A few notes from the Worcester School Committee legislative breakfast

 I promise I'll go back and post on last Thursday's Worcester School Committee, but before we get too far away or lose the impact, I did want to share a few notes from Friday's Worcester School Committee legislative breakfast, As it was a posted public meeting--it had to be, as the School Committee was discussing the budget, which is under their purview--I attended and took a few notes.

The presentation at the breakfast was largely (though not exactly) the preliminary budget presentation the School Committee heard from Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen in February after the release of the Governor's budget; my highlights of that are here. You may remember that the upshot of that is: 

If you're at all looking at headlines across the state, you will have caught that the picture has only gotten more grave since then (there are so many articles I could link to there that I don't know where to start). As shared at the breakfast by Mr. Allen, last week MASC/MASS/MTA/AFT-MA sent a joint letter of advocacy on inflation to the state legislature. 

I think this is well illustrated by the difference between this year and last year in terms where the increases in Worcester's chapter 70 aid are coming from: 

from slide 10 of Mr. Allen's February presentation

Let me note here: a thing you could do? 
Send your legislators a line emphasizing the importance of
an inflation adjustment factor in the House and Senate budgets!

Beyond inflation, the main requests of WPS to the delegation were support for after and out of school programs and for mental health supports, both of which were put at $5M support from ESSER (now ending). 

Inflation, or how it is calculated for inclusion in the foundation budget, has been characterized as a "flaw" in the foundation budget formula this season. I think I'd maybe characterize this year as an unforeseen consequence of how it's done, but I'll not argue. What came up on Friday which matters is a continuation of what Worcester had already begun to discuss last year: what else needs to be considered in the next round of reconsideration of the foundation budget. The Student Opportunity Act requires that such a reconsideration be done every ten years, which would put it at 2029. I'll note (again), though, that it was four years between the Foundation Budget Review Commission released its report and the bill was signed into law. It was even more years before that spent by advocates of all kinds asking that such a commission be created. I'd argue that we need to ask sooner rather than later. 

Asked what should be considered, Mr. Allen noted the following about the Worcester Public Schools budget: 

• the district is finding that support for English learners is $8M per year undercalculated
• the district is finding that they're spending $52M a year more on special education services than provided by the foundation budget

...which brings me to a new meme to share:

 And Worcester parents, don't forget CPPAC Wednesday!