And now for the not-so-good news from the election

My hearty congratulations to those across the country who brought in national, state, and local leadership that will better support public education!

(including Texas, where a former school board member will serve as the next Governor!)

If you're rejoicing this morning in the blue tsunami that swept the nation last night, I do not wish to take away from your joy, but I do want to point to some election results on ballot initiatives that are not good for kids.

I will update this when or if I find more.

• North Dakota voted down the ballot initiative that would add free school lunch to the state constitution. 
  I did see some mention online that some voters objected not to free meals, but to putting it into the state constitution, so we'll see where that goes. 
  
  
• Alabama put school prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance into the state constitution. 
  
  
• In a theme of continuing to target trans kids, Colorado passed, Nebraska passed, and Washington appears headed to pass a ban on trans girls' participation in sports; Arizona passed a student bathroom ban. 

To read this week

•  Don't miss the Wall Street Journal's coverage of the crazy world of high school sports in Florida, which lifted bans on student transfers. Education figures nowhere in that at all. (That's a gift link.)
  
  

• I love a good "isn't this neat?" story, and that UMass Med brought in Worcester high school students for a science fair in which the high school students were the judges is very fun! 

• NPR had a piece this morning on a team of three teenaged boys in the "World Series of Birding" which was a nice look at teenaged enthusiasm in a wonderful way.

• A growing number of school districts are opening parking lots for families who are unhoused to stay in.
  Best summary? 
  

  “Parking lots are a terrible option, but there are options that are worse,” said Jennifer Erb-Downward, director of housing stability programs and policy initiatives for Poverty Solutions, a University of Michigan project to promote economic mobility.

These are on the way to South Station in Boston. Aren't they nice?

and in today's edition of people's rights being up for debate

 The U.S. Supreme Court today hears arguments today on barring trans athletes from sports:

Tuesdays test cases are factually very different. One involves an Idaho college student barred by state law from trying out for the Boise State University varsity women's track team. The other case was brought by a West Virginia middle school student barred by state law from competing in school sports.

There are laws on the books in 27 of the 50 American states now, barring trans youth from participating in sports. Depending on how the court takes up the arguments, consequences could vary: 

 Block's fear is that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule that transgender rights generally are subject to the lowest level of legal scrutiny—something called rational basis, which essentially means that a state law is presumed valid as long as the state legislature has some rational reason—pretty much any reason— for its law. And he argues that using that test, trans kids could arbitrarily be kicked out of school...

The Supreme Court has lots of choices about the path it will take in these cases, and whether it will go big or small, observes William and Mary law professor Jonathan Adler. "There's a real question whether the court will confine what it says to the specific context of sports where there's always some inherent line-drawing that may seem arbitrary, or whether it's going to do something more broad," he says. "And the broader the court goes, certainly the more significant these cases are."

As the Washington Post notes in their quoting of Becky Pepper-Jackson, who brought the West Virginia case, the impact on students now is real: 

“It’s really hard to get used to being constantly judged and silently looked at like you’re a monster,” Pepper-Jackson said. “I try not to let it bother me, but it’s a shock every time.”

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.

A few quick notes from yesterday's F&O meeting

This will officially be reported out at next week's (May 4) meeting, but a few quick notes as there are some good things that we worked on! The agenda is here. The video is not yet up on the district YouTube channel, but you can find it on the district Facebook page. 

We moved three items--day by day sub rate for retired educators; athletic trainers; and middle school sports--from F&O to considering with the FY24 budget. This basically is noting that we're two weeks out on the proposed budget for next year, that these proposals all are money proposals, and that we want to talk about them with the full committee when we deliberate the budget. In each case, the administration will report back on them at our second budget deliberation (June 15), along with any questions that arise during deliberation on June 1. 

Important thing to remember on the WPS budget: while we will deliberate and pass it cost center by cost center, it isn't done until we officially pass the bottom line!

We took up a petition from Forest Grove 8th grade civics students on health vending machines. Due both to the non-compete language and the district's universal free breakfast and lunch, as you can see in the backup, this isn't something we can do.

Bob Walton, who is in charge of IT, led the look at streaming athletics. Due to the need to integrate with our calendar and the wish to include playoff games, we're essentially limited to a sole source which is NFHS Network. Many districts that use this pass the cost along to families. The administration recommendation for Worcester instead is that the district pay for the facility by facility costs ($4000 per site), allowing the streaming of Worcester-hosted high school games to be streamed for free (by anyone). You can see the considerations involved in the backup, but I'd note that this is in keeping with the Worcester schools ongoingly being dedicated to having an actual free public education.

Our monthly transportation update included not only the usual reports on drivers and on buses, but also a discussion of the athletic use of buses (we have 7 ready to go at 2:30 each day), free busing for field trips (377 and counting), a longer discussion of the coming application for electric school buses and the equipment to support those, and a brief look at possible late buses for high schools at some point in the future.
And also a reminder: we took over transportation, more than any other reason, to be able to dependably get students back and forth to school. 

