Seventh (eighth?) restructuring meeting: Clark Street, May 3

While Dr. Mulqueen started the meeting, Superintendent Boone came in afterward, so you'll see both indicated below. There was a fairly full house in the Clark Street cafeteria. As in the past, Mulqueen is in blue, Boone is in purple, community (Burncoat) is in green.

Clark St Elementary, Burncoat Quadrant
fifty or more parents at 6 pm and more rolling in
at least four principals here, maybe more (the principals heard the Roosevelt meeting was emotional)
6:10: no other SC members so far
Mulqueen assures the crowd that the superintendent is "right behind me" as they just came from a meeting at Chandler Elementary (I believe they were meeting with staff)
says he's learned "over several meetings that [he] needs to start differently than [he] has in the past"
"not trying to trick people"
"school committee had a binder...either implentment them or clear them off the agenda"
"time is too valuable to us...real need of urgency to get on with things and not just discuss what might be a good idea"
"through conversations with School Committee members and community members understood" that previously these were used for presenting ideas and then decisions were made without public input
"this may be an approach that's a little bit different"
"through some more time, you all will become more accustommed to these sorts of meetings...all sorts of ways that you can contribute your good thinking"
"don't hesitate to push back"
"part of this is that I'm just not speaking loud and part of it is I really am tired"
"do see some familiar faces who have attended other meetings"
"hoping anxiety levels will come down"
"are some ideas that we'll get to that I'd like your feedback about, but don't have some" other motive
(John Monfredo just came in)
"I was under the assumption that you all had been under some conversation about this for awhile...in my previous district, I would be out there in the community, explaining data"
(He assumes that this hasn't been happening)
"since NCLB you all know that we have been measuring schools and performance in a way that we haven't been before"
Level 4 schools
(Mary Mullaney is here)
"very serious issues that we have to address...some very heavy lifting that we have to do...just underway for redesign teams to come together"
mentions deputy commissioner mentioning 29 Level 3 schools
"that's 70% of our schools in Worcester that need some attention..."
"a new problematic indicator"
"we don't have a list of Level 3 schools...all we know is there will be 29"
"Worcester is losing market share...sounds like business jargo...let me explain what that means"
"most recent indicator is our new charter school coming in"
"more families that stream out of them" the weaker the system
"I won't make comments about the qualities of education in charter schools" but wants everyone to choose WPS
(question: what are the Level 1 and 2? We don't know)
Re-authorization of NCLB: "word on the street in Washington is that they will be trying to connect results with money that has been flowing to us"
"if they make it competitive...then we'd have to compete for those funds...just like the grants from private organizations"
"Now I don't know about you, but I know that when I was in school, I didn't have to know all these things that kids have to learn today"
Have to keep up, global economy
(Dianna Biancheria is here)
"when I was in school, we might be thinking regionally, not even nationally" (really? Sputnik, anyone?)
"the job of teachers has changes substantially...didn't have data teams...jobs of teachers are connected in a very serious way to using data"
"it's just what it is, not just in Worcester. Just what it is everywhere."
"if that's where we are, where would we like to be?"
"want people clamoring to be part of Worcester...outcompete the surrounding area...not too far west or south..nowhere near the community resources that we have"
"we're thinking if we rethink..might be able to leverage some new opportunities for kids"
"whatever track you're on, you have to be well-trained academically"
"high abilities to read and comprehend and think"
(Superintendent Boone just came in and is asking two people to move their cars, as they've blocked in people here for baseball)
Question regarding students with low cogitive ability: how is that fair?
"not under my control...not under Level 3 or 4 status because of any particular kids...can't get distracted thinking of small subset...thinking of mainstream kids...encouraging that people are looking more broadly"
Question: will he speak of kids that are not much below standard? What do the schools that below standard have to do with the schools represented here?
"have to look at this as a district..not an individual school problem..have to raise everybody up...not trying to say that all is lost...have to take a serious look at what's happening across our school system...learn from it and spread it across our school system...collaborate and share our learning..if we get down to a very low point with 70 or 80% of our schools being taken over, then that's not a good thing for our district"
Question: why don't the 30% of the schools that are doing well serve as models for the schools that aren't? Round of LOUD applause with shouted follow-up "why mess with the ones that are working?"
"I got it in stereo..there are some ideas about restructuring and reconfiguring grade levels and that's gotten lots of attention..not structural changes for September...does that help?"
"what about the following year?"
