What happened at the Worcester Public School meeting on Thursday: FY24 here we come!

 The agenda that has everything on it is here. The video of the meeting is here. 

May 12. Mark your calendar!

The meeting opened with two public presentation under petitions: one on Neighborhood Strings, the second Anya Geist, a student at South High, who is completing a Teen Justice Fellowship Project on anti-Semitism and Holocaust education. Note that Ms. Geist's project is going to Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports for further discussion.

FY24 preliminary budget report
The report of the superintendent was the preliminary FY24 report; I've uploaded just that PDF here. The presentation from Brian Allen begins about 19 minutes into the meeting. I'm pretty sure I say every year that if you're at all interested in the WPS budget--and if you're in Worcester, that should be you!--you should just watch it. 

A few things I'd highlight as a seasoned budget watcher: 

• Remember that we have used ESSER funding both to hold our budget harmless with regard to enrollment losses two years ago (aka: we didn't lay off elementary teachers during the pandemic) and that we have been frontloading some of our expected Student Opportunity Act increases. Mr. Allen represented those like this (the images are from previous budgets): 
  
  

  So this then needs to get absorbed into the FY24 budget (subject to consideration of continuing, just like everything else): 
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
• Leading to the crucial takeaway on where we are walking into the FY24 budget planning with: 
  
  
  
  

  That essentially is a level service budget (running with projected percentage increases). This led to today's headline on a budget shortfall. 
  Please note: this is early days for us. There are going to be tradeoffs of current spending, of what the administration wants to continue, of what is needed elsewhere. 
  
  
  
• It's crucial to note, not only for our budget (the budget is student enrollment based) but also for all sorts of district planning: our student enrollment is up over 500 students from last year. That's a lot of kids! 
  
  
  
  Do note that the presentation itself goes more deeply into where those increases are (and where the decreases are) by school. The boosts, as seen above, are Head Start and elementary, so those are students that will be with us awhile, and this impacts the whole district. Expect more to come on that. 
  
  
• Worcester is of course (and as intended) one of the big gainers under the Student Opportunity Act. You can see that in Mr. Allen's walk through of how we get to the foundation budget: 
  
  
  
  Do keep in mind that most of that SOA funding increase is due to the third year phase in of increases in the low income rates; Worcester is group 11 of 12 groups, with 72% of our students considered low income. 
  
  
• Mr. Allen proposed for budget priorities for us in our Legislative advocacy:
       1, Inflation: The Student Opportunity Act caps the inflation rate at 4.5%. The actual inflation    rate for this year would be 9.3%. Advocacy for the real rate started back in January with a joint letter from MASC, MASS, AFT-MA, and MTA to the Governor and legislative leadership.
       2. Out-of-district special education tuition: The Operational Services Division issued a 14% tuition increase for tuition for out-of-district special education schools back in the fall; you can find their issued tuitions from last month posted here. As if in response, Governor Healey Friday filed a supplemental budget that includes $75M (more, as her House 1 budget already included $15M) in what's known as extraordinary relief.
  (In my comments I again noted that the MSBA being uncapped from its $800M cap, reinstating the Accelerated Repair program, and getting the state to cover the inflation in current projects from ARPA funds would be a good third one.)
  
  
• Mark your calendars!
  
  

Subcommittee report

Governance reported out, and I cannot tell you how glad I am to report that we have updated the student dress code. In addition to the much more reasonable language around how students can actually dress (about time), it also quite plainly states that students can only be disciplined for dress code infractions if they are violations of the Code of Conduct. In other words, the dress code violation has to rise to the level of the list of clear disciplinary infractions in order to be treated as one. Again, about time!

There was also a report on the strategic plan. If you're interested in this, I'd recommend watching the actual Governance meeting; this section starts about 23 minutes in. This started with Mr. Allen reviewing what had been shared with us earlier, which appeared to be a draft outline for next steps. That includes this: 

Mr. Allen then passed that meeting over to people from Hanover Research, who gave this presentation (I asked for that Friday). They have been hired via WEC, funded by a grant. 
In the Governance meeting, Laura Clancey, chairing the meeting, asked for questions, and asked about funding. 
Let's say Sue Mailman and I had many questions, particularly about the contract with Hanover Research, but also about process. I think that this is not a process the School Committee currently is steering, which isn't how this is supposed to work; I won't say more here as I said plenty at the meeting. 

Other business

We sent a number of items off for reports or work in subcommittees: a requested report on Chromebooks; one on Ch. 74 (vo-tech) programs; a list of courses for possible approval for next year; next year's student handbook (which is revised annually).

We sent the much-reported (some even accurately!) item on revising the homework policy to subcommittee. For informational reasons, let me note that what it actually says is: 

To consider a review of the Homework Policy and explore no homework dates, expectations around homework overall and utilize parent, student and educator feedback

....really. That's all it says.

We passed revised position descriptions for the School Safety Director and the Chief Diversity (now becoming Equity) Officer. We made revisions to but held the document of the Chief Personnel (as a proposed revision?) or Human Capital (as proposed?) Officer, so we can see them all.

We unanimously passed support for federal HD 1269, the "Healthy Meals Help Kids Learn Act of 2023," proposed by Representative Jim McGovern, which would raise the reimbursement for free lunch 45 cents and for free breakfast 28 cents with a yearly adjustment in both cases. 
 
We also had a deliberation over endorsement of state HD485/SD1697, around support for vocational education in capital projects, most significantly to regional vokes; adding a DESE office regarding vocational education; and outlining requirements on access to middle school students by vocational schools. On a vote of 3-2-1 (Laura Clancey wanted to speak and wasn't seen; she did not vote), it was held for more information at the next meeting. 

And our next meeting is now scheduled for April 13, with the second April meeting after April vacation on the 27th. 
Do note that F&O meets Monday the 20th at 5:30; TLSS meets on March 27.