And Worcester takes the lede

...in this Boston Globe editorial, and you're going to wish that we didn't:

A history teacher at Worcester’s Claremont Academy was so traumatized by an active-shooter training exercise for educators that she left the classroom sobbing. The “training” involved a hooded man pointing a gun at teachers’ heads and saying “bang” as he fake-shot them one by one.
“How is this something that is going to help us?” the history teacher asked a Worcester Telegram columnist two years ago when recounting her experience, which was part of the district’s implementation of ALICE, a program designed to train teachers to respond to an active shooter in the school building.

As far as I know, this never came up at Worcester School Committee.

In any case, the editorial opining against such drills is excellent:

So what works for preventing mass school shootings? The short answer is that we don’t have enough independent scientific research to know. But to the extent that drills are valuable to train school staff, teachers, and students, they should be approached with extreme skepticism and care, and without traumatizing students. At a minimum, if schools continue to use them, more study of their effectiveness is needed, which could lead to state guidelines. And, if every other response to school shootings fails, perhaps the nation could finally confront the root cause: the easy availability of deadly weapons that has forced schools into asking the question of how to respond to mass shooters in the first place.

I don't know what this is

...intimidation? a power trip?
But it certainly isn't making anyone in Worcester any safer.

"And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles."

Maybe it should have been that April, when they told us to move the kids to the closet, to the floor, away from the windows, to be quiet, not to stir.

Maybe it should have been that December, when they told us to be ready to block the doors, the windows, build a wall, find your weapon, think of escapes, organize your class.

Maybe it finally be now, when they told us they need to fire guns in the building, so kids will know what it sounds like, will be trained, will be ready.


When did it become reasonable school policy to teach kindergartners to throw their sneakers at men firing weapons?

When did we as teachers, as administrators, as school committee members, but most of all as parents, decide that training our children to be front line troops was a part of what they were sent to school for?

The literary analogies stretch back as far as history; I think of Moloch in Leviticus. The post title is from Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" in which the "why" is never answered.

We have failed to address the real issue--yes, it's guns.
We have failed to realistically assess the threat--Massachusetts schools are more likely to be hit by a tornado (for example) and we don't require those drills.
We have responded with an "answer" that has no evidence of doing anything other than traumatizing kids, and even some evidence of increasing the problems.
We have spent lots of money on "school safety" and not nearly enough on things that make kids safer and healthier across the board.

I'm with the Parkland students all the way on gun control. But that isn't the only pushback that is needed.

We are also well overdue for a discussion of REAL school safety and security. We need a rebellion, a refusal to subject our children to unproven theories that make some people a lot of money, give a few people power, and make a whole lot of kids traumatized.

Worcester School Committee meets Thursday

The agenda mysteriously was not posted for a bit, but it's up now.
The report of the superintendent is on college and career readiness.
There are a number of recognitions and congratulations.
Burncoat Middle is asking that it be renamed Burncoat Middle School for the Arts.
There's a motion to support Senator Chandler's bill on enhancing civics (please tell me that someone check its report out of Joint Committee).

The committte is asked to accept a $700 field trip grant to Woodland Academy; donations of $184.67 to Tatnuck Magnet School from Papa Gino’s Pizzeria, $75 to the Worcester Public Schools for the Model UN Club, $250 to Doherty Memorial High School for a Memorial Scholarship in memory of Giovan Diaz; the Massachusetts Life Sciences grant  of $22,897 (check out the backup; an after-school bioltechnology program!);
The committee is also being asked to approve a prior fiscal year payment of $8,959.88 to MPS - Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC.
The committee is also being asked to approve summer camps at South High...does the district have a revolving fund for this? 

Two scheduling notes for budget time: it's time to schedule the budget hearing, and administration looks to be attempting to have the City Council Education committee meeting with Finance and Operations again.

Mr. O'Connell is looking for policy under the "Children Requiring Assistance" statute.

Mr. Comparetto is asking for the ratio of social workers to students (does Worcester have social workers?) and if school resource officers are trained as social workers (no).

Mayor Petty is seeking a meeting with Brockton (!) to talk about suing the state over the foundation budget.
He's also filed this:

Request that the Superintendent coordinate a 17 minute Walkout Day on March 14, 2018 with all students and teachers in the Worcester Public Schools to commemorate with a one minute moment of silence for each of the people who died on February 14th at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Miss Biancheria requested an update on ALICE training, which has been submitted as follows:

The "eLearning" is a video to watch online. 

A reminder, by the way, that the change in policy to ALICE was never approved by the school committee in Worcester. 

There is also an executive session on four rounds of litigation. 

Worcester School Committee: Governance this week

There's a Governance subcommittee this Tuesday at 4, with a largely policy agenda.
They're reviewing a series of recently updated policies, largely required by changes in regulation or law.
They're doing sections C (administration),  D (financial), and E (student supports) of the district policy review. Oddly, there appears to be a significant drop in legal references (not sure why)...For anyone out there still wondering what happened with Worcester and warrants, there's an implicit answer in section DGA, which mentions the superintendent, the city manager, the city auditor, the city treasurer...and not the school committee; likewise, section DJA specifically references no other authority being necessary. All of the references are to the municipal charter.
In response to the question about ESSA, there's a section of the student handbook (?), which hasn't been substantially redrafted under the new law. As there have been a number of presentations on what ESSA means for school districts, I'm not sure why this is the answer.
In response to the questions about safety and a principals' meeting, there's ALICE:

Changes in school safety are in response to the new ALICE Training and related protocols: 

1. Over 3,500 employees will take e-learning training on ALICE. 

2. In addition to lockdown and medical drills there will also be ALICE drills. 

3. Teachers will have their phones in their possession and on vibrate when school is in session to receive system safety notifications when necessary. 

