Worcester School Committee meets Thursday, February 28

And the agenda is here. Much of it, the--finally!--report of the superintendent on FY20 included, is items held from last meeting due to the three hours of public testimony on sex ed.

Relatedly, if for some reason you didn't read Bill Shaner's comprehensive cover story in last week's Worcester Magazine on Worcester's long and winding road to not getting anywhere on sex ed, you really should.

That FY20 report appears also to be the only place as yet that anyone has compared actual impacts of the three (as yet) bills proposed in the Legislature on reforming the foundation budget, 'though of course it only does so for Worcester. Scott O'Connell asked Secretary Peyser about the lesser funding in the Governor's bill in his interview covered in yesterday's T&G, to which Peyser gave the meaningless response that he thinks "people should wait to see how these proposals unfold,” before responding. Not when we have actual analysis in front of us, thank you.


A number of the other items that have been held from the prior meeting are related to transportation, responded to here.  Also of note: going to subcommittee is this:

To review bid specifications for student transportation services and award contract to lowest responsive and responsible bidder for a contract term to begin in June 2020.

That's the bid for school buses! If you haven't been happy with the WPS bus service, now is the time to speak up (and keep an eye out for that Finance and Operations subcommittee meeting)! Goodness knows I plan to.

There are an array of recognitions, thanks, appointments, and such.

There's also still a prior year payment (of $48 to Learnwell Education) and I am curious if anyone at any point is going to bring up that this is not good practice.

There is...I wouldn't really even call this a response...an acknowledgement of the request for information on how the district plans to implement civics education ("we're going to pilot some things" is not an answer). The bill is much longer than quoted, has many more pieces than referenced, and this should reassure those asking not at all.

There is a muli-part response to an item on a specific dyslexia program (the link goes to the part that actually responding about the program; there is a summary of district sped literacy initiatives here, a summary of the dyslexia screening law here, a dyslexia evaluation checklist here, and what appears to be a copy of an individual's discussion of types of dyslexia here), of which the upshot appears to be no, we're not going to do anything with this.

I am going to interrupt myself for a moment here to call attention to how little sense the amount of time and attention being given to those items. Should there be a response to the second? Maybe, although evaluation of the appropriate models of learning ability is precisely why one has professionals; responding to a multi-grade requirement imposed by the state that may well require additional funding should take more than a sentence, on the other hand.

Mr. O'Connell and several other members propose to comment on the state health education standards (which won't be set out for public comment for a bit as yet).

Several members wish to support HR 141, which would make those who get a government pension, currently not eligible for Social Security eligible; you can read the argument from those in favor here. 

There's a request for an update on bringing down school suspensions.
There's a request to administration to change policy in the handbook regarding headwear (as that's under policy, the committee can just do it).
There's a request from Mr. Comparetto and others to use some of the taxes from marijuana for schools, and also to increase school funding "in light of new revenues coming into the city."
Five members have co-sponsored an item to support the PROMISE act (Note that this will go nicely after a presentation that shows that easily being the best of the bills for WPS of those thus far proposed.)
Mr. Comparetto also wants to reduce state spending on prisons and spend money on schools.
Miss Biancheria wants an update on the use of the Shannon Grant.
She also wants an update on lawsuits.
Mr. Monfredo, who is under the impression the school districts bans cell phone use in school (it does not) wants to consult with "secondary school principals" about their use. Perhaps we're missing several groups of people there?
Miss McCullough is asking for an update on graduation rates by ethnic categories.
Mr. O'Connell wants an update on a court case.
The Committee is being asked to approve:

• a STARS Residency grant for $5000 for Neighborhood Strings to be at Clark Street School 
• an Amplify grant for $1000 for Burncoat UNITES
• donations to Woodland Academy of $172.00 from various donors from a school fundraiser and $700.00 from Target for field trip 

There is also a posting for an non-specific executive session, which is not something that one can do legally under the Open Meeting Law.