The first Worcester School Committee meeting of the new term

The Worcester School Committee had their first business meeting of the new term (and new makeup) on January 18.
While I noted the change in the budget bottom line settled at the meeting (also noted by the T&G), it seems clear that this Committee where keeping the record straight is going to be necessary, and, while I do want to recommend you take a look at Bill Shaner's piece on last week, I think keeping track of what's going on will be helpful (and the tracking was kinda shaky in this meeting, to be honest, with roll calls consistently out of order and reported incorrectly more than once).
As always, I'm not going to pretend here to be anything other than what and who I am, writing as a citizen of the city, so you can read with that in mind. The commentary is largely in italics. 

What happened at the December 7 Worcester School Committee meeting

 Last night was a LOT, and with two members having commitments as parents and it being the mayoral holiday rounds, we ran part of the Committee with just a quorum, which is unusual! 

That's why, oh committee watchers, I was chairing; in the absence of both the chair and the vice-chair, the senior member chairs (and then hands off sequentially, which is why Molly McCullough chaired when I was speaking). 

Also, it appears the T&G is going to do a terrible job covering this meeting, so I guess it's up to us again.

Note that the agenda is over here.

Worcester Public School Contracts

•  Dr. Monárrez's contract, as of the extension passed by the Committee this summer, goes through June 30. 2027
• Mr. Allen's contract, as of the extension voted (and declined reconsideration) on by the Committee last night, goes through September 30, 2028 (school business officials are covered by MGL Ch. 71, sec. 41, and thus, like superintendents, can have contracts of up to six years)
• Dr. Morse's contract, as of the extension voted (and declined reconsideration) on by the Committee last night, goes through June 30, 2027.

Sharing this because I was asked

Mid July Worcester Public Schools update

 

Don't forget the summer reading!
Image from Mo Willems

Taken in part from Dr. Monárrez's weekly updates to the Worcester School Committee

• On Thursday, the Worcester School Committee completed Dr. Monárrez's first evaluation. The composite evaluation--which takes all seven of our evaluations and creates a single document--is the official evaluation. That, along with the seven individual evaluations, I have shared here (they will be going up on the district website once they are converted to something that can be read by screen readers). Note that the School Committee did go into executive session following the evaluation to consider her contract. 
  
  
• Please don't miss that we have an updated 2023-34 school year calendar. As a result of the agreed-upon teachers' contract, we now have an additional professional development day for staff. We are using this opportunity to shift them to the November (7th) and March (5th) election days (March is the presidential primary, believe it or not). Those are NON SCHOOL DAYS FOR STUDENTS, so please mark your calendars!
  Staff starts the year on Thursday, August 24th.
  Grades 1-12 start on Monday, August 28.
  Preschool and kindergarten start on Thursday, August 31.
  
  
• Families of ALL WPS students, please note that there will be a summer P-EBT payment of $120 this Tuesday, July 25. If your family receives EBT, it will appear on your card; for all others it will be on your child's P-EBT card. If you no longer have that, you can contact the Department of Transitional Assistance for a new one. 
  As always, if you don't feel your family needs it, spend it on food and donate an equivalent amount of money (always money!) to a local food bank. Also, don't forget the free meals for kids across Massachusetts. 
  
  
• On Thursday, we also celebrated Dr. Helen Friel, our School Committee clerk, who is retiring after FORTY years as Clerk, and 57 in the district! 

Congratulations to Dr. Helen Friel on her retirement after 57 years of service to the Worcester Public Schools! Today is Dr. Friel’s last School Committee Meeting as Assistant to the Superintendent and Clerk of the School Committee. Before working in these roles for nearly forty… pic.twitter.com/yhNOxU2AZo

— Joe Petty (@MayorJoePetty) July 20, 2023

•  As a result, on Thursday, we also had an item to consider how the School Committee office is organized with a draft position description. Most notably, Dr. Friel's position was "assistant to the superintendent," and thus that position did not work directly for the Committee. Part of the proposal is to change that. 
  This item was held, to give Committee members a chance to fully review it, and the Committee will have a special meeting early next month to decide on that position description so that it might be posted. Mayor Petty also made a motion to refer the process to Governance, to have them act as the preliminary screening committee, and bring forward finalists to the Committee.
  
