For those who follow such things--and, as it has funding implications, that's many of us!--note that DESE released 2025-26 enrollment figures yesterday.
Remember that the foundation enrollment is not this enrollment; this is bodies in seats, while foundation enrollment includes charter students, and students who school choice out, while not include students who choice in.
Something I want to flag, arising from this article in last week's Boston Globe flagging--rightly!--the drop in immigrant students enrolling in our schools1is a persistent miscommunication in the piece (from those quoted) about what happens to state aid to a school district if enrollment drops:
...but friends, you are not going to glean them from reading the Boston Globe's coverage.
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| Please enjoy these lovely flowers from Montreal, which have nothing to do with this post otherwise. |
In June, Joshua Goodman, a professor at BU, and Abigail Francis, who is pursuing her doctorate there, released a study looking at Massachusetts school enrollment from pre-pandemic levels to now. Massachusetts is a handy one for this because the state tracks not only public school enrollment but private and homeschool enrollment (not all states do).
Their research uncovers three main points:
There is a livestream of this, which will be going up here. UPDATED: video is here.
Posting as we go.
Jack Elsey, Lily Laux, Pedro Martinez to be interviewed
and Craven just said a whole bunch of things including the schedule which I missed because I was trying to find the livestream...sigh...it also isn't written down, as best as I can tell
The Board is soliciting feedback on the finalists here.
...and I admit that I am skimming, but this is what they have on education:
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| Also, let's talk about how dumb this Y axis is. The bottom is 22,500. The change is not nearly as dramatic as it looks, and let's consider why the city would be exaggerating it. |
...plus a map of where the schools are.
I think, for a district that approaching where it was in enrollment when it closed eight school buildings, we probably need more than that.
Yes, it's taking me about a week to get to these. It's budget season...
Hey, do note that due to this being a Leap Year and February having five Thursdays, there is NOT a Worcester School Committee meeting Thursday; you can have this week off. There is, however, a Teaching, Learning, and Student Success meeting on Monday at 5 pm.
The February 15th agenda can be found here; the video is here.
The agenda that has everything on it is here. The video of the meeting is here.
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| May 12. Mark your calendar! |
The meeting opened with two public presentation under petitions: one on Neighborhood Strings, the second Anya Geist, a student at South High, who is completing a Teen Justice Fellowship Project on anti-Semitism and Holocaust education. Note that Ms. Geist's project is going to Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports for further discussion.
FY24 preliminary budget report
The report of the superintendent was the preliminary FY24 report; I've uploaded just that PDF here. The presentation from Brian Allen begins about 19 minutes into the meeting. I'm pretty sure I say every year that if you're at all interested in the WPS budget--and if you're in Worcester, that should be you!--you should just watch it.
A few things I'd highlight as a seasoned budget watcher:
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To consider a review of the Homework Policy and explore no homework dates, expectations around homework overall and utilize parent, student and educator feedback
....really. That's all it says.
We passed revised position descriptions for the School Safety Director and the Chief Diversity (now becoming Equity) Officer. We made revisions to but held the document of the Chief Personnel (as a proposed revision?) or Human Capital (as proposed?) Officer, so we can see them all.
We unanimously passed support for federal HD 1269, the "Healthy Meals Help Kids Learn Act of 2023," proposed by Representative Jim McGovern, which would raise the reimbursement for free lunch 45 cents and for free breakfast 28 cents with a yearly adjustment in both cases.
We also had a deliberation over endorsement of state HD485/SD1697, around support for vocational education in capital projects, most significantly to regional vokes; adding a DESE office regarding vocational education; and outlining requirements on access to middle school students by vocational schools. On a vote of 3-2-1 (Laura Clancey wanted to speak and wasn't seen; she did not vote), it was held for more information at the next meeting.
And our next meeting is now scheduled for April 13, with the second April meeting after April vacation on the 27th.
Do note that F&O meets Monday the 20th at 5:30; TLSS meets on March 27.
The agenda of the meeting is here. I've shared the slides of the Report of the Superintendent here.
