Talking points and an invitation on the proposed charter school

 I was asked if it was possible to pare down to notes on the proposed charter school in Worcester to talking points. I've done that here:

...which you can find in my Dropbox here. It is on Facebook here and on Instagram here.
Those slides can be found in my Dropbox here. Those are on Facebook here and on Instagram here. 
And my giant blog post on this is here.

There will also be discussion and further information shared at tomorrow's Worcester School Committee meeting.

And only because I found this irritating...

 The charter school application opens with this: 

So, a couple of things:

I think it's great we have a statute of Major Taylor downtown. I know it is crucial that kids see themselves depicted in heroic and marvelous ways through images of history and fiction and all we bring to them.

I know well that we have enormous amounts of ground to make up in who we depict as worthy of representation in public art, as well as much else.

But this, to me, is a frank demonstration of this application not being from Worcester.

You see, Worcester isn't a city of statutes; by the public art records, we have 21 statutes in Worcester.

Of those, eleven depict a human being, and of those eight depict a historic person* (and that's counting Isaiah up at Holy Cross!). The only one of those that's a woman, incidentally, is Abby Kelley Foster, and that one isn't built yet.

What we do have is growing amounts of public art that do depict Worcester, its people, including its children, in all of its variety, most notably in murals across the city. 

Major Taylor is not the only such depiction in public art of an African-American in the city. Far from it.

And if you knew our city, you'd know that.

_____

*one of them, of course, is Christopher Columbus
Full rundown on the application over here

Let's talk about this charter school application for Worcester

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education this year is considering a single application for a new charter school, and it's in Worcester. You can find the application online thanks to the MTA (not on DESE, as would, you know, actually make sense); the notification the Department gives is that the application is in, and they'll be holding a hearing, as required by MGL Ch. 71, sec. 89(h) here in Worcester:

4:00–6:00 p.m. on Friday, December 9 

the Hebert Auditorium, Surprenant Building, Quinsigamond Community College

You can also email your comments to charterschools@doe.mass.edu by January 4.

First, an overview of charter schools in Massachusetts, in case this is a new conversation for you:

Now, if you're brand new to charter schools entirely, let me recommend this piece from John Oliver from 2016, keeping in mind that a) it's from six years ago and b) it's a national look:

One thing that often is touted in Massachusetts is that all charter schools under MGL Ch. 71, sec. 89, are chartered by the state: applications go to the Commissioner for consideration, who then recommends (or doesn't) charters to the Board of Ed, who then awards (or doesn't) the charter. A parallel process is followed for renewals. While this means we have dodged some of what has happened in other states, let me note that Massachusetts isn't immune to some of the issues other states have seen; the ongoing issues, dating back at least a decade, of Mystic Valley Charter (up for renewal in February, incidentally) is probably the extreme, but please note that Worcester did have a charter that collapsed in October (!) of 2013 for exactly the financial reasons the Worcester Public Schools said in public testimony were going to happen when the state first considered it in 2010. (Search "Spirit of Knowledge" in the sidebar if you'd like the whole history of that.) 

The part that will always stay with me about that experience is attending a meeting in the Mayor's office with parents of students at Spirit of Knowledge who were begging the Worcester School Committee to do something, anything, to improve their children's experiences, and being entirely powerless, as charter schools answer only to the Board of Ed. My testimony before the Board of Ed on that experience is here; I also testified before the Joint Committee on Education in 2015 about that experience, calling for local authorization, if funding that impacts local districts is being used.

And that is how charter schools are funded in Massachusetts: the foundation budget amount of each student that attends the charter school PLUS $1088 for facilities (increased due to the Student Opportunity Act) PLUS any amount over foundation that the district spends (calculated as a percentage) comes straight the Chapter 70 state aid of the district in which the student lives. If you like playing with spreadsheets, you can download the projected FY23 district by district amounts here.

That spreadsheet also includes the calculation of what is most often misunderstood about charter school tuition: there is a transition amount. When a student, for example, leaves a district school for a charter school, for the first year, 100% of the amount of state aid being transferred comes also as reimbursement to the district; this tapers to 25% for the following three years. This was fully funded for the first time ever this past year (also thanks to the Student Opportunity Act). Note that it is the INCREASE, not the ongoing cost, that is reimbursed, and only for the transition.
The argument has been that this gives the district time to make the adjustments needed to their budget due to the loss of that individual student. Given a moment of thought, however, the inapplicability of this argument becomes clear: a district doesn't lose an entire third grade class, and so can cut a teacher to save that cost. A district loses a few students here and there across grade spans, and generally there is no "savings" at all.
And a charter school in a town or city is granted by the state district-funded transportation for all in-town or city students at the same status as the district's own. Thus the charter's existence itself increases a district cost, with no benefit to district students. You can see how much this costs on a per pupil basis on this spreadsheet; for Worcester last year, it was $2771 per student, or $5.7M.

Also, possibly a discussion for another time, I continue to wonder about the constitutionality of charter schools at all in Massachusetts, given the outlines of the dismissal in 2016 of Doe v. Peyser; in particular, as I quoted in that earlier blog post: 

The education clause "obligates the Commonwealth to educate all its children." [McDuffV. 415 Mass. at 617]. This obligation does not mean that Plaintiffs have the constitutional right to choose a particular flavor of education, whether it be a trade school, a sports academy, an arts school, or a charter school. Even if the court were to deny the instant motion, thereby allowing substantial discovery to follow, Plaintiffs' action will always be addressed to the question of whether the Commonwealth is obliged to provide more of one flavor of education than another. This decision - how to allocate public education choices amongst the multitude of possible types - is best left to those elected to make those choices to be carried out by those educated and experienced to do so.

A bit about where we are with the state process:

As noted on the MTA's Policy Minute, initially there had been three applications for new charters in Massachusetts. That link also covers the proposed expansion of current charter schools. Two things that could maybe be relevant here:

• the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion group was not invited to apply for their proposed central Mass twin school (My personal opinion is that could be due to their continually turning up at Board of Ed meetings to try to get them to overrule the Commissioner on pretty basic stuff around their enrollment, but that's based on nothing other than attending Board of Ed meetings).
  
