About process

'Can't argue with the truth, sir.' 
'In my experience, Vimes, you can argue with anything.
Terry Pratchett, Jingo  

One of the first challenges when you move to a new place is learning how things work: who has what authority; who gets to decide what to do what; and how are those decisions made.

In my own life, it was the state's proposal to plow an airport access road through my own neighborhood at the time that sent me into learning, rapidly, how things work. Issues since then--most notably the proposal to put a slots parlor into Green Island--have been further opportunities for learning.

The same thing is true when one joins a public body: how does one get things done? What is the process? Where are the levels? And what are the things over which your public body has control and does not.
And so one learns about filing items, having subcommittee meetings with public discussions with extensive reports from administration, making decisions in public meetings within the purview of that public body.

And then we have a week like the past one...

And in Worcester news

The Election Commission has confirmed her position, so Donna Colorio rejoins the School Committee for November and December.

Donna Colorio sworn in moments ago at Election Commission meeting to fill out the School Committee term of Brian O’Connell, who died last week. She said she is honored to fill out his term. pic.twitter.com/44DPfJ2oZY

— Steven H. Foskett Jr (@SteveFoskettTG) October 25, 2019

Also, posted next to the specimen ballots at each polling place on Election Day will be the following notice:

DECEASED CANDIDATE NOTICE

Please be advised the following candidate is deceased

BRIAN A. O'CONNELL

54 PROVIDENCE STREET

SCHOOL COMMITTEE

Please note the name of the deceased candidate is on the ballot and cannot be removed. Any votes cast for the candidate will be considered a tribute vote. The candidate cannot be elected.

Any voter who has already cast an absentee ballot may request a new one by making a written request to the Worcester Election Commission.

If you have any questions please contact the Worcester Election Office at 508-799-1134 or elections@worcesterma.gov. 

So if you already sent in your absentee ballot, you can re-vote, knowing that Brian will not be able to serve. 

UPDATE: here's the article; do note that it isn't a law but the city charter that sets up this succession.

Continuity in governance

On the general blogging principle of anything that I've been asked more than once, even more people are wondering.
You aren't wrong to ask: continuity in governance is a basic element of political stability.

Under the section 4-6 of the Worcester municipal charter (starts on page 92 over here) regarding vacancies on the Worcester School Committee:

If a vacancy shall occur amongst the six at-large members of the school committee, said vacancy shall be filled in the same manner as provided in section 2-10(a) for the filing of vacancies in the office of councilor-at-large, from among the candidates for election to the office of school committee at the preceding regular municipal election

To be clear, section 2-10 says:

(a) Councilors-at-large - If a vacancy shall occur in the office of councilorat-large, the vacancy shall be filled in descending order of votes received by the candidate for the office of councilor-at-large at the preceding regular municipal election who received the largest number of votes for the office of councilor-atlarge without being elected, provided such person remains eligible and willing to serve. The board of election commissioners shall certify such candidate to the office of councilor-at-large to serve for the balance of the then unexpired term

That would be the November 2017 election, in which the results were:

School Committee election results from November 2017: O'Connell, Foley, Monfredo, McCullough, Comparetto, Biancheria, Colorio. The first six serve on the Committee. 

The seventh place finisher was Donna Colorio with 7,534 votes (behind sixth place Dianna Biancheria with 7,824). Colorio is not running for Worcester School Committee at this time; she is, however, running for Worcester City Council at Large and has left her name on the ballot for mayor.

It does, note, take a meeting of the Election Commission to certify the filling of the vacant seat.

There are no Worcester School Committee meetings remaining before the municipal election on November 5. There are two meetings in November and at least one in December. The newly elected Worcester School Committee will be sworn in the first full week of January (January 6th, if memory serves).

And yes, the municipal ballots for the November election already exist; in fact, absentee ballots have already gone out to voters.

UPDATE: Per Nick Kotsopoulos, the Election Commission will meet October 25. Among the things they'll decide upon is what will be shared with voters about Brian O'Connell's passing.

What happened last night in education?

What an election night, huh?

So what happened in education?