Finally, our budget update, in which we moved a million and a half dollars, continues to show position gaps, with the good news that hiring is ongoing (when the budget manager says that, it means we're paying new people). We touched a bit on paying for the new ELA curriculum (ESSER III 20% set aside), and spoke about timelines for more reporting. We also requested a report for the May 22 meeting on where the district is on foundation budget categories, so we can use that information to inform our FY24 budget deliberation, though as Mr. Allen noted: it also starts the information gathering for the next Foundation Budget Review Commission, which SOA said would happen every 5 years...so 2024?

What happened at the first April Worcester School Committee meeting?

 with apologies for this taking until now; I got to enjoy a really lovely weekend in Chicago, and am playing catch-up. As always, this is from me as a member of the Committee. 

The agenda is here; the video of the meeting can be viewed here.

I should note that the meeting started with two hours of executive session, including deliberations on the contracts with our bus drivers, our paraprofessionals, and units A & B, which are teachers and assistant principals. It's against the ground rules agreed to by both the EAW and the Worcester School Committee at the beginning of negotiations for me to say any more than that.

The Grafton Street chorus not only sang the National Anthem, but "This Land is Your Land."

Note that among the items on the consent agenda were several relating to recent athletic successes, and some generosity that has gotten the Burncoat High orchestra to Washington, D.C. this week.
(The consent agenda puts a group of items of which approve is reasonably expected, and has us take them with a single vote. Any member can pull an item off the consent agenda for separate approval with a 2/3rd approval.)

I was swamped enough that I didn't get a chance to put up a blog post to explain reconsideration, but if you search the blog, you can find earlier explanations. Both Laura Clancey and I filed for reconsideration on the Governance report, she to send the dress code back to standing committee for further discussion, me to take up the process of the strategic plan now with the report from Hanover Research (contracted to support the work) in hand. 
Reconsideration cannot be deliberated, but the member filing is required to file an explanation as to why with the request for reconsideration. In this case, both reconsiderations passed unanimously, so the dress code is not yet amended  (this is why nothing is done until it passes full committee!) and goes back to standing committee, and the process described by Dr. Monárrez for the strategic plan (let me give you a separate post on that) goes forward. 

We had also held two items (which also get to go first): the Human Resources position description, which, with a few additional edits, we approved; and Sue Mailman withdrew the bill she'd requested endorsement of on vocational school buildings.

The report of the superintendent was on social emotional learning and student mental health supports. Let me note here that we on the Committee have received emails from a number of staff members about planned reorganization of the social emotional learning department; we did hear a bit about that on Thursday in response to questions, and I am confident that we'll hear more.

The report came about 20 minutes into the meeting (if you'd like to review on the video), and included a substantial number of statistics, some of our students specifically, some national, regarding their mental health and resiliency. 

The presentation was about twenty minutes, and it was followed by at least that of questions, so I'd say there's a significant amount of Committee attention to what is being done here and what is still to come.

We approved one prior year payment and three grants, including one for a new meat slicer at Claremont Academy; one for summer work with English learners; and one to fund work with refugee families from Brazil, Central America, and Haiti (the area from which we get the largest number of people currently) in ensuring they are well connected to the school district.

You may have heard we unanimously passed a boycott of Old Sturbridge Village. I wrote about why over here. 

We sent items on the use of AirPods to administration; on vaping detectors to F&O; on signs for North High basketball to the City Council; on suspension of the voluntary uniform policy until there's a way out to Governance; on moving dance teams under athletics to administration.

Administration will be bringing forward a recommendation for a new reading curriculum to Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports subcommittee this coming week after a pilot this year. They've been collating the feedback that they have received from staff; that will go through subcommittee to the full committee. You can find what we know so far here.

We passed a description for the Physical Security Systems Technician (this was in the FY23 budget; it had just never been brought forward); this is the person who runs the "stuff" (like cameras) of our security systems. 

We did some updating on policies, something which you'll see in a number of upcoming meetings; I had noticed a few worrying things in our policies, so over February break, I did a full review of our current WPS policies compared to the state model policies. I'll be putting them on the agenda in batches. The first batch we updated ensured that we are following federal and civil rights legislation in our list of protected classes. This is a substantial list, and it also includes the note on the Crown Act, passed last year. 

We also updated the policy on school calendar (which I thought was a little bit funny); in spring of 2020, the Commissioner dropped 10 school days for the calendar for professional development (due to the pandemic). Worcester changed our policy...and never changed it back. It still said we were going 170 school days. We cannot, of course--our policy doesn't change state regulation!--so we changed it back to 180 days.

Dr. Monárrez will bring back the descriptions of the Director of Nursing and the Director of Climate and Culture positions with the budget, so we can see how they fit. 