  
• Old Sturbridge Village Charter, which is the same administrative oversight proposing the new school in Worcester, was not moved forward for their proposed expansion into high school. 

Expansions and additions are governed by the state law on charter school spending: up to 9% of a district's required spending can be pulled out by charter schools, with up to 18% being pulled out of the lowest 10% of districts. This is the charter school "cap" which the state overwhelmingly voted to retain by rejecting question 2 in 2016. 

Because I will share this map any chance I have to: a look at exactly how unpopular lifting the charter cap was, courtesy of WBUR

Much like everything else, this list lowest 10% list, which is based on MCAS scores, was impacted by the pandemic, and so it has been frozen for 2021, 2022, and 2023 with the ratings of based on 2018 and 2019 MCAS scores.
And yes, Worcester is on that list, just. We had moved off the lowest performing list (download them and check!) for a number of years, but the 2020 list dropped us back into that group. This was never discussed at the district level; the previous administration never really did much sharing of the state accountability information, let actual reacting to it.
And that is the group that is now frozen.
We would have space under the charter cap, in any case, as 9% of Worcester net school spending does not go to charter schools, thankfully.

What's the deal with Old Sturbridge Village and charter schools?

The charter being proposed in Worcester essentially is a sibling to the Old Sturbridge Village Charter School in Sturbridge, which opened in 2017, after being rejected the previous year. It has 320 students in grades K-8. For FY22, it pulled $4.8M out of the districts of Brimfield, Brookfield, Holland, Monson, North Brookfield, Palmer, Southbridge, Spencer-East Brookfield, Sturbridge, Tantasqua, Wales, and Webster, though $1.8M of that came from Southbridge alone, where close to half the student body comes from. Southbridge is one of the three districts deemed chronically underperforming by the state. It has been under state receivership since 2016.
The dates being the same as when OSV first applied to open a charter school is in no way a coincidence. The state law is constructed such that this sapping of resources of the districts that are often only minimally funded and most need every dollar to do better is incentivized under the argument of giving families, essentially, an escape hatch, as the state has thrown up its hands (at least until recently) around actually doing its job in ensuring the constitutional requirement for a fully-funded education for each student is met.

As a side note, there is no evidence that state takeover of school districts in Massachusetts has been effective. 

It's also not a coincidence that it's Old Sturbridge Village that has been, I believe, the first and only museum to take advantage of the provision that allows for a charter to be filed jointly by (MGL Ch. 71, sec. 89(d)) "a college, university, museum or other similar non-profit entity," given who the President and CEO of OSV--who also serves as Executive Director of OSV Charter and who also is proposed to serve as Executive Director of the Worcester expansion--has been since 2007: Jim Donahue. 

Donahue, as this profile in Worcester Business Journal from 2011 notes, came on as OSV's President at at time when it wasn't entirely clear that OSV was going to make it. That changed under Donahue. Donahue's background, though, is not from the museum world: he's a charter school director.

Donahue was the director of Highlander Charter School in Providence, Rhode Island. Donahue also recently ran for City Council in Cranston, RI (there were three seats open and he came in fourth), as well as serving as co-chair of Allen Fung's campaign for the Second Congressional district in Congress (both men are Republicans; Fung lost to Magaziner).

In both the case of OSV Charter and the proposed Worcester school, Donahue serves as Executive Director under a management agreement with Old Sturbridge Village; he is appointed to that position by the OSV board. The proposed management agreement for the Worcester school, which is 28 pages long and is included starting on page 278 of the application, looks to these non-lawyer eyes like it is pretty difficult for the charter school to ever get out of; look at what "termination" spells out, starting on page 297.
The agreement states that OSV will be responsible for:

• Providing general business operations
• Providing leadership and management support to School Leaders as necessary to achieve goals as outlined in the Accountability Plan and mission and vision of the Charter;
• Preparing entitlement grant applications and reporting;
•  Recruiting School Leaders, teachers, and other administrators; using best practices for attracting a qualified, talented and diverse faculty and staff, and ensuring compliance with the provisions of MGL c. 71, §38G;
• Training and coaching of the School Leaders by the Executive Director;
• Preparing the evaluation of the Principal for the Board’s review and approval;
• Preparing a budget and monthly financial statements for the Board’s review and approval;
• Providing payroll and accounting services;
• Assisting with the selection of an independent auditor to be retained by the Board;
• Coordinating and implementing contracts with prior Board approval, consistent with the School’s policies and procedures;
• Preparing selection of benefits plans for Board approval for employees of the School governed by the Board;
• Assisting with the maintenance of human resource files for employees of the School to the extent permitted under State and federal law;
• Facilitating the purchase and procurement of all required School materials, equipment and services consistent with the School’s Fiscal Policies and Procedures and in accordance with all applicable Massachusetts statutes and regulations. An employee of OSV will be designated as procurement officer and such person will attain a Massachusetts Certified Public Purchasing Official (MCPPO) certification. OSV will ensure that at least one School employee will attain the MCPPO certification;
• Assisting School Leaders with the preparation of drafts of required government reports, including, but not limited to the annual report of the School for review and final approval by the Board;
• Administration of transportation services contract for students
• Facilitating student recruitment through community based outreach, parent information sessions, direct mail, social media, and person to person conversation. Facilitating fundraising through the identification and submission of grants proposals;
• Providing marketing and advocacy for the School under the direction of the Board;
• Administration and oversight of food services for students;
• Oversight of procurement of custodial, supplies and equipment for leased school facilities;
• Providing resources to support School goals related to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access (DEIA); and
• Information technology support for staff and students including but not limited to; network and communications and set-up and support for all staff and student computer devices

All of that is spelled out in greater detail in the pages that follow in the management agreement. 
There are two things to note on this: the first is that the oversight of the school remains pretty firmly under OSV: the Executive Director is to provide "training and coaching" of the principal; the principal's evaluation is to be prepared by OSV. The second is that all of the finance and operations functions are done by OSV; from the minutes of the current school, one can infer that this will be led by Tina Krasnecky, Vice President of Finance and Human Resources. 

