No, we are not applying to district Race to the Top

Should my anonymous postcard sender be reading: no, the Worcester Public Schools are not applying for a district Race to the Top grant.

See the PDF here:

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-district/2013-list-intent-apply.pdf

Parent Portal offline for next few weeks

or why IT people are important and we need more of them!

If you have recently gone over to the WPS Parent Portal to add money to your child's school lunch account, you've discovered that it's offline.

Don't worry! It's temporary, and it's for excellent reasons.

If you aren't a WPS employee, you may never have heard of SAGE, which is the system through which information is managed by the Worcester Public Schools. I can't do it justice*, but suffice to say: it was written in house, it has saved us an enormous amount of money, and because it's ours, we can change it as we need to.
(which is how we could add the Parent Portal)
Like all such things, though, SAGE grew creaky and needed updating. That happened this past summer. We've had people working ridiculously long hours so most of this could get done before we had to get everything back up and running for the start of school.
The debugging part of that is still going on.
At the same time, our school nutrition system also needed updating.
Then, we need to get those two systems to talk to each other to make the online lunch payment bit work.

We have our (understaffed; our new person hasn't come on yet!) IT department working full throttle on this, but it's going to take a few weeks before this all shakes out and the software vendor (for the nutrition program) gets enough systems online to reach critical mass.
The hope is that we're back online for the end of September.

In the meantime, school lunch costs $1.65 this year, so set aside your change!


*my explanation here is probably giving the IT department hives

Let's talk about PARCC field testing

Last week, Commissioner Chester announced (or sent out in his weekly letter, which isn't exactly the same thing) that two-thirds of the schools in the state would be "selected" to field test questions for Pearson this coming spring for their new PARCC test.
Worcester has been notified that some of our schools have been selected to take part.
I have--and I know it isn't just me--a number of questions regarding this:

• What sort of time is this field testing going to take away from our students' education?
• How much staff time will be involved?
• How is it that Pearson, a multi-billion dollar company, needs the (one assumes) free services of our students and staff to field test their questions?
• How is it that the state justifies this use of public staff and student time?

I've put an item on the Worcester School Committee agenda for September 5, asking about the amount of time this involves; I'm going to ask that the report come back for our next meeting on September 19, so that we can hash out exactly what this means for Worcester and what decision we should make.

As always, please weigh in if you have a thought on this issue.

Happy back to school!

A few reminders:

• While most students went back today, our kindergarten and preschool students don't start until next Tuesday (sorry, typo earlier!). All kindergarten students should have a screening appointment with their teachers this week; if your child doesn't have one, please contact your school.
• Among the myriad of things that will be heading home for a parent signature this week is the Student Policy manual. You can find it online here in multiple languages. Signing it means that you've read it, so do give it a read and keep it around!
• Remember that you can pay for school lunches online through the Parent Portal (YIKES! Which is down right now! I'll check it out and get back to you.).The price of school lunch for all students who pay full price is $1.65 this year; reduced price lunch remains 40 cents.
• The WPS bus schedules are here. If you have a difficulty with your child's bus, CALL THE SCHOOL FIRST! There's a decent chance that whatever the issue is, it isn't just your child, and the school can turn it all in together. 
• All schools have websites, 'though they vary WIDELY in how much is done with them. I've already today gotten some "I wish this was on there" type of comments; let me know if you have some to pass along!
• If you text "follow @worcesterpublic" to 40404 on your phone, you will get the district's Twitter feed as text messages (just be sure you know your rate plan). What does this mean? School cancellations and postponements as a text message! 

As always, know that you can get in touch with the School Committee if you get stuck. 

Storywalk Festival on September 21

Back to school reminder

A reminder to all that the Worcester Public School students return on Wednesday (with the exception of kindergarten and preschool students).
Please keep an eye out for students walking, students at bus stops, students getting on and off of buses, and be attentive to school zones.
And yes, that does mean that the school buses will be back on the roads; plan your commute accordingly!

It's teacher gift time on Reddit!

Over on Reddit ("the front page of the internet") it is redditgift time for teachers, and you should go sign up!
If you are a teacher and have some needs in your classroom (and of course you do!), go let them know!
If you are a person who'd like to make a random teacher out there in the universe happy, go sign up to be a gift giver!