On the FY27 Worcester Public Schools budget

This is--mostly--my testimony from tonight's budget hearing. They were sticking to two minutes per person, so I did some condensing on the fly. Full video of the hearing is now posted here; you can watch my testimony at this point.

I have three points for you this evening:

1. This budget is balanced on our most needy students. The program closures proposed--and they are proposed, only--for your consideration serve the students we bear the most responsibility to serve and serve well. The budget document itself notes it, as the executive summary lists these program closures, and only these, as how the budget has been balanced.

March 7 meeting of the Worcester School Committee

 The agenda is here. The report of the superintendent is here. The video of the meeting is here.

The National Anthem was sung by City View Elementary School's chorus.

The consent agenda passed as proposed.

The second Worcester School Committee meeting of the term

 ...and if I let these get too far away from me, we'll never catch up!

The agenda is here; the video is here.

Please note the important takeaways from the FY25 budget presentation here. I managed to catch just the second half of WEC's FY25 forum this past week, in which Mr. Allen replicated his presentation, and I was concerned that the questions didn't seem to be those stemming from a $22M budget gap. Let's start to get ourselves into that mode, folks. 

And as a reminder, here's the advocacy at the state level: 

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! 

Quick note on Worcester School Committee process

 Among the items on Thursday's agenda are two on naming: 

• one that's a proposed $350K grant* for Worcester Tech's advanced manufacturing facility in return for calling it the "Gene Haas Center for Advanced Manufacturing" for 15 years
• one from Laura Clancey proposing the alternative school be named after the retiring Michael O'Neil 

In terms of process on these, note that we'll be operating under policy FF on naming**. That requires, in part:

Following the submission of a naming request, the School Committee Chair will specify a consideration period that allows for public comment, following which the Committee will deliberate and vote on the name.

We can handle this a number of ways: hold the items until the fall, considering the summer a time of public input; send it subcommittee for public input; and probably more. The main thing is that "a consideration period" is required. 

UPDATE: the first of these was removed from the agenda. The second was referred to administration, as there is working going on with the alternative programs.

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*remember: grants are contracts. I have thoughts here but I am saving them for deliberation.
** yes, the School Committee has a naming policy. Good idea, eh?

Snapshots from graduations

 

Isn't this lovely? Handiwork of a UPCS grad

A series of mental snapshots from this week of Worcester Public Schools graduations:

• A chef, graduating Monday from the Adult Learning Center with his GED, telling the faculty there how much he appreciates, even if he didn't at the time, the messages and calls that got him back to class after late nights working.
• Women who have emigrated from Afghanistan, who I can remember greeting in the fall when Rep. McGovern toured the program, beaming as they crossed the stage at Fanning to the cheers of their families to gather their English as a Second Language certificates and kiss the superintendent and I on the cheek on the way.
• The pause in the ceremony every year at the Burncoat graduation, as seniors come down from the stage to play and sing with orchestra and quadrivium one more time. 
• The seniors who have worked out a handshake or other greeting with their procession/recession partner when they meet again to walk back out.
• The murmur of appreciation when Dr. Monárrez revealed at the Alternative School graduation that the poet she'd quoted was Tupac.
• The enthusiasm with which Dr. Kareem Tatum was greeted by former students at the same event; he had been their principal earlier in their educations.
• The valedictorian of University Park Campus School thanking his parents for bringing him to the United States from Vietnam when he was ten. 
• ...and the deadpan sense of humor with which he gently teased his teachers in his speech.

We aren't done yet! This week at the DCU at 6 pm: 

Monday: North

Tuesday: Tech

Wednesday: Doherty

Friday: South

...plus the Creamer Center graduates Tuesday at the Hanover Theater at 10 am! 

What happened at the mid-January Worcester School Committee meeting (with a few procedural notes)

 I've been trying to write these retrospectives, both for my own tracking and to serve everyone else. Please let me know if you're finding them useful?