  
• We have a new Chief Equity Officer! Dr. Kimberlee Henry is coming to us from the Watertown Public Schools, where she served in a similar position. Prior to that, she was a principal in Lowell. The office will also have a second Director of Cultivation and Recruitment (rather than what were to be coaching positions) in Caleb Encarnacion-Rivera, who has been serving in a similar position in the King Philip Regional School District (and is a Worcester Public Schools alum!). 
  
  
• On the 13th, the Committee was informed of Director of Special Education Kay Seale's resignation (it appears she is going to Boston). There is strength in the district to continue on an interim basis, but this is obviously an important position that the district will be moving forward to fill quickly. Parents and community members will be involved in first round interviews (stay tuned for that). And note that this is an advise and consent position, so the School Committee votes the position. 
  
  
• Carmen Melendez-Quintero, who has been the Director of Multilingual Learning, will be moving to Director of Guidance. The district is now seeking a replacement director. Note that parents and community members will be involved in the first round of these interviews, as well. 
  
  
• On principals: Matthew Morse, who was the principal at Forest Grove Middle, has taken the district School Safety position (recall that this is a facilities-involved, not student-involved, position). Shannon Conley, who was the principal at Sullivan Middle, has taken the position of Director of Alternative Schools. As a result, there will be a full search for a new principal at Forest Grove and at Sullivan. 
  
  

And, yes, summertime is usually when there are staffing changes for schools! 

October at Worcester School Committee

 

A few quick updates from last night's Worcester School Committee meeting (agenda, video):

• Public comment included (as noted in the T&G) student comment on dress code, and a request from students that recycling and sustainability. Dress code, please note, is currently in Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports, and the petition on sustainability went to Finance and Operations. It's always outstanding to see students come talk to us about policy!
  
  
• The report of the superintendent was on the MCAS results and the state accountability system; note that this is report one of two. That starts about 11 minutes into the video. 
  
  
• We sent two batches of policy off to the Governance subcommittee; that includes (again as in the T&G article) the updates in our list of protected classes (and the supporting law citations), and some of our fiscal policies (which are largely citations and cross-references, though it also finally gets the section in K that talks about gifts right in that they have to be voted accepted by the School Committee).
  
  
• We authorized the administration to pursue a four year lease for 1100 laptops (this should get the rest of staff outfitted!).
  
  
• We authorized the administration to enter up to a five year lease to replace the original 13 school buses we have had under lease (predating the purchase of 165 with ESSER funding), as that lease ends in June. The plan is for these to be propane-powered buses, as we’ve discussed in F&O, as the district continues to work on greener solutions.  
  
  
• We authorized the superintendent to sign documents regarding grants,legal settlements, and contracts on behalf of the School Committee. This purview question I am highly attuned to, so I aprreciate the patience in my getting to a appropriate amended motion.
  
  
• We’re moving towards translated meetings! The report from administration which outlined costs and recommended we pilot translation in Spanish, was recommended to go to subcommittee for consideration. We instead voted to request administration immediately move forward with the pilot, and we’ll discuss the rest in subcommittee (operational and costs money = it went to F&O) in November. 
  
  
• I want to do a separate post on the org chart and the approved positions. We did approve the position descriptions put forward, however. 
  
  
• We requested a report on enrollment, and one on how security guards are assigned to schools. 

Last night at Worcester School Committee

As always, this summary is me and mine, so take with that.

We heard a report on summer learning at both the elementary and secondary school levels over the summer. In total, we had about 11% of the student population served, in programs ranging from the extended year for some students who have IEPs, to a summer camp option, to multilingual programs, to a Generation Teach program, and to an early college option.
The final slide, I think, pulls together where we are going forward: 

For any like me with their eyes on ESSER, I did mention last night that I'd like an update on where we are with the 20% set aside for learning loss from ESSER III.

We approved a SLEW of grants (and if you have questions, can I recommend looking at the report? They're useful!):

• $270,000 for a grant to Nightlife for Carpentry and Diesel Technician training 

• $500,000 for Early College Full School and Expansion Year 2 for Claremont; we also sent the early college expansion at Claremont to subcommittee, because the Committee really hasn't talked about it. The backup on this one is EXTENSIVE, so if you're interested in that, do take a look. There's a big programmatic change there for Claremont, over time. 

•  $85,000 for social emotional support for out of school time mental health support. I should note, by the way, that there is major work coming on mental health for students and for staff. Thus here and later on, if it seems as if we're punting a few things, it's because we know that work is going on.  

• $237,021 for a Skills Capital grant for North High for the Allied Health program; check out that list of equipment on page 89! 

