Monday, August 15, 2016

Worcester School Committee meetings this week

Two meetings for the Worcester School Committee this week: TLSS and the full committee.
The Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports standing committee is posted as meeting tomorrow at 5:30, but there's no agenda posted online. UPDATE: You can now find it here.
The full committee meets Thursday at 4 pm; you can find the agenda here.
There are a number of recognitions, including Al Ganem, who is now the superintendent of the Hampden-Wilbraham school district.
The report of the superintendent is the annual opening of school report (no link as yet, as the report isn't posted).
Goddard would like a voluntary school uniform (consider this your periodic reminder than any such uniform policy in the public schools must be voluntary, as students are guaranteed the right to an education).
As you may have seen in today's T&G, the nearly annual request for a report on school choice students is on the agenda. Something that appears to be being missed in the reaction thus far is the way the numbers skew older. That somewhat has to do with growing numbers of surrounding districts cutting off on school choice students; once a student has choiced in, they can stay until graduation, so in some districts, only older students who were already in would be allowed. However, it does argue that at least some of these are students who have attended the Worcester Public Schools and left. I don't think a video is going to convince those students that they've missed something.
There is a multiple part response to Miss Biancheria's inquiry on Durham, transportation, the new transportation person, and invoices, including the 23-page contract with Durham.
The administration is (again) asking that an items that the administration doesn't respond to within 24 months be automatically filed. Note that this would allow administration to kill an item they didn't want to report on by letting it age out. I'm not saying that they would; but it would be possible. 
Mr. O'Connell wants a program for gifted students, to know if the annual grant assurances document has been signed, if the guard shack at Burncoat should be removed (can they do South's, too?), to submit a grant request to MSBA for technology, and to...sign warrants?
gb #6-281 - Mr. O’Connell (August 10, 2016) To implement the provisions of the November 1995 letter of the Commissioner of Education, and the Advisory on School Governance which accompanied it, that "the school committee remains the body responsible for approving and transmitting school department expenditures to the municipal accountant for the drawing of warrants. The Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services has advised that all school department bills must be approved by the school committee. When the superintendent, or principal and superintendent, have statutory authority to incur expense, the Department of Revenue advises that the bills must be approved by them as well as by the committee."
Okay, maybe we'll come back to that one...here
Mr. Monfredo wants to thank Houghton Mifflin for a book donation, to UMass Med for a donation to Worcester Tech (which wasn't received by the school committee), a report on the summer programs, to include the Heimlich maneuver in CPR training, to participate in Constitution Day in September, and to recognize a WEC donation.
Miss Biancheria wants a report on the new bus routes.
The administration is forwarding the Substance Use, Treatment, Education and Prevention for related policy changes.
They want to file a list of items requesting reports from Ms. Colorio, Mr. Monfredo, and Mr. O'Connell.
They're requesting acceptance of a $10,000 grant for Career and Technology Education.
There are a series of prior fiscal year payments.
There also is an executive session after the meeting for deliberation around collective bargaining for bus drivers and monitors, for custodians, and for teachers.

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