Agenda Preview: December 16 Finance, Operations & Governance and December 19 School Committee Meetings
College and Career Pathways, Student Advisory, Hands on Learning, Subcommittee Referrals
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Before we get to the preview, if you have kids in WPS please take this literacy outcomes survey from the Worcester Education Collaborative. Took me less than two minutes! Here’s the link.
December 19 School Committee Meeting.
The next school committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 19. The meeting is scheduled to start at 5:30pm; there is no executive session. See the agenda here. You can watch it via zoom or Youtube Live. Spanish translation is available on zoom.
The meeting’s Report of the Superintendent is on College and Career Pathways.
Student Advisory Items.
The school committee student advisory members have four items on the agenda including:
adding recycling bins near school printers
putting wellness rooms in all the high schools
implementing an online bathroom pass
finding more informal ways to get student input and feedback
Grant/Donation Approval.
Up for approval is a $20,000 anonymous donation to Elm Park Community School.
Also up for approval is a $95,000 DESE grant to implement “Acceleration Academies” at Woodland, Elm Park, Burncoat High and North High. Acceleration Academy is “an evidence-based academic intervention with a history of positive academic results for students.”
Hands on Learning.
As requested by Dianna Biancheria (district C) here is a report on hands-on learning by grade in the CKLA/Amplify elementary curriculum.
Changes to the Student Handbook.
The administration is proposing changes to the 2024-2025 student handbook “based on feedback from the DESE Integrated Progress Monitoring and Civil Rights Self Assessment document review.”
Subcommittee Referrals.
There’s an item from Molly McCullough (district A) to review the Head Start program “to ensure oversight, alignment with program goals, and compliance with federal performance standards.” She recommends the item go to the Finance, Operations and Governance subcommittee, where she is the chair. But this one seems to me to be a Teaching, Learning and Student Supports (TLSS) item.
Recently, I’ve been thinking that a review of the two new subcommittees might be warranted, given that we now have one full year of their implementation. The vast majority of items are being referred to FOG, which currently has 30 items on their docket, versus TLSS which only has 12 (Chair of that committee, Alex Guardiola, cancelled the scheduled TLSS meeting this month.) It’s clear that the workload is heavily on FOG, and they are not able to realistically get to everything. Many items on the FOG docket are over a year old. Perhaps moving policies out of FOG could even out the workload, especially since many of the policies are around teaching and learning (such as the pending homework policy, an item which is almost two years old).
December 16 Finance, Operations and Governance (FOG) Standing Committee Meeting.
The next Finance, Operations and Governance meeting is scheduled for today, December 16 at 5 p.m. at the Durkin Administration Building.
The agenda covers items on therapy dogs, turf fields, and an audit of Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures Student Activity for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal year.
There is also a proposed change to school committee policy EFD, outlining the school meal charge policy that will charge students who wish to eat a second (or more) meal at breakfast and/or lunch. The impetus for this change “is based on required language change from a program review by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Office for Food and Nutrition Programs. USDA and DESE regulations allows students one free meal per meal service period, but a charge policy is required for any second or additional meals taken by students.”
That’s it. Have a good week! If you have feedback you can always get in touch: aislinn.doyle@me.com