The opening discussion outlines the relationship as follows (p. 83):

Because the accountability of the Management Organization is essential to the foundation of this partnership, and because the responsibilities of the Principal are critical to the success of WCACPS, the Board of Trustees will delegate to the Management Organization the authority and responsibility, consistent with state law, to make recommendations for recruiting, hiring, evaluating and terminating the Principal. Actions regarding the Principal must be approved by the Board. The Management Organization will provide the leadership of the Executive Director who is responsible in assisting the Board in holding the Principal accountable for managing the school’s day-to-day operations and will hold them accountable for meeting established goals that ensure the success of WCACPS.

For all of this, the school will pay OSV $12,500 per month until June of next year, and then 7% of all tuition payments once the school is operational. As the budget projects tuition being $3.3M for the first year, rising to $6.7M in year five of operation, that's a fee of $233,955 rising to $470,531 over the term of the charter.

(The budget starts on page 236. Don't worry; we'll get there.)

Now this made me curious as to how this has been working for the current school at Old Sturbridge Village. As the school doesn't post their budget online, the state doesn't publish spending broken out by account code for charter schools (which would only do us so much good, anyway), and the school doesn't include an annual budget or financial statements in their minutes on their website, this is not clear. Old Sturbridge Village also doesn't make this clear in their 990 filing (page 9 is revenue).

However, if you look at the pretty vague financial statement on page 28 of the FY 22 Old Sturbridge Village annual report, you can find a line for contracted services: 

That isn't a line that appears in the OSV Annual Report prior to the opening of the charter school. Is that $464,816 all coming from the management agreement? We can't tell without filing public document requests (with the school; the museum isn't subject to public document laws), but 7% of the $4.8M the school gets in tuition would be $336,906, so if its agreement is similar to that of the proposed school, at least most of that is chapter 70 aid, funding the museum.
Additionally, the rental line is also at least in part from the school. The modular classrooms that OSV has along the edge of their parking lot are charged rent by the museum. In the April minutes of the charter Board, we find the cost has been $323,952 (page 4), but the total cost will increase in FY23 to $687,362 (page 7), because OSV plans to rent the Oliver Wright Tavern and the Village Conference Center to the school next year for the middle school. 

...which means that OSV has been getting $650K from the school, rising to nearly a million dollars next year. 

To that, then, they'd be adding another $233K next year, rising to $460K the year after, largely for providing the financial bookkeeping, along with Donahue's executive coaching, to the Worcester school. 

While that isn't the make or break for a $12M a year institution, I imagine it doesn't hurt.
For this, by the way, Donahue makes $242,626 as of the last filing (page 7 of the 990) from Old Sturbridge Village; as best as I can tell, this is the only payment to him, as the management agreement, at least of the proposed school, makes no additional allocation. 

How does the budget work for the proposed charter school?

The proposed budget for the charter school starts on page 236 of the application, but let's start not with spending, but with revenue.

Let's start with what they're spending now:

Old Sturbridge Village is currently leasing a building in Worcester that the founding team is using as a base for our outreach efforts in the Worcester community. This is funded by a private donor that we believe will also continue to generously give to WCACPS. If a charter is granted, the WCACPS Board will have the option to assume this lease from OSV.

This is the former You, Inc. building at Holy Family Parish on Hamilton Street. 

In this planning year, their budget is $750,000, of which $500,000 is half of a million dollar planning grant that they would expect to receive from DESE if the charter were awarded; the other $250,000 (p. 87) is "a private foundation grant of $250,000" which they haven't yet received:

The applicant group has applied to a private foundation for a $1,000,000 grant to fund the start-up of WCACPS. The funder expects to make a decision on this request at its Board meeting in November 2022. Based on conversations between Jim Donahue and the foundation we are confident of receiving at least $500,000 which would be disbursed during the pre-operational period ($250,000) and the remainder in Year 1 and 2 to help fund building improvements, the purchase of a bus and other start-up costs

In other words, they're already spending money that they don't have. As the lease of the building is being carried by Old Sturbridge Village at this time--and gosh, I'd sure have some questions there if I were an OSV Trustee!--this is clearly OSV making a gamble on the finances here with ultimately there being a reward to that risk.

And note that the early years of operation likewise are dependent on this funding source to make the books balance.

There's also, throughout the application (this is from p. 96): 

The foundation discussed above is also exploring the creation of a philanthropic ecosystem through which they will make grants to the Expedition Institutions of central MA to support their development of programs in partnership with the Worcester Cultural Academy.

The crux of the program for the proposed school is the museums, but they don't have funding for this part of the program. And where is the funding for that going to come from? The Worcester donation ecosystem is not that large, and the non-profits--museums included--depend on that pool of funds in order to keep things going. Unless this somehow expands the funding involved, one could easily hurt the very institutions cited.

The allocation is WILD. First up, remember much of what we might call administrative overhead is being done through the management contract with OSV. For the first year of operation, that's budgeted at $233,955.
To that, the plan adds an administration of a principal, a vice-principal, for a total of $261,581.
As the full budget for the first year of operation is $4,090,017, they've budgeted 12% of their budget for administration.
While some of that is due to the size of the school, because the management agreement is a percentage of the tuition, that drops but only to 10% of the total budget in year five. 

Looking through the rest of the education salaries, they appear to have 10 classroom teachers, 3 English learner teachers, the science enrichment teacher, the wellness teacher, and the learning expedition coordinator, and possibly the math time math coach (?) all coming out of the lines totaling $888,080; for student support, a full time adjustment counselor, plus full time nurse, plus half time psychologist, half time OT, half time PT, if that's all "student support services" (because I can't figure out where else it would go?) totals $156,000.
And there are four paraprofessionals in a line budgeted at $133,620.

The salary line for custodial is $70,000 for TWO custodians. 

There's just not enough money in here for salaries, in any case, but in this current state of affairs, I just don't see how this gets staffed.

What exactly is the program being proposed for Worcester?

My quip to my homeschooling friends when OSV charter opened was that this was homeschooler bait: send your children to school at the Village! They can wear bonnets and milk cows and feed chickens and learn to make shoes! And of course, there are plenty of photos of that, though that is not the bulk of the experience at that school.