The agenda for the meeting is over here. 
The Committee met in executive session before public session for discussions on five of the contract negotiations currently being conducted.

We also did this: 

Congratulations to our Business Team for receiving the Association of Business Officers International Meritorious AGAIN! Yes they have received this award 10 years in a row!!! 😀 #excellence #allmeansall ⁦@worcesterpublic⁩ pic.twitter.com/NF4GjiaCfu

— Rachel H. Monárrez, PhD (she/her/ella) (@drrmonarrez) January 20, 2023

And because this really is that important, here's what I said about that: 

Paul Matthews, the Executive Director of the Worcester Regional Research Bureau, spoke briefly on the WRRB's recent report on the evolution in School Committee governance. He also highlighted the Bureau's interactive dashboard on the new school committee districts.

From the held items, we received some additional information about the outside mental health resources coming into the district. That looks like this:

The report of the superintendent was on the multilingual department, the department that oversees language acquisition. What I think is important to remember about English learner enrollment is that it is a point in time count; students are continually moving through that status, as they test out. So while about a third of our students are English learners at any one time, what is perhaps a more useful statistic is that nearly 60% of our students speak a first language other than English. In other words, this is most of our students. 

Let me also call attention to two slides from that report. First, this is the students we're talking about here:

On the students who are currently English learners, the state sets out six years for them to move into out of that status and test out. Here's how we're doing on that: 

You'll also see the MCAS results from this group of students in the report as well.

We voted acceptance for two grants: $5,950 for an arts residency grant for a street art program at Worcester Tech, and $421,326 for English learner education support. 

We approved position descriptions (we approve new position descriptions; we do not approve salaries, save for the limited number of contracts under our purview) for a Physical Security Systems Administrator (the funding for this was already in the budget; this is an IT position managing school safety systems) and a WorkDay Implementation Specialist. WorkDay is the new enterprise system for the city, which will handle payroll, budget, HR functions all INTEGRATED. For something like this, WPS is just a city department (though one with both many times more employees and a larger budget than everything else combined), and we're just starting the transfer. This is looking ahead and planning for what will be a multiple year process.

If a contract will go for more than three years, that length of time has to be approved by the School Committee, so we also approved the administration seeking leases of, first, three years plus up to two three year renewals for the alternative program that currently is housed at St. Casimir's; second, of ten years, plus up to two more five year renewals for the transitions program (that's students who have special education needs that are in the 18-21 age range and are being transitioned out of the district) that is currently at the Fanning Building (in a space both too small and not suited to them). 
And just to be clear: those contracts do not come back to us, as that isn't under our purview.

We resubmitted Burncoat High School to the Mass School Building Authority. In order to get it onto Tuesday's City Council agenda--we both have to vote this--we also voted reconsideration.
Why? Under the rules of the Worcester School Committee, any member (and it is ANY member, regardless of how they voted) can file for reconsideration (think of it as "wanting to vote that again" with the assumption being voting differently) of any vote we took up to 48 business hours after the meeting. That means that any of us have until the end of the day Monday to file after every meeting. Reconsideration can only be done once on every vote.
As a result, votes of the Worcester School Committee aren't actionable until Tuesday morning. If we want something to take effect immediately, we basically tie our own hands by voting reconsideration at the meeting. We have to suspend our own rules to do that (those are "yes, I want to suspend the rules" votes) and then vote on reconsideration (thus we vote "no, I do not want to reconsider the vote we already took"). We did this on Burncoat, so it could be taken up by the City Clerk on Friday to be posted for the Council's Tuesday's agenda.

We sent an item looking at options for livestreaming of sports and other events to Finance and Operations.

The School Committee also hires legal counsel, so we authorized the hiring of Iandoli, Desai & Cronin P.C. to take care of an H-1B visa for an existing employee. Note that we are also the budgeting authority for the Worcester Public Schools; thus it is up to us to say that it is in the district's interest to allocate funds in this fashion. To me, it is simply in keeping with Worcester's long tradition as a city of immigrants.

