Opportunity delayed is...

MassBudget nails it in their analysis of the Governor's budget in a report entitled "Opportunity Delayed" (The common phrase is "opportunity delayed is opportunity denied) regarding the lesser implementation of the low income rate:

...not all of the SOA reforms are consistently or equitably phased in by the Governor’s proposal despite this goal being outlined in the law. One critical area that is not on track — increased support for students from low-income families through Low-Income Rates. In his FY 2021 budget proposal, the Governor only delivers on 4 percent of the progress towards the SOA target. This leaves 96 percent of the change left to be accomplished over the next six years.
According to a preliminary analysis of the funding proposal, slowing the low-income rate progress down to 4 percent from 14 percent, results in a reduction in aid of $73.6 million.4 This reduces the capacity of districts educating children who are economically disadvantaged, to enhance services, expand opportunities, and promote achievement. The Commonwealth would need to increase Chapter 70 aid by $377.1 million (24 percent more than Governor Baker proposed) to phase-in low-income rate increases at an equal pace as the other components (see chart below).
The Governor’s proposal to increase low-income rates 4 percent towards the target in the first year, while leaving an average of 16 percent each year to follow, does not meet the objective of consistent implementation. This is particularly true when the other areas are moving an even 14 percent towards the goals of the SOA.

The Boston Globe covers this report today. The Mass Taxpayers' quote is interesting as they, as I mentioned earlier, agreed with the MassBudget analysis when they presented for the Connecticut Valley superintendents.
And school committees? A good thing to pay attention to and weigh in on.
PS: Worcester? It's on next week's agenda.

Organizing in Worcester? WEJA is looking!

If, post-election, you're seeking ways of moving forward around educational justice in Worcester, the Worcester Educational Justice Alliance is looking for help!

There are openings on the Steering Committee at this time. In addition to the monthly General Assembly meetings, the Steering Committee members are expected to attend an additional monthly planning meeting and be a voting member. The Steering Committee includes:
a. 2 Educators: Educators who work for public schools in Worcester, MA.
b. 2 Parents/Guardians: Parents/Guardians of public school age children in Worcester, MA (Pre-K through 12th grade)
c. 2 Youth: Ideally students who are attending or eligible to attend secondary school in Worcester. This can include recent attendees of Worcester Schools however youth should not be over 20 years of age.
d. 2 Community Members: This can include residents and members of the Worcester Community who are not eligible under the above three categories.

The categories of educators, parents/guardians, and youth currently have openings. WEJA adds: "In our process for selecting new steering members, we will be considering trying to address many forms of diversity (including but not limited to: affiliated schools, race, age, gender, sexuality and more)."

Interested? Email: info@WorcesterEdJustice.org

Some questions I have after last night's Doherty meeting

The Doherty building project page now has last night's presentation posted. Looking through that, and thinking about all of this some more, I have some questions:

• Are we ever going to get the full list of who is on the building committee? In most places, there is a public appointment and a public list. We're this far along, and many of us are still wondering who was appointed. UPDATE: now posted here, not via the city or the schools

• The building will more than double in size, from 170,000 square feet to 420,000 square feet. Some of this is due to required additions, like those for special ed. However, some of it is due to the addition of four Chapter 74 programs proposed for addition to Doherty: 
• Engineering and Technology (expanding to 400 students)
• Marketing, Management, and Finance (200 students)
• Programming and Web Development (200 students)
• Construction Craft Laborer (150 students)
...which isn't required. Thus, if space is a concern, and not subverting needed programming is key, should these programs be added A) at Doherty and B) at all?


• Likewise, the parking is going from 250 parking spaces to 430, of which 180 are for staff and 250 for visitors and students. Is this really that much of a priority? We need 250 spaces for students and visitors?

• Slide 18, designing on-site replacement, has two "new athletic fields" over by Newton Square, on Parks property, on the current site of the basketball court and tennis courts (at left in the below photo).
  
  
  Is that simply designating that there current is a basketball and tennis courts or is there, in fact, a plan to put fields on Pleasant and Highland on opposite ends of the rotary?


• I'm all for embracing pedestrian access--really! and it is good that it is being included and considered, as below in the white dotted lines coming down the bottom towards the far side of Newton Hill--
  
  
  but slide 21 which includes that ignores some of where that foot traffic goes now (specifically, down the hill and straight across Park to Elm Park). There's even a stairway there! If we don't know where people are actually going, that doesn't seem very hopeful on how well we are tracking what is needed.


• Also, if you look at the above, that puts four driveways--two in and two out--on Highland. We don't have a choice on Highland, as that's where the frontage is, but that's a lot of driveways.


• For those who have ever wondered, regarding Beaver Brook and Foley Stadium a) what was floodplain, b) where that culvert went, slide 22 has an answer:
  
    
   Between the end zone and the twenty yard line, it looks like. It's an 84 inch culvert, they said last night, and the soil is urban fill and ash. Not something to mess with.
  Beaver Brook, of course, is city parkland, and both here and on Newton Hill, it is reassuring to see that the City and all have learned the lesson of Worcester Tech around park takings: don't do it.