In the Worcester case, there is a significant amount of attention to a two hour block once a week for students for what the application refers to as "Learning Expeditionary Field Study." (Schedules start on page 228 of the application.)There are several mentions of the "short drive" to OSV (from the proposed school location on Hamilton Street, it's a 40 minute drive), and ongoing references to proposed partnerships with Worcester museums.

This is another place where it gets interesting: one can, of course, bring students to museums all one likes. There is, though, no evidence, that any actual partnerships with Worcester institutions, which the applications refers to as "Expedition Institutions" in fact exist. The application says, for example:

We anticipate that this type of relationship can be replicated at other Central Massachusetts cultural institutions such as the EcoTarium, Worcester Art Museum (WAM), Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts, and more, in addition to the partnership with Old Sturbridge Village. The founding group is continuing to forge relationships and find potential opportunities within Central Massachusetts that fits our criteria for partnerships

As much as the names of Worcester institutions are featuring prominently in some of the advertising of the school, it is not Worcester museums proposing this charter, nor should one read into their names being used any support of it, as much as the application and surrounding documents lead in that direction. The only actual thing we know is that there have been initial meetings.

The proposed Worcester charter, like the one in Sturbridge, essentially would contract out their curriculum to EL Education, for which they would pay $75,000 a year for the first three years, then $40,000 a year thereafter. It seems clear from the application introduction that this is based off a visit Jim Donahue had with Ron Berger (who now is an executive at EL Education) when Berger was teaching in Shutesbury. Knowing that, the passive voice here is...a choice:

With that in mind, it was no surprise that EL Education was recommended to the museum as a school-design partner for OSACPS.

Surely someone did the actually recommending?

They plan to use iReady math, which is fairly common. 

Concerningly, their assessment grid also says that they also plan to use Fountas & Pinnell for grades 3-8, which WPS just managed to extricate itself from and has been widely noted to not follow what is known about what works in reading instruction.

What about the students?

This, of course, should really be the crux of the matter. Who is this school designed to serve? 
And that's actually a really good question. 

The school application is coming in as a "proven provider": the argument here is Jim Donahue (and those coming over from OSV Charter--about half the proposed Board is from there--have experience in running a charter school and so that gives the school a leg up.

But take a look at who OSV Charter has as students: 

OSV Charter: 4.1% African America; 0.3% Asian; 17.8% Hispanic; 0% Native American; 76.3% White;
0.3% Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander; 1.3% Multi-Race, Non-Hispanic

Here are the Worcester Public Schools' parallel demographics:

Worcester Public Schools: 16.9% African American; 6% Asian; 44.7% Hispanic; 0.2% Native American;
27.9% White; 0% Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander; 4.3% Multi-Race, Non-Hispanic

Very much not the same, and you'll see something similar in comparing selected populations:

Here's OSV Charter:

OSV Charter: First language not English, 5.3%; English language learner, 3.8%; Low income 43.8%;
Students with disabilities 19.7%; High needs, 55.6%

And the parallel numbers for the Worcester Public Schools:

Worcester Public Schools: First language not English, 58.9%; English language learner, 28.3%;
Low-income 74.3%; Students with disabilities, 21.1%; High needs, 84.1%

Thus in addition to being a much whiter and a much wealthier student population, the student body there has very few students who are learning English, and very few students whose first language isn't English. Not only is their percentage of both well below Worcester's; it's even below the state average (which is really saying something). 
In fact, they serve so few English learners, that their results for such students are not reported because there are so few students.

We literally cannot see how they do with their (less than 20) English learner students.

And as a side note: they're also nowhere near Southbridge Public Schools' demographics, either.

This, of course, speaks to lack of experience with students who are multilingual learners. While there is a section of the application (p. 60ff) designed to address English learners specifically, it opens in part:

This model is an ideal school environment for ELLs, which the leadership team has already established through OSACPS, that will enable them to overcome language barriers.

...which isn't something one can see from the student body actually being served in Sturbridge.  They don't have the experience to know that at all.
There is a heavy dependence on supplemental materials and differentiated instruction. There is not a great deal of evidence of understanding and experience of the actual needs of multilingual learners (who are not referred to as that, incidentally) in a school whose advocates envision it serving a student population that's between one- and two-thirds students who are learning English.

The application also speaks of the students in ways that strike me as worrying: the school has "a unique opportunity to serve children who fit a typically urban profile" (p. 27) in a section set aside to describe the student population served. That section instead pinballs from the proposed Board members to MCAS scores, to student demographics, to the housing authority, to rates of mental health issues, of which the section says: 

WCACPS would create a pathway for better outcomes when it comes to mental health and wellbeing for students by connecting them to cultural institutions, social services, and community organizations in the city and beyond at an early age.

And yes, the article cited does briefly review a few pieces relating mental health and museums, but this is a concerning focus when not presented in connection to further supports for students, which in this section, it is not.

There is of course much more one could say; the application is over 300 pages long, and the arguments on which it depends are larger than that. One could compare MCAS scores, but current MCAS scores are not even being used for accountability purposes, so there's not a great deal of use there. 

What we can say is this: we have a charter proposed that is not integrated to the Worcester community, that does not have the experience needed to serve our kids, that is predicated on a curricular model that is off-the-shelf, that uses a model to teach reading that is problematic, that legally binds the education to a non-profit oversight financially and administratively, and that will pull millions of dollars out of the local school district, just when the state has finally implemented the reform that would appropriately fund the district to the level constitutionally required.

We need to say no. 

Let me also note the following for Worcester residents: there are petitions going around in support of this expansion coming directly from the proposed Board. First, please don't sign or share them; second, please push back on the narrative accompanying them.
Oh, and a note on the opening of the application, which I found irritating.