We sent the social media policy back to Governance for further work.

We also send the out of state travel policy to Governance.

We filed four items--three from Member Kamara and one from Member Mailman--at the end of the meeting that were submitted by my colleagues; here, filed means that nothing further will be done on it. Let me talk a little bit about this, as I think that this can seem mean or like it's limiting a question if you're flipping by the video (it starts about 2:08 into the meeting)

The first item was "To explore a review of the certified nursing assistant job and salary and to

conduct review of similar CNA positions in similar school districts." Now, remember what I said above: position descriptions are ours. That part is in order. After Member Kamara asked that the item be taken "as it reads" (which just means "I have nothing more to say about this than is on the agenda"), I rose to ask that she consider amending to ask only that we consider the position description; the other items are not under our purview. She wished, however, to keep the request to consider salary in the item, so I made a motion to file, which passed.
The second and third items were taken together; they were:

To review the steps of accessing accommodation services for students on IEP per the Individual and disability education Act (IDEA) and the roles that administration and parent/guardians.

(that should be the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and:

 To review the process of students needing accommodation for extra time for exams or tests. 

Let me just be super clear: these are well within the realm of things School Committee members and others might want to know about. As I said at the meeting, this might be something to take up at a SPEDPAC meeting, for example. 
What they aren't is under School Committee purview; these are not things on which we have any ability or legal right to take action. They also don't lead to anything about which we can take action. This thus isn't the business of the School Committee.
As our rules say, "Agenda items filed by School Committee members shall be under the purview of the Committee, focus on the business of the Committee, and should be concise and specific."(That's the beginning of Rule 25)

Something different happened with Member Mailman's item, which read, "To resume public reporting of health data and absences while COVID is still prevalent in the city." You might remember we'd been getting COVID information at every meeting; that ended, on a split vote on a motion from Vice Chair Johnson, at our December 15 meeting. However, a motion from Member Clancey, asking that the information still be shared, passed. That less than clear to us (or at least it was to me). After Dr. Monárrez explained how the information was being shared both with the committee and on the website, the motion was filed.

Next meeting on February 2! 

Report of the superintendent: alternative education

the report is here as held from the previous meeting

Boone: not just say we're doing things, but evaluate how they're put in place
last month presented information on the arts magnet pathway in the city
have done the same thing with alternative education
"should not be substandard education"
Rodrigues: received an alternative education grant for this evaluation
Education Development Center looked at Creamer Center, Challenge Academy, Reach Academy, Safety center, transition center, Woodward Day (under the collaborative)
effective alternative education programs:

• small in size
• flexible schedules and structures
• faculty adjusts approaches to meet their students needs

since this report was provided to us, already able to put recommendations into action

evaluator really saw a lot of strengths in our program

Worcester School Committee meets at seven

Apologies for not doing a summary ahead of time this week.
The agenda is here; the report of the superintendent is on alternative schools.
And we should note that this is Superintendent Boone's last meeting with us.

Student Discipline report

and we have a PowerPoint which isn't online; I'll post photos later. Backup we had ahead is here. 
Boone: important to implement ch 222 with fidelity; direction to Legislature and examination of our procedures

The new student discipline law has the express purpose to: 

• Limit the use of long-term suspension as a consequence for student misconduct until other consequences have been considered and tried as appropriate. 
• Promote engagement of a student’s parent/guardian in discussion of the student’s misconduct and options for responding to it. 
• Assure that every student who is expelled or suspended, regardless of the reason for suspension or expulsion, has the opportunity to receive education services to make academic progress during the period of suspension or expulsion. 
• Keep schools safe and supportive for all students while ensuring fair and effective disciplinary practices.

