Board of Ed for October: opening comments, coming to you from Williamsburg

 The Board of Ed is here today: 

The Anne T. Dunphy School in Williamsburg (which is northwest of Northampton; it's next on Route 9, heading west).

As always, with a board that largely lives inside of 128, the meeting is posted to start later (9:30) and is going to start later than that. Many comments about the location as people come in.

The agenda is here. 

I will update as we go here.

in search of Polaris: on last night's Board of Ed meeting

 I'd like to be able to give you some sort of meaningful summary of last night's Board of Ed meeting on the DESE strategic plan (liveblog here), but it wasn't that sort of meeting.

Polaris? This is as close as we're getting around here...

Let's walk through some main points:

Bonus Board of Ed for September

 The agenda (which doesn't tell us much) is here. 
The livestream is here.

Martinez: setting new benchmarks for proficiency, lower to zero doesn't meet (I think)
he is just saying this aloud; it isn't shown or written out as to what he's saying...this is really hard to follow

Special meeting of the Board of Ed on the strategic plan

 There is a special meeting of the Board of Ed tonight at 6 PM. The agenda is here. It is fully remote.

This is the meeting that they scheduled on the fly during last Tuesday's meeting, when some members argued that they did not have sufficient time to discuss the strategic plan needs of the Department in light of the state accountability results. There was a request that materials be updated in light of that, though nothing has appeared online (that doesn't, of course, mean that members don't have new material; they might). 

The Board of Ed meets this week

 And it is MCAS and Accountability release week.

The agenda for the Board of Ed can be found here. The MCAS data will go up on the school and district profiles at 10 AM Tuesday. As a reminder, always check the accountability data, as it's much more complex than just the testing, which will inevitably grab the headlines. 

(Yes, that's why that whole section of the website will be offline starting at 3 tomorrow.)

In addition to the release of MCAS data and accountability status, the Board has some start-of-the-year housekeeping--election of the vice chair, introduction of the new student member, the appointment of subcommittees--plus something on the literacy law implementation, which expanded the Department's authorities on determining what curricula is used, a power that had belonged to school committees in Massachusetts until now. 

There's also an update on DESE's strategic plan. In one of the ongoingly places I find the relationship between the Commissioner and Board confusing, it appears the Commissioner is simply announcing it, not presenting it for approval, despite (I'd assume?) the Board being in charge of setting of goals and overall direction. 

Board of Ed in April: update on educational vision

 Johnston: educational vision and how it relates to early college and literacy launch

Two on Worcester Public Schools budget (this one on FY25)

At Thursday's Worcester School Committee meeting, we'll get our first high-level glimpse of the administration's recommended FY25 budget. That link is to the agenda; the backup for the report of the superintendent is not yet posted. 
Note of course that this means the budget is on the agenda, so if you have something to say on the budget, it could be a good time to do so. There also will be a (mandated) budget hearing before the Committee deliberates; as the preliminary budget calendar has the projected date for that conflicting with a graduation, I'd imagine it will be rescheduled?

Hey, did you see this great write-ups of Superintendent Monárrez talking about the Worcester Public Schools' Strategic Plan?

 They went up earlier this week: 

• Worcester Telegram & Gazette
• MassLive
• Worcester Guardian

You can find the district strategic plan on the website.

A primer to the 2024-25 Worcester School Committee

 as requested

As I regain today what Justice Louis Brandeis referred to "the most important office,"¹ I offer here in that capacity² a primer to the 2024-25 Worcester School Committee. 

This does not pretend to be exhaustive, but to, as the title notes, present some foundational elements on which to build.

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.

Worcester, do read this

 Hey, I'm not going to talk about this, as my turn to talk about it comes next week, but do check out the draft WPS strategic plan. It was discussed at yesterday's Governance meeting (video embedded below) and is before the full committee for discussion next Thursday, with scheduled final vote for our final meeting of the year and term on December 21.

As noted during the meeting, there are some edits already in train, so note that the above is very much not the final document. 

If you have comments, get in touch with the Committee! 

What happened at the first Worcester School Committee meeting of the 2023-24 school year?

On Thursday the 7th, we had our first meeting of the school year. You can find the agenda here; the video is posted over here.

Headlining the night (I'd say) was the Superintendent's opening of school report. While the slides start on page 55 of the agenda, as above, I recommend watching that section if it is of interest; it starts about an hour and 7 minutes into the meeting. Note that the statistics there on staff hiring are related to the introduction of new assistant principals and others that happened earlier in the meeting.