A School Committee member Thanksgiving

For those who test the lights and warm up the engines

Before swinging the big yellow buses out into the dawn;

For those who unlock the doors, check the heat and lights,

Opening the school to greet the day;

For those who staff the crosswalk in all weathers,

Red STOP in one hand, beckoning wave with the other;

For those who count out the milks and the fruit and the cereal,

And greet each breakfast eater with a welcome;

For those who ensure the computers work, and the buses run, and the snow gets plowed; 

For those who explain just one more way, just one more time, just one more day; 

For those who come alongside each individual child for the bit more support to get them there;

For those who see the student who is hurting or scared or lost or confused,

And make sure they are not alone but cared for;

For every headache or upset stomach or COVID test or playground collision met with care and concern;

For the perfect next book to read, the right match for job training, the stretch for college, the call for outside support;

For each talk outside of class that traces behavior back to source;

For those who work to improve practice, to create resources, to support those still learning to reach kids;

For every phone answered, every door checked, every tardy student welcomed, every visitor welcomed;

For those who order the materials, process the payroll, pay the bills, file the reports, update the enrollment, plan the bus routes, comply with every regulation and law;

And for those who make sure that all of the above happens;

For anyone who wakes up at 2 am, wondering how to reach that one kid,

And for anyone who wakes up at 2 am, wondering how we can do this all just a bit better;

For every child,

Every day,

For all of this and more, I am grateful. 

Written in memory of WPS School Bus Driver Isaac Beauge, who died last week. 

A couple of notes on the WPS budget

It's been awhile since I posted anything on the WPS budget--we've been sailing along through quarter two here--but there are a few things that I haven't yet had a chance to note, so I thought I'd pull them together here.

"The School Committee has budgetary authority at the cost center level."

Of the many things I say about school finance frequently, this is one of the most frequent, in part because what "school committee authority" on budget actually means can be unclear if you haven't been around school budgeting.
If you have...please know that this level of authority has explicitly been the case since the early 90's.

What does this look like? The best illustration is the quarterly budget updates that the Worcester School Committee gets, at which we also exercise our transfer authority. 
Thus, in September, the Finance and Operations subcommittee received the first quarter budget report for FY23, which started in July. The fourth page gives the 30 cost centers the Worcester School Committee voted allocations to back in June and how much we adopted them for; how much of that has been spent; and what the projected balance for the end of the year is, based on what is known at this time. 
Based on that last, which is described in the prior pages (good budget reports don't just have numbers!), the subcommittee, and then the full School Committee, may make transfers as recommended by the administration between those cost centers. Administration can spend within and up to the allocated amount in every one of the thirty centers, and the School Committee does not have the authority to, for example, designate a salary (save for the small number of contracts which we negotiate directly). If a cost center is projected to be more than what is allocated, the money has to be transferred, by School Committee vote, from somewhere else. 
If you wonder over the course of the year where we're at on spending: this is the place to check. 
And if you wonder if folks know what they're talking about school spending, remember: cost center level. 

Back in September, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau published a look at the overall city budget, which I highly recommend to anyone trying to follow or figure out how it is that the city spends its money. It's also--from my corner of the universe--very useful in terms of showing what the cityside can and cannot do for schools, and does and does not do for schools.

Let me show you what I mean. 

This chart is page 7 of the report, and while it's a chart we see every year in the WPS budget (this year, it's page 30), there are some things that it is useful to have someone else call attention to, like exactly how little of the overall WPS budget is local contribution: it's less than a quarter. As a reminder, this is intentional: it's a function of the foundation budget and municipal wealth calculations working precisely the way that they should be.

I'd put this in concert with the note on the full rundown on allocations on page 6:

...something which you wouldn't often know in watching Council deliberate the WPS overall allocation.

Note that this voluntary contribution over required this year was originally projected to be just over $300,000; you can find that on page 432 of this year's WPS budget. Due to the changes in the state budget described in our September budget update, the district has a commitment from soon-to-be-no-longer-Acting City Manager Batista for the $1M that our budget otherwise would have dropped, which will push this contribution up. 
That's much appreciated, because otherwise we would have either had to cut the budget by $1M, or, sigh, use ESSER funds to fill the gap.

Going more deeply into the Worcester Public Schools budget, the Research Bureau not only issued a report, but gave us all a new toy to play with on the WPS budget. They've spent what's clearly a ton of time breaking down both revenue sources and spending in the Worcester Public Schools' budget from FY19 to the present. There not only are numbers: there are charts! And you can change them! You'll be able to see, for example, that the vast majority of our budget is spent on salaries, and most of that on teachers, just like every other district out there. Education is a people-centered system.
Give it a whirl, as it does a nice job of breaking down some of the internals of what exactly we're doing with our now over $500M a year.

And you don't get higher praise from WPS finance than a link straight from the budget page.

Now, all of the above is about the operating budget: that's the "running the system" part of the funding. For the major purchases--things like buildings?--you have to look at the capital budget, which the Research Bureau includes in the first report, on page 8. 
First, check out where the money is coming from: 

MSBA far and away is the most, and that's because, yes, we're building new schools. Much like chapter 70 state aid can't be spent on anything other than education, MSBA funding is coming to us to go straight into new buildings. The rest of the $90M is coming in through various local means.

Keep in mind, of course, that the MSBA is going JUST to those projects: it's building the new Doherty; it was building the new South; it's putting a new roof on Worcester Arts Magnet. It is project funding only, and it does not go to any other buildings.

Check out, though, what we spend our capital budget on:

The $60M at the top is the same $60M we saw coming in for those specific projects: it's a wash. 
Skim down, though, and look at where all of the other capital needs for 48 schools in buildings ranging in age from last year to before the Civil War. 

$4M. For everything. 

Now, I've been reading the city's capital budget for years, but I don't think that I've ever seen in presented in quite so stark of terms before. Something to consider as we head into the planning of another fiscal year. 

Please note that I am always, always happy to field questions on our budget, and if I don't know the answer, I'll find out!

The Worcester School Committee takes up operational safety

 part of the continuing "I'm in COVID isolation and so catching up on the blogging while I wait to get well" series here...

Last Thursday, the Worcester School Committee received a report on emergency preparedness as the report of the superintendent. You can find the presentation here; on the video, it's about 22 minutes in.

What I think is most important about this is we're finally--after far too many years of "school safety" being about little other than "what if there's ever an active shooter"--looking in a holistic way at actually having staff and students be safe at school. 