Rodrigues: educational services must be provided to students during the disciplinary period; make sure they can make educational progress
schools must develop an education service plan for all students who are suspended from school for more than 10 consecutive days
Communciation to parents has to include offense, basis of charge, potential consequences, opportunity for hearing & information about hearing (including interpreter)

yearly report to DESE on students excluded for more than 10 days (broken down)
districts and schools with significant disparities in explusion shall develop and implement a plan

Suggested revisions:

• student on student assault should be considered under 37H (latitude to suspend for longer)
• long term suspensions should carry over to the next year (thus a suspension in spring now goes only to the end of the school year; suggestion is to carry over to the next year). Boone notes further than those suspended in the first half of the school year have to serve the full time; those in the spring don't.
• emergency removals cannot exceed two days; due process hearing may need longer for contacting guardians; conducting hearing; takes assistant principals away from other duties. Need more flexibility in timeline to ensure due process
• 10 days for in-house; but in-house keeps them in school
• right to appeal within 5 days: not enough time for parents or for Superintendent to schedule

District suspensions have been in decline for a number of years already; predates the law change

has been a steady decline in single suspensions, 2-4 day suspensions, 5-9 day suspensions, and 10 or more

same is true in elementary

highest ranked in infractions (not suspensions) inappropriate behavior (both elementary and secondary schools)

Boone: principals have been an integral part of influencing, implementing policy
sorry, no notes on comments tonight

Baker goes for round two on urban education EDITED AND UPDATED

Governor Baker released is FY16 proposed budget today, and BOY is there something in there that districts need to know about!
At the press conference, Baker said that they were combining eleven educational grant programs to support underperforming schools.
So I went poking around, and I found the following.
Baker's budget zeros out the following grants:

• ​ELLs in Gateway Cities
• Gateway Cities Career Academy
• Bay State Reading Institute
• Literacy programs
• Reading recovery
• early intervention tutors
• Educational quality and accountability
• innovation schools
• MCAS low-scoring support
• statewide college and career readiness
• alternative ed

All [UPDATE] eleven of those are gone. Those are $19,023,852 in FY15 grants, most targeted at cities, at groups that need particular assistance, or at early ed (again).

>He then has merged those programs into what was the Targeted Intervention program, which he's terming "Partnership Schools Network." 

That account is being funded at $17,484,000 for FY16. Thus it's an $1.5M cut.

In order to GET the grants, a district has, not just to apply for the grant, BUT: 

no money shall be expended in any school or district that fails to file a comprehensive district plan pursuant to the provisions of section 1I of said chapter 69; 

 ...those are the annual district improvment plans...

provided further, that in carrying out the provisions of this item, the department may contract with school support specialists, turnaround partners and such other external assistance as is needed in the expert opinion of the commissioner to successfully turn around the performance of the school and/or district with preference given in such contracting to entities with proven records of success in establishing scalable and sustainable reform programs

So bring in the outside agencies. And who gets to pick them? The Commissioner. And it isn't just so-called underperforming schools:

 provided further, that preference in distributing funds shall be made for innovative and ambitious proposals that coordinate reform efforts across multiple schools, including schools that are not underperforming, within or across the jurisdiction of local education agencies, in partnership with other educational and social service agencies, including higher education, early education and care, and charter schools, and for proposals that demonstrate the support of local municipal leadership;

So reforming EVERYone (and you noticed the charter schools reference in there, right?)...They'll be judged, not surprisingly, on:

provided further that preference shall also be given to proposals that focus on promoting a high-level of student proficiency at fourth or eighth grade or college readiness at the completion of high school, especially with regard to low-income students; 

Hello fourth and eighth grade test scores (and college readiness? Is that a PARCC reference?). All of those grants above will be swept away and:

provided further that the department shall develop a consolidated grant application process to facilitate the coordination and integration of various other grant programs administered by the department, and other agencies of the commonwealth, in support of the innovative and ambitious reform proposals prioritized in this item

Block grant and it doesn't stop with this one:

 provided that up to 25 percent of funds from such other grant programs may be reallocated by grantees in support of the reform plan described in the consolidated grant proposal if the commissioner determines that the objectives of the reallocation are consistent with the general purposes and objectives of the original grant program and the reform proposal advanced in the consolidated application;

