Open questions in Worcester

Since we have a moment this early dismissal day, here's a few things I'm wondering about the Worcester Public Schools:

• It's March. Weren't we supposed to have a strategic plan in February? 
• And speaking of plans, whatever happened to the facilities master plan?
• Does North High have a principal yet? 
• As a district that is majority children whose first language isn't English: do we have a new ELL director yet? I haven't seen one. 
• Relatedly, are we going to talk at all about the MAJOR demographic shift that's happened in our majority Latino school district's leadership, or are we going to ignore that we have shifted to a reeeeeeally white (and female) central leadership? 
• Have we had any discussion of the failed model the Worcester Public Schools are following on active shooters? 
• For Doherty to be accepted into Feasibility, there must be a building committee. Who's on it? When are they meeting? 
• About three years ago, WPS spent a boatload of money on getting everyone to Office 365. Now all of a sudden we're switching over to a Google universe. I don't have strong opinions in either direction, but can we at least acknowledge that we seem to have burned a bunch of money and then changed our minds? 
• And finally because I JUST found this online: are we ever going to talk about the Comprehensive District Review from last January? This is basically DESE coming in and checking on what's up. That would seem pretty crucial.

UPDATE: I no sooner posted this than Scott O'Connell, the T&G education reporter, tweeted back: 

I've had the same questions. What I've been told this week: strategic plan likely in April, same for facilities plan. No change to North High situation - Maureen Binienda still temporary principal, Dyer status to return still a ?

— Scott O'Connell (@ScottOConnellTG) March 21, 2018

As for ELL manager, I've got a story coming out tomorrow. But screw it, nothing yet there, either (although maybe an announcement soon?)

— Scott O'Connell (@ScottOConnellTG) March 21, 2018

So: read Scott tomorrow on the ELL director. And we'll see if his questions get answers on the outstanding ones.

UPDATE #2: Here's the article to which Scott was referring. I'll put some thoughts on that in an additional post.