• Close to home, of course, the Worcester School Committee drops Colorio (by 291 over Biancheria) and adds Comparetto. A few things to keep in mind on that: Colorio's two big issues were Common Core--gone because of the standards redrafting and ESSA==and overtesting--which appears to be less of a concern in a state in which the state test is regularly racking up rates of 99%--so she didn't have as much to run on this year. Comparetto, of course, ran as a progressive, though the big issues around education--race, school-by-school inequity, police in school--were never brought up by him or anyone else. I'm dubious about how much of a victory it is for "us" when a newcomer wins a seat by spending (what I believe to be an unprecedented) over $45,000 to win a school committee race. At a time when we're seeing school board seats be bought for big money (don't forget LA), I'm going to say bluntly that if we care about representative democracy locally, this isn't something we'll find encouraging. Note also that McCullough moved up the ranking while Biancheria moved down (in fact, for awhile it looked as though she might be bumped instead). 
• On the Worcester City Council, Gaffney is out and Rosen replaces him at large. The two newcomers, representing districts 1 and 5 respectively, are Sean Rose and Matt Wally. Rose has kids in the schools, and Wally has parents who were WPS teachers, so at least initially, that looks like possible education support. Aside from general supportive messages for schools, and Wally specifically talking about getting South and Doherty done, we haven't heard a lot on that. Also, someone should ask Rose about a new Burncoat.
• Farther afield, the big news is from Lowell, where the non-binding question on putting a new high school downtown won by a nearly 2 to 1 margin, and the City Council race went to those who supported that location as well. For those who haven't been following this issue: Lowell's only high school is right downtown, and many students walk to and from school. The district runs a good number of programs that keep kids in and around the building during and after school; it's widely seen as one of the strengths of the district. The school committee has wanted to keep a new high school in that location, in order to keep those programs and that access in place for students; the City Council instead wanted to move the high school out to a more suburban location. In Massachusetts municipal districts, the city (not the district) builds schools, so when the City Council voted to put the high school in the more suburban location, the School Committee balked, and then sued, and then lost. Meanwhile, a group of citizens who wanted to keep the high school downtown had collected enough signatures to put the a non-binding measure on the ballot. It has by far dominated the municipal election, and, last night, the downtown supporters won big. All of which demonstrates that the MSBA was wise to postpone dealing with Lowell until after their election. Also, pro-tip? A major concern of MSBA is the academic program and how the building supports that. Lowell's suburban site was not making good arguments for that.
• We can't talk about last night and education without recognizing two mayoral races that bring new mayors in from the State House coming out of races that spoke about school funding: Representative Paul Heroux was elected last night in Attleboro, defeating seven term incumbent Kevin Dumas. Note that Heroux himself cites school funding as one of the factors of his win; Attleboro regularly dances on the edge of barely making minimum net school spending. In Lynn, Senator Tom McGee beat incumbent mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy by a 64/35 margin. Lynn, of course, has been the city that has been so far under net school spending for years that the state has had a few rounds of renegotiating how they're ever going to make up ground on it. The outgoing mayor had variously referred to minimum spending as "a thorn in our side" and had spoken of the school budget "swallow(ing) the city budget". Those are weak arguments in a city in which the school budget is funded a full 75% by the state.
• Framingham elected their first city school committee, choosing a mix of incumbents and newcomers. 
• In New Bedford (h/t Kat McKiernan), incumbent Josh Amaral (disclosure: Josh is a friend) won re-election, and and the city elected two new members, one of whom, Colleen Dawicki, is an interesting city policy wonk type and becomes the only woman on an all-male board.  
• In Malden, where a ward school committee candidate had attracted an enormous (for school committees) amount of dark money, the non-dark money candidate Jennifer Spadafora won, and by a fairly significant margin.
• I put together a bit of a thread last night about school committee races across the state (which does not claim to be everything; let me know if you have additions). 

To peek nationally a bit:

• You'll no doubt hear about Tyler Titus, who won a seat on the Erie County School Board, becoming Pennsylvania's first openly transgender elected official. Congratulations to Tyler! Massachusetts, of course, has had at least two openly transgender school committee members for a bit.
• Portland, Maine voted to renovate four elementary schools.
• Maine as a state overturned the decision of their governor and voted to expand Medicaid to 70,000 people. And yes, health care has to do with education.
• As Matt Barnum notes, Colorado had several of the school board races that brought in big outside dollars. In Aurora, the union-backed candidates were ahead as of last night, which would be a change, as Aurora has had administration that focuses heavily on charter schools. In Denver, it looks like a split. In Douglas County, the switch in the board may have implications on a case around vouchers; the previous majority was attempting to bring a big push on vouchers and had been brought to court over it. 

I'll add more to this over the course of the day...

Worcester Public Schools FY18 budget hearing

The presentation for tonight is here.
The full budget is here.

Worcester School Committee FY17 budget deliberations (round 2)

scheduled to start at 4; list of accounts is here; they should be picking up with administration; the budget itself is here, and the Table of Contents on (web) page 7 is hyperlinked to each account. Updating as we go.

Revote on the charter cap (with a change)

On a revote tonight on keeping the cap on charter schools, the Worcester School Committee voted UNANIMOUSLY  in favor of keeping the cap.
Interestingly, this is a change: at the meeting last week, Donna Colorio opposed such an item (Mayor Petty wasn't present).

