WPS in Brief: February 2024
WPS in Brief: February 2024
Budget shortfall, family and community engagement office, governance by districts, and school safety
Editor’s note: Hello everyone! Bill here. This is Aislinn’s first proper WPS In Brief post on Worcester Sucks. Give her a good welcome! For a little over a year now, Aislinn has been writing these monthly recap posts of all things Worcester Public Schools for a little over a year. Now, she’s doing it for Worcester Sucks! Like Shaun Connolly’s Bad Advice column, I think this is a great addition to the newsletter and I hope you like it :-)
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To all the people who came over here from Aislinn’s list, welcome to Worcester Sucks! Hope you like what you read. Ok, now to Aislinn…
Welcome to the 14th issue of WPS in Brief. This month covers key topics from two school committee meetings and two standing committee meetings.
Let’s get to it:
Significant Budget Gap Projected for the 2024-2025 school year (aka FY25)
Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen presented budget estimates for next year’s budget at the February 1 school committee meeting. Allen outlined that the general fund baseline budget will increase by $10.7 million, but the cost increase to maintain the same level of services is $32.8 million. That means WPS has an estimated gap of $22.1 million. This is a big number. It’s a ‘we gotta stand up and pay attention’ kind of shortfall.
This gap won’t close with some small cuts here and there. It’s not a let's-find-efficiencies kind of gap. Given what we’ve seen in other districts in Massachusetts, it probably means layoffs, bigger class sizes, and a reduction in programs. If you care about the City of Worcester, please, please pay attention to this. WPS is one of the largest employers in the city and 24,000 kids attend the schools. We are going to have some hard conversations on priorities, and in order to engage constructively with each other we need to have a common understanding of how the budget process works.
Why such a big shortfall?
Worcester gets over half of its funding from the state. These funds are called “Chapter 70” and make up a good chunk of what is called the “foundation budget,” or what the state sees as the baseline amount needed to adequately educate students. The funding formula used by the state to decide how much aid a district gets is determined by:
Student enrollment on Oct. 1, 2024.
An inflation factor
If one of these criteria fluctuates greatly, it can have a big impact on the bottom line, and that's what is happening for this budget. WPS student enrollment stayed level–up just 32 students–so no issue there. It’s the low inflation factor of 1.35% that creates a majority of the shortfall. If the inflation factor was at the state-allowed maximum of 4.5%, as it has been the last two years, it would have added about $15 million and the projected budget shortfall would decrease to about $7 million.
There’s another piece we need to add to this: the Student Opportunity Act (SOA), which was passed in Massachusetts in 2019. SOA is a gradual change of that “Chapter 70” formula over six years. The new formula increases the amount of funding based on the real costs of educating low-income students, students with disabilities, English learners, as well as costs for health insurance. Given the student population of WPS, this means increases in the foundation budget for Worcester. For next year’s budget, the SOA funding increases by $16.8 million.
In anticipation of the SOA increase in funding, WPS started offering programs earlier by using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds (also known as the ESSER Funds) to bridge fund, or forward fund*, until we reach year six of full implementation (FY25 is year four of six). This bridge funding has been instrumental in retaining educators, especially during the low enrollments of the pandemic, and proved a smart move when Worcester enrollment increased by 500 students last school year. Unfortunately, the low inflation factor basically eats all the increase in SOA funding. So the things WPS should be able to do with that increase, like adding more special education teacher positions, won’t be possible.
And as a final piece to the foundation budget, the state decides what the City of Worcester must contribute (called “net school spending”) based on local income/property tax wealth. This year it is projected that the City will contribute about 27% of the foundation budget. The state then makes up the difference.
WPS gets funding from other sources too, but the foundation budget is the meat and potatoes. If you want to delve deeper, here’s the preliminary budget presentation. And here are places where you can offer input or ask questions.
*thanks to Josh Boucher of the Worcester Regional Research Bureau for the “forward fund” phrasing
Meeting Moment
Sara Belisea, wraparound coordinator at the Parent Information Center, speaks at the February 15 meeting.
At the February 15 school committee meeting the newly created Family and Community Engagement Office, around for just one year now, presented an overview of the work accomplished so far. There was testimony from people impacted by the work. (For more detail I recommend reading the coverage in The Telegram). The impetus for the office came out of the superintendent’s listening and learning tour, where people expressed the need for a more coordinated effort to engage with families and community partners. In this video, Sara Belisea, a wrap around coordinator (aka wrap) who has been in that role for nine years, speaks about the positive impact of having a coordinated office to support the comprehensive work that wraps do in schools.
FY24 (current year) Projected Budget Deficit Grows
The Finance, Operations and Governance (FOG) standing committee met to review the second quarter facilities report as well as the second quarter budget report. In attendance were Chair Molly McCullough (district A), Jermaine Johnson (district F), and Kathi Roy (district E). Member Dianna Biancheria (district C) was absent.
The budget status report showed a $350,000 projected deficit at the end of the school year, a significant change from the approximately $3,700 deficit projected back in October. According to Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen, the second quarter report “does give a good indication of where you’re going to be towards the end of the year. So we are looking very closely at particularly the negative accounts and where we can offset them with some savings that might be occurring.”