We sent a proposed revised Wellness Policy to Governance for consideration.

We sent a proposed Unifed PE to TLSS for consideration.

A proposal from Jermoh Kamara that we endorse S.340/H.583 “An Act enabling all students to thrive: protecting a high quality, diverse educator workforce” which would remove seniority as considered in layoffs, was withdrawn.

A proposal that we endorse H.1367 "An Act to facilitate additional financial student assistance," which would require students to complete the FAFSA in order to graduate (unless they had a signed waiver), was voted down, as was the item accompanying it, to request financial assistance for implementation. 

And that was the meeting! Note that our next regular meeting is Thursday, April 27. 

A early April reading round-up

please enjoy this Boston daffodil

Despite the ongoing temper tantrums of a particular billionaire, I do continue to share things I think worth reading over on my Twitter feed (which is also on the bottom left if you read this on a full screen), but here's a bit of a recent round-up of things I found worth reading:

• You might remember that among the disasters of the previous presidential administration was an update on Title IX guidance regarding sexual misconduct. We have been waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the Biden administration to issue an final update on the rules; this week saw another round of pleas to get that done soon.
  
  
• What the U.S. Department of Ed actually released this week in terms of trans kids and sports got a round of confusing headlines, at least initially. I (as always) recommend Chalkbeat and K-12 Dive on this. The press release from USEd is here; the notice of proposed rulemaking is here.
  
  
• This New Yorker piece on Hillsdale College--which, yes, is influencing K-12 education--is a worthwhile read.
  

  when DeSantis and other Republican politicians try to articulate what they’re for—what exactly they want education to look like—one name comes up repeatedly: Hillsdale College.

• Excellent, in depth, round up of the various efforts to loosen child labor laws across the country from the Iowa Capital Dispatch. As Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire outlined in The Nation last month, this is directly related to public education.
  
  
• If you didn't read the ProPublica piece on Justice Thomas, please do.
  
  
• A good reminder from Wellesley that important decisions are made at New England town meetings this time of year, and you should attend them if you are a voter who doesn't, for example, want millions of dollars randomly cut from your school budget.
  
  
• There have been some efforts related to the bookbanning/diversity and equity blowback in Massachusetts, but so far, the school committee elections are supporting those against bans and in favor of supporting all kids. You might also listen to this piece from WGBH on this push.
  

What happened at the first February Worcester School Committee meeting

 You can find the agenda here. You can find the video online here.

Note that we opened the meeting with an executive session involving a worker's comp case, litigation, and updates on seven collective bargaining negotiations.

We had the Rice Square Elementary chorus sing (pre-recorded) the National Anthem for us!

The report of the Superintendent--and really the main part of the meeting--was a report on special education. Do note that this report is the first of two parts. 

The presentation starts on page 21 of our agenda; the report starts about 5 minutes in on the video.
Something I have had to learn over my time on the Committee is how the various things we do in Worcester fit together; I think this visual is very helpful:

There's lots that was and could be said about special education--if this is of interest, do watch the video!--but I wanted to highlight the demographic data we received.
First, by gender:

yellow is boys

And then by disability by race and ethnicity; note the dotted lines across represent the overall district enrollment:

The above of course gets into the question we've seen raised of if children of color, especially boys, are over-identified for special education services, when it may well be that their needs are not that of special education. Definitely something the district is looking into.

We also did touch on the issue of supplemental services due to the pandemic, towards the end.

Because I try to cite my sources, the piece I was referencing from Vanderbilt about sub-separate classrooms is here. Don't blow that one out of proportion as "Novick is endorsing going back to entirely sub-separate education" or anything of the kind. This is a "what's up with that?" question.

The reporting out on Finance and Operations was the monthly transportation update. The minutes of that are on page 54; the video of that meeting is here. Two takeaways for everyone:

we are still training and hiring bus drivers! 

Families: please be sure that your student and parent apps (WooEdu) actually have your bus information. We will be continue to 'undouble' routes, and that will mean changes for not only doubled but undoubled routes in some cases.

In voting acceptance on grants, there were a few questions that came up. The grants we accepted with some information as it came up are:

• FC215 Genocide Education Grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in the amount of $57,120. As often with our grants, this is about professional development. Member Kamara asked about this; I'll share this FAQ from DESE which covers the legal requirement we have on genocide education.
  
  
• FC104 Financial Literacy Planning and Implementation Grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in the amount of $15,000. This is for after school clubs, and there were questions about the degree to which this is being incorporated into the regular school day, which is...ongoing, I think I would say?
  
  
• Teacher Diversification Pilot Program Grant (FC253) in the amount of $45,756.00. This one we've received a few years in a row now. It's supporting paraprofessionals to who are pursuing licensure as a teacher, including covering MTEL fees.
  