Because I know we've already had our first run-in with exposure this school year in my family, so I assume we're not alone, here's the current COVID protocols: 

Note we also gave our consent to the recommended hiring of Dr. Tammy Murray to the position of Director of Special Education; she was interviewed in public session during the meeting (it starts about 44 minutes in). Please note the way that I have phrased the above: the special education director is not selected by the School Committee in a Massachusetts district; we have advise and consent. We can say no, if warranted, but we are presented with the superintendent's choice (or choices, as has happened in the past) to which we agree or not. Dr. Murray has extensive experience both in and out of the district, comes highly recommended, and I'm really pleased she's agreed to take this position. 

Member Clancey gave a report from the Governance committee, which included an update on the strategic planning process; note that we also approved the updated list of who is on the ad hoc committee for that later in the same meeting. The group met for the first time on Thursday to be oriented, a process that was videoed and will be shared publicly. They'll meet again on the 26 and 27 to do the work on pulling together the strands of what we're moving forward with; that work will report out to Governance on October 3, who will report out to the full committee on October 5.
The work of putting that into outcomes will be done in late October, which will be reported out to Governance on November 28, which will report out to the full committee, alongside a report from administration on the strategic plan, on December 7. It will be presented for our vote at our final meeting of the year (and term) on December 21. 
I'll put that in some easier to follow form!

We did send a number of items to standing committee or administration: vision of a learning, a request to update the cell phone policy, the walk zone, the proposed parent app, and training of wraparound coordinators. 

We also had an interesting discussion of a $300K grant we voted acceptance on for a college program that involves our graduates re-enrolling as WPS students (and thus getting counted in our enrollment). 

We did get an initial list--to which we made some changes which I'll share in another post--of superintendent reports for the year, which is great! 

We also had a chance to honor Ivonne Perez, for her 19 years of work in the district; Belmont Street School for their Safe Routes to School work; and yes, district operated transportation for their state award:

Transportation Department Recognized for Successful Move to In-House Operations

The Worcester School Committee recognized the Transportation Dept. for receiving a state award at Thursday's meeting; WPS is receiving a national award this fall.

Read more: https://t.co/RGoKoLMIhx pic.twitter.com/qXnodB6qpS

— Worcester Schools (@worcesterpublic) September 8, 2023

There'll be another one of these, this time national, in November!  

May Board of Ed: Holyoke

 Soto: started with a listening tour
"students are at the center of everything we do"
just went through a rezoning model: elementary, middle, high schools
a lot of lifting learning profile to support high expectations
strategic planning process focus on five things: early literacy, learning experiences, inclusion, whole child, educator development 

opportunity academies: working on dropout rate

advanced coursework now more closely mirroring demographics of district

continuous improvement cycle: evaluate and analyze; develop and plan; feedback; refine and plan

"now that we finally have the Student Opportunity Act"

challenges: staffing consistency and vacancies; mental health needs for students; more developed multi-tiered system of supports; more students needing out of district placements

"Junto Podemos" Together we can

On the strategic plan process

I had said I'd ensure there was some information here on the strategic plan...first, an image that you can grab if that is useful to you!

We as a Committee--and goals like the strategic plan are under our purview--are following our usual process for effective work and running this through a subcommittee, in this case Governance. The work that a to-be-appointed public task force will do will run through Governance to the full Committee, in terms of lines of reporting.

The Task Force, once it is appointed, with be tasked with taking the themes of the previous strategic plan and the outcomes of Dr. Monárrez's Listening and Learning work, and synthesizing them. Their job will be deciding what we may need to keep from the prior plan, what we don't, and how that aligns with the goals that were expressed through the more recent work. 

As  reminder, the previous strategic plan's themes were:

• Culture of innovation
• Academic excellence
• Welcoming schools
• Investing in educators
•  Technology and operations

And the recent themes are:

• Acquiring and retain talent
• Modernized and safe facilities
• Student behavior and safety
• Communication and ongoing engagement
• Wellness and mental health
• Equitable resources and educational programs

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. 

What happened at the Worcester Public School meeting on Thursday: FY24 here we come!

 The agenda that has everything on it is here. The video of the meeting is here. 