Up to a quarter of other grants you're getting for other stuff? You can toss them in, too.
And the funds won't all go to districts:

provided further, notwithstanding any general of special law to the contrary, funds may be expended from this item to conduct a sufficient number of school and district reviews to support the purposes authorized in this item;

DESE can use them to pay for things like Holyoke's review! And they want to know how many they got to:

 the department shall issue a report not later than October 1, 2017, and biannually thereafter, describing and analyzing all intervention and targeted assistance efforts funded by this item including the number of school and district reviews conducted in support of those efforts; 

The report goes to the Governor and the usual list of Legislative leadership.
And you can't have the grant at all unless you're prepared long term to pick up the costs yourself:

 no funds shall be expended on recurring school or school district expenditures unless the department and school district have developed a long-term plan to fund such expenditures from the district's operational budget at the conclusion of the grant funding period

And the state can have $1.3 million of this:

 further, the department may allocate funds from this item for the administration of the programs authorized herein, including no more than 7.5 percent of these funds for purposes of establishing a Partnership Schools Network support team 

There is a very good chance, if you are in an urban school, that you are getting and planning on some of these funds. In Worcester, we receive and depend on nearly all of them.

UPDATE: earlier I had included the Kindergarten Expansion in this. That was incorrect: that grant has been CUT ENTIRELY. In Worcester, that's nearly a million dollars, and it's how we pay for 19 kindergarten IAs.

This budget goes to the House. Make sure they hear from you! You can find out who represents you by using the search function at the top of the page here. 

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Friday update: Here's the Mass Budget and Policy Center on this:

The Governor proposes consolidating eleven student support programs focused on academically struggling schools and students into the Targeted Intervention in Underperforming Schools line item, which would be renamed the Partnership Schools Network. The Administration proposes funding these programs at $17.5 million, $1.5 million below the current levels and $4.2 million below what the legislature originally adopted for FY 2015. These services include literacy programs, initiatives in the Gateway Cities, and supports to those scoring low on state tests.

MassBudget also found the missing eleventh grant (which wasn't listed on those consolidated): it's Reading Recovery, previously at $295,000. I have updated the above totals to reflect that. And this is evidence, yet again, that MassBudget is a fantastic aid! 

New suspension regs

on item from Biancheria
Boone: new regs "have created as many questions as answers...will come out with a report in August"
every district in the Commonwealth is doing the same
notice for parents and due process for students
planning to get that to us August 12; discussion at the August 21 meeting
there will be policy language at that time for the student handbook
Biancheria: receiving prior to the meeting, how it's going to be implemented in schools
Boone: responsibilities of School Committee will be included in communication to School Committee
Boone: suspension still allowed, removal from school still allowed, communicated in August
O'Connell asking:

•  if Woodard Day counts as the alternative program
• can we send students there for short times?
• who will be our hearing officer?
• matrix for what happens to students who are not going to be in school?

Boone: has been part of discussion with collaborative on an ongoing basis

they will be ready to address having students on a short-term basis 

Biancheria asks that what we get be sent to the EAW president, as well

Teaching, Learning,and Student Supports meets tonight!

sorry for the late notice on this one!
TLSS meets tonight at 5:30. You can find the agenda here.

There will be an update on service learning; an update on the curriculum review; a review of the absentee awareness campaign; a report on the use of science kits; and a report on the alternative placement programs.

I won't be there, so no liveblog, but do remember you can watch on Channel 11.

