Worcester School Committee meets Thursday

The agenda--which is pretty short?--is online here.
There are some recognitions coming in, which will mean the National Anthem is being sung by Worcester Arts Magnet students.
The Report of the Superintendent--as yet, no backup--is on Project Lead the Way.
There's also a petition coming in to allow teachers to donate sick time to a colleague.
There are a couple of other public petitions, as well.

The item on Burncoat shades has been forwarded to budget consideration.
The item on Black history month was sent to principals.

We're being asked to approve a prior fiscal year payment "to Learnwell dba EI US. LLC 2 in the amount of $540.00 for services rendered previously" which doesn't appear to have a backup.
We're also being asked to approve a prior year payments in the total amount of $425.88 for salary adjustments to two employees.

We're being asked to approve a $13,000 financial literacy grant which appears to be going to professional development.
We're also being asked to approve two STARS artist residency grants of $5000, one for Clark Street and one for Columbus Park.
While we're getting more backup and it's a little clearer what the funding is going for, we're still not getting the account numbers with allocations that have now been requested twice. This matters for grants, of course, because sometimes those grants go away and we have to decide if we're continuing to fund things, and if so, where that money is and is going. We can't do that if we don't know in the first place.

We're being asked to accept the following donations:
- $125 to Lake View Elementary School from fundraising efforts in collaboration with Thebe Enterprises, LLC
- $700 to Woodland Academy from Scholarship America
- $100 to Woodland Academy from the University of Wisconsin Madison
- $100 to the Library Fund at Quinsigamond Elementary School from Spear Management Group in memory of Peter Petrella, Jr., the recently passed father in law of an employee
- $5,000 to the Belmont Street Community School’s reading curriculum from The Journey Community Church


New items that are coming in (beyond recognitions) include:

• a request from Mr. Monfredo that the administration review the policy on long-term substitutes 
• a request from Miss Biancheria for review of the recommendations about Roosevelt from the school safety task force
• a request to the delegation coming in from me that would make it possible for supplemental budget funding for charter reimbursement to go to the district (right now, in municipal districts it does not and cannot after the tax rate has been set; it needs a separate bit of language at the state level to allow this to happen, rather than it getting stuck cityside and eventually ending up in free cash, which is of course not the Legislative intent)
• a proposal that we offer testimony regarding the low income rate implementation before the Joint Committee on Ways and Means; yes, that's this post
• and my request that we review the updated graduation and dropout rates; the chart below illustrates part of my concern to be discussed further in Standing Committee
  

There are also three worker's compensation cases coming into executive session, which starts at 6 pm.