Welcome, Dr. Monárrez!

 Hey, Worcester: we have a new superintendent!

Banner hanging on the front of the brick Durkin Administration Building Friday:
White banner with blue lettering says Welcome, Dr. Rachel H. Monárrez!
We're looking forward to working with you!
From Here, Anywhere...Together!
The banner is watermarked with the district seal,
and the main text is surrounded by "welcome" in the district's main languages

A new fiscal year brings new administration contracts, and Dr. Monárrez's contract officially started with us on Friday. 

I appreciated that she was tweeting about it right away Friday morning:

Tweet from @Drrmonarrez says: Today is the day!
I officially start as the superintendent
of Worcester Public Schools. I am honored and thrilled to work and lead with
exceptional people providing access and opportunity
to the youth of Worcester. #LeadershipMatters #allmeansall #reamwork
(and of course the last hashtag is a typo; remember Twitter doesn't have an edit function.)

I hope you've already had a chance to view her introductory video:

You can find her entry plan (in fifteen languages) on the district website.

I suspect this is going to be part of School Committee discussion at some point, so I don't want to say too much, but that it's founded on Karin Chenoweth's Districts That Succeed is quite something; I was reading it during the superintendent search, as I told Karin herself (but hadn't mentioned to Dr. Monárrez) at the time:

You’ve already captured one of the two biggest drivers in my own view of our superintendent search on page 2: “a recognition that schools live in complex ecosystem that affect them in any number of ways from finances to personnel decisions.”

— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) March 26, 2022

Something we also should expect will be early on the agenda: Deputy Superintendent Sue O’Neil also retired June 30. That means leadership academic side needs to be filled. It’s entirely possible—note, this is just my reflecting history here—that the organization chart may be reworked in the process, as both Superintendent Binienda did and as Superintendent Boone did. Central offices, particularly ones the size of Worcester, can have lots of different models. 

First meeting is July 21 at 4!