Apples to apples

When you're comparing data points, it's important to make sure the categories are actually parallel. Thus I was troubled yesterday at the forum on out-of-school suspension by a chart comparing Worcester's out-of-school suspension rate with other districts.
The Worcester Public Schools do not expel students. We haven't for years. The most harsh punishment we met out is a long term out-of-school suspension (for, say, a year or half a year) with alternative placement (meaning that the student is placed in one of the alternative programs).
Thus our out-of-school suspension rate is equivalent to expulsions PLUS out-of-school suspensions for the districts that do expel students, like Boston.
That comparison wasn't made yesterday, nor in today's headline.
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None of which is to say, incidentally, that we don't have problem. The percentage of students that are out-of-school suspended is skewed off from the makeup of the student body; Latino boys are most often suspended, entirely out of proportion to their percentage of the student body. The number of students in the younger grades--that we even have students being suspended in the younger grades!--is definitely a problem.
There have been conversations in the past about this. They haven't gone anywhere. You'll be hearing more.

Alternative programs

Number of referrals
enrollment academic support
Biancheria speaks of students at alternative programs who are asking for their siblings to go to it, because it's working so well for them: "no longer a school that you don't want to go to"
stories that students present at graduation "bring tears to your eyes"

Challenge and Reach Academies

what staff members are determining that the student is moved?
School administration does so, 'though central admin may
"similar to the process of a student transferring to the Creamer Center"
parents always involved: team approach, looking first at supports in the schools
average time frame from recommendation to student enrolled?
no data as yet: request for a report

Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports report

• regular review of curriculum: held for April 4 meeting (of subcommittee)
• student slots per high school allotted for Creamer Center: model of expansion of services to students in alternative services (this is a plan to increase the amount of places avaliable to kids in the Creamer Center)

teacher at Fanning (which would be dropped under the proposal)
director of Fanning was not contacted, did not know of subcommittee meeting prior to the day of the meeting
"every day we make miracles"

Mayor asks if we have to make this decision tonight
might be good to have more information before making decision
Mulqueen: budget considerations
"expand opportunities for students"

continue conversation about this issue before making a decision: recommitted to subcommittee

TLSS on the mall school

Long story short: back to admin and it's not happening this year.

mall school proposal consideration of over-age enrollment at middle school

middle school task force & WPS dropout prevention

college and career preparation

drop out rate of 5.1% 08-09

"full cultural aspects of Creamer Center to serve students of all ages, 7-12 grade"

Monfredo: nearly all (it's 93%) graduate

how would we pay for it: his question

walk through money: funds used currently for Creamer Center, Fanning Learning, and Central MA Sped Collaborative

"intensive supports so students have varied options"

"In the long run, will this save us money?"

money comes back to district if kids come back in (who had dropped out)

cost of $100,000 potential for build out of space, materials, technology, coming from building utilities recovery fund

O'Connell: does it differ in any way with what we provide with our programs?

(compliment to Creamer Center)

additional technical and certification programs, thought about with director of Creamer

"when Dr. Mulqueen and Dr. Boone" brought this up, seemed a way of extending it

Why would we have this at the mall? asks O'Connell

costs savings, "networking support" from Simon Youth Foundation

"better place to built out those partnerships"scholarships

is their partnership contingent on our putting the school there? Yes

question about viability of mall: concern that mall is struggling to fill space

Mulqueen says not a concern, open all day, "flexibility" "partnership"

"some benefits and concerns, benefits seem to outweigh the concerns" says Mulqueen

concern that we are adding principalships at a tough budget time (and principals' salaries go up quickly)

potential to make more money, Grubouski

Biancheria asks where are the 10,000 comes from

pursuing kids who have dropped out, which we don't do now"not an active part of what's going on" currently (says Mulqueen)

we are not pursuing students in danger of dropping out now, asks Biancheria? We are, answer"concerned with option not having what we currently have"
building on what we have "not actively pursuing them at this point"at capacity at Creamer center right now

at this time, maybe 1/2 would be better, Biancheria; times are tight

have been to mall, management absent

bringing kids into a distracting environment

kids with some issues in some place with very little security

safety concerned with

for $100,000 to work on a structure to house teachers and students

"was a manager for the 9th grade repeater program" not easy

if they are at the mall, and there's four stores, where are the internships?

presently at Creamer, we have an engaged community

moving among three buildings (after moving from their own schools) "already had a tremendous amount of mobility"

"not to mention homelessness and no guidance"had 65 students graduate in January, enrollment of 275

referrals being made constantly

internships don't happen at the mall, says Mulqueen, happen in the community

"once the initial agreement is signed" then we find partners with Simon Foundation

School Committee letter of intent happens before Simon finds partners

last year 350 students dropped out of WPS
(skepticism from Biancheria: did they drop out, go elsewhere?)

