The Doherty cafeteria was packed last night; while there were some spaces at tables farther into the room, it was standing room only by the door, and that elbow to elbow. Lots of parents, principals, teachers, plus two city councilors, four current and one past school committee members, one state rep, and the district attorney (some, of course, attending in dual roles, as they have children in this quadrant).
The big change in this meeting was in the tone. While Chief Academic Officer Mulqueen did the bulk of the presentation, most of the parental questions and concerns were handled by Superintendent Boone (attending this week).
I should note that I was not there to the end, but I am told that there was no further general discussion once the tables broke up into conversation.
CAO Mulqueen's comments are in blue, Superintendent Boone's in purple, the Doherty community's in maroon, and mine are in black italics.
Mulqueen:
"tonight's meeting is all about you"
Lots of ideas circulating, lots of rumors circulating
"I am not here to tell you what is going to happen to you or your children or your schools"
"they are not THE ideas, not implemented in Sept"
"how do we improve school performance, student performance"
conversation starting point
"very interested in gathering the input of all of you community members, teachers, principals"
"not about telling you what we are going to do"
different way of opening the meeting: come to understand
"challenge your thinking around our schools...bright future we're trying to move toward...ideas perculating here in Worcester for a number of years...bringing to surface...some we can move off the table, some you may feel are good"
superintendent and school committee members here
translators for Spanish, Albanian, Porteguese avaliable
close to a full house in the Doherty cafeteria
offers email address (MulqueenJ@worc.k12.ma.us)
Boone takes up the "current state of education" slide
couldn't make it last week due to birth of granddaughter
"grew very clear about in entry into school district...understand clearly what are the aspects of urban education, make a difference in sustaining student achievement over time...knowledge from a lot of places...don't necessarily equate to what make the greatest success in Worcester"
meetings with groups during entry, now
CPPAC Parent-Guardian Roundtable mentioned "very similar to this meeting"
Questions driving Roundtable: hopes and dreams, going well, challenges schools are facing, what things are working?
CPPAC presentation to School Committee: cites results of CPPAC (drops involving parents and community, probably accidentally?)
items on standing committee for a number of years: eliminate continuous distractions
"we faced some challenges, some things we could not ignore...still labelled a Commissioner's district because of a number of underperforming schools, 13 of 44 are designated priority schools, a third"
"a third of our schools represent the very strong pockets of excellence...a third on the cusp of becoming very strong schools...a third" underperforming
Good to Great by Jim Collins for her principals, "great study of organizational leadership...lots of lessons to be learned in that book"
to validate great practices going on in our schools
"how do we move from a very, very good system to a great school system, across the board"
now in competition with private, parochial, charter schools
"recognize that...this works for you and your children"
"what makes you happy in your school" that we can apply across the system
will create a parent and community survey
thanks CPPAC for suggesting that, which they were already planning on doing
"I am truly listening to hear what makes sense in this community. This is my community now, too. I'm invested here, too."
thanks them for coming with "an open mind"
Not asking to give feedback on a specific plan, trying to plan and make sense going forward
have to address getting schools out of underperforming or "we're going to lose the opportunity" to educate those children (?)
nothing that's going to be sprung on you for implementation in September
"will frame and shape this"
there is no specific plan
no changes for fall of 2010
Rep. Pedone points out that Mulqueen's email address is wrong on the first page (I've got it right above)
Mulqueen:
"can't just treat our students as a captive audience"
"the preferred educational choice...we're really shooting pretty high here"
"will benefit the city in tremendous ways"
cites museums, transportation...have opportunities other communities can't even dream about"
"help lift every student"
"together we can accomplish results on a sustained basis"
"doesn't mean every student has to go to college...want every student to have choices avaliable to them when they graduate"
ideas that have been percolating
(now the DA and Councilor Lukes are here, plus Monfredo, Novick, Biancheria, O'Connell, and former member Hargrove)
signature programs: strengthen engineering at Doherty, music at Burncoat, "capitalize on those strengths...create a menu of choices"
"streams of specialties...courses on a trajectory to career and college success...greater depth of knowledge"
grade patterns "seems to have provided the greatest controversy...has been on the agenda for awhile...that's what I was charged with exploring...I'm not here trying to reconfigure your schools, but I've looked at it a little bit...we are looking at it...here to listen to you, to get your thinking"
"partnering more effectively...a greater choice, a greater number of opportunities"
"time that we either took them off the table or talked about them""want every student to have real-life applications that will launch them into success in college or career"
"talk together at your tables about the kinds of things that make sense to you, and the kinds of things that don't...want everyone to turn in their pages so my secretary can type them up"
very simple rating scale: from low response to high response
ten minutes to talk about what your ideas are
question: why would there be any difference between what's going on at South versus everywhere else? Two answers: talking about the same sorts of things
BUT ed reform act had innovation schools in it. Began conversations with South Quadrant teachers about innovation schools. "has a strong tie to secondary partnerships...makes sense to begin the conversation in South Quadrant"
"is the intention to expand the innovation schools if they work?"
