What happened at Worcester School Committee last week

 I've been fighting the flu since Wednesday (obligatory #NoItIsNotCOVID), so I've been pretty much out of commission; I am trying to keep to reporting out, particularly as our local news continues to be more weakened. 

You can find the agenda for Thursday (the 7th) here. We came late out of executive session (and if you look at the items that were posted for executive session, you can see we had a number). 

We did go back to the mask policy, which had been held from the prior meeting pending more information regarding wastewater testing; this was in relation to my motion to add language that we require a reconsideration of the policy in consultation with medical professionals if the Upper Blackstone Wastewater Treatment testing numbers rise about 300K for two testing periods in a row. We had Nick Durham of Biobot join us to discuss the testing. On Member Mailman's motion, that amendment was referred to Governance. 
Note that the levels have been above 300K for two testing periods in a row at this point; the most recent testing was this: 

Effective* virus concentration
(copies per liter of sewage)
936,582

The report of the Superintendent was on portrait of a graduate, which Superintendent Binienda said is now required by NESDEC (?). The logo/image for it is here: 

The full report starts on page 36 of the agenda. I don't really have a lot to say about this, because it isn't really connected to much of anything else that we're doing in the district. 

We had two subcommittee reports: the first was from this March 15 TLSS meeting. As this meeting took up the district's continued use of--and the administration's continued defense of the use of--Fountas and Pinnell, Member McCullough specifically noted that the next report back should include the perspective of teachers. I noted that there are major issues with our continued insistence on using this program. I think it's important to note that this puts the Committee in an awkward position: we, legally, approve curriculum after vetting and recommendation from administration, who are to be the day-to-day experts. If the administrators are continuing with something that it is clear does not work, can the Committee effectively withdraw that approval?

We also had a report out of the Ad-Hoc Search meeting at which the questions for the semi-finalist superintendent interviews were drafted and approved. I requested that we as a Committee commit to have the superintendent interviews translated; you can now plan on that.
Also, note that the finalists will be announced on April 19 at a special meeting of the Worcester School Committee; they'll be in district for visits and interviews the week of April 25. 

The student representative's report included a s/o to the Burncoat Drama Club (congratulations!). They also brought to our attention an email from the Deputy Superintendent, calling for student representative elections before April vacation, without additional information regarding those responsibilities as put together by the our Student Advisory Council themselves. A number of us regarded this with concern. We have now pushed those off. 

We voted acceptance of a $30,000 preschool grant that is supposed to be a full community needs assessment on preschool, done in partnership with Edwards Street Child Care, YWCA, and Guild of St. Agnes.

We reflected on the page and a half response (pages 104-105) on student disregulation, a report I requested in November, which didn't actually hit most of what has been asked for. This was recommitted to the administration for a full report of the superintendent at our next regular meeting. 

We then had an update on COVID. We've had several requests that we share number of cases broken down by school, which Superintendent Binienda said the health community has advised against. We are seeing an increase in cases this week, as expected, with 33 student and 24 staff cases this week, an increase of 9 and 6, respectively. The full history of WPS reporting is now here.

We received a lengthy response to an item requesting an update on the after school/additional learning time programs being run through the ESSER funding (it starts on page 110). Much of that is a building by building standard form. 
My two concerns in asking the question was first, how are we responding to student need--this gave an overview of that--and second, how are we managing the resources allocated to us. The second question is the one I drilled on in questions, as the FY22 budget set aside $8M for summer and after school programming for this fiscal year. Remember, the district is required to spend 20% of ESSER III spending on "learning loss," which for Worcester is close to $17M. I know we didn't spend anything close to that $8M this past summer--I don't think we even spent $2M--and so I was looking for some information there. The final two pages of the report gave the following: 

So that's $1.18M. 
I won't recount the full back and forth here--and there was one--but I tried to get an answer on if this figure was arrived at by asking each school what they needed, costing that out, and then allocating. I did not actually get an answer, which I am suspecting means the answer is 'no'. If that is the case, it means that the administration has severely underbudgeted the learning recovery program of the district in our first year back in buildings full time since the pandemic. 
And yes, the administration has done that, as the School Committee allocated significantly more funding than was moved forward.

I, Sarah Kyriazis, and Bob Walton gave a brief update on the work of the municipal broadband committee. The city has been in contact with both Google and SciFi, looking at two different models for municipally offered broadband service. Dr. Kyriazis updated on the FCC's Affordable Connectivity program (you can learn more 6 pm Tuesday), for which all WPS families qualify; there's district outreach going on for that, as well. Mr. Walton spoke of the district applying for a third round of federal funding for the home connectivity. 

We received an update on middle school sports, which you can find on page 175 of the agenda.

We passed BURNCOAT HIGH as our number one rebuild/renovate project to go to the City Council and to the MSBA.

We had a number of requests for information, including, coming in from both Members Mailman and Johnson, the still-outstanding MOU between WPS and WPD, which we were supposed to have for the end of January. No one, it appears, has seen it as yet. The superintendent noted that we thus remain under the prior MOU, which I don't understand how that is possible, as that outlined WPD being in the buildings and now they are not. 
I also asked that we get an update on principal succession planning, as we have several principals leaving (which we haven't received notice of, incidentally).

I asked that we make sure students have appropriate provision for observing Ramadan.
I proposed that we revise for the current year our cap on 7 days of excused absences in light of the pandemic; this went to Governance. 
I also asked that we send building enrollment to F&O.
And the Mayor filed an item on the Office of the Inspector General audit on the Temporary Emergency Impact Aid, so expect to see that in F&O as well.

And that was the meeting!
While I have you here, note that there are two subcommittee meetings this week

• Finance and Operations meets tomorrow (Monday) at 6 pm for the monthly transportation report, though we're getting a tour of the new WPS transportation facility at 5; expect photos!
• Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports meets Tuesday at 6; summer reading, ethnic studies, tutoring, mental health, and libraries are on the agenda.