"providing an option"

students have an option all the way through the process; they can always go back to their home school
"this is something that's based on data, also survey information from Creamer Center"Gribouski

who works on getting partnerships and internships? do they work with WPS? asks Biancheria

contact person is at Solomon Pond Mall now; have also spoken with Media PA school

Biancheria Goggled it: where it is working, the mall has staff, security, stores; Greendale does not

what happens if we move the kids there and the mall gets purchased by someone else?

Simon Foundation assured WPS that they don't walk away from projects, Mulqueen"have to rely on the results they've gotten"

Mullaney: "usually open to thinking outside the box and not being obstructionist, but" concerns, echoing O'Connell and Biancheria

making a decision to go into a place that's failing

hesitant to go at this time into this facility

Creamer program has been successful; not impressed by backup

does not tell us that the other communities had some programs before
"we have a situation where we have a successful program"
"appreciate that we might have some space consideration...is there not space in some facility that we own to house overflow?"
room at Tech school?
really surprised to hear the mall is open from 7-9...who's going to be there?
"kids wandering in whenever they want to or schedule permits...how do you learn if you're dropping in and dropping out?..how does any real learning get done?"
who goes to Creamer Center? Have 10 credits, have been referred from their schools
majority of students are close to proficiency
St. Casmir's serves only kids with IEP's; licensed by the state on a yearly basis

"go on record that I find these salaries preposterously high" particularly for this number of kids
would like to see some economies around current director of Creamer run all the program and supervise Creamer
students would have an assigned schedule, Grubouski
do we know that we have those 350 students around? Do we know that they have not enrolled elsewhere? (have not entered another MA school, not coded for entering another state or country's school)
what are our options for pulling out? would like to know what our options are first (Mullaney)
"letter of intent commits us and commits them" Mulqueen
Monfredo is optimistic that the mall's future will be better
non-traditional school with potential duel enrollment
differs from Creamer Center: can't offer expanded opportunities for technical training
still have options: to go back to their schools

breakdown of 1/3: our part is $100,000, plus staff, plus materials
they give $100,000 for construction, plus facilities; their partnerships give $100,000
space of the former arcade next to food court
has anyone from city expressed thoughts on this? Mullaney

no

what conversations have we had with staff? Biancheria

Tim Whalen is a member of the dropout prevention forceno conversation with other staff

Greendale Mall is owned by Mayflower Greendale LP

they have two listings for 7 Neponset Street: one worth $25,698,600.00

the other worth: $9,053,800.00

O'Connell: concerns about location (both mall and our investment in it), concern with adding principal, but pursue returning kids to school
MOTION to return to administration

Mall School

While the agenda isn't yet posted online, the Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports subcommittee is meeting tomorrow at 5:30 pm at the Administration Building. There's one item on the agenda: the mall school. This is partnering with Simon Mall to run our alternative education program. In order for the partnership to move forward, the School Committee must approve it.

If you have an opinion, you may wish to get in touch with a school committee member, or even come to the meeting.

UPDATE: interesting perspective from Knoxville (thanks!)
also Peabody

Also, look at section five of this report:

In addition to helping students complete their required courses, the mall schools stress career training in fields like retail sales and marketing through internships, often at stores in the malls. Much of the curriculum is computer-based, and students work at their own pace in small classes. "Shopping centers are a natural place for kids," said Ron Hanson, vice president for Simon Property Group. "Next to schools, malls have the highest concentration of kids. This program is open 12 months of the year and each day until the mall closes."