To that end, the following information shared shows most frequently is happening at our schools:

Note also here the reasons why the police have been on WPS campuses.

One of the first things that Dr. Monárrez asked about when she came on was for our last full evaluation of district security and emergency response. There...isn't one? There was a partial evaluation of some of 15 of our buildings in 2015, but no action was taken on that under the previous administration (in fact, I don't know that it ever was even shared). 
Thus we're well overdue for a full look, not only at the physical security of our buildings, but all else that we do to make and keep staff and students safe at school. WPS thus now has a contract with Guidepost Solutions to do a full review of all of that. The report goes to administration, but if there are aspects that need School Committee involvement (that would largely be policy and budget), that will come to us.

What also is very useful is the way in which the district looks at responding to what happens in schools has changed. This isn't only about the increased attention to student mental health supports and school climate supports, though it is that:

..it's also, as above, recognizing that most of the time there is something that students and staff need to respond to in a building, it isn't (thankfully) an active shooter: it's a myriad of other things. The district then is using materials and training from the I Love U Guys Foundation, which, again, are about responding to emergency situations of many kinds with a standard set of actions: Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, and Shelter. That's their Standard Response Protocol. You can read the full document from their website. 

As I said at the meeting, one of the things I found most encouraging--maybe even revolutionary, and I mean that in a good way--is the commitment the foundation requires from districts using their training (this is from page 9 of the above): 

The protocol also carries an obligation. Kids and teens are smart. An implicit part of the SRP is that authorities and school personnel tell students what’s going on. Certainly, temper it at the elementary school level, but middle schoolers and older need accurate information for the greatest survivability, and to minimize panic and assist recovery.

Being honest with kids. It's quite a concept. 

I was a teacher when Columbine happened, and the parent of a first grader when Sandy Hook did. I am accustomed to leaving sessions on what often gets presented as 'school safety' shaken and furious about how little it seems to do or comprehend about public education, those who work in it, and the kids we serve. 
Last Thursday, instead, I was encouraged that we're doing something constructive, that evaluates with an honest eye what we are actually doing, and works on things that will in fact make our staff and students safer.

That's an encouraging change. 

Notes from the November Board of Ed: post secondary workforce

 there's a backup here

Curtin: a demonstration of a report we recently released
"we release a lot of data...about every Thursday night, we're releasing something"
wage report was required by the Student Opportunity Act
have reporting on post-secondary enrollment for some time
wage earning and the combination of the two, basically
report was made public on October 27

National Student Clearinghouse through a data match twice a year
primary matching done through school, name, date of birth
only 97.4% of U.S. institutions, no international ones
directory matching will never be perfect
students under FERPA have the right to opt out of information sharing
data comes back anonymized
wage earnings: only have information for MA businesses that contribute to unemployment insurance
no federal (no post office, no military), no self-employed
wage data only includes those not found in postsecondary education: "only counted" each in one place
"you could think about it different ways"
for public information only; no current plans for formal or informal accountability purposes
will be updated annually
"new stuff for us" will learn from this
wage gaps between and among different groups exists
earnings increase over time and vary within industry field
note: small N size in some district and student groups "something to be careful about"
large percentage of MA high school graduates are employed in MA many years after graduation

he's now talking through the report that he's showing them, which one can't really recreate and I can't find the report...

ah, it's here

Stewart: what next? 
Curtin: stopped at district level; interested in school level
look at ways to display the data (and gives kudos to those who put it together)

West: wage outcomes a little unstable and hard to learn from until late twenties
"bunch of ways we have to be smart in how we use this information"
"opportunity to broaden accountability" of secondary schools
think that's something we should be considering as a Board
cross-agency resource
Louisiana and Texas I know have incorporated their post-secondary into their high school accountability system
West: right now high school accountability is based almost exclusively on tenth grade MCAS
Curtin: our system right now ends at graduation
"there are other factors" besides 10th grade MCAS, "but it does end at graduation"
there are states that look at post-secondary factors, including enrollment, others take it a step farther and include remediation
West: others look at seamless enrollment, enrolling the next year
important to do it based on growth, taking into account where students are when they enter high school 

Notes from the Board of Ed: FY24 budget

the back up is here

Mohamed: most of the budget is already earmarked (the bulk of it Ch. 70)
discussed several priorities:
early grade literacy
work on curriculum review and recommended best practices
career and technical education
multitiered systems of support
touched on issue of gifted and talented education
"budget committee is not a policy-making committee"
better for that discussion to happen with this board

Moriarty: let us present some good ideas that others want to think about on gifted and talented
"important and worthy topic"

Plankey: forwarding ideas on to legislators and policy makers
would like to see ideas explored more thoroughly
can be overlap in some of commissioner's goals, with getting education that's personally engaging 

Hills: policy should be driving the budget
those have to start with the Department
"there's been a lot of other stuff going on the past few years and I'm aware of it"
"everything that is a priority doesn't get done"

Stewart: still haven't had a conversation at the Board on gifted and talented

roll call on FY24 recommendations passes, which Bill Bell notes will go to "gubernatorial-elect Healey and her team"

Notes from the November Board of Ed: family engagement

 report from the family engagement summit
Riley: "parents are more than ready to be involved...they are the sleeping giant in education"
Deputy Commissioner Robinson whose opening comments we entirely missed as we couldn't hear them

"vision casting"
every registration had to have families registered
"families were so encouraged to have the Commissioner present"
Rachelle Engler Bennett (Associate Commissioner): work to strengthen work in this realm
Department developed a cross-agency framework
Office of student and family support: team of 20 supports
Olga Lopez, Family Engagement Specialist
summit had 400 participants; 37 workshops offered; 29 districts participated

Mary Stewart "family engagement...is a strategy for school improvement, it's a strategy for student success"
"communication isn't the only thing" as how parents parent also matters
"incredibly positive experience"

Robinson: all gathered together, focused on student success
Stewart: practitioners to get that experience of having that with families; to share power with families

Hills: what do you want to see a year from now?
Lopez: families engagement, sitting down together, not afraid to share their ideas

Mohamed: what does access look like?
Lopez: different initiatives, outreach coordinators reaching different families
train a trainers, teach school districts how to engage with families

Canavan: communication and access
school council meetings during the workday: I had some flexibility but not everybody does
how do we share information and how to do we create pathways
Lopez: did a lot of focus groups before putting it together
"we did everything we had to know"
back and forth here about if the Friday was a criticism
Lopez: the school districts did the job of bringing the families
districts in some cases provided transportation
Robinson: "what do you need?"