"People like to have an idea of what's going to happen...we are very inclusive in our thinking...want your ideas, so we can move forward together. If innovation schools are THE thing, that crack the code, then we'll be bringing it right back to all of you"
"is the plan to expand the UPCS model which has been shown to work very well?"
Boone: one thing we're struggling with how we replicate best practices for success
trying to replicate UPCS at Claremont...haven't gotten same results
(Councilor Toomey is now here)
"some examples in which we've tried to replicate some things...need to look at individual school needs"
Question has K-7 then 8-12 been considered?...increasing the amount of time in a neighborhood school?
"all of that is for you to talk about...feel free to list them there, anything is up for discussion"
Boone: "it worked in some places, it didn't in others, and the grade configuration is the same"
parental preference is for age levels
small school or small school feel, connections with teachers over time, brings results, relationships drive results
Question: any data that you could share with us...models...what works and what doesn't? "We all have ideas, rather follow what works"
Boone: goal to see what is emerging as the greatest level of interest
"if we hear this community say this is something we'd like to consider...survey, polling of parents to shape that conversation also"
Question: mentions Doherty satellite program, would like to see it come back to our quadrant, "in the midst of all of these budget cuts...increased autonomy for higher performing schools...parental involvement, educational achievement of parents, standards set by parents...saddened that higher performing schools may not have innovation option, saddened by loss of satellite program"
Boone: trying to learn what community values, "this is what this community wants to preserve"
want to stop "let's just cut out whole catagory of things..able to talk about priorities and continue to fund those"
"program those dollars for what makes sense"
heard from principals need help with supporting instruction "how do we expand coaches" coaches in schools that haven't had them, when we priortization
"what does the school committee also think should be a priority" was discussed in December meeting
second year of emerging data with coaches...if the coaches are part of the district's overall improvement model, then "that's something we need to protect and preserve"
"how do we resort a focus on gifted students" No one in central office on gifted and talented
Question (from Mrs. Rushton, Councilor Rushton's mother, an English teacher at Doherty): have to be very careful about applying a business model to education, limitation of applying a business model...democracy...creative people, critical thinkers...considering what's happening to the comprehensive high schools, "more sound mind in a sound body" need more electives, more languages
Our young people have one year to be a kindergartener, one year to be a 12th grader, can't keep experimenting on them..."faddism" "changing and renaming and restructing...has limitations...weeks of testing measuring what they don't know instead of keeping them in the classroom teaching them what they should know"
Boone: I'm with you on a lot of that, all the options
Haven't stayed up with 21st century skills, enhancing
"there's a level of accountability in this nation...we will never ever go away"
wanted to say clearly that we've been engaged with students, "continue to tease the thinking of students...they're writing to the Commissioner to see if they can meet the PE requirement so they can use their schedule differently"
Question: city continues to fund minimal amount for education: are you asking the city for more?
Boone: state budget may cut more, adequacy study in the ed bill
met with city councilors earlier this year, "certainly will talk with the school committee about what we need...I live in this community, too...education is important, but you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip"
sustainable funding
"it's going to be a tough couple of years going forward"
a lot of parents buy in neighborhood schools, people live in the same neighborhood
"I think you're going to lose a lot of people in Worcester if you lose that neighborhood school"
Question: middle school is quite critical, age when they can figure out "maybe I have an interest in this" before they get to the high school
Boone:struggle with that we have no elementary librarians: "library is not just a place to check out and return a book...a place to access information...that's a gap that we have"
first thing that tends to go in urban centers is the arts
tie into science, math...
It was at this point that tables were asked to discuss their concerns and to fill out the sheets with them. The School Committee and the Superintendent left at that point (the School Committee meeting was at Tech at 7:30). I have been told that there was no further discussion.
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