Student and School Performance Subcommittee meeting this Thursday at 7

The first subcommittee meeting of the new Worcester School Committee term is this coming Thursday, and it's the one I chair, Student and School Performance, on which Dianna Biancheria and Laura Clancey also serve. You can find the agenda with backups online here.

There are three items on the agenda, all of which were sent there last term, all of which we'll be taking up at the meeting. They are:

• Request that the Administration provide a report on the accountability changes made by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
• Request that the Administration provide a report on suspensions.
• To consider establishing a committee, in conjunction with the Administration, to reduce school suspensions.

You may also note that all date back to 2018.

The first item, though it has the 2017-18 data, is (at least from my perspective) more useful as a frame for how the state accountability system works now, and as a starting point for discussions around what the district is doing with the non-MCAS (because we're going to talk about MCAS, regardless) sections of the system.
This pretty naturally flows into the discussion over state reporting over new money, as well, note, and we have an item coming to us from Thursday's meeting to that end; it isn't on this agenda, but going forward, it's a place for that discussion around the reporting on targets and goals to happen.

For the backup for the second item on suspensions, we have this data that I couldn't make heads or tails of in April. Because that release doesn't track with any other way of tracking data, it's...perhaps not the most useful way of framing the discussing. What I've been looking at is the state profile of the district, and then the schools, both overall and particularly, due to the state report last year, non-violent, non-criminal, non-drug-related offenses. Again, that's last year's data, and thus it's timely to ask for a midyear update; I don't know that we'll get that at the meeting (there's no new backup coming in here), but again, we're starting discussions at the subcommittee to continue.

Finally, the committee that was requested has been meeting, and there will be a (verbal) update on that.

I do just want to note a few things: I've intentionally pushed to have this meeting at 7--subcommittees for School Committee tend to take place before 6, but I know that doesn't work for many families, and Miss Biancheria and Mrs Clancey have been accommodating in that. 

This is the data committee, and our charge is get data out, to make it accessible, and then to inform the rest of the Committee so as to inform Committee policy and budget decisions. 

If this is of interest, I hope you'll plan to attend.