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: 

• Remember that we have used ESSER funding both to hold our budget harmless with regard to enrollment losses two years ago (aka: we didn't lay off elementary teachers during the pandemic) and that we have been frontloading some of our expected Student Opportunity Act increases. Mr. Allen represented those like this (the images are from previous budgets): 
  
  

  So this then needs to get absorbed into the FY24 budget (subject to consideration of continuing, just like everything else): 
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
• Leading to the crucial takeaway on where we are walking into the FY24 budget planning with: 
  
  
  
  

  That essentially is a level service budget (running with projected percentage increases). This led to today's headline on a budget shortfall. 
  Please note: this is early days for us. There are going to be tradeoffs of current spending, of what the administration wants to continue, of what is needed elsewhere. 
  
  
  
• It's crucial to note, not only for our budget (the budget is student enrollment based) but also for all sorts of district planning: our student enrollment is up over 500 students from last year. That's a lot of kids! 
  
  
  
  Do note that the presentation itself goes more deeply into where those increases are (and where the decreases are) by school. The boosts, as seen above, are Head Start and elementary, so those are students that will be with us awhile, and this impacts the whole district. Expect more to come on that. 
  
  
• Worcester is of course (and as intended) one of the big gainers under the Student Opportunity Act. You can see that in Mr. Allen's walk through of how we get to the foundation budget: 
  
  
  
  Do keep in mind that most of that SOA funding increase is due to the third year phase in of increases in the low income rates; Worcester is group 11 of 12 groups, with 72% of our students considered low income. 
  
  
• Mr. Allen proposed for budget priorities for us in our Legislative advocacy:
       1, Inflation: The Student Opportunity Act caps the inflation rate at 4.5%. The actual inflation    rate for this year would be 9.3%. Advocacy for the real rate started back in January with a joint letter from MASC, MASS, AFT-MA, and MTA to the Governor and legislative leadership.
       2. Out-of-district special education tuition: The Operational Services Division issued a 14% tuition increase for tuition for out-of-district special education schools back in the fall; you can find their issued tuitions from last month posted here. As if in response, Governor Healey Friday filed a supplemental budget that includes $75M (more, as her House 1 budget already included $15M) in what's known as extraordinary relief.
  (In my comments I again noted that the MSBA being uncapped from its $800M cap, reinstating the Accelerated Repair program, and getting the state to cover the inflation in current projects from ARPA funds would be a good third one.)
  
  
• Mark your calendars!
  
  

Subcommittee report

Governance reported out, and I cannot tell you how glad I am to report that we have updated the student dress code. In addition to the much more reasonable language around how students can actually dress (about time), it also quite plainly states that students can only be disciplined for dress code infractions if they are violations of the Code of Conduct. In other words, the dress code violation has to rise to the level of the list of clear disciplinary infractions in order to be treated as one. Again, about time!

There was also a report on the strategic plan. If you're interested in this, I'd recommend watching the actual Governance meeting; this section starts about 23 minutes in. This started with Mr. Allen reviewing what had been shared with us earlier, which appeared to be a draft outline for next steps. That includes this: 

Mr. Allen then passed that meeting over to people from Hanover Research, who gave this presentation (I asked for that Friday). They have been hired via WEC, funded by a grant. 
In the Governance meeting, Laura Clancey, chairing the meeting, asked for questions, and asked about funding. 
Let's say Sue Mailman and I had many questions, particularly about the contract with Hanover Research, but also about process. I think that this is not a process the School Committee currently is steering, which isn't how this is supposed to work; I won't say more here as I said plenty at the meeting. 

Other business

We sent a number of items off for reports or work in subcommittees: a requested report on Chromebooks; one on Ch. 74 (vo-tech) programs; a list of courses for possible approval for next year; next year's student handbook (which is revised annually).

We sent the much-reported (some even accurately!) item on revising the homework policy to subcommittee. For informational reasons, let me note that what it actually says is: 

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. 

What happened at Worcester School Committee on January 5?

The agenda of the meeting is here.  I've shared the slides of the Report of the Superintendent here.

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:

• Acquiring and retain talent
• Modernized and safe facilities
• Student behavior and safety
• Communication and ongoing engagement
• Wellness and mental health
• Equitable resources and educational programs

Dr. Monárrez also moved us forward into planning for the next strategic plan, reminding us of the current one, and providing a (proposed?) plan for the next one. This all will go to Governance for oversight there.

