Worcester School Committee meets TOMORROW!

The Worcester School Committee has a rare TUESDAY meeting tomorrow night at 7 pm. It is preceded by our annual school choice hearing at 6:45; you can find the meeting agenda here.
 The school choice hearing is something we are required to do annually. Each year, the Worcester School Committee has to vote on if we will allow students to choose to come to Worcester from out of town (we must allow our students to go to other districts; we can decide if we wish to take those from elsewhere.) Generally, we do, on a space available basis. The hearing is to allow any member of the public to speak on this issue prior to our vote.
There is no report of the Superintendent.
The EAW wishes to enter negotiations regarding the new requirement that all of our employees be fingerprinted so as to be screened by the national database, something which Massachusetts was the only remaining state to fail to do.
We have the reporting out of Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports; my notes on that meeting are here.
We have a few personnel items reporting out from Administration.
We have a report on state funding remaining for North High School through MSBA.
We have a report on the number of art and music teachers and the number of study halls by high school.
We have congratulations to pass along to our DECA students and to the Burncoat robotics team!
We're having a budget hearing!
We're sending the audit reports off to F&O (as we do each year).
Rep. O'Day's bill on homeless students  is before us for consideration.
Miss Biancheria is asking for a report on dropouts and one on the collaboration with the youth opportunities office.
I'm doing my annual request for a report on the demographics and MCAS scores of Worcester's charter schools.
I've also asked that we ensure that our student reps are elected (per student request, incidentally).
And I'm asking for the number and percentage of students that opted out of the March PARCC pilot with a similar report requested for the June pilot.
Mr. Monfredo is asking for MASC's legal opinion on the ongoing grant administration issue with the city.
He's also asking for a report on "the successes" of the AVID program.
Administration asks that we elect our representative and alternate to the MASC conference in November (h/t to Dr. Friel, who I believe is making sure we get the early bird rate on this!).
Mr. O'Connell is filing an item on the Norrback and Roosevelt dual language program.
Mr. Monfredo deserves congratulations for receiving the Ubuntu award from ACE!
We're being asked to recognize the good work of Professor Wagner's classes at Chandler Magnet and of Working for Worcester citywide.
We're sending our annual, required, school lunch price increase off to subcommittee (this would be an increase for the 2014-15 school year).
And we have an executive session at 6, discussing a grievance and negotiations with the instructional assistants.