Supports coming for Worcester schools

 Let me start by saying that this is not even close to a complete post! I'm trying to pull together a few different strings of things here.

• You may have seen the reporting that the Worcester Public Schools are looking for outside counseling services at 15 schools. Clearly, someone is keeping an eye on the city's bid list, which is smart! Here's the one in question. This, of course, is part of the much larger work that's now going on in the district in both meeting and working to more comprehensively and sustainably meet student mental health needs; you might have read Dr. Marie Morse talking about that in Worcester Business Journal. There's going to be long-term planning rolling forward, too.
  Some of that also is in the reworking of administration positions we discussed at our last Worcester School Committee meeting. That link goes to the reworked org chart; in that, you'll see (towards the right) that the (new, to be filled) Positive Youth Development position is over both (current)  social-emotional learning and nursing under the (new, to be filled) Chief Academic Support Officer. 
  All of this is first of all acknowledging that this is work that the district needs to be doing. That itself is a refreshing change, as you might remember we spent all of last year having that reality denied by district leadership, even as students, staff, and parents noted the need. If we're going to do this right--and that's something that current leadership, thank goodness, is committed to--that means both that it isn't just internal work--thus the bid--but coordinating with outside work. It also means actually coordinating internal work, and that, frankly, just hasn't been happening. At some point I need to write a whole thing on why we need good administrators and how things fall apart without them...oh for world enough and time. 
  
  
• Also at our last meeting, we approved two position descriptions: one for a Dean of Students, one for School Culture and Climate Assistant. The School Committee, remember, approves new position descriptions; we only hire directly a handful of people. 
  These positions are a) pilots; b) not uncommon in other districts; c) school personnel (they're assigned to a school and in a school building). 
  As we moved to no longer have police in the secondary schools, one concern raised was "what are you going to do now that the police are out of the buildings?" The reflection was that, in some cases, the school resource officers might have had interactions with students during the school day that would now be removed, and that some of those interactions were contributing to a positive climate. I'm not going to argue about this here; I know what the data says overall about this, and also, Worcester's experience has varied on this widely. This is part of the response to that concern.
  The Dean position is an assistant principal level position. This also fills in a gap from my perspective that dates back to 2011: when we pushed teacher evaluation into something much more time-consuming, we took some of the time away from assistant principals, and I don't think that we did much to fill the spaces that left. Having a position that specifically is designated for student interaction at the school level is something I'm interested in seeing tried out. This pilot is at North High.
  The School Climate and Culture Assistants are staff that are in the hallways, in the lunchroom, around students; they're paraprofessional level positions. For the pilot, we're adding five of these: three at North, two at Sullivan Middle. Again, those are positions that are directly working with students.
  
  
• For those who have been ongoingly concerned about things like student discipline and restorative justice practices--you can't just drop those things in!--I also want to note how the Positive Youth Development position is described:The ideal candidate will demonstrate knowledge of • Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports • Trauma-Informed Practices • Restorative Practices and Restorative Justice • Educational Neuroscience
  The position quite specifically is focusing on this question, which also means it isn't simply being added as "a thing to do," but is specifically somebody's job. 

And since we've already voted the above, let me add this: the work that goes on in classrooms has always needed structural support to go well. The crush around schools right now makes that even more important. This is the kind of attention to that which allows teachers to actually connect with students and gives students the support and the environment to learn.
It's very much a work in progress, but it IS a work in progress, which itself is progress!