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| The themes of the entry plan listening and learning |
I don't always note this, but I do want to note that the Worcester School Committee always has executive session before public session, and almost always it is negotiation-related. There were five different bargaining units on Thursday's agenda.
There have been discussions in the past about what community groups we have relationships with; Thursday's agenda gave us a list.
I always find the elementary class size report fascinating, and this year, really amazing in terms of progress. Worcester has generally fought hard to keep elementary class sizes--even as we were/are hundreds of teachers short--smaller; the average has generally hovered around 22. To see it below 20 this year AND to see how few of the class sizes in the high twenties and into 30 we have is really great. This is directly as a result of ESSER funding; in past years, if we had had the sort of enrollment drop we did during the pandemic, because our budget is so closely tied to our enrollment, we would have had to cut positions. We didn't; we used federal dollars to keep teachers on. We're now picking that cost up with the increases in our budget due to the Student Opportunity Act (as was the plan), and we're seeing that benefit in the numbers.
Two notes; this is a 'real' report on elementary class size. This isn't fudged with total adults in the building. This is the general ed elementary teachers class by class and the actual number of students they had for the October 1 reporting. Also, as I mentioned both during the meeting and online later, the places where there are those larger classes, as a result of lack of space in buildings to split them, very often are next to places where class sizes are much lower. That's a district assignment issue (which I know isn't news to the administration).
Likewise, the October 1 enrollment report is revealing. First, our numbers continue to go back up from the pandemic drop. In particular, the Head Start enrollment doubled last year, as parents came back to that program. The grade that was the drop, which now is second, continues to be lower, but the grade 1 and K numbers are back up. We also didn't seen a drop from eighth grade to ninth grade (often we do, as families send students to private high school) last year. Overall, we're up over 583 students (that will matter in the FY24 budget!), and our total enrollment of 24,318 makes us the second largest district in the state (after Boston; we're back ahead of Springfield).
The position description for Assistant Director of Intramural and Interscholastic Athletics was approved; expect to see that posted soon.
I really recommend anyone involved in the district at all review the report of the superintendent. The major themes she's brought forward from listening and learning are:
She also provided us her proposed goals for the remainder of this school year, on which she'll be evaluated in June. Those are:
Burncoat Choir honored the School Committee with their beautiful voices last night. We had a little fun before the session started. I love my scholars! #allmeansall @worcesterpublic pic.twitter.com/qYGdIQUYpp
— Rachel H. Monarrez, PhD (she/her/ella) (@drrmonarrez) January 6, 2023
Curtin: a demonstration of a report we recently released
"we release a lot of data...about every Thursday night, we're releasing something"
wage report was required by the Student Opportunity Act
have reporting on post-secondary enrollment for some time
wage earning and the combination of the two, basically
report was made public on October 27
National Student Clearinghouse through a data match twice a year
primary matching done through school, name, date of birth
only 97.4% of U.S. institutions, no international ones
directory matching will never be perfect
students under FERPA have the right to opt out of information sharing
data comes back anonymized
wage earnings: only have information for MA businesses that contribute to unemployment insurance
no federal (no post office, no military), no self-employed
wage data only includes those not found in postsecondary education: "only counted" each in one place
"you could think about it different ways"
for public information only; no current plans for formal or informal accountability purposes
will be updated annually
"new stuff for us" will learn from this
wage gaps between and among different groups exists
earnings increase over time and vary within industry field
note: small N size in some district and student groups "something to be careful about"
large percentage of MA high school graduates are employed in MA many years after graduation
he's now talking through the report that he's showing them, which one can't really recreate and I can't find the report...
Stewart: what next?
