Agenda Preview: June 18 School Committee Meeting

Budget, Dual Language Plan, Pride Month, Before and After School Programs, AI Opt Out.

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June 18 School Committee Meeting

The next school committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 18 due to the Juneteenth holiday on Thursday. The budget hearing starts at 4 p.m., and the regular meeting starts at 6 p.m. with executive session after the regular meeting, and then open session again if necessary. I’m happy to see the change of executive session at the end, versus at the beginning. This makes the timing of public comment more predictable, and allows people who might want to participate to plan accordingly. See the agenda here. You can watch it via zoom or Youtube Live. Spanish translation is available on zoom. The meeting is at city hall, although with the new “increased security” there, perhaps it’s time for the school committee to consider meeting at the Durkin Administration Building or at one of the schools. Either would be a much more welcoming place for families and the community to come and participate.

Here’s what's on the agenda:

Budget Hearing.

The school committee will start discussing each budget line of the general fund at 4 p.m. Last meeting they got all the way through to the facilities non-salary capital line, and will probably start from administrative salaries and move down. The budget hearing will last about two hours and this meeting is typically when members present motions to move money between accounts (unlike city council, the school committee has the power to do that.) There is no public comment during the budget hearing. If you want to see what’s in the proposed budget read the May Brief.

Charter School Reimbursement.

If you’ve been reading WPS in Brief for a while you know that state funding has a huge impact on the Worcester Public Schools budget, so the district has to watch the state budget process closely. There are currently three versions of the state budget: the governor’s budget, the senate’s budget, and the house of representative’s budget. According to those budgets, the charter school reimbursement (a reimbursement required by state law to relieve the financial burden charter schools put on districts) could have an impact on the WPS budget. According to enrollment projections Worcester should receive $10,352,392 in reimbursement. While the House of Representatives' budget provides full funding for the charter school reimbursement, the Governor’s version of the budget only provides 90 percent funding and the Senate’s version of the budget only provides 78 percent of the funding. According to the district “If the Senate amount becomes the final state budget amount, the Worcester Public Schools might need to reduce $1.9 million from the budget.” That equates to 19 teacher positions. Next steps are for the House and Senate to reconcile the budget differences and to submit a final budget to the Governor. Write to your state senator and tell them to fix this!

Dual Language Plan.

An item to review and approve the WPS Dual Language Program Plan has an extensive backup, and “provides a comprehensive PreK-12 vision for dual language education, emphasizing equity, excellence, and opportunity…this plan guides the implementation and sustainability of high-quality two-way dual language programs across the district.” As you may remember from my road map to improving literacy in Worcester, the key here is high quality. As a dual language graduate and parent, and with all the strong research, I’ve found it an interesting exercise to try to figure out why dual language programs haven’t taken off in Worcester as they have in similar communities. The value added by having a multilingual community is something most other communities in Massachusetts cannot replicate. Worcester’s greatest untapped resource is that so many children in our city speak a language other than English. Imagine if they could also read and write at that same academic level and be fully biliterate? If the city could embrace and prioritize dual language education, it could be an incredibly effective way to propel our city forward.

Before School and After School Programs.

The district has a response to an item by Member Sue Mailman (at-large) asking for a report “with a breakdown of after school and before school budget allocations by segment (elementary, middle, and high school).” You can see the breakdown in the chart below. There’s also a helpful chart showing what elementary schools have before school and after school childcare programs at the schools (paid for by families, not by the district). Four schools have both before school care and after school care: Roosevelt, Tatnuck Magnet, West Tatnuck and Worcester Arts Magnet. Eighteen elementary schools do not have either before or after school care and the rest have one or the other.

Recognizing Pride Month.

Member Molly McCullough (District A) is requesting that the Worcester School Committee “formally recognize both June and September as Pride Months in the City of Worcester and reaffirm its support for the LGBTQIA+ community by highlighting the importance of Pride as a time for visibility, celebration, education, and advocacy. The Worcester School Committee encourages appropriate recognition and acknowledgment.”

Eliminating the option for parents to opt-out of third party online resources.

There is an item to consider “the revision to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) section of the student handbook,” which eliminates the option for parents to opt out of third party online resources that collect data from their kids. I recently requested an opt-out form when I learned that the district is using the AI reading app, Amira Learning, in elementary classrooms, due to my concerns with Amira’s privacy policy. In it, Amira states that it retains recordings of the voices of our children to “improve their AI models.” I am not a big fan of venture capitalist-funded companies retaining my children’s biometric data for their own gain. Needless to say I am against this change and you can read the letter I sent the school committee in opposition here.

Deputy Superintendent and Chief Financial Officer.

Up for approval are Deputy Superintendent and Chief Financial Officer position descriptions and items to appoint Dr. Marie Morse as Deputy Superintendent and Sarah Consalvo as Chief Financial Officer.

Other items.

Here’s some other items on the agenda:

• A list of locations for summer meal distribution.

• A report on the process as to how students are placed in alternative settings.

• Approval of offering an 100 year old World War II veteran a WPS high school diploma.

• An item to review and approve Mastery Based Grading Practices.

• Approval of a contract with the law firm of Murphy, Lamere, and Murphy, P.C., of Braintree, MA on special education matters and approval for a contract with lawyer Sean P. Sweeney, P.C., of Plymouth, MA on school committee matters around contract negotiations and arbitration.

• An item to update the summer meeting calendar. It does not say what the change will be, but the committee only meets once in July and once in August. Maybe they plan to add a meeting to get more work done? 😉 I do hope they don’t plan to eliminate a meeting.

That’s it. Have a great week. If you have feedback you can always get in touch: aislinn.doyle@me.com