4. School Resource Officers (SRO) and school administrators will receive training on school law. 

5. The WPS continues to work to enhance security systems in the schools.

It's disturbing to see "e-learning" with ALICE, as one thing that is emphasized over and over on emergency training is muscle memory. Unless you're training someone on typing, you're not getting muscle memory on a computer.

Worcester school meetings this week

and there are a few...
The Governance and Employee Issues subcommittee meets on Wednesday at 5:30. Of note at this meeting: they're reviewing the student handbook--which suggests no substantive changes--and section I of the district policy manual (that's Instruction)--which I also don't see anything to raise eyebrows on--with one exception: they're about to let vocational students out of the two years of foreign language requirement ('though that's only in the handbook, not in the policy manual...and the two should agree). That would mean that students who don't complete that requirement would be ineligible for admission to (for example) UMass, which is why the MassCore requirements (including the two years of language) were adopted.
They're also hearing about collaboration around the Byrne Criminal Justice grant and discussion of municipal governance and of registering students to vote.

On Wednesday night, the final CPPAC meeting of the year is 7 pm at the Worcester Art Museum, and the guest speakers are Superintendent Binienda and City Manager Augustus to talk about the budget. A good time to ask questions...

The School Committee picks up budget again at 4pm on Thursday. The sequence of accounts is here, and they left off with security guards. There's a lot left to get through. If past experience is a guide, they'll go as far as they can til 6, recess to executive session, come back at 7 for the regular meeting, and pick up budget again once they've completed the regular meeting.

The regular meeting has a LOT of recognitions.
The report of the superintendent is on the ALICE security protocol, which includes training students and staff to fight intruders, rather than lockdown. The presentation is here. It appears, from the presentation, that the administration adopted this protocol without a school committee vote or any public notice.

There are also responses to motions made during and surrounding the budget deliberation two weeks ago: the motion on non-fulfillment of transportation, on leasing buses, on the wall by Tatnuck Magnet School, on Seven Hills charter school and WRTA grant-funded transportation, on McKinney-Vento transportation reimbursment (36% last year), on the Foley Stadium revolving fund, on graduation expenses, on what the crew team needs, on the repair of athletic equipment, and on athletic supplies purchased.

Mr. O'Connell is proposing having public meetings and hearings as part of the development of the new South High School.

He also wants to discuss departmental consolidation with the city.

He also is suggesting two meetings a month in summer (continuing the regular year schedule) and an additional meeting in months that have a fifth Thursday.

Miss McCullough is asking for a report on itinerant special education staff caseloads, specifically referencing Boston, and also a report on "what, if any, orientation, training or ongoing professional development is provided by special education department leadership to principals, as it relates to itinerant special education staff."

The committee is being asked to accept a donation of $19.10 for classroom books, of $1000 for SAT for seniors, of $1000 for a scholarship (due to Mr. Allen's award), of $676 for special education transitions, of $250 for the alternative program (from an award they won!), of $660 from Intel, and of $13,000 from the Quinsigamond Village Improvement Council for equipment. They're also being asked to vote a prior year invoice of $585 and invoices of $7695.

Mr. Foley is suggesting the following:

To ask the Mayor and the Superintendent to develop a new approach to the School Committee agenda that will make the meetings more effective, productive, and deliberative. Suggestions would include the establishment of a consent agenda for items such as routine approvals of donations and recognitions, the development of criteria for recognitions, designated meetings for honoring recipients of recognitions, and the presence on the agenda at each meeting or every other meeting an important educational policy issue facing Worcester Public Schools that school committee members would learn about (through materials distributed prior to the meeting) and discuss with administrators at the meeting.

There is an executive session scheduled for 6 pm on a grievance, contract negotiations with the teachers' union and with non-represented personnel (both non-administrative and administrative), and:

To authorize the Superintendent to negotiate an employment contract for Susan O’Neil, Ph.D. as the Deputy Superintendent, effective July 1, 2017.

...which I assume means that the committee voted in favor of the hire?

Worcester School Committee meets January 21

The first regular meeting of the Worcester School Committee is this Thursday, January 21. You can find the agenda here and here.
There is an executive session at 6: to discuss the special education director's contract (one of the few done with the school committee) and to review the superintendent search submissions, as recommended by Finance and Operations subcommittee back in December.

On the regular agenda (which is a long one, as there hasn't been a meeting in a month), there is no report of the superintendent.
There are a number of midyear retirements, resignations, and new hires.
The rest of this is NOT in order; I'm going to start with "heads up" and list the rest.

For consideration: as noted earlier, to limit the superintendent search to an "internal" search managed by the mayor and finished by the first week of March.

Also, Mayor Petty wants to consider making South a vocational school or expanding vocational offerings there. 

The Committee is also being asked to forward school building priorities for MSBA. 

And Mr. O'Connell is requesting that the Committee review the ALICE program ("Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate") (you've seen this written up as the one where kids throw things at active shooters).