A few notes from Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports

I was not there for the whole meeting, as I wanted to see those school buses get through City Council tonight...a few notes from the earlier part of the meeting...
The room was packed, as there were a number of people there to speak to the Gates Foundation item, plus many elementary school principals to speak to the recess item. The recess item was taken first. I should point out that the Academic Office offers this chart as part of the item's backup, which has a response from each building on the implementation of 30 minutes of recess this year.
Miss Biancheria moved to amend the proposed policy to allow for exemptions for schools that were not, for whatever reason, able to have 30 minutes of recess. After a great deal of discussion--including an exchange between Mr. O'Connell and one principal over whether "recommending" 30 minutes would create a policy at all--this, amended to have the exemption be only after consultation with administration to see if the 30 minutes could be included (perhaps administration could find a way to make it work), and exemptions would be made public, including the reason why it was necessary.
There is also included in the policy a point that playground equipment is a priority of the Worcester School Committee.
The draft policy comes out of TLSS to the full committee on Thursday night. If you have any interest in this issue, I'd recommend getting in touch with your school committee members before then.