"don't have a plan in my pocket to trick you...we will all have a role in decision making...purpose is to bring everybody up"
(Dr. Boone just stood up)
"Go back one more time to the beginning...beginning conversation not ending conversation...we will have had many times to meet, multiple opportunities"
Boone: "when the information that has generated a lot of concern around the district...we were a Commissioner's district...looking back as far as 2003, 33 schools were at needing some level of improvement. Forces us to have some conversations...what's working and how do we draw from that? Another way of looking at this data point: we have 44 comprehensive schools...When we look at those data points..13 are above needing intensive assistance. How far above the bar are they? How do we sustain that going forward? How do we raise those expectations going
orward? We have focused our attention primarily on the NCLB requirements...[cites science]..not always teaching cience...are we closing opportunity gaps?"
No structure for identifying gifted students: "do well in spite of us, not because of us"
"how do we drill down to the individual student...immigrant student has been a stronghold in this community"
"not just raising the bar for some schools,while we lower the expecations for others...sustainable and meaningful progress over time"
"a conversation starter...there have been a number of conversations about school structuring"
"we're going to...capture this information" Survey on specific questions, plus email address where parents can provide input
"if we find that this is omething that we need to sunset, then we'll have a clear and meaningful" use of information
"we either need to do something with them or put them to bed, but we don't need them lingering"
Parent: "that information from survey be made public...we can hear these numbers from here til tomorrow, you get a child that's fresh off an airplane, he's not gonna pass the MCAS...not matter what we do, we are going to have a population of students that don't pass..until they reform NCLB and how they measure children, we're going to have this, love it or hate it, we do have social demographics to think of...there is a pretty big reform effort to change it...isn't that the School Committtee lobbying to change it?"
(And, yes, actually, we are. Nice catch)
Boone: "what a horrible message to these students to show up in this country and they are failures...states have looked at this different ways...handle it well and yet stay true to the" standards
"there are schools all across this country that are doing this quite well" cites Brownsville TX again
Question: could it come down to your office, tracking the progress, so we have a real fair understanding of how our city schools are doing?
Boone: "not a single point, four years of data, MCAS results" runs through the way in which state crunches information
"first year that we've had the growth model data...begins to tell us the story about growth...50% of students showed expected level of growth in that year"
"we had a huge breakthrough and an aha moment...ELL students...very successful at getting students to [language acqusition] but didn't translate to MCAS success...didn't provide enough support to provide the content"
(there's probably 100 people here now)
"not just a single point in time in the school year"
Mulqueen back up:
"I don't have to say that [parents' opinion about grade reconfiguration] more than once to get a response"
"choice is one of those new values that charter schools are really killing us on...a new value...now choice is a big deal"
"to just have vanilla flavor across the whole district; we're going to get outcompeted every time"
Question: "my concern is what kind of professional development is being given to teachers?..has to be the first step...what is being done?'
"if don't do things differently and better, not going to change"
"what fits, what doesn't fit in Worcester"
"talk about the substance of education not just the structure...we adults have to think and do things differently"
(does that include administration? because it seems to be teachers, while the administration has a notion that it is fixed to...)
back to parent: "if it's 70% of teachers, is that already underway?"
Mulqueen: "we put so much demand on the teachers for their time...we're trying to systematize it"
"you may have heard about our accountability system...Worcester Improvement Strategy...professional development and data driven decision making"
parent: "you're saying that the data that is generated for my child will follow her through her career so instruction can be tailored to her"
MCAS tracking "are we tracking year to year? are they taking something in 9th grade?"
Mulqueen: Worcester is far ahead...MAP testing, can track year to year in terms of growth
"a whole instructional part we can get into called Descartes"
Question: what sort of plans do you have to not mess with the schools that work?
Mulqueen quips that they put a bad photo of him in the paper
"what makes sense for Worcester, what makes sense for everybody?"
"doesn't it make sense that if a school is doing well, it would get more autonomy...if you are doing well, I don't want to mess with you!"
Father: "you need to take out of this, if the school is doing really well, don't take the principal, those people who put those teams together, deserve to stay together and don't move them"
(I should point out that principals, and even admin, do not have control over staffing entirely, as some of that is due to teachers' contract obligations)
Mulqueen "as long as everyone is on the continuous improvement mindset"
principal at Lincoln Street: "very proud to say that I have an incredible staff" and cites their numbers
Mulqueen "it doesn't make sense" to sort schools, kids,staff
"I don't think it's fair to say" that some are working hard, while others are not
Father: is it just based on the MCAS? or is it based on anything else?
