WPS in Brief: May 2024
Proposed budget overview and some other bits and bobs.
Welcome to the May issue of WPS in Brief. This month covers key topics from the 2024-2025 budget, a school committee meeting, and two standing committee meetings. The format is a little different this month because the proposed budget is the main focus.
I just want to acknowledge the anger and grief a lot of people are feeling around this budget and the positions and programs being cut. Our community fought hard to get more equitable funding through the Student Opportunity Act (SOA) in 2019, and so to be entering into the fourth year of that funding phase-in and to STILL be facing a $22 million deficit is infuriating and heartbreaking. It is frustrating to think about the amount of time and resources that has had to go into the budgeting process for a deficit like this; time that could have been better spent on more constructive projects to move the district forward. All because the state does not have the wherewithal to fix the inflation rate (email your state senator!) But here we are, and this is the budget we have right now.
Before we get to the budget it’s important to have a basic understanding of how funding for Worcester Public Schools works and why we have a deficit. If you haven’t read my quick budget primer I’d recommend it as a starting point. Also, the highlights below build on the overview of the proposed budget cuts that are in my April brief, so give that a read for more context if you haven’t already.
Ok let’s dive in:
The Proposed 2024-2025 Budget
The WPS budget office released the proposed budget book on May 10. As usual they do an award-winning job of clearly laying out where the money comes from, where it is going, and how that connects to the district’s strategic plan. What I write about here is proposed, meaning this is what the district is suggesting as the budget. The next step is for the School Committee to deliberate over two School Committee meetings on June 6 and June 20. Typically the final vote of approval is taken at the second meeting, but the budget needs approval by June 30.
Unlike Worcester City Council, the School Committee has the power to move money between accounts. In past budget meetings the Committee has typically discussed each account line one by one, often asking clarifying questions of the administration. In some cases members must recuse themselves from the discussion on certain accounts due to conflict of interest laws. For example, last year both Jermoh Kamara and Tracy O’Connell Novick recused themselves during particular discussions—Kamara because she is on the board of the WEDF and Novick because she is employed by MASC. For this budget, Maureen Binienda (at-large), who is a WPS retiree and whose daughter is a WPS employee, will have to recuse herself during discussion of a few accounts—the most significant one being the teachers salaries line. After the Committee goes through each account (which usually takes hours over two meetings) members can make motions on moving money between accounts. Now is your chance to voice your thoughts and priorities by emailing school committee members.
Here’s a broad overview of key aspects of the budget, as well as some interesting tidbits.
Increase in costs.
There are a lot of cost increases this year that the district does not have much control over: Inflation for employee benefits (+$4.2 million), retirement assessments (+$1.9 million), tuition for out of district special education students (+$1.6 million), and contractual salary increases for employees (+$24.0 million). These are areas where cuts can’t be made and why an accurate inflation rate in the state funding formula calculation is so important.
Facilities
A bright spot in this budget is facilities. Before the Student Opportunity Act, the state underfunded districts like Worcester that have a large majority of high needs students. So in order to keep teachers in front of students, Worcester had to defer maintenance on buildings for many, many, many, years. That means the majority of our school buildings are in desperate need of updating. One goal in the strategic plan is to improve facilities, and there’s a $1.1 million increase in the ordinary maintenance budget line to back that up. There is also $4.5 million budgeted for capital expenses, which gets used quickly given the current state of our buildings. Still, we’re moving in the right direction and I am happy to see in the budget book that the city manager is committing an additional $1 million each year for the next five years for school building renovation projects. Here’s where the $4.5 million is projected to be spent next year (the whole five year capital project plan can be found on page 148 of the budget book):
Administration.
The district proposes cutting 22 positions in administration, including two cabinet positions. Worcester Public Schools is the second biggest employer in the City (after UMass Memorial). It employs over 5,000 people, educates almost 25,000 students, and runs over 50 buildings. It’s a bigger population than most of the surrounding towns put together, and there’s just no way around the need for administrators to run it. As you can see below, Worcester has one of the lowest administration spending rates in the state. The administration line is actually budgeted $12 million below what the state allocates and it is $1.1 million below the 1.5% self-imposed spending cap on administration dictated by school committee policy.
Teachers.
Caption: estimated elementary class size for the 2024-2025 school year
At the elementary school level, the district is proposing to cut 45 elementary (K-6) classroom teacher positions—just for context a budgeted teacher position is about $100k, which includes salary and benefits. Of the 570 elementary classrooms for next year (down from 604 this year), 65% are projected to be less than 23 students. If you want to understand what class size will look like next year for your school, the best person to ask is the school principal. There are eight schools that did not have teachers cut from the “elementary classroom teachers” allocation line in the school by school “location budget section” of the budget book (starts on page 233). Those are: Flagg Street, Lake View, May Street, Midland, Nelson Place, Thorndyke, Wawecus, and West Tatnuck. Of those eight, five had no positions cut. And just some context that the number of elementary students has declined by 9.6% since 2018.
At the high school level, the district has proposed cutting 41 secondary (7-12) teacher positions, with a 21 student class average. High school parent Tracy O’Connell Novick writes about the impact in her blog:
“At the secondary level, the difficulty is this: I suspect the cuts are being made such that they ‘don't impact course offerings’ meaning that all the courses are still being offered. That, however, has been less of the challenge in Worcester than if the courses are offered enough. If there's only one section of AP Gov, and it meets at the same time as AP Spanish, students have to choose. That's what Worcester high schools look like with fewer teachers.”
