Agenda Preview: November 14th School Committee Meeting
Report on elementary language arts, speech pathologist attrition, running out of lunches, and union bargaining units.
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It consists of one monthly recap post and short agenda previews like the one below. A paid subscription helps keep this crucial coverage of the public schools coming when legacy outlets are investing less and less in school coverage.
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Hope you all had a nice October. It was nice for me to take a break from this newsletter, but I’m glad to be back. The school committee meeting schedule is a little off this month due to the rescheduling of the November 7th meeting and Thanksgiving. So there will be two back-to-back meetings in November, on the 14th and the 21st.
Let’s get to the preview:
November 14th School Committee Meeting
The next school committee meeting is scheduled for November 14 with executive session starting at 5 p.m. and the general meeting scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. Actual start time depends on how long the executive session lasts. See the full agenda here. You can no longer watch the meeting on Facebook live, but you can watch it via Zoom or stream it on WEA-TV. Spanish translation is available on Zoom. A reminder that remote participation is a courtesy, and that the meeting will continue even if there are issues with the virtual broadcast. If there’s something you really want to speak on or listen in on, in-person is always the most reliable bet.
And another administrative note that despite the online calendar showing a 6 p.m. start for all school committee meetings, there’s only been two meetings this calendar year that have had scheduled 6 p.m. starts—the other 18 have started earlier. It’s always good practice to assume an earlier start if you’re planning ahead. As the clerk points out on the website, meeting times can change with just 48 hour notice.
Report of the Superintendent.
This meeting’s report is an update on “literacy success” and the new elementary school language arts curriculum, CKLA Amplify. (I’m still working on my literacy project…hoping I will have something for you all to read soon!)
Notification of personnel records.
On every agenda there is an item around personnel, which lists who was hired and who retired/resigned/was not renewed. Over the last month, there have been five speech pathologists who resigned. I’m curious what’s going on there, although I suspect it has to do with high caseload numbers. Among special education teachers, speech pathologists are in high demand across many sectors (healthcare, private practice, residential care) and so they have a job mobility that other special education teachers do not. This attrition could be a bellwether of continued issues in Special Education.
Running out of lunches.
The student advisory committee has an item on the agenda to address schools running out of school lunches—a huge compliment to the new menu—but an issue that needs to be addressed nonetheless. I assume this is happening at the secondary level, because I’d be surprised if elementary students can eat two lunches in the 15 minutes they have allotted to eat… but I could be wrong.
Bargaining units.
Last school committee meeting Member Alex Guardiola (district D), requested a list of all bargaining units in WPS. In this interesting explanation (which he appeared to be reading) he said “as we prepare for next year’s budget it’s essential to acknowledge our duty to the taxpayers of Worcester. Our community entrusts us with their resources and it is our responsibility to ensure that every dollar is spent wisely and effectively.” It seems that Guardiola is implying that unionized WPS employees are not a wise or effective use of money. A reminder that Worcester taxpayers via the City of Worcester only provide 25% of the general operating budget for WPS. The other 75% comes from the state/federal government. Anyway, here’s the list Guardiola requested.
Other bits and bobs.
There is a public petition from Frederick Rushton asking that the district incorporate pickleball into afterschool programming.
Member Jermaine Johnson (district F) has an item to address vaping in schools. Last session he also had an item on vaping, and the district looked into vaping detectors for the bathrooms, but determined they were too expensive and ineffective. Member Kathi Roy (district E) also has an item asking for information on drug and intervention programs provided to students.
Member Maureen Binienda (at-large) has an item requesting a teaching/learning plan for the 14 schools selected by DESE as needing intervention/improvement.
Member Kathi Roy (district E) has a request to provide transportation for secondary students who wish to stay after school, but don’t have transportation home. As it stands currently, the entire after-school transportation budget goes to secondary students. The district did not budget any money for elementary students for late buses home (and elementary students are generally too young to take WRTA on their own).
Have a good week! If you have feedback you can always get in touch: aislinn.doyle@me.com