• $311,000 for a Skills Capital grant for Worcester Tech for automotive technology; again, check out the list of equipment on page 92! 

• $75,000 for a Skills Capital grant for Worcester Tech for IT 

• $5000 grant for Belmont Elementary for library books   

• $5000 grant from UNUM for a food pantry at Sullivan 

• And everybody's favorite: the $150,000 SWIG (how clever are they on the acronym?) grant for water bottle fillers. Because I have gotten some questions on this: please note that the grant program has strict outlines as to which schools can get grants, so if your school is not on this list on page 107, it isn't that you're being ignored. There has been discussion about additional efforts on this for other schools through ESSER funding, so stay tuned.

We did report out from Finance and Operations...I will try to do a separate writeup of that.you can find that here.

We got an update on COVID, which is going to continue to be part of school committee meetings this year. The state, as I think has been well covered, is offering no new guidance for this school year; the management of the district COVID response is now shifting to the Deb McGovern, the head of nursing. There are no state supplies at all. Worcester is keeping the medical waiting rooms, staffed by CNA's. However, there is no test and stay; the district will have tests which they can send home with symptomatic students, and students who are symptomatic will be sent home with instructions to isolate, but there will be no contact tracing this year. 
Thus students, staff, and families will have no idea if they have been exposed at school. I will offer my opinion that people should then proceed accordingly.

We had an update on how Chromebooks will be provisioned and handled in schools this year. Last year's order of over 23,000 Chromebooks has put us in good shape for this year. Every student grades 1-12 will be assigned a specific Chromebook; if it needs repair, they'll sign out a loaner, but then get the same Chromebook back after repair. We do have spares at every school in the system now, and there's essentially a weekly cycle of schools among the IT professionals assigned. 

If you haven't reviewed the latest broadband report from the Worcester Regional Research Bureau, it's what came in from the municipal broadband committee. 

On Jermaine Johnson's motion, we voted to send Sue Mailman as our delegate and Laura Clancey as the alternate to the annual Delegate Assembly of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees in November.
Relatedly, we also changed our November 3 meeting to November 10 (four of us plus the superintendent will be at the Joint MASC/MASS Conference in Hyannis that week).

We then had a length discussion, which may have been a little hard to follow if you're not up on how Worcester School Committee functions: when there's a motion at a Committee meeting, for the most part, they can go two places: to one of our subcommittees, or to administration. Now, if they're on a subcommittee agenda, the chair of those subcommittees works with administration on what items end up on a meeting agenda. If it goes to administration, it pretty much is there until administration decides to bring it back.
And so they can, and they have, build up. 
I filed an item for this agenda to look at all outstanding administrative items and decide if we still needed them. Some of them are just old (and never got responses). Some, though, as I said at the meeting, were a response on the Committee side to managerial inaction; if you can't get an answer or a response from administration offline--and we should be forwarding requests for information offline!--a Committee member may well file an item. We also might, in the face of administrative inaction on something that is managerial, file an item seeking action.
That isn't best practice. It isn't what's supposed to happen. When it does, something is broken; in Worcester, something has been. 
So as a means of clearing the decks and moving forward with a new administration that has, clearly, every intention of being responsive (and frankly, already is), we reviewed the outstanding administrative items and we filed (which means they're gone) a LOT of them. 

We voted in favor of the administration's recommendation that we increase the day-to-day sub rate from $85 to $110. Note that this also includes the following information: 

The Administration intends to use the funding for up to 50 day-by-day substitutes to supplement the 70 full-time building substitute positions included in the FY23 budget, for a total of 120 available substitutes. During the last school year, the average daily absences of teachers (in positions that require a substitute) was 120.4 (with a high of 200 absent on January 6, 2022, and a low of 25 absent on August 30, 2021).
Although the FY23 Budget did not include funding for day-by-day substitutes, the cost for this year will be funded through available ESSER carry-forward funding (unexpended summer and after-school funds during FY22). It is expected that the total cost to be $990,000. The effectiveness of the additional substitutes will be discussed with building principals during the course of the year and evaluated as part of the FY24 resource allocation process.

...which, as someone who was very concerned that there was no provision for day-by-day subs in the FY23 budget, is very reassuring. We're also sending the policy on subs to Governance, as we're concerned by how often paraprofessionals are being pulled off their assigned duties to sub.

We also approved the removal of the bar on all backpacks in school except those made of clear plastic or mesh. Thus, yes, students in school may carry backpacks this year.

