Agenda Preview: March 20 School Committee Meeting
Federal impact on meals funding, special education update
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March 20 School Committee Meeting
The next school committee meeting is scheduled for March 20 with the regular meeting starting at 5:30 p.m., there is no executive session. See the full agenda here. You can watch it via zoom or Youtube Live. Spanish translation is available on zoom.
Report of the Superintendent.
This meeting’s report of the superintendent is on special education program updates. There is no slide deck linked yet, and I will link it here when there is. Last year when the report was on special education, the Superintendent reinforced the need to break down the silo of special education and continue to reinforce that special education is owned by everyone in the district.
Since then there has been some reorganization over the last year in special education services. Hopefully this report will show where progress has been made on that.
School Meal Impacts Due to USDA Cuts.
The Superintendent emails updates to school committee members every Friday, and then posts redacted versions to the WPS website. (There’s a ton of updates in this week’s version, including technical education lottery numbers, school choice students by school, and enrollment projections for the new Burncoat.) But the one update I wanted to highlight is how school meals will be impacted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) cuts. The Superintendent wrote:
“Last week, the USDA was reduced by $1 billion, which included funding for school districts to purchase local food. The allocation for Worcester was $180,000, which would have been used to purchase local food. This funding was supplemental for the Nutrition Program and does not affect the main USDA reimbursement program. The Administration will continue to monitor both federal funds and food costs. Today in the news, there are also reports of proposed changes to community eligibility districts by changing the low income threshold from 25% to 60%. This proposed change should not impact the Worcester Public Schools, as our community eligibility low income enrollment is 75%.”
The entire WPS nutrition department is 100 percent funded by federal funds to the tune of $17 million. There is an item on the agenda from Mayor Petty to discuss these impacts, as well as the “reduction of federal funding around education.”
Other Items:
To accept the annual report of the OPEB Trust Fund Board. OPEB is a fund for health and retirement benefits for city employees.
Member Maureen Binienda (at-large) is requesting a list of funding and MOU’s with community agencies and additional information on the WPS staff mid-year pulse check survey.
Member Kathi Roy (district E) is requesting mid-year Star testing data by grade and school of students who are meeting and not meeting expectations.
That’s it. Have a good week! If you have feedback you can always get in touch: aislinn.doyle@me.com