Agenda Preview: October 9 School Committee Meeting
Strategic Plan Update, Voke Admission Policy Revision, MCAS
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October 9 School Committee Meeting
The next school committee meeting is scheduled for October 9. Executive session starts at 5 p.m. and the general meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m., but could be later depending on how long the executive session takes. See the full agenda here. You can watch it via zoom or Youtube Live. Spanish translation is available on zoom.
Executive Session.
Negotiations with a variety of collective bargaining units continue, including contracts for teachers, assistant principals, paraeducators, bus drivers and monitors, to name a few. Three school committee members have immediate relatives working in the district, all of whom coincidentally work at Burncoat High: Maureen Binienda (her daughter Mairecait Binienda is a teacher), Kathleen Roy (her daughter Katie O’Leary is a School Adjustment Counselor) and Molly McCullough (her husband, Donald Huban, is a Climate and Culture Specialist). This means for some of these negotiations/discussions those members must recuse themselves.
Report of the Superintendent.
This meeting’s report is on Vision to Action...Strategic Plan Status Update, which I’m excited to see is going to be presented by fan favorite, Dr. Andrew Lampi. A highlight is the public progress monitoring dashboard.
Career Technical EducationAdmissions Policy.
An updated Worcester Tech/Districtwide Career Technical Education Admission Policy is on the agenda to reflect the changes mandated by the state. The new policy eliminates lottery tiers, but students receive an entry into the lottery for filling out an application (1 entry), if they meet attendance criteria (+1 entry), meet discipline criteria (+1 entry) or have a letter of recommendation (+1 entry). According to the policy “The weight assigned to each lottery number will correspond to the number of entries determined from the criteria listed above. (Example: a student with 4 “entries” will have a weight 4 times that of a student with 1 “entry” and thus a 4 times greater chance of their lottery number being drawn).” Also on the agenda is a Middle School Pathway Exploration Policy as referenced in the CTE Admission policy. Both policies are due to the state by November 1.
MCAS.
Alex Guardiola (district D) is requesting a report detailing the “district’s plan to address student achievement in light of the newly released MCAS results.” Of note is Guardiola’s assumption that MCAS scores are the equivalent to student achievement (what I also like to call “pretending that MCAS makes schools better”). It’s funny to me that those who never had to take the MCAS take its results so seriously. Maybe they don’t have the lived experience like the rest of us to understand that how students perform isn’t a measure of school quality? (If you didn’t have to take the MCAS, lucky you, but you can read sample questions here). Or an even better idea, let’s do a mock MCAS and invite all the school committee members to come take it and then release the data. How else will we know if they are qualified to oversee our schools? (Also curious, now that MCAS isn’t a requirement to graduate, what’s the argument for having our kids take it at all?) Sorry, I’m getting cheeky here, but it frustrates me when folks weaponize data to try to make it mean something it doesn’t. For what it’s worth, the Report of the Superintendent for the next school committee meeting will be on MCAS, which I assume Guardiola knows.
Other Reports.
Some more reports back from administration:
That’s it. Have a good week! If you have feedback you can always get in touch: aislinn.doyle@me.com
"Also curious, now that MCAS isn’t a requirement to graduate, what’s the argument for having our kids take it at all?"
I'm curious about this too. Maybe its tied to funding? Maybe there needs to be a minimum number of kids who take it to get state dollars?
Either way, research strongly indicates that high-stakes standardized testing has a number of negative effects, including negative impact on student mental health and motivation to attend school, as well as massive amounts of instructional time and energy spent preparing for these tests. Not to mention teaching to the test and using state testing as justification for more edtech/screen-based apps to mimic the testing environment.
Aislinn, You’ve spoiled us by setting such a high bar with your coverage of Worcester schools that this MCAS one left me curious for more. For those of us who didn’t grow up taking the MCAS, I’d love to hear a little more about why even administering it might not make sense. Is it that the time and stress outweigh any insight the data gives, or that the results are routinely misused as a proxy for “achievement”?
You’ve earned our trust by telling both sides with wit and clarity; this feels like a great moment for the “explain-it-to-the-rest-of-us” version. And if you ever do host that mock MCAS for School Committee members, I’ll bring snacks and humility. Thanks for keeping us informed and thinking!