2016-18 standing committee assignments for Worcester School Committee

via Tom Quinn at Worcester Magazine:

Accountability and Student Achievement: Chair Biancheria, Vice Chair Colorio, O’Connell

Finance and Operations: Chair Foley, Vice Chair McCullough, Colorio

Governance and Employee Issues: Chair Monfredo, Vice Chair Biancheria, Foley

Teaching, Learning and Student Supports: Chair O’Connell, Vice Chair Monfredo, McCullough

Donna Colorio on parental opt out

lists districts that have forwarded various types of opt out provision
asks that we mirror Norfolk's letter tonight
parents should have right to decide if their children will participate in this trial
participating in research
not diagnostic
no results
issue of parental rights
"will you be on the side of the parent or will you be on the side of the Department of Education?"

opting out of PARCC

Colorio according to our policy handbook, parents do not have to have their children participate in the PARCC test
"not sure that parents understand their rights"
process for parents who cannot keep their child at home that day
Boone: one clarification: did request a waiver for certain schools
Mayor: can parents opt out?
"not a general rule of thumb"
Motion from Novick that language in the policy handbook be included in the communciation to parents from us on PARCC
Passes

H450: health curriculum bill

Colorio: health curriculum customizing at local level
You can find the text here
concern over losing local and parental control

Foley: 
don't read the same concern here
"shall provide medically accurate, age-appropriate education"
"I think we owe it to our students and to our children"

Novick: amend to refer just the bill (without comment)
passes
O'Connell notes that we should let Ms. Colorio know when the item comes before the committee

Honoring Donna Colorio

Giving her the traditional WPS chair which she's sitting in center stage
Biancheria says that she's brought a whole new meaning to the word "park"
"not only the Common Core, but to find the common ground"
 "not the months that are spent, but the time that you took to look at the items with concern"
when she moves to go back to her regular seat, the Mayor tells her she's stuck there
O'Connell: :"what I certainly look for in a new committee member is somebody who will do their homework"
"it's a bonus when a member is truly independent"
"very thorough and very well-informed"
"she leaves us at this time on an upward trajectory"
"that she might perhaps look at this as a two year hiatus"
I spoke here about the importance of all of us being able to work together and of the advocacy being brought where more decisions are made in Malden and in Boston
Monfredo: "try not to be redundant...only thing that's missing is that cup of coffee"
Foley: "we know you need a rocker, so we'll give you this chair as well..."
running for office is not easy, "thank you for running, for serving..."
Mayor comments that if she does win again, she doesn't get another chair

Colorio: thanks everyone
"it was very enjoyable, enlightening"
"it is an honor" to serve as an elected official
putting us all on an email list "so you can't miss me too much"

Worcester School Committee meets tomorrow night

The Worcester School Committee meets tomorrow night at 7 pm for our last regular meeting of this year.
You can find the agenda here.
It is Ms. Colorio's last meeting with us, so we'll be recognizing that. We also have both Sheila Harrity and South High coming in for recognitions.
We also have the (as yet unreleased) self-evaluation of the superintendent. We were originally scheduled to do the superintendent's evaluation at this meeting; the self-evaluation not having yet appeared makes this not possible.
We have another round in the question of legal opinions on PARCC, this time on the question of if refusal would impact funding (a moot point, as the committee voted to participate in the pilot).
A member of the public is petitioning for the installation of security cameras at Woodland Academy.
We have a report coming back from Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports.
We're accepting some retirements and approving some appointments.
City Solicitor David Moore is weighing in on co-sponsorship.
We're getting a request for a report on items not covered by warranties.
It's being suggested that we thank outgoing City Manager O'Brien for his years of service to the City.
We're approving a prior year payment (for special education) of $1305.65. 
There's an item coming in on alternative placements, one on the (now vacant) St. Paul's school building, one of recognizing Doherty's Division 4 champion football team, one to recognize Coach Mulcahy on his selection of Patriot Coach of the Year, one to figure out how much PARCC is going to cost us, one on House Bill 450, one that we review our evening introductory programs, and to inform parents of their right to opt their children out of PARCC pilot testing.
We've got a request that we waive the academic requirements for competitive sports for one season.
We also need to decrease our reimbursement per mile (per the IRS) from $0.565 to $0.56 per mile.
We're being asked to accept a $5000 grant for Jacob Hiatt.
And we've got a budget adjustment to review and consider!
Plus, an executive session which includes:

To conduct the disciplinary hearing of a student and to do so in Executive Session to protect the statutory privacy rights of the students under Chapter 30, Section 21, paragraph 7 and Chapter 214, Section 1B of the Massachusetts General Laws.

