Worcester updates

I am behind on these...apologies.

There was an article in the weekend edition of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette stemming from what appeared to be a lengthy interview with Superintendent Binienda and School Safety manager Rob Pezzella last week. The thrust of the article, clearly an attempt to put controversy over the superintendent's tenure (and contract) to rest, is where the Worcester schools struggle, so do others, and regardless, the superintendent is working on it. The comparisons in the article rather missed the ways--and there are several--in which Worcester is an outlier (and not in positive directions), some of which have also been covered by the T&G. 
This led to a reflective piece by Clive McFarlane noting that much of what would seem to be necessary, and in some cases what Superintendent Binienda is now saying, are items put forward by Superintendent Boone, which were not popular by many of the same parties now defending Superintendent Binienda, leading to the question of if, in fact, the superintendent is in a position to carry such needs out.
Councilor Rivera, councilor of District 4 and the sole Latinx elected official city official, put out a statement regarding the situation, which reads in part:

More recently, legal actions by former Worcester Public School employees challenged my conscience to speak out rather than continuing to sit waiting...Ultimately I joined the public call because it felt all other possible routes to bringing about dialogue and change had failed.

This evening, she spoke at the Worcester School Committee, reading much of these statements, calling for the superintendent to "listen to the call" for change.
You can also read much of this in Bill Shaner's weekly "Worcesteria".