Worcester School Committee meets Thursday, March 3

You can find the agenda here.
Bill Coleman wants to talk about substitute teachers' compensation.
There is no report of the superintendent.
F&O will be reporting out from their Monday meeting.
There is a report back on textbooks (timely, as the district is also buying $700,000 worth of new ones!).
There is a report back on the projected cost of a gymnastics team (which doesn't look as though it has changed much since I asked in 2013).
There's a request to authorize adminstration to have a five year contract for environmental management services (the authorization is for the length).
There are several donations being received.
And Miss Biancheria would like reports on Read Across America Day, the assignment of full-time teachers for long-term absence, and the Recovery High School.
The School Committee is also receiving the proposed relocation plan which was covered in yesterday's T&G. The district has been renting space for Chandler Elementary for a number of years, so the school has been split between its building on Chandler Street and a building at the YMCA on Main. The school is continuing to grow, and managing the single school in two spaces is...less than ideal. Plus, of course, the rental costs money...and not just any money: rentals don't count towards Net School Spending. Add to that the complications of a single administrator covering the grade 9 and 10 program at Fanning as well as at the Creamer Center up on Granite Street, and you start to see why some of these moves make a lot of sense. And, frankly, anything that gets the Parent Information Center someplace that makes some sense to parents (like the central administration building) is progress.
I hope to make this one: 7 pm, City Hall.