And my apologies: it has been a big news week in Worcester, and I have been ill so I haven't been updating (I plan to spend some of the time I anticipate being snowbound this weekend catching up). Here, in any case, is what happened at the March 3, 2023 Worcester School Committee meeting, for which I was remote. As always, this is my perspective as a member of the Committee, so keep that filter in mind!
The agenda is here; the video of the meeting is here.
Note that we did open with executive session covering our negotiations with seven collective bargaining units, and we had public comment regarding those negotiations.
The report of the Superintendent was on Innovating in education. It starts about 11minutes into the video. Among other things, this gave us a demonstration of Chatbot GPT writing a lesson plan. Let me highlight a few things:
Here's where we were going:
We had two reports out from Standing Committees: the February meetings of both Finance and Operations, and of Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports. I never got to summarize that F&O meeting, so let me just quickly note a few things:
- in terms of transportation, all of our large buses are now owned as well as operated by the Worcester Public Schools. We have added back, for the first time in two years, athletic after school runs (only two so far; more to come for spring). There is another delay on the midsize buses (yes, supply lines, still).
- There's $22.8M in ESSER funding going to HVAC and hot water. The bulk of this is going to HVAC work in nearly every WPS building. HOWEVER, in doing the full look at what is necessary, the report also noted that we need $200M in HVAC work alone. We have to pay attention to the enormous backlog we have in facilities.
- If there's anything at all that you're wondering about from a capital budget--that is, big work on buildings--side, the quarterly facilities report is the place to look. Our eyes, of course, are closely on (for example) Burncoat, where the wait for acceptance in the MSBA pipeline for a full renovation or rebuild has now resulted in a NEASC accreditation issue; we're in the process of getting a full review of exactly what it is that they are looking for and what that will cost (as, again, we've discussed over several meetings now). As always, though, there is a lot more in the report, as we have a lot of buildings.
- we transferred a million dollars as a result of this report, and if you review the quarterly budget report (and do read our quarter budget report! They are an incredibly clear way to follow what goes on with our budget!), you'll see why: utilities are up! Way up! And we also (like many districts!) continue to have positions open, and so we've transferred money from salaries to overtime (specifically for custodial coverage). And on that last, as I said above: we have a lot of buildings, and a lot of space, and we're doing it with many fewer people. That has an impact.
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