Moriarty: school councils: to create more parent engagement
"I'm not sure after thirty years if this has come off as well as we'd hoped"
Engler Bennet: need to provide multiple vehicles for engagement
Stewart: site council finds under the purview of the school committee
"that's a big part of it"
Lopez: provide maximum opportunities to be successful

Plankey: love the fact this work is getting the spotlight that I think it deserves
certain point at which students can act as decision makers and advocates
to what extend were students participating?
Lopez: we tried to bring a group of youth; something we have to work on
Plankey: more opportunities
"I'd love to see students involved in this conversation"
notes expansion of statewide student voices: student advisory council; now also Mass Association of Student Reps, Mass Student Union 
would love to see actual student representation on school committees, back by a student advisory, as required by law 
Riley ties back to visioning committee

Stewart: parent involvement, engagement as envisioned by education reform law
would love to see student-led parent-teacher conferences
establish core beliefs, shared understanding from the start, bringing people to the table
notes her own seat is a result of long advocacy to ensure parent voice is at that table

Notes from the November Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: opening comments

 The agenda is here. The livestream will turn up over here.

there's a panel here and we don't know who it is or what they're talking about
okay, sounds like a gifted and talented panel of public testimony. Not sure that mic is on?
NAGE appears to be the organization testifying here: advanced learners, twice exceptional 
"languishing and nothing has improved in their schools"
asking for an adaptive MCAS; looking for a competency based system of education

Craven: looking at having a retreat in January or February
Stewart had mentioned implicit bias training; looking for additional items

Peyser: no report this week

Riley: safety coordinator doing podcast at national level on safety drills
DESE will be giving test kits for teachers and students for upcoming breaks
Boston: meetings
investigation on transportation for special education students; more information coming
will either clear or have a finding
continue to look at MCAS data: English learner data; and performance of boys
Craven: joint meeting of higher ed and K-12; tracking longitudinal outcome data
Hills: when next 'deliverables' from Boston?
Riley: were many over summer, now buses, bathrooms, data review in February
Hills: assume after that, more substantive reporting upcoming
"with respect to transportation, is DESE dealing with a complaint" or getting pulled into larger issue?
Riley: prior to complain, had other issues
Hills: "I don't know anything about transportation" but know about sole source
"working your way back up the funnel" to know why people didn't bid 
Riley: think it's something to be considered
"we, too, were surprised one person bid"
well, then you know nothing about this, clearly

Hills: Commissioner assessment committee: talk about criteria, process

Passing along some mid-November notes from the superintendent

⁦@worcesterpublic⁩ educators are displaying their talents tonight 6-9 pm. Come by and be amazed. #educatorsrock #talent pic.twitter.com/CSWbiI91kE

— Rachel H. Monarrez, PhD (she/her/ella) (@drrmonarrez) November 11, 2022

Are you following Dr. Monárrez on Twitter?

 

from the weekly updates to the School Committee:

• It's been 100 days this week that Dr. Monárrez has been with us!
  
  
• There's some discussion happening and to be had further around schools being used as polling places. 
  
  
• Over 50 current staff members attended an information session on Performance Assessment for Leaders earlier this month. UPDATED for some more explanation: among the things an educator has to complete for a principal license are four tasks: data analysis; creation of a Professional Learning Community (PLC); supervision and evaluation (focusing on pre and post observation feedback) and family and community engagement. That's in addition to a 500 hour practicum. This session was designed to give aspiring principals more information ahead of Worcester forming another leadership cohort with a continued focus on diversifying our principalships.
  
  
• The Worcester Educational Collaborative recently published a report on Worcester Public Schools and early college.
  
  
• The Commissioner is moving forward the proposed Worcester Cultural Academy Charter Public School for the second state, which is an interview with the Department, public hearing. The administration will share with the School Committee that application once they have received it, and we'll coordinate response.
  Per the Superintendent's update: The Department will announce the date and details of the required public hearing in Worcester for the proposed WCACPS no later than Monday, November 14, 2022. In addition to a public hearing, the Department will also collect written public comment. Comments should be submitted by Wednesday, January 4, 2023 to: Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, c/o Office of Charter Schools and School Redesign, 75 Pleasant Street, Malden, MA 02148 or by email to charterschools@doe.mass.edu. Commissioner Riley will then review all of the materials and make his recommendation to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education if he believes the proposal should receive a charter. The Board will vote at its February 2023 meeting if a recommendation has been made by the commissioner.
  I have many, many thoughts on this which I will share in a separate post at some point. This is coming from the same people that run the Old Sturbridge Village Charter School.
  
  
• Note that the pause in accelerated repair funding announced by the MSBA last week will have an impact on what was being considered for Worcester East Middle School.
  
  

Notes from November Finance and Operations

 The video is over here; the agenda is here. 

As always, these are my notes as much for me as anyone!

The looming question of having all of this one-to-one technology now has been "and then what?" as all of it has a lifespan, and the one-time funds we used to fund it all were, well, one time. Thus the item that had the longest back up for this meeting this week.

These charts always make me panic me a little, as I find them initially hard to follow, but if you take some time with it, I think you'll work it out. Here's what we have now (this is page 18, as linked above); this is (listed down) what we have now, and then the bars show when they're 'done,' so to speak:

And here's the proposed (leased) replacement cycle (this is page 19 from above): 

The dollar amounts accumulate each year at the bottom, while each individual lease runs multiple years.

Now while this is (bottom line) $750K next year, note that it then goes to $1.6M, to $2.5M, to $3.4M, until in FY28, we're at what becomes a sustained $3.8M. As these are leases, this is an operational expenditure. This thus is a long-term plan for the budget to be regularly setting aside about $4M a year in replacement technology costs by FY28. 