And finally, I am happy to say, we approved for execution the contracts of Brian Allen as Deputy Superintendent, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer; and Marie Morse as Assistant Superintendent of Teaching & Learning. Those contracts were signed last night after we adjourned. 

Passing along from Dr. Monárrez

The Worcester School Committee, as I've mentioned in my video updates, are now getting Friday afternoon updates from Dr. Monárrez. There were a few notes in this week's that I thought others might find useful, as they update on items of concern in the community:

School Safety Audit: A Request for Proposals has been developed to conduct a safety audit of our district and school facilities. The audit will include a review of existing practices, policies and procedures. We will also be looking at ingress and regress at our schools. The audit will provide recommendations for the administration to consider. 

Development of MOU with School Liaison Officers: As shared at the School Committee meeting, administration will be meeting with the Acting City Manager and city police to review a draft MOU. The MOU language is being developed with our legal counsel. Once the MOU draft is ready we intend to ask the Safety Task Force to review and provide input. The final draft MOU will be brought to the Committee on August 18 for review. We will continue to review the appropriateness of the MOU throughout the first quarter and recommend adjustments as deemed necessary. A detailed report will be provided at the August 18 meeting. 

Comprehensive Wellness Services and Supports Plan: Under the leadership of Dr. Morse, the Office of Social Emotional Learning, Office of Equity and Human Resources will be developing a comprehensive plan for how we provide wellness support for our youth, families and staff. The development begins with an analysis of the current state of programs and services in the district. The School Committee will be updated periodically as the plan is developed.

Do we have an agenda for you!

 The Worcester School Committee meets twice during the summer--once in July, once in August--with our July meeting being this Thursday. You can find the agenda online here. 

This is of course Dr. Monárrez's first meeting as superintendent, and thus the report of the superintendent is her entry plan, which is linked through the banner on the district website. It's set up with lots of listening in chapters:

That plus item gb 2-206 and following are those I think are the most important on the agenda. Dr. Monárrez proposes the following: 

To consider and approve a proposed reorganization of Central Administration positions to include the establishment of the positions of: 1.) Deputy Superintendent, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer; and 2.) Assistant Superintendent, Teaching and Learning; and to approve the proposed Job Descriptions for those positions.

The superintendent can organize her administration as she sees fit, but position descriptions are approved by the School Committee, and appointments to positions of deputy/assistant/etc superintendent PLUS business official positions are all subject to School Committee approval (and business official contracts are actually with the School Committee).
Thus we also have the following recommendations:

• To consider appointing Brian Allen to the position of Deputy Superintendent, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, subject to contract negotiations.
• To consider appointing Marie Morse to the position of Assistant Superintendent, Teaching and Learning, subject to contract negotiations.

From the position descriptions, this would put all operational functions under Mr. Allen, in addition to those he already oversees, as well as day-to-day operations ("builds and leads daily operations of the district office"); Dr. Morse would be overseeing the offices having (as the title names) to do with teaching and learning (thus special education, social-emotional learning, multi-lingual). 

I (of course) have to save my comments on this for Thursday, but, as I noted previously, superintendents putting together administrative reorganizations is common practice. Note that these are two longstanding Worcester Public School administrators.

Other things on the agenda:

• TLSS is reporting out on a meeting that including summer school, tutoring, and sex ed.
• F&O is reporting out on a meeting on transportation. Note that Vice Chair Johnson has also filed a few items on transportation regarding late buses, so expect those to be discussed.
• Included in this month's donations is over $38K in donations from UMass Med; scroll to the next page to see the grants those are supporting. 
• Remember we held three positions pending Dr. Monárrez's taking office? They're on this agenda. (I heard that some were told the building-based subs were cut; no, they just didn't have a position description, and we held all new ones until we can find out what the new person in charge thinks.)
• Member Mailman is asking that we look at childcare options for educators in geographic proximity to schools, as well as getting the city IT department out of Worcester Tech so Worcester Tech can use the space.
  
• Member Kamara is requesting that the School Committee receive reports on "timely reports on filed racism, sexual harassment and discrimination complaints from staff and educators in the district" (an HR function) and also "To implore the administration to launch a “Positivity Campaign” during the new academic year to last all through the school year. All WPS teachers and staff to take a stance on the usage of supportive words/language to boost students’ self-awareness, gift, passion, sense of self, confidence in their education and more."

The Committee is meeting in public session first, then moving to executive session, which has two grievances and successor bargaining with two bargaining units.