WPS in Brief: February 2025

Preliminary budget, LGBTQ Safe Schools Resolution, Bits & Bobs

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Welcome to the February edition of WPS in Brief. This month covers key topics from four hours of meetings: one school committee meeting and one subcommittee meeting. There is a school committee meeting on February 27, but I wanted to get the preliminary budget information out as soon as possible. I’ll cover the meeting on the 27th in the March brief.

Let’s get to it:

Preliminary Budget.
It’s budget season, arguably the most important time to be paying attention to WPS governance. Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen gave a presentation at the Feb. 6 school committee meeting outlining the preliminary estimates for the FY26 budget (covers from July 2025-June 2026). Allen outlined that the general fund baseline budget will increase by $38 million, but the cost increase to maintain the same level of services is $31.7 million. That means there’s $6.5 million for the district to work with for new initiatives, which, while better than the $22 million deficit last year, is basically a drop in the bucket for a district of Worcester's size.

Screenshot from the Budget Presentation outlining cost increases.

It can be hard to follow if you’re new to all this lingo (and even if you aren’t) so here’s a breakdown on how the school department budget works. Stay with me, because understanding the budget is one of the best ways to know what is happening in Worcester Public Schools.

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 minimum foundation of what is needed to adequately educate our students. The funding formula used by the state to decide how much aid a district gets is determined by:

1. Student enrollment on Oct. 1, 2024.

2. An inflation factor

The state decides what the City of Worcester must contribute (called “net school spending”) based on local income/property tax wealth, which is about 27 percent of the foundation budget. The state then makes up the difference. The Student Opportunity Act (SOA), which was passed in Massachusetts in 2019, is a gradual change of that formula over six years. The SOA formula increases the amount of funding based on real costs of educating low-income students, students with disabilities, English learners, as well as costs for health insurance. Given Worcester’s student population, this means increases in the foundation budget for Worcester as the SOA phases in (we’re in year five of the six-year phase-in).

Increased enrollment.
The saving grace this year is that WPS student enrollment increased by 428 students to help cover another year of a low inflation factor (just 1.93 percent¹). It is the third year of enrollment increase, after three years of decline during the pandemic years. For context, the total public school enrollment in the state increased by just 973 students. In Worcester there is a 2.5 percent increase in low income students and a 7.8 percent increase in multilingual learners. Specifically, elementary enrollment exceeded projections by 269 students and there was a significant increase at the new Doherty High School, with 100 new students who did not attend WPS last year, the majority coming from private schools. The 9th grade class has 456 students, and is the highest single grade enrollment Doherty has seen since 2005. All these enrollment changes equate to a $12.5 million increase from the state. Keep in mind that Worcester is educating those 428 students right now, but the budget increase won’t come until next year.

Equity Funding.
For the first time the district will be using an equity budget process, which will look at “the allocation and use of resources—people, time, and money—to eliminate resource and opportunity gaps for students.” Every school will get the same baseline, which is shown in this chart:

And from this baseline, the district is asking principals to propose the “lever” that will really propel their school forward. There was a recognition from both Superintendent Monárrez and Allen that they have heard feedback from special education teachers that the 30-to-1 ratio does not take into account the complexity of individual students, and so caseloads can be extremely uneven. It’s something they’re open to looking at.

Member Maureen Binienda (at-large) asked for an explanation of the difference between what the budget process was previously versus this new equity budget process. Allen answered:

“The best way to explain it is the way we’ve done it is we established compliance level class sizes and multilingual learner and special education staffing…That’s primarily where we ended, in my prior 25 years in this role, that’s where we ended budget discussions.” Allen went on, “This is to go beyond just baseline compliance numbers and say, ‘What is the data saying at a school, is there a capacity needed at the school, is there a systems development thing that needs to be worked out at the school. What does the data say in the individual school and what is the resource–money, time or people–that will actually change student achievement, close opportunity gaps for the students at that school.”

Doing the budgeting this way is something principals and parents have been asking for for a while now.

Federal Funding.
The foundation budget is the meat and potatoes of how WPS is funded, but WPS gets funding from other sources too, most notably the federal government which completely funds student nutrition, head start, and entitlement grants to the tune of about $52.3 million each year. That money supports 460 jobs.

If you want to give input, here are the places you can do that (also see above). The public hearing on the budget takes place on May 28.

LGBTQ Safe Schools Resolution.
Member Sue Mailman (at-large) proposed a resolution related to the “protection of LGBTQ+ and trans children and their families in the Worcester Public School system, despite the actions of the current President of the US and inaction of many other leaders.” According to the Greater Worcester Regional Youth Health Survey conducted in 2021, “There are alarmingly high rates of seriously considering suicide, making suicide plans, and attempting suicide among students who are not heterosexual.” Gay, lesbian and bi students in Worcester are four time more likely to consider suicide than their peers, and three times more likely to attempt suicide. These stats are devastating, and show that we should have serious, specific concerns about the safety and wellbeing of LGBTQ students.

In an uncommon show of solidarity, many members (Guardiola, Johnson, Alvarez, and Petty) rose to speak in support of Mailman’s resolution. But that unity did not last long. Member Molly McCullough (district A) rose to amend the resolution, and had copies of a heavily edited version prepared to hand out to the committee. That resolution, which removed all but one mention of LGBTQ and made it more broad to cover all students, was the one that passed 7-2 (Mailman and Vanessa Alvarez voted against).