If 70% aren't doing well, doesn't that say something about the MCAS?
(and yes, that was me applauding)
Mulqueen "there is a certain amount of accountability"
mother says "once you get to this page, all of the emotion comes out"
"but I don't see how reconfiguring grade patterns is going to change performance"
"so take it off the table...has anybody said anything positive?"
Mulqueen "what I can tell you is that there are some people who aren't vocal in these meetings..it's one thing to have a loud response, it's another to have a prevelant response...certainly that being a very emotional issue"
mother says there is enough of reason to keep in on for now...Mulqueen says we've got one more meeting
"I think that there is a lot of anxiety...we are homeowners...we search far and wide...as parents, when we hear these issues...where a lot of our peers have left, they're in Holden, they're in Shrewsbury...we look beyond that in Worcester...we're holding onto our neighborhoods and our schools"
Mulqueen "you don't have something in a concrete form right now..will give you something to respond to"
Question: "who is WE? and how autonomous is we?"
Mulqueen: "right now, it's me...I have a very collective point of view about things...I talk about all of us coming together about a decisions...agreement...ultimately the superintendent is charged with overseeing...pretty committed to having people come together"
mother asks if the leadership wants to stay, can you guarantee that they can? and what is the timetable?
Mulqueen "I'm not in the job of telling people that they should do one job or another..."
"we have a year...that puts us at peak urgency..."
Boone: will post information from survey, but needed this first to make up the survey; we're going to look at what happens here in relation to everything else
"won't just be, we put this out there"
"what makes sense for Worcester, how it makes sense.. by mid to late September, what we can vet..and then we can provide some research on why this makes sense for the community...is there a timeline by it?...what will the phasing look like? We will fully vet whatever comes out of that...We've got to improve the progress of the district and we
have to" accelerate every student's progress"
concern that plan will be rolled out and it would be too late to push back
"there will come a point where we will gather the voice and make a recommendation to the School Committee"
Father "timeframe to clear up Level 4 schools?"
three years (explains plans)
"timeline on Level 3"
we don't really know...we know they need to improve lest they become Level 4
(now 7:30...a few people are leaving)
3 & 4th grade literacy
achievement of sped
achievement of ELL
21st century learners
"when we look at the data, we see about 6 years of basically flatline of 3rd grade literacy"
asks about federal funds on the line
(there aren't any for Level 3 schools, which she doesn't really answer)
asks what sort of local control we give up by taking federal funds
Boone explains four models of school turnaround for school improvement grants
seem to be two issues: what do we do to improve district improvement? what do we do to improve Clark Street?
"think everyone is afraid that we're going to lose our principal, or our staff, or ship our students around to improve district scores"
Boone interrupts "I can't sign off on all that you said, as it isn't factual, what was said tonight.."
back to father: "What can be done to make this school better? What can be done to make this school a signature school for the district"
Boone points out that this is quadrant meeting, parents from many schools
"that's exactly the point...when we drilled down into our data..to push this school farther"
"in this template every school in the district will be able to ask just that question"
Question: "how concerned are you about the ability to implement these changes with the budget constraints under which you're operating?...I question how you're going to be able to do this"
Boone: "that causes us to go back and look at where we are spending our dollars"
"we went as close to a zero based budgeting as we could this year"
cites talking to students, parents (through CPPAC and parent-guardian roundtable) and SC (in Dec)
"it was very clear, literacy is a big piece, school safety, we heard class sizes"
budget starting point: "they each led in the context of the times they were leading"
no elementary librarians, no gifted programs
cites looking at our bus contract, rebidding special ed bus contract
"smallest number of personnel possible...would preserve the arts, athletics, and foreign languages"
Question: what affect are changes in Level 4 schools going to have on Level 3, 2, and 1 schools?
Boone pushing back that these are a separate issue, different framework
Question: when will you announce who the principals are for the Level 4 schools?
SCHOOL COMMITTEE ON THURSDAY
Winding down here and sending people to fill out survey
Boone "we've changed the expectation and we haven't changed the time...haven't been courageous enough to say we might need to change the school year and day...have the same time as we did when I started in 1964 for first grade...never really changed the time and calendar...research is out there for extended school year" some do well, some do not
"you can find the research to support any model, or that any model won't work...help us think about what makes sense"
"time is particularly critical for our middle and high schools...some places where even the students are saying how can I get it all in"
"I agree that we should stop teaching to the MCAS...teach the curriculum well and succeed on the MCAS"
(small round of applause for that)

Last chance tomorrow night at Flagg Street!