Curtin: stopped at district level; interested in school level
look at ways to display the data (and gives kudos to those who put it together)
West: wage outcomes a little unstable and hard to learn from until late twenties
"bunch of ways we have to be smart in how we use this information"
"opportunity to broaden accountability" of secondary schools
think that's something we should be considering as a Board
cross-agency resource
Louisiana and Texas I know have incorporated their post-secondary into their high school accountability system
West: right now high school accountability is based almost exclusively on tenth grade MCAS
Curtin: our system right now ends at graduation
"there are other factors" besides 10th grade MCAS, "but it does end at graduation"
there are states that look at post-secondary factors, including enrollment, others take it a step farther and include remediation
West: others look at seamless enrollment, enrolling the next year
important to do it based on growth, taking into account where students are when they enter high school
What happened at our December 2 meeting:
For those of us who do make it to graduation day, we spend 14 years of our lives in and out of school houses, growing, learning, and hopefully thriving. Yet, for a myriad of reasons and pressures, these places of learning and development are becoming places students dread arriving at.
This is not okay. I asked at our last meeting for an URGENT report on student disregulation, and it seems every day we see further evidence of how far afield we are on this issue.
While we did not have a formal report of the superintendent, we did have an update from Superintendent Binienda at the request of Mayor Petty on COVID. DESE met with superintendents earlier this week; they expect an increase in cases between now and the first week of January. That was all that was shared; I don't know if they left it there or have more about it.
The Committee was asked to vote to extend test and stay to Worcester Public School students who are considered close contacts at an after school program approved by Early Childhood Ed. It is very specifically ONLY that. We did vote all approval.
We also heard this week's COVID numbers--those are updated on the website here--which is 140 students and 28 staff.
We requested an update on where we are with vaccinations of students; I'll share that once we get it.
Mrs. Clancey shared the report from Governance, after which Mr. Monfredo attempted to get passed the original item that had been rejected in subcommittee, a contract that the district would require of all families that would hold them responsible for $300 for a lost or broken Chromebook, $30 for a missing cord, and so forth. This was not moved forward from subcommittee. The subcommittee report moved the financial impact question to Finance and Operations, but did not move the superintendent's recommendation on creating a contract forward, noting that it was covered by our current policies.
We, the district, have chosen to require these devices for students; students are required to have them; families cannot refuse them, even the three-quarters of our families who are low income.
The superintendent argued that "kids don't take care of them," and that "we have to instill in kids that they have to take care of them." She said that we were more like a 1 to 3 district; this was later in the discussion contradicted: we are short more like a thousand now, which makes us close to one to one. We also expect to have orders coming in next week.
If you're interested in watching the discussion, the report starts about 28 minutes into the meeting and goes from there. Mr. Foley noted that talking about about "malicious destruction" is loaded language, and that we have a responsibility as a district, as a one to one district now, to figure out how to make the funding work. Ms. McCullough called attention to the part of the student handbook that includes technology; it was decided that updating that language would be discussed in Governance at the next update. Miss Biancheria strongly noted the burden this requirement would impose on families, speaking of our students getting free breakfast and lunch for a reason, and rejected this as a family's responsibility.
During the discussion, part of what we discovered was that some--certainly not all, but some--of the Chromebook shortage is artificial; when the new South High opened with Chromebook carts, students there were told that they could simply leave their Chromebooks at home for homework, and use the new ones for schoolwork, all while at least hundreds of other students across the district didn't have Chromebooks at all. The motion which was made on this--which passed, 5-2, Biancheria and Monfredo opposed--was to distribute the resources we currently have to our students as soon as possible.
The report of the Governance committee was accepted as presented.
Later note: If you read the T&G on this, and you can't make the math work from what is said, that is because the math doesn't work: 500 Chromebooks times $300 each doesn't equal a million dollars (it's $150,000), nor does $1 million equal ten teachers, as we don't pay teachers $100,000 each.
Annually, the district officially counts our enrollment, and you can find our report for this October 1 on pages 36 to 39 of our agenda. This was sent to Finance and Operations for further discussion, for two reasons:
1. this is the best look the School Committee has at how many students are where and how that is changing. This has, of course, facilities implications.
2. our enrollment is our budget determiner! We are down 250 students from last year. That's a $3.7M loss, per Mr. Allen. Note, further, that because our enrollment did not go back up this year, the $9.7M of ESSER funding that we used as hold harmless funding last year now needs to be...something. Considered? Thus we're starting the FY23 budget deliberation--welcome to the FY23 budget deliberation, by the way!--short $13.4M.