She also provided us her proposed goals for the remainder of this school year, on which she'll be evaluated in June. Those are: 

• District Goal: Refine and calibrate district-level systems ensuring safety, efficiency, consistency and coherence to positively impact school systems
• Student Goal: Amplify & strengthen inclusive learning environments for WPS staff, families and scholars
• Professional Goal: Participate in the New Superintendent Induction Program (NSIP) to refine skills and knowledge related to DESE expectations of new superintendents

I believe the only feedback specific to the goals was I suggested that the verb in the student goal needed tweaking to accurately represent what was planned for this school year, as it's more like laying the groundwork needed to "amplify and strengthen." Those are now also in Governance for what editing may be needed; they'll come back to us for approval. 
In every case, the above are linked to indicators within the superintendent's evaluation rubric (remember, this whole process is VERY structured by the state), and under each goal is a list of the evidence we'll be receiving. The question on superintendent evaluation is always "how will we know we got there?" and that's what this is designed to answer.

We had three subcommittees report out--TLSS on ongoing work, Governance on a revised social media policy for staff, and F&O on the joint meeting with Education (which was sidewalks and capital funding). 

There was a lot of money approved at Thursday's meeting: a list of prior fiscal year payments, and a number of donations and grants. As a result, just to pull some: both Burncoat and Tech are having "Credit for Life" type fairs; Tech is getting a lot of updated equipment for the automotive facility; there's more support for both innovation pathways and internships.

Molly McCullough has asked that we look at substitute rates (that's going to F&O); Sue Mailman asked that we look at the time given to the vocational programming side of ch. 74 programs at the comprehensive schools (that's scheduling, and so to administration); Jermoh Kamara asked that we receive an update on mental health services outsourcing (to administration for a report); and I had three items related to facilities and the MSBA which I'm going to give their own post over here. 

We also--and thanks to Molly McCullough for bringing back this tradition--had Burncoat Quadrivium in to sing the National Anthem, and then the Carol of the Bells, as seen in the superintendent's tweet:

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

We next meet on the 19th of January. 

Sharing some mid-December updates from Dr. Monárrez

 Drawn from the weekly School Committee update as well as Thursday's School Committee meeting:

First, as you may have seen on Twitter:

The Worcester Public Schools have been awarded the Meritorious Budget award for the TENTH consecutive year for the district's FY23 budget document. The national award recognizes excellence in budget presentation. 
I could go on at length about how incredibly valuable this is to me as a member of the Worcester School Committee, and maybe at some point I will, but for now, let me put this way: I had my budget book open again this morning, six months after we passed the budget. It's a reference I use all the time, and it makes me better at my job. I'm grateful that this continues to be the standard Worcester strives for.

Second, as was discussed at Thursday's meeting, the Memorandum of Understanding between the Worcester Public Schools and the Worcester Police Department is now signed; you can find it in the backup to the agenda here. Though it is in effect immediately, Dr. Monárrez noted at the meeting that part of what will be happening now is putting together protocols for implementation with district staff.
As it was a year ago yesterday that the school safety task force report was taken up by the Worcester School Committee, I am glad to have this done. I know that it was a great deal of difficult work.

On Thursday's meeting, Dr. Monárrez reported out on the information she's gathered at this point on her listening and learning sessions (that link is to my Dropbox with a color edition of the report). Note that what we're doing at this point is gathering information for her goals as superintendent, on which the School Committee will evaluate her as required by the state, and also the beginnings of the new strategic plan. You can watch that part of the meeting starting here.

I also do want to note that there are a host of things of interest to students and families--dress code, provision of menstrual supplies, transportation, and more--that are work in subcommittees, which get reported out at our meetings. Those reports started Thursday about an hour and twenty minutes in. 

as always, more as I have it!

May Board of Ed: on Boston

Riley: "my assessment very briefly"
then Curtin, then back to Riley

And for another view

This is higher ed, but I think you're find it resonates.

After measuring classrooms and examining our antiquated ventilation systems, our staff (those who haven’t been furloughed) reports that there’s absolutely no way our already scheduled and enrolled classes can safely fit in those spaces. But our university has always valued creative problem-solving, so we have posted NO COVID-19 ALLOWED PAST THIS POINT signs on the doors of every campus building. Plus, to show how seriously we take the situation, the signs have been laminated.

Yes, McSweeney's is satire. We think.