  
• To accept the ParentChild+ Pipeline Program Launch Grant funded by the Wellington Foundation in the amount of $20,000.00. This is work on expanding the network of family care providers. We're the receiving agency on this one as it's through the Worcester Family Partnership.

Member McCullough proposed an item--sent to budget--to consider the hiring of athletic trainers, citing this piece from USA Today. (Gosh, I love a solid backup!)

Member Clancey requested that we send the voluntary transfer policy to Governance for consideration and updates if needed. (It's confusing, for sure.)

Member Kamara submitted an item to ask about "ongoing learning options during inclement weather." Dr. Monárrez responded that administration had checked; that alternative online options when we cancel school due to weather cannot be counted as days of learning. However, the administration will ensure there are online resources (a page of links) for families who may wish them on those days. The item was filed. 

I also gave an update on the municipal broadband work (I'm the School Committee rep on the committee, which meets monthly; I've been working on this with the Committee for several years.). Verizon offering fiber to the city now means Spectrum has competition; that doesn't mean the problem is solved. The city has also been ongoingly speaking to other cities that are similarly pursuing options like SiFi that provide fiber networks at no cost to the municipality. The city is currently working on an RFP for just such an option. 

The School Committee next meets on February 16th. 

Mid-January updates from WPS administration

 largely drawn from the weekly communication of Dr. Monárrez to the Worcester School Committee

First, I failed to note her op-ed in last Sunday's Telegram:

As a district we will lead others in the commonwealth and beyond if we are willing to lean in, act courageously, ignore the noise and stay committed to our purpose for existence — educating future leaders of Worcester.

Give it a read if you haven't! 

We actually got this last week, when several of us first heard of the terms of the Old Sturbridge Village lease, but administration did confirm that no such terms are in the leases we have with the Diocese of Worcester for either the St. Casimir or La Familia buildings. 
Relatedly, our lease for St. Casimir is up this year, and this week's agenda has a request for a vote to authorize a lease of space for that program for "three years with two additional three year extensions" for wherever it is that the administration agrees to put the program. There is a similar authorization requested, though for much longer--"a ten year lease with the option of two five year extensions"--for our Transitions program, which is for students in our special education program who are supported until age 22 to prepare them to transition out of the school system, currently housed at the Fanning Building, which doesn't have enough space.

In terms of access to basketball games, which has come up at a few different schools:

High Schools sports foster a sense of community and school pride. It was brought to our attention that our facilities at some of our high schools cannot accommodate large numbers of spectators. We are working with Dave Shea to identify options that will allow for our youth to attend games and not limit access.

And relatedly, specific to Burncoat:

The bid for the new bleachers at Burncoat High School is now posted on the City of Worcester website here. The bid opening date is February 2, 2023 and it is expected the project will be complete for the beginning of the next school year. In the meantime, we are seeing if temporary bleachers are available to expand seating capacity for the remainder of this year. We will also examine any short term options for repair of the gym floor as needed until the school is accepted into the MSBA replacement pipeline.

If you review the posting of the bid, it's a big project: 

The project scope generally includes replacement of existing wood bleachers with new telescoping bleachers and other related work necessary to complete all of the Work of the respective Sections and indicated on the drawings. Construction also includes installation of a new electrical transformer and sub-panel with new feed from existing electrical room. 

And note that our resubmission of Burncoat to MSBA is on this week's agenda! Once through the School Committee, it also needs to be voted by the City Council before submission. 

DESE was in the district on Monday, meeting with the district about our nine Sustainable Improvement Schools; those are designated by where schools are in the state's accountability system, which, as federally required, specifies a lowest performing 10% of schools. Per our update:

Currently these schools are strengthening teaming structures (Instructional Leadership Teams, and Professional Learning Communities), professional development (Science of Reading, Culturally Responsive Practices), and data driven informed decision-making.

I should perhaps note that this, along with the report we had earlier this school year on data, is the first update the Worcester School Committee has received on how we are doing on such state systems in...years. Literally. 

The transition to the city's new enterprise system is starting! Procurement (purchase orders) and bill payments (non salaries) are beginning on February 6, 2023. As a result, we Friday started a limiting of transactions, along with the city. Also, administration has on Thursday's agenda a request for the School Committee to approve the position description of a Workday Implementation Specialist as this BIG (and massively overdue) shift of city systems happens over the next several years.

And note that this week's Worcester School Committee agenda is here.

Oh, and finally: CHECK YOUR BUS INFORMATION this weekend! The Great Undoubling of routes has begun, and some information (whether your route was doubled previously or not) has changed! Please check the student and parent portals for accurate information.

Notes from November Finance and Operations

 The video is over here; the agenda is here. 

As always, these are my notes as much for me as anyone!