It's worth noting that we have students who have joined the district since the October 1 count; the Mayor asked for a report on that. As those students are ours but are not yet counted, there was also a motion to bring this to the attention of our state and federal delegation
Ms. McCullough's item on considering "the use of Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Program in light of recent data" also went to Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports.
And Mayor Petty announced his appointment of the superintendent search committee, which will conduct the preliminary interviews for superintendent. They are:
The state has now posted state and district enrollment numbers (the October 1 count) for the current school year, and if you pay the close attention Cleo does, you're going to notice something on terminology:
So the DESE is back to using 'low income' instead of 'economically disadvantaged'? 🤔
— An Education (@AnEducationBlog) November 19, 2021
IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW: the former definition of low income is NOT something we're going back to; for what this includes, see the help section which has this:
The House Ways and Means budget was posted today at noon.
GOOD MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS!
— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) April 14, 2021
HAPPY HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS BUDGET DAY! #MAEdu #mapoli #mabudget #FY22 pic.twitter.com/A6aWKVH2dH
Amendments are due by the end of the day on Friday.
I tweeted out a thread last night with some perspective on the main questions for Chapter 70, and then today, I tweeted out a thread of the K-12 accounts. I have been updating this spreadsheet as we move through the budget cycle.
Cherry sheets are not yet updated, as of this posting.
The major news today, of course, is that the Ways and Means budget, while it does implement a 1/6th step toward the Student Opportunity Act goals--the Governor's House 1 budget in January implemented a 1/7th step--but it did not, despite calls starting in January, use a hold harmless methodology for counting students.
Worcester, of course, has been talking about this all year, but this is actually a national issue; just today, we had new research advising districts to prepare for the kindergarten bubble coming.
Here's what it looks like for us in Worcester:
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| The enrollment drop is a $9.5M drop in the foundation budget. |
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| If we instead don't lose that, it makes a significant difference in the bottom line. Brian Allen's slides, of course, from our February presentation. |
which have experienced pandemic-related disruptions in their enrollment that negatively affect their chapter 70 aid for fiscal year 2022, or which have significantly increased their transportation needs in fiscal year 2022;
BUT the districts have to:
demonstrate a significant reduction in student enrollment on October 1, 2020, followed by a significant increase in enrollment on October 1, 2021, and which can further demonstrate that said enrollment volatility has materially and significantly impacted their chapter 70 aid distribution, and/or increased their required transportation costs for fiscal year 2022
And as a result, the state can't even start considering this until every district has their October 1 enrollment in, which, believe me, doesn't happen the first week of October.
And THEN they have to go through the enrollments and THEN they have to distribute the grants and THEN it's Thanksgiving and some handful of districts have gotten a little money.
You're not going to hire a teacher then; you're not going to split your overcrowded kindergarten then; you're not going rent or create new space in your building for your preschool then. That isn't when the funding is needed.
And how far is $40M going to go across the state? That isn't nearly enough.
This really is a gesture to show something was done without something materially being done.
I'm going to post this much tonight; I'll come back to add the account by account with some commentary later.
The agenda including presentation and link to the online meeting is here.
though it looks like Mr. Allen updated the presentation again, so this isn't the actual presentation; I'll get a link to it I've put it over here and I've updated this now with some screenshots.
