what on earth are we doing?

 

you know, I'm going to run out over variations of the title of this post. 

"on the uncoordinated actions of thousands of parents"

 from "It Is Right--EDUCATIONALLY,"
the Report of the Advisory Committee on  Racial Imbalance in Education, 1965

If you're in online education or parenting spaces, you probably saw that the talk of the weekend was "In fighting for every Black child, did I betray my own?" by Nikole Hannah-Jones, who you might remember writing "Choosing a school for my daughter in a segregated city" in 2016. That daughter is now 16, and, as you'd expect of a child raised in a household in which such things are discussed, she has opinions. 

This, in turn, foster a lot of online conversation (and argument and worse) over the weekend about the decision. 

I will share only two thoughts: 

1. Someone who is 16 isn't done yet. What her daughter thinks of her own education, and of the choices her parents made regarding that, is not a settled thing as yet. Already, her daughter has seen the value of her having had time in majority-Black spaces; the relative value of that alongside all else in her schooling in the scope of where she ends up is something yet to be seen. 
   This is not to dismiss her daughter's current perspective--far from it. But what conclusion gets drawn over time may well change.
   
   
2. It reminded me, vividly, of the above passage from the closest thing Massachusetts ever saw to a report on desegregation, in 1965. 
   We can do the best we can as parents; real change comes as a society. 

Board of Ed: literacy law implementation

 They're now adding a meeting to Monday night at 6 PM

there's a report here but there's also a PowerPoint which I wonder if we will get
anticipate bringing regulations in October as law "is quite prescriptive"
we're doing some retrospective stuff

curricular requirements:

Board of Ed: assessment and accountability results

 Martinez: start from an asset-based perspective
there's a memo here but it doesn't have a lot

Board of Ed for September: opening comments

 I'm under the weather, so this one is coming to you remotely...

The agenda is here; the livestream is here. 

DESE has extended the embargo of  assessment and accountability results until 11 AM today.

Kids losing school lunch due to federal SNAP cuts

 I have noted it several times on here already, but there is an opinion piece in The 74 discussing the loss of access to free meals due to SNAP cuts: 

Last summer, Congress made devastating cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, causing nearly 5 million Americans — including an estimated 1.5 million children — to lose their benefits. In doing so, those children lost their automatic eligibility for free school meals. Access to free meals is also now threatened for entire school districts in high poverty areas. This is a crisis hiding in plain sight, and as kids return to the classroom, it is hitting families and schools hard.

Feedback on the WPS rezoning

Submitted this evening to alignment@worcesterschools.net

I went to the most recent meeting

Thank you for providing a method for feedback for the proposals for rezoning the Worcester Public Schools.
Because I have been following this process entirely through the printed reports, I assumed that I was simply missing the place that the foundational data for decision-making, that of demographic changes proposed, were being shared. I attended this past week's subcommittee meeting in expectation of seeing what had, at least, changed for that between proposals one and two.
Nothing of the kind was shared, and, I found from asking after the meeting, nothing of the kind has been requested by the district.