The looming question of having all of this one-to-one technology now has been "and then what?" as all of it has a lifespan, and the one-time funds we used to fund it all were, well, one time. Thus the item that had the longest back up for this meeting this week.

These charts always make me panic me a little, as I find them initially hard to follow, but if you take some time with it, I think you'll work it out. Here's what we have now (this is page 18, as linked above); this is (listed down) what we have now, and then the bars show when they're 'done,' so to speak:

And here's the proposed (leased) replacement cycle (this is page 19 from above): 

The dollar amounts accumulate each year at the bottom, while each individual lease runs multiple years.

Now while this is (bottom line) $750K next year, note that it then goes to $1.6M, to $2.5M, to $3.4M, until in FY28, we're at what becomes a sustained $3.8M. As these are leases, this is an operational expenditure. This thus is a long-term plan for the budget to be regularly setting aside about $4M a year in replacement technology costs by FY28. 

You might remember a bit ago we updated our transportation policies in part because they talk about a "vendor" and we don't have one anymore, but also we had some missing pieces. One piece was policy EEAG, which covers student transportation in private vehicles. This is very much one of those "not having a policy won't save you" situations; we need to have language on this. Mr. Traynor sent some legal guidance back to us, and we'll be recommending, then, a policy that includes his addition. 

And so on to our regular transportation update. This month, we passed two milestones: we now have more full-sized bus drivers than routes (only a few, and remember, the margin is for keeping those routes going!), and MOST of the buses in the district are our new buses! Mr. Allen said that the hope is that by next month, all the new buses will be on site (even if some still need registration and inspection). All permits have been received for the new fueling station on Pullman Street; it's from the same landlord, so we're amending our lease. The hope is to have that operational for February. 
The crunch we (and not just us) have seen around athletic transportation--we've been able only to transport fall athletics after 4, as the first responsibility of the district is to get all students who get buses home from school--should not be an issue for winter (events are at night) and should be alleviated by spring, as we'll then have enough drivers to run both home from school routes and athletic routes at the same time. There is ongoing work with student behavior on buses, ensuring we have appropriate responses and supports. 
And speaking of replacement cycles, there's been a bit of a change of plan for the next set of buses. The School Committee voted to authorize administration to enter into a five year lease for up to 15 buses to replace our original set of buses. The plan was for those to be propane buses, as we make steps forward towards greener technology.
There's two things that have shifted though: first, the ordering time for new buses is so long that there's concern that we wouldn't get the new buses for when this current set of 13 is coming off their lease; plus the federal government changed the electric bus grant. As of now, the thinking is that the district will buy the leased buses (as part of FY24), apply for the federal grant, and see if we can (eventually--timelines on this one are long, too!) add 15 electric buses. We don't want to be running too many kinds of technology at the same time, either. 
Planned schedule for moving trainee drivers into service (which will shift and expand routes) in next month's meeting; Mr. Allen noted that the administration may be requesting additional training staff in order to be sure that those being trained can be moved most efficiently through the process.

Translation during School Committee meetings has been happening in Spanish for two meetings now; adding our other six major languages for our remaining fifteen meetings, estimated at a cost of $57,750, will be funded through ESSER this year, and then the estimated yearly cost of  $84,700 will be added to the FY24 budget. 

We also then attempted to sort out how it is that security guards are assigned to schools--in other words, what the process is. I don't know that I'm any clearer on that process now than I was before the meeting; you can watch the last 15 minutes to see if it makes it clear to you.

This meeting will report out on Thursday; we have back-to-back Worcester School Committee meetings this month, as we pushed our usual first week meeting back a week due to the joint superintendent-school committee conference. 

Top ten reasons to go to Wednesday's Finance and Operations meeting

 The agenda is here. This is the Zoom link and the password is 462049.

Here are ten reasons why you want to join us:

Notes from the first meeting of the Worcester School Committee

 This blog started, of course, as a blog of the Worcester School Committee, 'though it started back when it wasn't possible for most of us to liveblog anything, back when I would lug a (heavy!) laptop to the public gallery at Worcester City Hall, write things up, and post only when I got home. I did liveblog some of the meetings I was in; I have done less of that during this past term, partly because juggling the multiple screens during a meeting is a bit much. I do continue to use this blog as my record of what's been going on, however, so I intend to continue to write up as I can what I can.

You can find Thursday's agenda for the first meeting of the new term here.

We were a bit late coming out of executive session--a quick look at the final page of the agenda, which spells out why we were in exec will tell you why--as we're both in successor negotiations and in COVID era negotiations at the same time.

We did have comment from EAW President Roger Nugent, on a few more requests for shared sick bank days. We also had an IA comment on their still-outstanding retro pay; the IA unit was the final one to settle, and thus the lengthy process of updating their pay is still in train. As Mayor Petty noted at the meeting, this is in part due to the city's ancient financial processing system; it was due to staffing issues in payroll (including having a lengthy time before a new manager of payroll was hired by the superintendent after our long-serving one retired in the spring). 

