Worcester School Committee mid-April meeting notes with lots on finance

I'm still working out how to do this both A) this go-round and B) when I'm doing it from home without a desk. I'm still taking lots of notes, but I'm finding it trickier to type. Because my notes on my blog have always been as much for me as for anyone, though, I'm going to continue to post things from the meetings, even if I have to do it later.
Should you want to take a look, the video is online here. It was, of course, again an entirely remote meeting.

Technically, we had two Worcester School Committee meetings last night: the first was the school choice hearing. This is, note, school choice in to Worcester; school choice out is simply allowed by state law. We actually don't have to have the hearing if we are allowing school choice, and last night, there wasn't a presentation or deliberation; we simply voted in favor of it.

On the regular agenda, the first item was, as I noted earlier this week, Ms. Biancheria's filing of reconsideration of the vote to waive the requirement this spring that students take the AP exam to achieve AP GPA credit. There is no deliberation prior to the vote on reconsideration, and the vote went as the vote on the item itself had gone: 5-2, Biancheria and Monfredo opposed. This, again, means that students who are currently taking an AP course can choose or not to take this spring's AP exam; their Worcester Public Schools GPA will not in any way be impacted by that decision (not taking the exam usually gives only honors level credit).

Our student representative Kwaku Nyarko asked during the section of the agenda that is theirs that we make plans to meet with our student advisory council soon, particularly given the current circumstances. The Mayor agreed, and we haven't set a date, but we'll keep you posted. 

The report of the superintendent was not something that usually happens in April: an update on the next year's budget.
The crux of the problem is this: since our February initial look at FY21, the economy has borne the impact of what UMass Dartmouth Professor Michael Goodman has called "a medically induced coma," in which we have intentionally made choices that have slowed the economy in order to bend the curve of the infections of coronavirus. That may well impact the current fiscal year; it will for certain impact next fiscal year, as was reflected in Tuesday's state economic roundtable (my liveblog is here; the MASC coverage is here). This not only raises questions around Student Opportunity Act funding; it raises questions around regular year to year funding.
I will always tell you watch Worcester Public Schools budget presentations, and this one is no exception; it starts about nine minutes into the video.