• Among the "existing Chandler Magnet Site notes" is "Existing 1950's school" but somehow the actual operation of that school, the presence of 500 students being educated in the building, including the only bilingual program in the district, is entirely left off. Both here and in the site evaluations, I am troubled that this somehow didn't figure in. Leaving aside the impact on students of losing a school--something which very much does matter, as has been extensive researched--the district somehow coping with 500 students being thrust back into the rest of the system is not something that can lightly be dismissed. I heard more than one parent ask if, for example, closing Worcester Arts Magnet would be floated so lightly.
  Whatever the neighborhood schools of those students--and it's hard to miss the "go back where they came from" of such a push--most of Worcester's elementary schools are at or near capacity. I don't know of the current enrollment of the school, but in the past, that school drew heavily from the neighborhood of Chandler Elementary, a school so overenrolled that half of it meets at the Y. The district's not having a long term plan for Chandler Elementary's enrollment is itself dismaying; I have a difficult time imagining a reality in which we all blithly accepted that half a school would go elsewhere for the foreseeable future. That it would be worsened in part so as to avoid having Doherty students have to move for a few years is simply unjust.

• Having been part of the conversation around Worcester State's wish to have the same field at Chandler Magnet for parking, I have to ask: has anyone actually had a discussion with Worcester State about those proposed land takings needed to make this proposal work? As someone who lives in the neighborhood, my own experience with Worcester State is they are hanging on to every square inch they have and are looking to acquire more. 




That's what I have right now. More as I have it. 

Countering the Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

Dr. Monique Morris, co-founder of the National Black Women's Justice Institute, speaking on and around her book Pushout

"research to practice gap" that we are in the midst of
"our practice is not yet consistent with our language"
"anti-oppression work in real time"
gaps floating underneath the radar
"no one really wanted to invest in this population that was being criminalized"
"challenge ourselves to think differently about the option that are or are not there for our girls"
re: school to prison pipeline: narrative largely constructive by experiences of boys and men
consider instead the various ways in which populations are coming into contact with criminal justice system
narratives emerging in ethnic media; girls who were arrested or threatened with suspensions or told to leave or use of excessive force
"this was about more than an isolated incident"
still this narrative that this is a crisis only among men and boys, but actually racial disparity is greater among girls
examine what is happening among girls just as had been examining what happens among boys
"is not only happening in one place; the disparity is all over the place"
disparity around arrests of both black and Latina girls
"school to confinement pathways"
more than just if someone is arrested on campus
"education is a critical protective factor against contact with the criminal legal system"
far less likely to be poor, to be abused, to be in contact with criminal legal system
"prevailing consciousness" how behaviors are interpreted and how black girls are engaged as learners and as humans"

schools not recognizing the reasons behind not being there; not recognizing or helping trauma
black girls not having their trauma read as trauma
schools' response is not to engage the girls as in trauma and support them
majority of girls and women engaged with criminal legal system have sexual assault experiences
schools can either contribute to the trauma or stand against it
"it's about the prevailing consciousness"

historical trauma
"have to make mistakes in order to learn" but can't make one mistake due to how it would reflect on her
coping mechanism to act out in response to bullying and lowered expectations around capacity to learn
"truth-telling is one of those tricky things in school"
spend February celebrating black history of speaking up, March of women doing likewise
"when girls do it in real time, we punish them"
"for many of our girls, they're willing to be punished if they can stand in the truth"
schools need to have space for students to do so without punishment
kids being out of school makes them vulnerable to being engaged in the underground systems that make it more likely for them to be in contact with criminal legal system

dress codes and the policing of black girls' bodies
"age compression" : younger black girls being perceived as being more adultlike
"our reading of those bodies"
"prioritization of policing girls' bodies"
"for a certain population, they're allowed to be children; for a certain population, they are not"
"there are other ways of dealing with a six year old's tantrum than calling the police"

perspective: you were either going to fight or you were going to be harmed
power conflated with fear; "hurt people hurt people"
oppression thrives in isolation

Stopping School Pushout has recommendations for policy makers, as does The School Girls Deserve
and there is not training for resource officers around working with black girls

restorative approaches as one, but don't isolate to a single modality
but "are supposed to be voluntary, not mandatory"
circle may not be the place it needs to start; cultural competency in restorative practices
repair relationship with oneself before restoring relationships with others
"that harm might start centuries ago"
Advanced Childhood Experiences informed decision-making tools: not just that you have a high score that matters; what you do with that
to build out a much more robust system of discipline rather than exclusionary systems
increased counseling/ multi-systemic care
amendments to protocols with school resource officers
have to engage in root cause mitigation
"you cannot implement safety; safety is co-constructed"
empathic discipline: responsive to conditions to a child's life, not just the behaviors of the child at that time
not "why did you do this?" but "what's going on with you? are you okay?"
building relationships; leading with love not leading with fear
"we have expectations that we should be fearful"

how we're engaging with young people; what are our expectations of them
prioritizing respect for each other
"get to know how to pronounce someone's name before you regulate how they dress"

trauma-informed and healing-responsive interventions to create safe spaces for all children to learn
impacts on brain and body and capacity to learn

leadership opportunities for girls are critical to the learning landscape
engagement in sports, in club activities

law enforcement officers are not in schools to discipline students; they are there to enforce the law
it is not against the law to talk back, to arrive at school out of dress code,
schools need to stop leaving it to them to intervene in schools that are under schools' jursidiction
also, using grandmothers as hall monitors (no police, just grandmothers)

align our actions with our intentions

Q on the legacy of colonialism
historical trauma is collective unresolved grief; giving space to be reflective
cultural practices that emerged out of survival, and trying to move past that

"not feeling safety inhibits learning...not just physically safe"
until people feel safe in their learning space, they can't learn
"healing to teach"