The first report--and I'd say the highlight of the meeting--was a report from our student reps on student sentiment, as gathered through a student survey. I'm going to insert copies of their issues slides below as images: 

The top five issues are mental health (more than half cited it), COVID, nutrition, facilities, and student activities. They also added transportation, as that's already being discussed. 

Each of the slides makes requests and then adds student quotes to the issue.
For mental health, the requests are safe space accessibility; promote resources; mental health awareness/training; expand wellness programming.

For COVID, the requests are social distancing procedures; supplying high quality masks; make-up work guidelines; more hand sanitizing areas.

For transportation, the requests are expand bus routes to students within the two mile radius.
For facilities, the requests are not locking bathrooms, making single use bathrooms accessible, examining HVAC in schools.

For student activities, the request is to enhance them.

The report was sent, by section to subcommittees: COVID and facilities and transportation went to F&O, mental health to TLSS, (and I think bathrooms may have gone to Governance for policy work? I'll have to check). 

The T&G featured this discussion in their coverage of the meeting. One of the things that was mentioned several times by students in their presentation was that in some cases, we have resources or answers to things, but students don't know of them. And if students don't know, it is as if we don't have them. UPDATE: And speaking of that, it comes up in today's Boston Globe article that spent a day with Stacia Zoghbi!

I won't recapitulate my arguments here, but I do think bathroom access is a basic human rights issue, and it makes me furious that we have to even have this discussion. 
I do want to say how fantastically grounding it was for the students to be directing the discussion, and on areas that are under School Committee purview. I'm so grateful that they're putting the time and work into this for the district.

Our second report of the evening was an update on the Barr Foundation-funded Portrait of a Graduate work. This report, which starts on page 44 of the agenda, went through again what this is, with a bit of an update at the end as to next steps. They'll be back in March with a draft.

Both F&O and the superintendent's search reported out: F&O on the ESSER hearing and the search on the public input sessions with the search consultant. Let me recommend the presentation that F&O received back in December on ESSER plans. 

Ms. McCullough had filed several athletic items which came back. Athletic eligibility was recommended to not be changed at this time. Coaches salaries will go to negotiations. She'd also asked about athletic spending; the backup we received was a record of spending. I believe the intent is to take this up with budget.

We voted to settle our bottom line for the FY22 fiscal year, which, yes, is the year that we're about half through. This is $2.25M higher than the budget we voted in June. You can find the full backup starting on page 103. The reason for the change is pretty straightforward: the city budget, and thus the district budget, was based on the Governor's budget. The Governor's budget has often been not what happens for schools, and that was true for this fiscal year again; the Legislature agreed to implement 1/6 of the Student Opportunity Act, while the Governor had budgeted for only 1/7. That's a $2.25M difference for us, and thus the update (which we knew in June would be coming; we just have to wait for the city to set the tax rates first). 

(I asked offline, by the way, if we should make a fuss over this, and it sort of doesn't really matter; by the time we pass our budget, there's usually a good indication of what the Legislature is going to agree on, so even if the line we pass isn't actually it, we know and can plan for what it is going to be.) 

We then had a number of items filed by members for further or future action:

• Mrs. Clancey filed two items to do with safety and building access, stemming from the Doherty High incident last month. She's requesting a report back on safety and security around entering and exiting the schools, and an update on the role of security guards, including their hours.
• Ms. Mailman asked--and the committee agreed--to have members address one another as "Member" which was amended to "School Committee Member" in meetings. 
  Our name plates are going to simply have our full names.
• Ms. McCullough requested that we consider participating in the Practice Safe Skin Program through UMass, which is a sunscreen program.
• Ms. Kamara asked that we set up COVID testing programs in each of the four quadrants. This is a great idea that we don't have the resources to do, which was the response of administration. As I also had filed an item asking for a COVID update as a standing item at each meeting, we took that up more generally. She asked for the protocols around COVID positive employees.
  The superintendent gave us the update on COVID positive cases: between 1/14 and 1/20, there were 936 positive students, 36 quarantined students, and 922 test and stay students; and 142 positive employees, 1 quarantining, and 43 test and stay. 
  Superintendent Binienda also confirmed that the district will not be switching to the new voluntary home testing protocol the state has put together. 
  I asked that the reminder about masking requirements go to school staff as well as students, as I've received a number of student complaints that staff aren't properly masking (and the balance of power is such that students aren't in the same position on reminders). I also asked if we could get a report back from Honeywell, which is currently doing an analysis of our HVAC systems, if the portable ionization/filtration units that had been in the old South High school could or should be moved to the cafeterias of the schools that don't currently have those, as many of us are concerned about lunch being the most dangerous time of the day for transmission of COVID.
• Ms. Kamara asked that the position of chair and vice chair of subcommittees be clarified; this was going to Governance, so it will be taken up with the rules at their next meeting, as will my requested addendum that we also define the subcommittee's realms.
• I sent policy DK to Finance and Operations so we can align it with the city charter (If you have ever heard me talk about why some city school committee members don't have to learn about warrants, you'll know why. I can do a post on it later.)
• I sent an item on considering new and reoccurring building needs to the joint committee we have with the City Council (and have I mentioned how thrilled I am that Councilor Nguyen is chairing the Education subcommittee?)
• Two to discuss that a number of other districts have been moving forward on: eliminating the "test out" option for the employee vaccination requirement, and adding a requirement that students participating in extracurricular activities be vaccinated. (That last was proposed by WPS student athletes who are concerned about their friends and teammates.)
• I proposed a pilot of supplying menstrual supplies at secondary schools. The superintendent said that we do; as students don't know that we do--heck, I didn't know that we do!--it seems we have work to do, particularly around equity of access and not having to make special trips places and ask for them. It's going to Finance and Operations (budgetary impact).
• Something we're overdue for on our calendar: to consider what observances are recognized by the Worcester Public Schools. That went to Governance. 
• Another that came from students: To make provision within all WPS secondary schools of space for prayer during the day for those whose religious observance requires it; relatedly; to add to the student handbook notification to students and families that such provision will be made as needed. This is going to Governance for the policy aspect and to F&O for the physical plant question. 

