Agenda Preview: September 5th School Committee Meeting

Back to School Report, Police Operating Agreement, Credit-Shy Students

Quick editor’s note: This might be the first school committee agenda preview you’re reading from us, as it’s the first one I’m sending to the full Worcester Sucks email list.

Aislinn has written these for months now, but, out of fear of spamming our readers with too many emails, we’ve have kept them on a much smaller “opt-in” email list.

These previews are valuable and succinct pieces of local journalism, and I think more people should know about them! So I want to try an “opt out” model instead: if you don’t want it in your inbox, you can adjust your settings. Under the “notifications” section, you can untoggle it (or any other section you don’t care for) and you won’t get the emails anymore! Voila!

Let me know if you think this is a good/bad change. It’s a difficult balance between “are we sending too many emails?” and “why wouldn’t we put our good work in front of the biggest audience possible?”

Anyway—please consider a paid subscription to Worcester Sucks so we can keep providing crucial local journalism like this.

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Thank you! Now onto Aislinn’s preview. -Bill

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September 5th School Committee Meeting

The next school committee meeting is scheduled for September 5 at 5:30 p.m. Executive session starts at 5 p.m. and the general meeting is 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 watch it via Zoom or Facebook live. Spanish translation is available on Zoom.

Here’s my preview:

Report of the Superintendent.

At most school committee meetings there is a report on a topic, called the Report of the Superintendent, although more often than not the Superintendent isn’t the one actually giving the presentation. (Here’s the topic schedule for the 24-25 school year.) This meeting’s report is on the start of the school year, and based on the backup document, will provide an overview of some organizational processes, an update on safety enhancements, and an update on preliminary student enrollment and BIPOC hiring. 

An enrollment slide from the presentation (above) indicates that initial enrollments are higher than last year, especially at the kindergarten level. That increase had been predicted by the budget office, which uses 80 percent of a given year’s birth rate in Worcester to predict how many kindergartners there will be, see chart below from the FY 2024 budget presentation.

Last year’s entering kindergarten class was 51 students less than projected, but so far this year’s kindergarten class is 22 more than projected. And just a reminder that Worcester receives funding from the state based on how many students are enrolled on October 1 of the previous school year. Being able to accurately predict enrollment helps the district plan strategically for future budgets. 

School Liaison Officer (SLO) MOU replaced with an “Operating Agreement”

In response to an item from Member Dianna Biancheria (district C) to request a report on the status of the SLO program, the administration writes that the SLO MOU has been replaced with an “Operating Agreement” and that “The elements of the operating agreement continue the collaboration between the WPS and WPD, continue communication protocols between the WPS and WPD, and establish a police scholar engagement program (for sixth-grade students).”

Report on Credit-Shy Students Walking at Graduation.

Back at the January 28 school committee meeting the committee passed an item that allowed students to walk with their class at graduation if they were two credits shy of the 24 credits needed to get their diploma. Member Maureen Binienda (at-large) was the lone vote against that policy and she filed for reconsideration of it for the Feb. 1 meeting, which failed. She then requested a report to see how many students were allowed to walk and how many actually completed their credits. 

According to the response from Assistant Superintendent Dr. Marie Morse, there were 23 students allowed to walk at graduation, which is a little over 1% of enrolled 12th graders last year. Fourteen of those students were at North, 1 at the Gerald Creamer Center, 4 at South, 3 at University Park, and 1 at Worcester Tech. Of the 23 who were allowed to walk, just one student from University Park did not complete their credits by July 30.

School Naming, MCAS, Safety, and Recognitions.

• The item to name the alternative school after Dr. Mike O’Neil is back on the agenda. It was initially proposed in 2023 by previous school committee member Laura Clancey.

• The EAW, the educators’ union, has a public petition requesting the committee to pass a resolution to replace the MCAS as a graduation requirement

• Member Maureen Binienda (at-large) has an item requesting “a report on additional funding needed, if any, to provide safety measures, new or additional, in the Worcester Public Library branches located inside Worcester Public Schools buildings.”

• Member Kathi Roy (district E) has an item requesting “that the Administration have Worcester Public Schools provide vehicular and pedestrian safety education to students K-12.

• Member Sue Mailman (at-large) has a request to better schedule recognitions that happen at school committee meetings. From January-April of this year there were 21 recognition requests.

Have a good week! If you have feedback you can always get in touch: aislinn.doyle@me.com