There are meetings in Worcester this week!

There are THREE Worcester School Committee meetings this week!

• Monday night is the third of the four of budget sessions to inform the plan due April 1 under the Student Opportunity Act. This one is at Doherty High and like the others is at 6.
• Wednesday night is the fourth of these sessions, this time at North High, also at 6.

Do remember that these sessions are open to ANYONE (and have food and have translators! And crayons, for that matter), so please do come.

Thursday at 7 pm is our REGULAR meeting (yes, we just did that last week, but February break always throws off the sequencing, which is usually the first and third Thursdays). While the agenda doesn't yet appear to be up (and no, that isn't an OML violation, as there's still more than 48 hours on business days before then), we do have ours, so let me give you the run through:

In addition to recognitions and thanks:

There's a public petition coming in from the Worcester Educational Justice Alliance reporting out on their meeting on February 19 on the budget. 

And the EAW is requesting the opening of negotiations on: Unit A, Unit B, Instructional Assistants, Parent Liaisons, and ESL Tutors. The current contract is up in June.

There is a response coming back to Ms. McCullough's request for data on students who have mastered a trade and are practicing it (which...doesn't include that, in fact; it just says who is working at all, versus going to school).

There's a response back from the City Solicitor (and thank you to Mr. Traynor, in his new capacity!) to my request for legal language that would make it clear in our emails that they are public record (I'm going to also note that though my request asked for language that could be used by city and schools, he was very careful to talk about about the schools. That...doesn't change the fact that it's still true of city emails.).

In new business, I and Mrs. Clancey, Mr. Foley, Ms. McCullough, and Mr. Monfredo are requesting a report (in a Friday letter, and yes, those are public) "on how home teams needing field access for practices were accommodated during the building of North High School and the current construction at South High Community School." That would be useful information.

The same members also asked for a summary of changes to the Doherty school building plan for our March 19 meeting, ahead of the March 23 meeting. The request is for a summary, because the plan is 1198 pages long, and it would be useful for folks to not have to page through everything to find out what is different. 

Mrs. Clancey, Mr. Foley, Ms. McCullough, Mr. Monfredo, and myself are requesting a report on the feasibility of offering a drug education program to students in lieu of suspension.

Miss Biancheria, with Mr. Monfredo and Ms. McCullough, are asking that there be a presentation by Mr. Pezzella on vaping and opioids at a monthly nurses' meeting.

Miss Biancheria, Mr. Foley, Mr. Monfredo, and Ms. McCullough are asking that the administration forward to the school committee all information it receives about the coronavirus.

Miss Biancheria, Mrs. Clancey, Ms. McCullough, and Mr. Monfredo is asking for an update on the funding of summer programs (which we won't know for quite some time).

Speaking of building projects, we're being asked to resubmit a Statement of Interest to MSBA on Burncoat High (the major project submissions are due in April).

The administration is suggesting the deletion of policies IHA, JLA, JLD, and JP (this is coming after an update from MASC; we've found these policies are covered elsewhere and are repeats.).

There are updates proposed for policies BEDH, IC/ICA, IE, IGA, IGB, IHAM, IHB, JC, JCA, JH, JLCB (and likewise, these are coming in from MASC, and there, it's mostly about untangling language, but it may be of interest that BEDH is the public comment policy, that IHAM is health instruction, and that JCA is assignment of students to school.)

The administration is proposing that the following courses be approved: 

• Historia de Latin America
• Intro to Computer Science and Digital Literacy
• Innovation Pathways Capstone
• Introduction to Horticulture
• Website Development

And the Central Mass Collaborative agreement is being updated as of July 1 (and this is a School Committee approved document). 

The executive session is on negotiations with plumbers and steamfitters at 6 pm.