Lively Worcester School Committee agenda for July

Not a dull agenda for July!

First, note that there is a Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports meeting on Thursday immediately preceding the full School Committee meeting at 3:30 pm at City Hall; it appears as though this is only to approve the four new courses listed, 'though they persist in just listing every item that has been referred there on the agenda, which is not okay.

The full Committee meets at 4 pm (it's summer) at City Hall, but note the "now they're here, now they're not" schedule:

• 4:00 p.m. - Regular Session 
• 5:00 p.m. - Executive Session 
• 6:00 p.m. – Regular Session and Proposed Strategic Plan

Worcester School Committee: Governance this week

There's a Governance subcommittee this Tuesday at 4, with a largely policy agenda.
They're reviewing a series of recently updated policies, largely required by changes in regulation or law.
They're doing sections C (administration),  D (financial), and E (student supports) of the district policy review. Oddly, there appears to be a significant drop in legal references (not sure why)...For anyone out there still wondering what happened with Worcester and warrants, there's an implicit answer in section DGA, which mentions the superintendent, the city manager, the city auditor, the city treasurer...and not the school committee; likewise, section DJA specifically references no other authority being necessary. All of the references are to the municipal charter.
In response to the question about ESSA, there's a section of the student handbook (?), which hasn't been substantially redrafted under the new law. As there have been a number of presentations on what ESSA means for school districts, I'm not sure why this is the answer.
In response to the questions about safety and a principals' meeting, there's ALICE:

Changes in school safety are in response to the new ALICE Training and related protocols: 

1. Over 3,500 employees will take e-learning training on ALICE. 

2. In addition to lockdown and medical drills there will also be ALICE drills. 

3. Teachers will have their phones in their possession and on vibrate when school is in session to receive system safety notifications when necessary. 

4. School Resource Officers (SRO) and school administrators will receive training on school law. 

5. The WPS continues to work to enhance security systems in the schools.

It's disturbing to see "e-learning" with ALICE, as one thing that is emphasized over and over on emergency training is muscle memory. Unless you're training someone on typing, you're not getting muscle memory on a computer.

What's going on with the policy handbook?

And happy anniversary to Brown v. the Board of Education, decided this day in 1954.

Last night, the opening section of the policy handbook, which deals with school deisolation, was put back into the handbook for another year. Superintendent Boone said that she would formally request that the Commissioner weigh in on our deisolation policy (for those having trouble reading that, it's "DE-isolation," aka, making sure particular populations aren't isolated. Elsewhere, it'd be called desegregation) ahead of potentially making changes next year.
And I should perhaps point out here that the second half of what I said was "and we have schools that are majority children of color..." It can't always all make it into the paper. And if we'd tried to send the handbook back to subcommittee before last night, we would have been told that there wasn't time due to the need for translation.

The rest of the policy handbook was held for our June 6 meeting. Mayor Petty would like the administration's opinion on changes suggested by members of the committee. Those changes are:

O'Connell:

• to leave in the language on demerits and on tardiness in the section dealing with school discipline. The administration is proposing that they be taken out; demerits, because we don't do demerits, and tardiness, because it's silly to suspend someone for tardiness (miss more school as a punishment for missing school). The section of rules, however, doesn't actually say that those rules require suspension for breaking them; they are listed as disciplinary infractions. 
• O'Connell also is concerned about adding "gender identity" to our non-discrimination policy; there's some disagreement as to where we are with DESE requiring this. 
• Finally, while administration is proposing that "prior grades" be dropped as a consideration from admission to Advanced Placement classes, O'Connell would like to keep it.

Colorio: to make more explicit that parents can opt out of Body Mass Index measurement, by putting the impetus on the school to send something home for parents to sign if they'd like to opt out.

Novick: (I've actually put mine by page, so you can look them up if you like)
 p. 3: Eliminate new proposed line “Permission to attend a magnet school may be rescinded whenever the Quadrant Manager or designee determines that the district school would more likely better support student outcomes than the magnet school.”

Likewise, eliminate the proposed new line:

“Permission to attend a school outside of district lines (School Transfer) may be rescinded whenever the Quadrant Manager or designee determines that the district school would more likely better support student outcomes than the out-of-district  school.”

On both of these, I am concerned that the Quadrant office can determine that a student should be returned to a home school, over parent decision, for "better student outcomes." That's an overreach on the part of administration. School placement should be a parental decision.

p. 18 Add  to the end of paragraph one: “Students whose parents opt them out of state or district standardized assessments will not be academically penalized or face disciplinary action except as prohibited by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

There's a growing movement of parents objecting (for very good reason) to the amount and type of standardized testing to which their children are subjected. I've been repeatedly asked what our policy is on this; we don't have language now, and this would add it.

Add to the second paragraph: “Student data, with or without student identification, will not be posted in any school hallway, classroom, office, or other facility.”