The account with the biggest increase in projected deficit is health insurance. According to the report, an average of 245 more staff enrolled in health insurance than the district budgeted for. Another account with a projected deficit is transportation, due to the increase in contracted transportation needed for special education students with out of city placements and for McKinney Vento transportation for homeless students. The district did purchase 7D vans (those vans you see around town with the school bus signage on it) and are in the process of hiring drivers. This will help mitigate some of the deficit, but it was not specified by how much. The February 5 meeting ended with a vote to transfer $300,000 from Teacher Substitute Salaries to Transportation OT.*
Lasting just 29 minutes, this standing committee meeting presented a distinct contrast from last term's committee, which consistently posed clarifying questions as a means to provide appropriate oversight and increase transparency. Maybe it was an off day for this new committee, but this growing deficit is the biggest second quarter projected deficit I have seen in my few years watching meetings, and I would have liked to see some questions about whether we can expect it to continue to grow. The Budget Office is a capable group of people, I’m not saying they don’t know what they're doing or that we should necessarily be concerned about their work. But what I am saying is that the committee needs to tap into their critical thinking skills so that they—and we the public—can better understand what these budget reports mean and we can have confidence in their budgetary oversight.
*Important to note that when transfers happen from salary accounts it takes into account surplus for vacancies through December. It does not mean those positions will not be filled moving forward.
School Safety and District Governance
The longest deliberation at the February 15 meeting was precipitated by two items about classroom door locks. Members Dianna Biancheria (district C) and Kathi Roy (district E) requested reports on the number of classroom doors without functioning locks, but only for the schools in their specific districts. If you missed it in my agenda preview, this information was reported on by Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen during the Superintendent’s mid-year goal review on December 21. Allen said the district-wide safety audit identified 326 individual classroom and office locksets that are in need of replacement, and the goal, which will be part of the Superintendent’s evaluation, is to have locks installed on all those doors by June 30, 2024. There is money allocated in the current school year budget to complete the work.
During deliberation Member Sue Mailman (at-large) raised the larger question of whether the committee should have items on the agenda that are specific to districts if the an item would apply to all schools, such as school safety. Mailman pointed out that during school committee member training they were told that every member of the school committee should advocate for all students at all schools. I have to agree that requesting a report for data just for particular schools is a bit parochial. Asking for data along district delineations not only doesn’t make any sense in terms of how WPS operates, it also doesn’t make sense in terms of impacting constituents, since many educators and families do not live or work or attend school in the same districts.
As the deliberation continued, Member Biancheria motioned for school committee members to receive a copy of the entire safety audit and discuss it in executive session. There was some confusion about how that would work and Superintendent Monárrez smartly asked a clarifying procedural question to make sure the committee was not setting up a situation where the safety audit could be subject to a public information request. Mayor Joe Petty made it clear that copies of the report would not be issued to anybody, but that they could go over the safety audit during executive session. The motion to discuss the safety audit in executive session passed 7-2 with Mailman and Vanessa Alvarez (district B) opposed.
First Teacher, Learning and Student Success Standing Committee
At the Teaching, Learning and Student Success standing committee Chair Alex Guardiola (district D), Sue Mailman (at-large), and Vanessa Alvarez (district B) were in attendance. Maureen Binienda (at-large) was absent. Some quick highlights from the meeting:
-Director of Early College Program Dan St. Louis provided an update on a grant-funded program to offer a full-school early college model at Claremont Academy, where students taking early college courses went up from 4% in 2021-22 to 31% in 2023-2024.
-Through ARPA funds the district was able to offer scholarships of $775 for driver’s ed classes for 100 WPS students from low income families, with priority to students in vocational programs. The lottery had 138 students apply and 43 students were selected. There will be another lottery for summer and fall classes.
-There is a plan to start a Biomedical Academy Program at Doherty in the 2025-2026 school year.
-WPS and Worcester Public Library have created a task force made of members of both organizations to “partner in a more robust way.”
Recommended Reads
Superintendent outlines strategic plan. (Here is the whole presentation for the “Gathering for Excellence”)
Check out South High’s literary magazine, The Apricot Journal.
A nice story on the Burncoat High Spirit Team, who placed third at nationals.
A story on Holy Cross’ Teacher Education Program and graduates staying to teach in Worcester.
Guest column in the Telegram: Teacher diversity key for success in Worcester public schools
Upcoming Dates
All school committee meetings have virtual options with Spanish translation. See the school committee site for more information.
Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council, February 28, 6pm-7pm at Burncoat High School
Building Our Future: Modernizing Worcester’s Schools, February 29 4-5:30pm, via Zoom
School Committee Meetings are March 7 and 21, 5:30pm at City Hall
Finance, Operations & Governance (FOG), March 4, 4:45pm at Durkin Administration Building
Teaching, Learning and Student Success (TLSS), March 20, 5pm at Durkin Administration Building
Also…
Thanks for all the well wishes for my 40th birthday! And extra thanks to everyone who donated to the Chandler Magnet/La Familia PTO fundraiser for the school library and helped me reach my birthday fundraising goal. If you still want to donate, the PTO needs just $1,500 to get to the $17,000 goal.
As always, email me with feedback and questions. at aislinn.doyle@me.com. See you next month!
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