I'll do my usual year end "most read" wrap-up in the next few days, but given the year it has been--and it has been a year!--I wanted to do a post of thanks.
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| Sixth floor (you read that right!) windows of the Durkin Administration Building, 20 Irving Street. This is the top of the tower. |
First, on a personal note, the support I got from the educational community, both here in Worcester and across the state, when my mom died in February was something I still keenly appreciate. Thank you for that.
Worcester got a 50% turnover in their school committee this year, and gosh, what a change! We're ensuring public process happens; we changed our rules to ensure it (and thanks to the Research Bureau for noting the rules change and the focus). We're sticking to actual district governance (and filing items that stray offline!). When something is already in subcommittee, we don't file it again! When we don't agree--and we don't, always--it's much more often over principle. Subcommittees are sticking to their work and getting their work done.
I cannot tell you of what a night and day difference working with this committee has been (and this is to give due respect to some good colleagues have had in the past). Trusting that work is going to get done, that discussion is going to stay on topic, that disagreement isn't going to be because of who brought something up, that we're going to focus on goals and policy and budget and the superintendent...it's an enormous, enormous change. I am profoundly, both as a member and as someone who lives in Worcester, grateful for that.
...which brings me to the other big change, which is the superintendent. Let me first back up and say again, though, what I said in May: the superintendent search--a thorough, national, thoughtful, professional, standards-based search--was the work of many, many people. The prior committee committed to the national search and hired the firm. The new committee kept that commitment. The community committed, as well. The search committee was thorough, thoughtful, professional, and stringent. The full committee did their due diligence--including those district visits!--and carried through a careful process. Worcester wanted this, at bottom, and, as someone who runs searches as part of my job, having my hometown want a real search that did a thorough job is still something for which I am so very grateful. And still a little amazed. And Bill Shaner is right: it felt a little miraculous, but really, it was about people insisting on a culture of professional excellence.
And we can have that! I'm really thankful that this carried through.
And so to Dr. Monárrez. In re-reading what I said that night in April (eight months ago today, in fact!), and I have only seen confirmed what I brought back. She's gone out and listened (and listened and listened) to people across the district (and the city) as her very first priority. She's also set up systems to keep that going forward. And they're doing real work (ask the student advisory!)! She's reorganized the administration to ensure the actual work of the district--students learning--is supported appropriately. She's also cleaned up outstanding issues--the MOU with the police department, the strange situation of the grants department not having fiscal oversight, the backlog of questions from the committee, the lacks of relationships with the unions and with community agencies, and on and on--that were left by those who went before. And in many cases, there are systems and processes being put into place, so things that come up have places to go, which they absolutely did not before.
In short, we're acknowledging what's broken and we're working to fix it, in ways that building on strengths and bring in new supports where we're weak.
And I want to note: that includes acknowledging strengths we have had right along in some administrative spots, and her recognition of that only makes me more confident in her leadership.
From a committee member perspective, I know who to ask questions of. I know I'll get answers back (and quickly! And accurately!). I know when we go into a meeting, the report of the superintendent is going to be relevant to the work of the district, that our questions will be answered or followed up on, and it will be productive. I'm also so many times better informed as to what is going on in the district now.
I am so profoundly grateful for all of these changes.
Also, if you haven't yet met her, she's genuinely great. We're very lucky.
Let me also note that the changes above have left plenty of people clearing up issues, recreating systems, working to give support and oversight that has been lacking, and was a lack not of their own making. We also have acting principals and assistant principals and others stepping up into leadership to help right the ship. I'm grateful for those doing that.
Did you hear we took on district transportation fully in house?
Did you?
Did you?
(ok, I'll stop) This is a BIG DEAL about which we've been talking for YEARS, and gosh, so much work but also heart and soul has gone into it! I stopped by district Transportation before the break, and I wish I could bottle how much "making things work" is in that building. I've said before: this is another one that was taken on as a community project, and families came alongside those working for the district in understanding that we were making a new thing fly. We've had so much good will this school year in this project, and I'm profoundly grateful for that, as well as for everyone who is making it work.
(And if you have nice things to say about your bus drivers and monitors, send it along! They share it!)
And yes, I'm chairing Finance and Operations this term, and I'm really grateful for that.
I never wrote a separate blog post about how profoundly grateful I felt walking out of the public hearing for the proposed Worcester Cultural Academy Charter School, so let me say now, how grateful that made me. First, there was an incredibly high level of organization in the administration and with the Committee in the responses, ensuring that the various weaknesses of the proposal were covered, often by those speaking in their own area of expertise. That is absolutely not something we have experienced in quite some time. There was also a high level of coordination with the EAW (more relationship building!) on what topics were being covered, what work was being done ahead, and more. And finally, but most importantly, the outpouring of community comment--from parents, from educators, from community members--noting not only that they didn't have a need for this school, but that they did not want their district harmed was really incredible. And again, much like what we're seeing with district administration: it is not that WPS is perfect, but that it recognizes the needs to be met and is working to improve, and it's doing so with the community. As much as I would have liked to have spent all that time and energy differently, I am grateful for the community response.
And there are so many more people and areas I could talk about locally, but I tried to cover all of that in my post from Thanksgiving!
On a state level, we are going to have a new Secretary of Education, and he's been a Gateway city superintendent. And Jim Peyser, will, we hope, never cast another vote at the Board of Education.
We're no longer going to have Governor Baker's "I underbudgeted and didn't meet basic needs, but now there is a supplemental budget, and look! One time funding!" method of funding education. And we won't have his strange implicit hostility to public education, and his lack of wanting to understand anything about city or rural or regional or anything-outside-his-personal-experience schools.
We're moving into what I think is going to be a third year phase in of the Student Opportunity Act, which is the most profound change to the funding of Massachusetts education in a generation.
As some of us have been saying over and over, ESSER spending, at the halfway mark, is right on time. Those who are still talking about districts "sitting on cash" don't know how federal reimbursement works and aren't keeping up with district spending. Those in districts have known this was the case; I am grateful to see the national press is SLOWLY catching up!
The federal budget that passed last week was not a disaster for public education. Keeping grant increases up with inflation is the underlying challenge, so that's useful.
This is absolutely one of those posts that could go on forever, but I'm going to close. Thanks.
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The post title is from Terry Pratchett's novel Only You Can Save Mankind (and if you haven't read Pratchett, what are you waiting for?)
