Happy first day of school! A sincere thanks to all the bus drivers, educators, support staff and people behind the scenes who get our kids to school, teach them, feed them, keep them safe, and get them home at the end of the day. You are the heart of our community and I am grateful to you all.
The Worcester School Committee meets Thursday, September 3, with an executive session at 5 p.m. The public meeting is set to begin at 6 p.m, but actual start time depends on how long executive session takes. See the full agenda. You can watch it via zoom or YouTube Live. Spanish translation is available on zoom.
Here’s what’s on the agenda:
Flags in Schools.
A public petition asks the School Committee to prohibit schools from displaying any flag other than:
The United States flag
The Massachusetts flag
The City of Worcester flag
The POW/MIA flag
The proposed exceptions would allow flags used temporarily for classroom instruction, school sports and spirit flags, and flags representing branches of the U.S. military. The petitioner, Michael Douglas, describes the proposal as a way to create “symbolic uniformity,” reduce division and maintain “educational neutrality.” Although the petition does not name the Pride flag, the practical effect seems fairly clear: It would prohibit schools from displaying Pride flags, along with flags recognizing cultures, identities or causes that are not on the approved list.
The contrast is especially interesting because another item on the same agenda, filed by Molly McCullough (district A), asks the School Committee to establish an annual recognition of June and September as Pride Months and encourage “appropriate recognition and acknowledgment” of Pride as a time for visibility, celebration, education and advocacy.
The petition will likely be referred to the Operations and Governance Committee.
Teachers don’t have a contract.
The committee will enter executive session to discuss contracts for four Educational Association of Worcester bargaining units.
The teachers’ and paraeducators’ contracts expired August 31, meaning the new school year will begin without successor agreements in place. Negotiations reportedly began last October, but union representatives told the School Committee earlier this month that they had not yet received a complete financial proposal and wanted Committee members to become more directly involved. According to state law the school committee is “the legal employer” when it comes to negotiating with employees. It’s not clear if the Mayor has appointed a negotiating subcommittee of the school committee.
Voluntary Transfer and Communicating Policy
The agenda includes a district response to a public petition requesting a review of the district’s voluntary-transfer policy, process and decision-making criteria. The response largely reproduces the voluntary-transfer language in the approved 2026–27 Student Policy Handbook, but the language is different from what the School Committee’s JCA policy currently says, which still contains the version approved on May 21, 2020.
So which one governs? Are families supposed to rely on the student handbook? I have done that before, only to be told later that the handbook contained an outdated policy the district no longer followed. Should families instead rely on the school committee policy manual, even though it apparently is not updated to reflect the rules the committee subsequently approved through the handbook process?
The school committee is also being asked to review several other policies specifically “to ensure that the policy manual and student handbook align.” But the purpose of the handbook should be to accurately communicate policies the School Committee has adopted, not to become a separate and potentially conflicting source of policy information. Families should not have to compare several district documents, search through years of meeting records and guess which version of a policy is actually being enforced. In this case, the confusion is not helping anyone understand how transfer decisions are made or whether the rules are being applied consistently.
Report of the Superintendent this week is about the Opening of Schools. No slide deck posted yet because school just started.
Preschool and literacy grants.
The Committee will also consider several grants, including:
A $521,064 Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative grant supporting partnerships between WPS and private early-education providers. The funding is intended to expand access to high-quality preschool while addressing barriers including cost and access to special education services. WPS staff will continue providing itinerant services to children with IEPs through community preschool partners.
A high-dosage literacy tutoring grant for students performing below or well below benchmark, with first graders prioritized. The final amount will be determined through cost reimbursement, and the funding will pay stipends for tutoring staff working in elementary schools across the district.
A new policy under the PROTECT Act.
The Committee will consider developing a new policy governing interactions with law-enforcement officers in schools. The policy is required following passage of Massachusetts’ PROTECT Act and will likely be referred to Operations and Governance for review.
Have a good week! If you have feedback you can always get in touch: aislinn.doyle@me.com