What happened at week's Worcester School Committee meeting

This would be the February 16 meeting, held very much in hybrid form, as we had two members and the superintendent* participating remotely. The agenda is here; the video of the meeting is here.

Hey, go listen to that great edition of the National Anthem!

Please note that we continue to have at every meeting discussions in executive session regarding negotiations with collective bargaining units.

The report of the superintendent was the second of the two-part presentation on special education. Note that this part included some discussion of the Multi-tiered Systems of Support (inevitably abbreviated as MTSS, this being education): 

Note that part of what is going on (not only in Worcester, but many places) is work around making more of what is done in schools the universal supports (and making sure they truly are supports!); this was part of the response to my question on how the district intends to work to eliminate bias in the referral process. 

This leads into the next steps for the district:

Governance reported out, which means that we've now adopted goals for Dr. Monárrez for this school year as follows: 

District Goal

By June 30, 2023 collaboratively develop WPS handbooks and guiding documents to improve district systems in the topics of portrait of a graduate, student wellness and support and family and community engagement with equitable fiscal resource allocation to support implementation. 

  

Student Goal

By June 30, 2023 an inclusive learning environment for WPS staff, families and scholars will be established and/or strengthened through the development of district level documents.

Professional Goal

By June 30, 2023 participation in New Superintendent Induction Program (NSIP) year 1 will have been completed with all required projects submitted. 

These are REALLY IMPORTANT because this is what the School Committee will evaluate her on this summer. This is one of those "don't assume that adopting the subcommittee report doesn't matter" things!

PLEASE NOTE: while Member Clancey did report out, and we did adopt, a change to district policy which now only requires communication from a caregiver for an excused absence for illness, the overall district absence policy was recommitted back to Governance, and otherwise has not changed. This is because what we were looking at was the policy in the student handbook; our absence policy also lives in our district policy manual, and right now, those things don't agree with each other. Thus you'll be seeing more on this one! 

The Committee (without me; I recused myself) adopted the Mayor's request that MASC "work with local school committees to increase funding for the MSBA and to work with communities to get the MSBA accelerated repair program that was delayed this year restarted." This of course hits everything from Burncoat High's replacement to Worcester East Middle's windows to if we'll get a new roof on Union Hill. Badly needed!

The Committee passed my item (and on the Mayor's motion, we also sent this to the joint committee with Council education) that we take the position of requesting an equal split on cable access fees between school, government, and local access channel. This is the fee from the Spectrum contract that pays for WEA-TV as well as the city channel and local cable access. Currently, that split is 20/25/55. Given rising costs, what the station staff currently does, and what we'd like them to do, it only makes sense.

Member McCullough's item that we look at the policies regarding the use of playgrounds on and adjoining school grounds was sent to Governance. (Did you know that Worcester Public Schools playgrounds are open to the public from dawn to dusk during non-school hours? They are!)

We also sent her item requesting collaboration on the use of Worcester Public Library space at Worcester Public Schools to administration. 

We also updated the wages for Certified Nursing Assistants from $25/hr to $30/hr and Licensed Practical Nurses from $35/hr to $40/hr effective February 1. That part wasn't clear from the backup and got sorted out in deliberation.

*Dr. Monárrez and Dr. Morse were at the National Conference on Education in San Antonio.