As a school committee watcher, how it all played out was contentious, and not something I often see on the school committee floor. There was a point of order called and also some misinformation (McCullough said that Mailman’s resolution was not on the agenda when it was initially posted and members did not have much time to read it, which is not true. I confirmed with the clerk that it was posted with the agenda on Jan. 31.) I know my job is to give you the brief version, but after struggling to write about this in a clear and concise way for a few days, I think this is a rare case where the best way to understand all the context is just to watch it for yourself.²

There were dozens of people who spoke at public comment in support of the resolution, many of whom are part of the newly formed LGBTQIA+ parent advisory council. The creation of the advisory came out of an item proposed by previous school committee Member Tracy O’Connell Novick in August of 2023. Here’s what Novick said at the time:

“Of course we filed this item before the support of our LGBTQIA students was again making local headlines.³ This actually came up at the Pride Worcester forum…and it was a parent who said you have these groups for other families of students. We have one for parents who have students with special education needs, one for English learners. Could you have one for parents and family members of LGBTQIA students? And that is a perfectly reasonable question. And it would be a perfectly reasonable question anyway, but given how much stress and strain we know the students are on because of other things that are going on across the country, it seemed to me a timely one.”

The “things that are going on across the country” has only gotten worse in these last 18 months. And so, parents and community members from that school-committee-suggested advisory came to speak about it; to share the discrimination they and their children have faced, and the fear they have. In response, the committee voted to approve a heavily edited resolution that the advisory did not have a chance to comment on. Neither McCullough, nor a single member who voted for the edited resolution, explained what the specific issue was with the original resolution the families asked them to support. When things got heated, this was the closest McCullough got to explaining herself: “This was not intended to diminish the motion put forward by the member Mailman to have a resolution. But it was to make it a more succinct, clear, and well defined statement, that’s saying we have been promoting and maintaining this kind of environment and we are doubling down to provide this kind of safe environment for our students.” Here McCullough is saying both “I thought I could write it better” and “it needed to be more broadly defined” (perhaps that’s what she meant when she said well-defined?) Either way, she did not give an explanation or argument that offered any clarity to the public to understand the why. Unfortunately, in the end I think McCullough’s amended resolution did more harm than good in terms of making LGBTQ staff, students, and families feel a sense of belonging and safety from the school committee.

Updates to the bullying policy.
Towards the end of the meeting, the committee voted on changes to the student handbook, including changes to the bullying policy they referenced in the passing of the Safe Schools Resolution. But the backup did not show the changes to the bullying policy. Typically the district shows changes side by side on the same page, which is much easier to follow. Member Binienda and Member Dianna Biancheria (district C) asked to hold the item so they could understand what changes they were actually voting for. The mayor stressed that the changes were recommended by DESE and that they needed to be approved to be in compliance. The committee then voted to pass them, with Biancheria, Binienda, and Roy (who originally voted for them in the subcommittee) voting no. I asked for a copy of the final version that the committee approved and will post it here when I get it.

Bits and Bobs.

• Enrollment numbers (as of October 1, 2024) by grade and by school show that enrollment continues to fluctuate inconsistently across the city. Rice Square had the largest increase, at 15 percent more students this year than last year.

• Jermaine Johnson was not happy about the administration’s response to his vaping request and he emphasized that the district needs to be doing more.

• Enrollment data about “special programs” shows that regardless of what is offered, students prefer to go to schools closest to where they live.

• There was an item in Teaching, Learning and Student Supports around the competency determination for students who did not pass the MCAS. At the meeting Assistant Superintendent Marie Morse said, “If you are listening and you have a young adult at home that got through high school but didn’t get a diploma because they missed MCAS, they have an opportunity to receive a Worcester Public Schools diploma.” If that’s you or your child, contact the office of teaching and learning at (508) 799-3115

This Time Last Year.
Welcome to a new section of WPS in Brief where we look back at something from this time last year (or the years before) and see where we’re at with it. In the February 2023 brief I wrote about the perpetual hot topic for elementary parents, that kids don’t have enough time to eat lunch:

“Currently, elementary lunch is either 15 or 20 minutes (see schedules for lunch and recess by school). The administration said the goal is for kids to have enough time to eat, and the recommendation is 30 minutes for lunch. But no school currently has 30 minute lunches due to logistics and time on learning constraints. School Committee Member Molly McCullough made a motion that administration work with principals so that every elementary school has at least a 20 minute lunch.”

While most schools have adopted the mandatory 30 minutes of recess time, I do not think 20 minutes for lunch is happening widely. Might be time for teaching and learning to have an update on this? (And also time for the elementary school day to be thirty minutes longer, like it is for the middle and high schools, and elementary schools in most surrounding districts!)

Recommended Reads.

Two years in, Monárrez tackles discipline reform in Worcester Public Schools.

Not everyone on board with Worcester's changed approach to student discipline

Supporting All Students, Including LGBTQ Students

Upcoming Dates.
All school committee meetings have virtual options with Spanish translation. See the school committee site for more information.

• School Committee Meetings are February 27, March 6 and 20, 6 p.m. at City Hall

• Finance, Operations & Governance (FOG), March 3, 5pm at Durkin Administration Building

• Teaching, Learning and Student Success (TLSS), March 13, 5 p.m. at Durkin Administration Building

• Citywide Parent Planning Advisory Council, March 19, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. at Worcester Dual Language Magnet School (formally Chandler Magnet)

See you next month!

1. If the inflation factor was at the state-allowed maximum of 4.5 percent, as it had been in 2023 and 2024, it would have added about $12 million.

2. Or read Bill Shaner’s play-by-play, and what Jesse Collings wrote in the Telegram.

3. Novick is referring to the Catholic Diocese of Worcester announcing a policy that expected students at Diocese schools to “conduct themselves in school in a manner consistent with their biological sex.”