School Committee meets Thursday

The Worcester School Committee meets this Thursday at 7 pm. You can find the agenda here.
(If you skim down to the end of the agenda, you'll see that we are indeed meeting in executive session beforehand, for several collective bargaining items and for two disciplinary hearings.)

We've got a two-fer on South High: recognizing Maureen Binienda for her 2013 Woman of the Year award, and recognizing the good work of Andy's Attic over at South (and they are always looking for donations!).

We've got a request for negotiations coming in from EAW over district determined measures (on the new teacher evaluation system).
We'll have the report from tonight's Accountability meeting.
We have one retirement and two appointments.

Ms. Biancheria is requesting a report on the Family Academy, one on the Temporary Learning Center, and one on secondary teacher ratios.
Mr. O'Connell is referring the Gateway Cities report to subcommittee.
Mr. Monfredo is looking for dates to meet with the delegation about the FY15 budget (good!), and to have administration consider the Providence Reads literature.
Mayor Petty would like to know if we can add private, Catholic, and charter school families to our ConnectEd messages.
There's a prior year payment of $12,676.99 for two teachers for sick bank days.
And administration wants to change our July meeting from the third to the fourth Thursday.

There are also a slew of setting dates for recognizing: Superintendent Boone's being awarded the Odd Fellows' Community Leadership Award; our All State Honors Music Festival students; WPS Valentine award winners; Paula Harrity and Sandra Bobone for the Thomas S. Green Award; Michael Lyons for the Msgr. Edmond Tinsley award.

Donations, too! $53 for library materials for Norrback; $5000 to Worcester Tech from Worcester's Best Chef; and $75,000 for another summer food truck (!)

Grants! $10,000 from the state for alternative education (of which the bulk is going to a consultant for evaluation...); $120,000 from the state for innovation schools (profession development for Chandler Magnet on literacy and Goddard Scholars on Lincoln and Worcester Tech on externships with industry); and $2000 for a writing program at Worcester Arts Magnet.