Saturday, January 18, 2020

How is Worcester handling the April 1 reporting plan under the new funding?

This is from my last updated version of 70 on 70, regarding the required plans.
If you go to about 1: 26 on the video of the Worcester School Committee meeting from Thursday, you can find, first, Superintendent Binienda shares the presentation the urban superintendents received last week from the Commissioner on the reporting requirements under the Student Opportunity Act, and subsequently, the discussion. These came in, mainly, under items from Mayor Petty about process both until April 1 and then afterwards.

Some of this is still being worked out in particulars, but what we do know is:
  1. The full School Committee is holding a hearing in each of the four quadrants over the course of February. At the meeting, Mondays (save the Presidents' Day holiday) were mentioned as possible dates, stretching to the first one in March. As yet, we do not have that confirmed, nor do we have locations nailed down but I'll share once we do.
  2. Site councils were specifically noted as being integral not only within the act, but also by the state and within the deliberation. Budgetary review is under their purview. 
  3. The act also specifically recognizes the Special Education and English Learner Parent Advisory Councils, which were also specifically referenced in the deliberation.
I also added in passing that our student advisory council (we have one! Did you know?) would be an excellent resource for student input, were they willing. 

While the first hearing, if this schedule holds, will be before the next regular meeting, the next regular meeting should have the FY21 budget as the report of the superintendent, and thus will be the next source of good information on specifics of what we can expect for funding. There's also usually at least some initial deliberation around priorities by the Committee.

The Governor's budget is out this coming Wednesday, January 22. 

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