We also voted to accept an FCC purchase of  $7,375,056 for the purchase of 23,192 Chromebooks, which, hey, is good news!

I want to do a separate post on two upcoming School Committee meetings, but let's let this one stand as it is! 

What happened Tuesday

• The Worcester School Committee unanimously supported the recommendation of the search committee to contract with Greenwood Asher to conduct the superintendent search. That now goes to the city Purchasing Department, that has to be certain we've adhered to all necessary for a legal bid process; as we've been working with them right along, it is expected to move forward without complication.
• The report on positions being filled was held, as it had no information regarding the hiring of adjustment counselors.
• ...and as a result, the position description was held.
• The five year contract masquerading as a donation of equipment that would charge families a fee to view livestreamed games was set to Finance and Operations for a report back from the Inspector General regarding if it is subject o bid laws. The superintendent said she'd been given a legal opinion that it was fine; the Inspector General has found that by recommending a particular vendor, the district has created a market for that item; "this market has an intrinsic value; there is value attached to this opportunity." As such, ch. 30B kicks in; further, in not sending such a proposal out to bid may also invoke the state ethics law, as equal opportunity to access the market was not granted to others.
• The two grants, which, among other things, including the hiring of more than 20 positions on a single year grant with no plan for what happens after the funding runs out were also sent to Finance and Operations. As the School Committee adopted a financial policy in 2014 (part of the Seven Point Plan) of ensuring program sustainability particularly when adopting grants, adopting a single year grant that hires multiple people without either the note that the positions will be ended when the grant ends or specifically how those positions will be funded when the grant ends violates district policy. 
  You may recall from our budget deliberation our close attention to the use of ESSER funds either as one time funding or as funding that will be picked up through the first year of the Student Opportunity Act funding. Note that this only works one year at a time. 

Back to school call from Superintendent Binienda

 for those who didn't let it go to voice mail; I replayed it to get the main points

All students must wear face masks on the bus and inside every school. Masks are not required outside at recess.

All bus routes are posted in the parent/student portal as well as on the website: https://worcesterschools.org/current-families/bus-routes/

Due to the shortage of bus drivers, WPS will *not* be dropping students off at after school programs. Students will be picked up and returned to the same location.

We'll be monitoring bus routes these first weeks, and we may have to make starting and ending time changes over the next few weeks.

There will be no transportation provided to student athletes for *in city* practice or games during the school week. Transportation to *out of district* game locations will begin at 4:30 pm. 

During the 21-22 school year, WPS will be implementing Rights, Respect, Responsibility, an evidence-informed sexual health education curriculum. The curriculum will be implemented in an age-appropriate manner by trained health teachers according to the National Sex Education Standards and the Massachusetts Health Education Frameworks. 

Online information sessions for families (dates and links) can be found here: https://worcesterschools.org/sexual-health-education-curriculum-information-sessions/

Dates as follows:

Kindergarten-3rd grade students - Tuesday, August 31 - 6:00-7:00 p.m.

4th-6th grade students - Tuesday, August 31 - 7:00-8:00 p.m.

7th-8th grade students - Tuesday, September 7 - 6:00-7:00 p.m.

High school students - Tuesday, September 7 - 7:00-8:00 p.m. 

The opt-out form is also on the website.

School starts Monday, grades 1-12; Thursday, preschool and kindergarten.