The data charts, in which student identity is always known ("whose rocket ship is that?" will always get an answer)  are a violation of student privacy and are an outrageous use of student data. This should stop.

p. 21 Change first sentence to read “ For concerns related to testing procedures and security or for information on your child’s performance or participation in testing....”

The paragraph which tells you who to contact with questions on your student's performance was originally put in so parents knew who to contact with concerns around testing security; this makes that clear.

p. 34 Eliminate cell phone paragraph

We were to be considering cell phone use this year, but received no proposals from administration.

The administration will be weighing in by Friday letter on these, and the handbook will be voted on June 6.

Two further things to note:

1. These are the policies that direct the Worcester Public Schools. If you have an opinion, PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!
2. The Worcester School Committee--not the administration--is the policy setting body for the Worcester Public Schools. Debate and discussion of policies is part of our job. To limit that, or to limit that only to subcommittee, would be not to do our jobs.

Again, please get in touch.

Policy handbook

Mr. Monfredo reporting out

Worcester School Committee meeting tonight!

Sorry for the late agenda review here...
The Worcester School Committee meets tonight at 7 pm at City Hall. You can find the agenda here.
In addition to the substantive issues coming out of subcommittee regarding the policy manual, we are also:

• recognizing the Boston Globe Scholastic Art and Writing award winners
• getting a short presentation on the Superintendent's Student Advisory Council
• voting (one assumes) to open negotiations with the EAW (for tutors, assistants, IAs, and parent liaisons) and with the MNA (for nurses)
• getting (in addition to Governance) reports out from Accountability and from Finance and Operations.  
• hearing back from Columbus Park on naming their auditorium
• setting dates for a number of recognitions
• accepting a donation from St. John's church for iPads at Union Hill 
• accepting a grant from Johnson & Johnson 
• sending the (now annual) school lunch increase off to F&O
• asking for a report on summer programs
• asking for a report on pedestrian issues (crosswalks, signage) around schools
• considering awarding diplomas to veterans whose military service interrupted their completion of school
• requesting training for our principals for the new regs on suspension
• And (love this one) asking that the City Manager put back the star in front of City Hall where Isaiah Thomas read the Declaration of Independence! (before it was read in Boston...just saying!)

7 pm, City Hall!

Governance and Employee Issues meets Tuesday

Tuesday afternoon at 3:30, the standing committee on Governance and Employee Issues meets in room 410 of the administration building. You can find the agenda here.
There are three items on the agenda:

• an update on the plantings around the parking lot on corner of Irving and Chatham Streets, which has been a topic of concern to the Crown Hill Neighborhood Association. The short version: we've put in for a grant which we should hear about the end of May, and we're also getting assistance from the Worcester Tree Initiative.
• we're updating how we get student reps in line with Mass General Law. They're supposed to be elected by their peers. 
• the policy handbook is up for renewal. Suggested changes here. 

As always, you are most welcome to attend!

Policy handbook goes on

Foley stands and jokes that the noise you hear is the sound of televisions across Worcester being turned off as we continue to hammer away at the policy handbook
"to give greater opportunities for all students"
"bring greater rigor to a greater number of students across the district"
Biancheria: raises that this came out on Friday, posted online on Monday, community concern
asks that 1-6 be read: "if it says 'recommendation' then it's open"
points out that if kids at Claremont and UPCS have taken classes with a C average, then other kids have been allowed in as well, or could be. It's happening with this in the policy handbook.
"We don't make policy by handbook"
Mayor reads the current language
Novick: what if we said "grades may not preclude acceptance of student"
Mullaney comments says that never before have we not had a substantive debate around the policy handbook before.
Does not want to vote on this tonight
Mulqueen suggests leaving the list as is but add "the intent is include and not exclude"
O'Connell asks that it be circulated beforehand
O'Connell comments that in fact this reflects well on the standing committee and all of the committee that people are as well informed as they are and that we're having a conversation as comprehensive
"if the administration needs considered review..." School Committee needs more time
handbook that demonstrates what policies ARE not what policies OUGHT TO BE
Boone says "if we can have this as a work session...in terms of policy development...agree wholeheartedly that policy by handbook is not" what we ought do
"how do we operate, how do we function...look forward to having resolution to this"
Monfredo mentions that it's been an hour since he did his report
There's also an outstanding special ed question around placement for students out of their home school. Boone points out that level of services, 'though not placement, are legally protected through the IEP. Gannon responses that each quadrant has all programs; this gives the administration the option to leave the kid where they are or force the kid into the home quadrant. Mayor says it sounds like we're giving administration the power to move the kid out of his current school. Mulqueen says this is about making decisions within the context of what's going on at a school. The mayor recommends that the conversation go on with parents of special ed students and that we send that off to our special ed counsel as well to be sure we're not getting in the way of IEP.
The mayor is working us to resolution here...we've compromised most of these.