You might remember a bit ago we updated our transportation policies in part because they talk about a "vendor" and we don't have one anymore, but also we had some missing pieces. One piece was policy EEAG, which covers student transportation in private vehicles. This is very much one of those "not having a policy won't save you" situations; we need to have language on this. Mr. Traynor sent some legal guidance back to us, and we'll be recommending, then, a policy that includes his addition. 

And so on to our regular transportation update. This month, we passed two milestones: we now have more full-sized bus drivers than routes (only a few, and remember, the margin is for keeping those routes going!), and MOST of the buses in the district are our new buses! Mr. Allen said that the hope is that by next month, all the new buses will be on site (even if some still need registration and inspection). All permits have been received for the new fueling station on Pullman Street; it's from the same landlord, so we're amending our lease. The hope is to have that operational for February. 
The crunch we (and not just us) have seen around athletic transportation--we've been able only to transport fall athletics after 4, as the first responsibility of the district is to get all students who get buses home from school--should not be an issue for winter (events are at night) and should be alleviated by spring, as we'll then have enough drivers to run both home from school routes and athletic routes at the same time. There is ongoing work with student behavior on buses, ensuring we have appropriate responses and supports. 
And speaking of replacement cycles, there's been a bit of a change of plan for the next set of buses. The School Committee voted to authorize administration to enter into a five year lease for up to 15 buses to replace our original set of buses. The plan was for those to be propane buses, as we make steps forward towards greener technology.
There's two things that have shifted though: first, the ordering time for new buses is so long that there's concern that we wouldn't get the new buses for when this current set of 13 is coming off their lease; plus the federal government changed the electric bus grant. As of now, the thinking is that the district will buy the leased buses (as part of FY24), apply for the federal grant, and see if we can (eventually--timelines on this one are long, too!) add 15 electric buses. We don't want to be running too many kinds of technology at the same time, either. 
Planned schedule for moving trainee drivers into service (which will shift and expand routes) in next month's meeting; Mr. Allen noted that the administration may be requesting additional training staff in order to be sure that those being trained can be moved most efficiently through the process.

Translation during School Committee meetings has been happening in Spanish for two meetings now; adding our other six major languages for our remaining fifteen meetings, estimated at a cost of $57,750, will be funded through ESSER this year, and then the estimated yearly cost of  $84,700 will be added to the FY24 budget. 

We also then attempted to sort out how it is that security guards are assigned to schools--in other words, what the process is. I don't know that I'm any clearer on that process now than I was before the meeting; you can watch the last 15 minutes to see if it makes it clear to you.

This meeting will report out on Thursday; we have back-to-back Worcester School Committee meetings this month, as we pushed our usual first week meeting back a week due to the joint superintendent-school committee conference. 

Most Americans now live in mixed-race neighborhoods

 I've had this piece, this analysis, really from the Washington Post open in a tab for a week now, waiting to be able to do something with it, because I think it's really important to a lot of things about how we live as Americans, education among them.

(Note, incidentally, that I've used a gift link for that; you don't need a subscription to the Washington Post to read it.)

The evaluation the Post did is based on this: 

When we say neighborhoods, we mean census tracts, which typically hold about 3,800 people. We created our tract data by rolling up even smaller block-level estimates to fit 2020 census tract boundaries, so that we could compare individual neighborhoods over time — something that’s not usually possible given the constantly shifting outlines of official census tracts.

 And they found this: 

Back in 1990, 78 percent of White people lived in predominantly White neighborhoods, where at least 4 of every 5 people were also White. In the 2020 Census, that’s plunged to 44 percent.

The piece has some great visuals on this--charts, maps, other things to play with--so I really urge you to take a look. 

I keep hoping to see someone take this up with the election results from Tuesday--if you see something, let me know?--because I'd be really interested if this had an impact both on attitude and access. It would seem to me that this make differences in both counts.

From an education perspective, of course, most children attend schools based on where they live. If where they live is more integrated, that makes a difference in the make-up of their schools. That's pretty huge.

From a Massachusetts perspective, we're tracking with the trend as a state: 

And a new 2020 majority in mixed neighborhoods is true both of what's nationally seen as metro Boston and the metro Worcester/Hartford thing. 
HOWEVER, if you zoom in on the map showing in which decade each county passed "most residents living in mixed race neighborhoods," and note that "never" is grey:

...it really depends where in Massachusetts you are. 
Anyway, neat stuff! Go look! 

and masking works

 ...go figure.

A new report released this week in the New England Journal of Medicine effectively used DESE's rescinding the mask requirement as an experiment: when that happened, many districts stopped requiring masks, but Boston and Chelsea didn't. The researchers looked at:

The final sample included 72 school districts, which comprised 294,084 students and 46,530 staff during the study period. The study period was defined as the 40 calendar weeks of the 2021–2022 school year, which ended on June 15, 2022 (the end of the last full reporting week in all districts).

And what did they find?

Before the statewide masking policy was rescinded, the trends in the incidence of Covid-19 observed in the Boston and Chelsea districts were similar to the trends in school districts that later lifted masking requirements. However, after the statewide masking policy was rescinded, the trends in the incidence of Covid-19 diverged, with a substantially higher incidence observed in school districts that lifted masking requirements than in school districts that sustained masking requirements. 

Specifically: 

 Overall, the lifting of masking requirements was associated with an additional 44.9 Covid-19 cases per 1000 students and staff (95% CI, 32.6 to 57.1) during the 15 weeks after the statewide masking policy was rescinded 

An editorial accompanying the research relates this to the massively inequitable costs of COVID. You can also find coverage on WGBH, The New York Times, The Washington Post.

And from one of the Twitter education satire accounts:

Point: New Study Finds Evidence That Mask Mandates in Schools Work

Counterpoint: Masks Give Some Anti-Vax/Anti-Mask Doctors and Politicians Bad Vibes and Heebie-Jeebies https://t.co/X7DeZ6c87D

— New York Times Education Pitchbot (@GreyLadiesNYC) November 10, 2022