 

To discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining for the following groups if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares:

 

Teachers

Tradesmen

Plumbers and Steamfitters

 

To conduct contract negotiations with non-union personnel

 

            Non-represented Employees

School Committee members on PARCC

I just made two motions: 

• To ask that we petition the legislature, governor, and state board to waive our accountability system until the switch is live
• Until such a time as an action is completed, the Worcester Public Schools will not field test the PARCC

Chester lays out the options at the BoE

From the Globe today:

Chester is expected to lay out a two-year proposal for the tryout at a state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting on Tuesday. The proposal would require state board approval, with a vote likely in November.Under the proposal, schools chosen to try out the new exams would have the option in most cases of not giving students the MCAS. The exception would be any 10th-graders at those schools, because passing the MCAS will remain, for now, a state graduation requirement.About 15 percent of all students in grades 3 to 11 statewide, or nearly 100,000 of them, will be given the trial exams.In the following school year, 2014-15, all school districts would choose between the MCAS or the new exams, known as PARCC, for that year only. The idea behind the choice is to determine if there is any gap in rigor between the two tests by comparing the results

Two things I am not reading here that I am looking for: the "we're not doing the PARCC, only the MCAS" option and the freeze on the accountability (level) system these next two years. With some schools not reporting out results, and with two different tests in place next year, it's going to be meaningless. 

Also, kudos to my colleague Donna Colorio for heading in for the Board of Ed meeting today. With the board voting at their November meeting, we're going to need to watch this one closely.

More, no doubt, to come

Colorio accepts

...administration coming back with information as possible on the list of items.

Comment from Colorio on Common Core

I can't type quite fast enough here; she's typed it up so I'll ask for a link. And it closed with an 11 point motion requesting quite a bit of information.

Update: Ms. Colorio's comments are here after the break:

Superintendent's self-evaluation and goals

Notes from my comments here.
You can find the suggested goals here.

Questions on FY14

O'Brien: do we think the Senate will do more for education than the House?
Allen: did not appear that either side will support Governor's proposal; House will likely be final amount
O'Brien: do we know what the city number is? where does that leave us under $800,000?
city increase is about $4 million
city over $500,000 for this (not counting the carry forward) year
city will be about $500,000 above for this year; $800,000 under net
reduces the city gap to $430,000 below Net School Spending for FY14
O'Brien: suggestions from Council on meeting school need; sharing of new growth
historically city and schools split new growth 50/50; that stopped and city kept new growth
might have some discussion about setting aside a small portion of that new growth revenue, maybe 10% to reduce that fiscal deficit
rather than meeting our minimum spending, being a bit above
Economou: goal was to eliminate conversation year-in, year-out
not just meet the goal, go beyond it
set up a plan, a percentage
could even set a cap, "so as not to burden the city side"
maybe anything above the cap could go towards school maintenance
Colorio: something that is measurable
something that is visible to the taxpayers
O'Brien: good idea, meeting capital needs, physical needs
Foley: certainly be talking about some of those issues
how can we parcel those dollars out to have the greatest rigor?
work done in the schools has been tremendous
foundation budget: if we can put this behind us and move forward, that would be great
operating level, reduce previous years
move beyond foundation level
compete with surrounding towns
ELL and special ed going up
Allen: largest increase in budget is probably in special education (partly due to bringing services in-house)
$600,000 losing to charter school assessment in addition to
tuition for FY14 $26.8...entire increase is supposed to be cover in that year
should be at least a million more than what it is in the state budget
Novick: 10% of the new growth (it was 4.9% last year) works out to about $500,000 on $300 million; that's .5%
need to also look at capital spending; an entirely other budget; out of proportion with percentages spent on city/schools operation budgets, relative sizes of employees or those served
Rivera: at what point are we looking at schools that were closed? Can we have a new (reopened) school?
Allen: a process that needs to start now; longer term solution, short term problem
Foley comments that we may need to reopen schools that we closed
Economou: are there other schools that are overcrowded besides Chandler Elementary?
Allen: Union Hill, a lot are getting near capacity
Economou suggests looking at universities and Worcester Academy for space
Economou asks if our state legislators aware of this
Allen comments that the superintendent has been speaking state senators regarding
Allen: vision bringing back magnet schools, replicate successful magnets to balance out enrollments

regarding inBloom

Sorry: no notes on introducing my items. You've read much of this before, though, from me. 
Colorio: "I'm just going to say this: it's creepy, it's creepy"
infringement on parent privacy
Oklahoma unanimously passed a student privacy
Colorio looking for an opt-out for parents
Listing health information, income levels, blood types
O'Connell: very protective of student privacy in Massachusetts
references 603 CMR 23.00: holds schools to a different standard
concerned about rising to privacy levels required of private companies
rejects the opt-in (rather than opt-out) within the bill
requests a roll call on those two items to file them

Two on roll calls: all pass to appropriate committees