Binienda: focus on the October 1 enrollment
Kindergartners who took a gap year
support hold harmless for FY22
About $11M shortage in our budget if we're held to last year's count
children did not come because of the pandemic
very important item, especially for Worcester
Allen: presentation will use the House 1 version of the budget
one legislative ask around hold harmless and enrollment
framing: unprecedent enrollment decline
lower than average inflation rate
important how we plan for preK and K enrollment for next year
FY22 budget less than FY21 before budget cuts
pandemic related enrollment decline
restarts SOA enactment
1/7th of target goal rates for next year
federal and state stimulus funding
new staffing and resource changes
enrollment 1058 student enrollment decline 4.2%
of that 24.3% is prek and K (746 students)
2.8% decline in grades 1-6 (316); not clear if that is a one year thing or sustainable
secondary levels essentially flat
state saw 37,363 (3.9% decline)
8200 students over prior ten years "obviously this is a pandemic related decline)
17,197 was prek and K
17,332 grades 1-6
decline significantly in enrollment of Worcester students in local private schools
St. Paul's 32%
St. John's 17.7%
Nativity 6.6%
Worcester Academy 34.4%
WPS enrollment decline costs $9.5M
inflation is an increase of $6M
SOA adds in $18M
nets $15M increase
drop of SOA funding was balanced out by one time cuts which now need to be added back
baseline budget for next year $386M
increase of only $180K
need about $11.6M
really should have seen an $25M budget increase over last year
biggest change for us is low income enrollment based on 185% of federal poverty level
state needs to figure out how capture low income of students going forward
we had more students counted under our low income count because of the pandemic related enrollment decline
one seventh phase in in House 1
two biggest changes are low income, both in count and in rate phase in
would expect to see a $24M annual increase over seven year phase in, holding enrollment flat
of that $10M is inflation and $14M in SOA
instead we're just seeing $11M due to enrollment drop
hold harmless enrollment and hold harmless funding
enrollment decline effecting many communities across the state
bubble of student enrollment next year, but funding is declining instead
enrollment decline is causing a $9.5M drop in budget
puts it back to $24.8M as needed
holding enrollment harmless allows for districts to absorb the return of students
then reconciles the budget for FY23
at a minimum, there should be a pothole (foundation reserve) for coverage of that shift until foundation budget catches up following year
Sen. Chandler: having a bubble; what about staffing?
Allen: that's why hold harmless enrollment is so important
may need staffing additions; otherwise may possibly need cuts
"it's to not have the foundation budget...we won't have the resources to support [students coming back]"
Chandler: "it's a statewide problem, and it's one that we should be considering in our statewide budget as well"
I have been saying that this is the story of FY22 for Massachusetts schools:
First, some links:
All these practices are alluring because they avoid the harder work of equity—because they don’t require that we identify inequities, how they are operating in schools, and how we’re complicit in them. I want to clarify: I do think that—in the context of a robust systemic approach to equity—some of these practices can play an important role. I wish my own teachers had access to trauma-informed classroom practices, for example, because I grew up with a lot of trauma and generally felt like I was repeatedly punished for the impact of that trauma. But what none of these approaches help us do is identify and eliminate inequities that are deeply embedded in our educational systems. When we’re not eliminating inequities, we’re instead trying to help students adjust to inequity-laden institutions—we’re feeding that classic deficit ideology.
We challenge deficit ideologies by learning how to spot them in all their forms. Educational leaders have a big role to play here: they simply cannot allow deficit narratives and assumptions to live in their school or district cultures. On a more interpersonal level, when I hear somebody make a deficit-oriented statement, I like to ask a question that invites that person to look through a more structural lens. Somebody might say, “These low-income families just don’t value education. They never show up for anything.” In this case, I might ask, “I wonder if there are any other possible explanations for why those families are less likely than wealthier families to attend family-engagement events? Could there be an explanation other than they don’t care or they’re irresponsible?” In this way, I’m inviting somebody to try on a different lens.
Ultimately, we challenge deficit narratives by making an intentional choice: equity efforts should never be about fixing anything about students who are marginalized in schools. They should always—always—be about fixing whatever is marginalizing students in schools.
I asked how that was going.
“Not great,” she said. “The trouble is that they don’t actually want me to do my job.”
This is a complaint I heard time and again from the six women of color CDOs I spoke to for this essay, and it is a complaint I have made myself.
Specifically, Allen said, the district would be starting off with a net decline of $3.7 million because of the drop in enrollment.
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| FY20 WPS budget, p. 410. Yes, there is a typo in the year. |
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| Yes, I am being lazy and taking a picture of the page; it's p. 334 in the budget book. |
