Things the Worcester School Committee did in November

I'm not including this below but I am not going to miss a chance
to once again brag about the fact that both Mr. Hennessey and Mr. Allen
got national awards because of our fabulous transportation department.
Photo by Dan O'Brien from our November 2 meeting

Before we move into December, in which you'll see some important things being voted complete--strategic plan! rules!--I did want to highlight a few things that the Worcester School Committee did during November that will matter:

• We revamped the subcommittees. As I noted above, the reworking of the rules for the upcoming committee will be reported out in December, but we had an preliminary report at the first meeting in November, and we adopted a two subcommittee structure of four members each. For those who might be concerned about tiebreakers, know that even-numbered subcommittees in school committees in Massachusetts are not unusual (five member committees have to have them), and, as all work of the subcommittee is reported out to the full committee for votes, a split on a subcommittee will simply be decided by the full committee (which has the final decision, in any case). 
  The two subcommittees going forward will be:
• Teaching, Learning and Student Success, which will have the current work of TLSS (that is essentially anything academic or related to student support) alongside the data work that was the purview of School and Student Performance. The lead administrative side on this will be Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Dr. Marie Morse.
• Finance, Operations, and Governance, which will have the financial and operational oversight of Finance and Operations plus the policy and occasional employee work that has been Governance. The lead administrative side on this will be Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen. 
  
  
• We hired a new clerk. It is not an exaggeration to say that no one currently involved in the Worcester Public Schools remembers a clerk who wasn't Dr. Helen Friel, who retired earlier this year after 57 years with the district. Dr. Friel worked for the superintendent. 
  We have revamped the position such that the clerk now will work for the school committee, through the person of the vice-chair, who of course is elected by their peers (as the chair in Worcester, the mayor, is not). 
  At the November 16 meeting, the Committee interviewed three finalists and voted to hire Kristi Turgeon, who joins us from UMass Med, but previously served as clerk in Berlin-Boylston. The contract negotiations, which were delegated to Finance and Operations, are currently underway (you'll see that it is in executive session this coming week).
  
  
• We revamped several position descriptions. Position descriptions are under the purview of the school committee (as are job titles); at the meeting on the 16th, a number of positions, all of which already exist and all but one of which is already filled, were revamped. They are: 
• Administrative Director of Finance (formerly Budget Director)
• Director of Compliance and School Improvement and Director of Teaching and Learning (formerly Director of Curriculum and Professional Learning, now two positions of which the second will be vacant)
• Director of Guidance (former Guidance Department Head)
• Director of Multilingual Education (formerly Manager of ESL)
• Assistant Superintendent for Personnel, Engagement, and Equity (formerly Chief People Officer, now assuming oversight of the equity work as well)
• Director of Human Resources for Recruitment and Retention (formerly Director of Recruitment, Retention, and Cultivation)
• Director of Strategy and Innovation (formerly Strategic Support Coordinator)
  
  
• We had two important reports of the superintendent. 
• The November 2 report on the Q teams, which is the central administrative restructuring to support schools is precisely the answer to the concern you might remember being a focus of the superintendent search: how to actually support schools and stop simply putting out of fires. That's doesn't make headlines and it isn't a "grabber," but the difference it makes for the district in the experience of students and teachers is enormous. If you didn't get a chance to watch the report, I do really recommend it:

• The second report did get some print, but the report of results of the security audit are worth reviewing yourself.
  
  We as a society have turned "school safety" far too often based on bugaboos (a bugaboo is an "imaginary object of fear"), based not on real information, but rumor, innuendo, gossip, and headlines. Thus having a reasonable, thoughtful presentation and plan based on months of actual ground-level review is (unfortunately) close to revolutionary.
  I'd also ask that you listen to my comments after the report. It is crucial to understand, particularly looking ahead to next term, that there was a beginning of a security review in 2015: 16 buildings were surveyed, and then an outline of established of what was to be done next in reviewing the rest of the buildings. 
  Instead, the district had a change of administration, and the survey work was never conducted. There was no comprehensive assessment; there was no plan to complete it, and things were allowed to simply decline.
  Thus simple things like locks--literally thousands of them!--are missing. For all the talk and guff about school safety, the simple matter of locks on classroom doors are now for this administration, with the funding set aside in the budget voted in June, to work on. 
  It is going to matter a great deal to be in touch with what is real, and what history really has been, here and elsewhere in the year ahead. Start by grounding yourself in what a safe school really looks like.