FY22 Worcester School Committee budget deliberation: round 1

 writing these up later for both my and your use

The budget is online here. The schedule of accounts we're using is here. My memo to my colleagues is here.

There are meetings in Worcester this week!

There are THREE Worcester School Committee meetings this week!

• Monday night is the third of the four of budget sessions to inform the plan due April 1 under the Student Opportunity Act. This one is at Doherty High and like the others is at 6.
• Wednesday night is the fourth of these sessions, this time at North High, also at 6.

Do remember that these sessions are open to ANYONE (and have food and have translators! And crayons, for that matter), so please do come.

Thursday at 7 pm is our REGULAR meeting (yes, we just did that last week, but February break always throws off the sequencing, which is usually the first and third Thursdays). While the agenda doesn't yet appear to be up (and no, that isn't an OML violation, as there's still more than 48 hours on business days before then), we do have ours, so let me give you the run through:

And about what Duffy Field?

Looks like the neighborhood is starting to wonder...

“This is a jewel,” said neighbor Philip Economou on Wednesday. Economou said the park, which includes Duffy Field, is the site of frequent pickup games, picnics on the grass, dog meetups and Little League baseball. “There’s no place left like this in Worcester.”
An idea to add a turf field, which could be used by Doherty Memorial High School and others, has got the group up in arms and worrying about future public access.

The quotes from the City Manager appear to me, in any case, to misrepresent the concern: most folks in Worcester don't pay much attention to something being "school" or "city" property, so reassuring that the schools are not going to "take" the field isn't reassuring.

The concern from the neighbors, of course, is if the neighborhood is going to have a fenced-in astroturf field with lights in what is now a low impact field tucked in among houses.

Oh, and yes, it's a wetland, too: Beaver Brook again.

I will note here that the scramble to give Doherty practice space nearby neatly elides what has happened with the other high school building projects; both North and South were built on field space, and, at least in South's case, teams that didn't have room to practice were bused elsewhere as needed.

It seems--and this is the first I've heard of this--that there's a meeting at and about the school on March 23. If I find out more about that, I'll share.

A few things to watch from last week's Worcester School Committee meeting

I mean, I always tell you to go watch the budget presentation, literally. It starts about 15 minutes in.

• There was some updating of minutes necessary, but the upshot is that there will be, going forward, a standing item on the Finance and Operations subcommittee agenda on transportation, a form for families and students to fill out to report late and missing buses, and reports on that weekly posted online and sent to the School Committee until we get an app and can report from that. So far, no sign of the form. 



...in the meantime, let us know...

• This was coming out of Miss McCullough's subcommittee, but, as was noted in the T&G, there's some revision going on around admission to Worcester Tech. Note that there is also a larger state effort around equity in admission that may require further revision. 
• Mrs. Clancey's item to provide social media updates in multiple languages passed for implementation, so watch for that.
• I asked for a report on all fees paid by families of Worcester Public School students for classes. When this comes back, I'd appreciate some reflection on if we've missed anything, as we are supposed to be offering a free public education.
• The dress code is back in Governance, but we've also sent this to the Student Advisory Council. This needs student and family input!
• My request that we pass a resolution, calling on the City administration to not attribute work on Duffy Field or Foley Stadium's fields stemming from Doherty's construction to the Worcester Public Schools' capital budget passed, 5-2, Monfredo and Biancheria opposing. Here's why that matters: the School Committee does not pass the schools' capital budget. As with all municipal committees, it is passed on the city side. For both North and South, we had to make allowances of various kinds to get athletes to practice space during school construction. For Doherty, it was proposed back at the December meeting that the back field at Foley and Duffy Field (which is a city park) both be astroturfed, to a cost of $5-$7M. As I noted last month, funding this work from the Worcester Public Schools' capital budget of more or less $3M a year would zero our other capital work out for most of two years if not more. We simply cannot afford to have absolutely NO capital work done in our 50 buildings, which have 86% of the delayed maintenance on 60% of the city buildings, for multiple years.
  This was a view shared by most of my colleagues. 

Doherty Memorial building committee

Liveblogging, but I'm skipping all the parts of people saying nice things about each other
UPDATE to add the T&G coverage is here

Concise review of the presentation from last week, assuming that most have seen or heard it
tonight "marks the beginning" of the preferred schematic design process

The Doherty draft Preferred Schematic Design

All 864 pages of it are online here, and this is what will be voted on tomorrow evening. I should also note that I was not at the last building committee meeting (postponed meetings due to snow), so I can't vouch for what was and wasn't said then, let alone what has come up in other places.
I'll say that the thing that really concerns me about this is it continues to be framed--including by the district itself, in repeated phone calls to families--that this is a vote on the preferred site.
It is much much more than that. It is a vote on the preferred design of the school, including what's included in what is being requested.

As you'd expect in 864 pages, there's a lot there (this is a report that could do with both page numbers and internal hyperlinks).