Before the Student Opportunity Act (SOA) was passed, Worcester estimated that they had a non-special education teacher gap of about 720 teachers due to underfunding of the district. Since SOA, Worcester has hired 307 teachers, including 59 positions added this school year, which filled 43% of that gap. But with these cuts we are looking at losing all the gains we made from added positions this school year, plus two thirds of the gains from the year before. That is a painful step backward.
Special Education.
The district proposes cutting 70 special education positions. Within that category are:
-15 board-certified behavior analysts (these are being reworked into the quadrant teams, see last month’s post for details on that)
-23 learning disabilities positions
-Four home and hospital positions
-28 school-based positions “due to enrollment shifts.”
At the May 4 school committee meeting Superintendent Monárrez spoke about how the special education department has become siloed and how the expectation of special education educators to do it all can create a need for more staff and is not sustainable. She emphasized the need to shift to a model of shared accountability and outlined her plan for the district to move towards that. It’s worth a listen to the full three minutes if you want to better understand the current context of special education and her vision of where the special education department is going.
According to the budget book there will also be a reallocation of Teachers of Moderate Special Needs positions (TMSN are teachers who work with special education students in general education classrooms), as the caseloads were unequal across the district, with some educators having very large caseloads while others, mostly LD positions, were in the single digits (for more on that proposal see April’s brief). Dr. Monárrez mentioned at the Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council (CPPAC) meeting on May 15 that they found a lot of overlap in special education caseloads. It appears, based on the positions cut above, that the overlap may have been between Learning Disability (LD) teachers/school-based positions and TMSN.
Other Budget Odds & Ends.
Dean of Students & Climate and Culture Specialists. The district would like to add a Dean of Students position to the four largest middle schools and add more culture and climate specialists to the middle and high schools. The Superintendent spoke about the role these positions play in this video:
Proactive Safety, Culture and Climate Funding Measures
Building Substitutes. The proposed budget eliminates the 70 building substitute positions–a full-time person at each school building whose sole job is to substitute for absent teachers. It switches to day-by-day substitute positions, and this is a savings of $2.2 million.
Per-pupil instructional supply allocation. Last year the school committee voted to raise the per pupil supply allocation by $25 up to $100. This proposed budget lowers it back down to $75.
Report Cards. The district is proposing the elimination of snail mailing district interim and end-of quarter report cards which would save $100,000. They would be sent through ParentSquare instead.
Bus Pass System. The proposed budget funds an electronic bus pass system that tracks bus ridership and would help better manage bus loads. It would also notify families when students get on and off the bus. The ID card could also be used as a library card, in school lunch lines, and as a bathroom pass.
New Text Books. The district would like to purchase new world language books for the middle and high schools in Spanish and French.
Chandler Elementary. The proposed budget eliminates the building rental of the YMCA for Chandler Elementary, saving $235,044, due to lower enrollment at the school.
Budget Hearing. There was a public budget hearing on May 20. Read about it in The Telegram here.
That’s the budget highlights. Deliberation by the school committee will be at the June 6 and June 20 meetings. If you have thoughts and priorities you want considered, email school committee members.
Bits and Bobs.
What happened at the May 16 School Committee Meeting and May 20 and May 22 Standing Committee Meetings:
Human Resources. The May 16 meeting’s report of the Superintendent was about human resources. The Worcester Guardian covered it. One data point that really stood out to me is that grievances are down significantly (64%), which demonstrates a shift of culture and also saves the district money.
Cell phone policy. A new cell phone policy was approved by the committee in a 5-3 vote, with Maureen Binienda (at-large), Dianna Biancheria (district C), and Kathi Roy (district E) voting no. Oddly, member Biancheria and member Roy both voted to approve the policy at the April 29 Finance, Operations and Governance (FOG) Standing Committee meeting. During the FOG meeting Biancheria did ask a lot of clarifying questions and made a motion that students get a presentation on the new policy, but Roy, who said during her campaign that there should be no cell phone use in the classroom, did not ask a single question or offer any feedback. None of the three who voted against the policy deliberated before the vote, so it’s not clear what they would have liked to see differently. The language in the new policy is clearer and focuses more on teaching students responsible use of phones, versus an all out ban. For more details, The Telegram writes about it in their coverage of the meeting.
Elementary School Attendance Zone Changes. The number of elementary students has declined by 9.6% since 2018 and is projected to continue to decrease over the next three years. As you might imagine, it’s not declining evenly across all 33 of the district’s elementary schools, and a few schools are seeing enrollment increases. At the May 16 school committee meeting the district explained that they are working on a facilities master plan. That includes ongoing analysis around where housing developments are being built (or rebuilt in the case of Lakeside and Curtis apartments) and of school enrollment trends and boundary zones. When the analysis is completed the administration will present a plan, but the Superintendent said the 2025-2026 school year would be the earliest possible for rezoning of elementary school attendance zones. The last time the zones were changed was in 2004 and 2007 when eight schools were closed. And while we’re talking about rezoning, I have to plug the amazing Worcester Research Bureau’s Understand Your Neighborhood Schools interactive tool. Be sure to check it out.
Parentsquare & New WPS Website: Blackboard and Remind are getting the boot and the district will only use ParentSquare to communicate with parents at the district and the school level. The new WPS website will launch June 3.
That’s it. Have a great end to the school year! And please consider a paid subscription to Worcester Sucks or a tip to support my work.
Thank you!