sub-separate classrooms is here. Don't blow that one out of proportion as "Novick is endorsing going back to entirely sub-separate education" or anything of the kind. This is a "what's up with that?" question.

The reporting out on Finance and Operations was the monthly transportation update. The minutes of that are on page 54; the video of that meeting is here. Two takeaways for everyone:

we are still training and hiring bus drivers! 

Families: please be sure that your student and parent apps (WooEdu) actually have your bus information. We will be continue to 'undouble' routes, and that will mean changes for not only doubled but undoubled routes in some cases.

In voting acceptance on grants, there were a few questions that came up. The grants we accepted with some information as it came up are:

• FC215 Genocide Education Grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in the amount of $57,120. As often with our grants, this is about professional development. Member Kamara asked about this; I'll share this FAQ from DESE which covers the legal requirement we have on genocide education.
  
  
• FC104 Financial Literacy Planning and Implementation Grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in the amount of $15,000. This is for after school clubs, and there were questions about the degree to which this is being incorporated into the regular school day, which is...ongoing, I think I would say?
  
  
• Teacher Diversification Pilot Program Grant (FC253) in the amount of $45,756.00. This one we've received a few years in a row now. It's supporting paraprofessionals to who are pursuing licensure as a teacher, including covering MTEL fees.
  
  
• To accept the ParentChild+ Pipeline Program Launch Grant funded by the Wellington Foundation in the amount of $20,000.00. This is work on expanding the network of family care providers. We're the receiving agency on this one as it's through the Worcester Family Partnership.

Member McCullough proposed an item--sent to budget--to consider the hiring of athletic trainers, citing this piece from USA Today. (Gosh, I love a solid backup!)

Member Clancey requested that we send the voluntary transfer policy to Governance for consideration and updates if needed. (It's confusing, for sure.)

Member Kamara submitted an item to ask about "ongoing learning options during inclement weather." Dr. Monárrez responded that administration had checked; that alternative online options when we cancel school due to weather cannot be counted as days of learning. However, the administration will ensure there are online resources (a page of links) for families who may wish them on those days. The item was filed. 

I also gave an update on the municipal broadband work (I'm the School Committee rep on the committee, which meets monthly; I've been working on this with the Committee for several years.). Verizon offering fiber to the city now means Spectrum has competition; that doesn't mean the problem is solved. The city has also been ongoingly speaking to other cities that are similarly pursuing options like SiFi that provide fiber networks at no cost to the municipality. The city is currently working on an RFP for just such an option. 

The School Committee next meets on February 16th.