001good Ean and welcome to the wer school committee um please rise for the pledge allegiance in the national anthem which is going to be sung by NAA aam menua student from 12th grade student from bronold high school and then after the pledge allegiance in the national anthem we're going to have a moment of silence for the North High School freshman Sterling Baptist Jr who trully passed away on April 26 fled States oh s can you see by the dawn what so [Music] bright at theing who brought stripes and bright stars through the [Music] or [Music] the soing [Music] the night that still there oh say does that stars ble [Music] and the thank you NAA please stand for a moment silence please thank you roll call member Alvarez here member banarer here member Banda here
002member Guardiola Vice chair Johnson here member mailman here member Mulla here member Roy mayor penny so we're going to the student arise advisory um but before we do that um we have our student advisory here this is their last meeting tonight for for the year so want to thank you all for your service here on um working with the school committee um hopefully you guys enjoyed yourself um I don't know how many of you guys are seniors two seniors two seniors and the other two Juniors hopefully you guys come back next year year um I think we're in the process of working on um doing our um elections and stuff for next year's um student reps um so for the two seniors you guys want to please stand for us and kind of tell us
003um what your plans are for next year state your name let us know what school and what your plans are hello everyone um my my name is Clarissa Alexis and um I am the representative for North High um I plan to attend UMass Dartmouth where I will be majoring in nursing my name is Ariana costoso I'm the student representative for South High and I plan on going to New England College to major in psychology thank you so we have um essay 4-6 to strategize and Implement methods that will gain more caregiver involvement within the school Community whether through caregiver teacher conferences or family centered events this route will create a stronger sense of support within the students as they'll be able to find a connection between their personal and in school lives while REM removing
004barriers that prevent students from reaching their full potential hi my name is Mary Jane vatar I am the representative for Worcester Tech and the reason we chose to submit this item is because we've all noticed as upper classmen that as the years go on after you've left Elementary School the parent or caregiver involvement it really like decreases and while you're sort of like trying to gain a sense of individualism and like maturity you do kind of need your caregivers to support you and so we say this as we'd like to see like events like annual events like dinners with caregivers in high school and also like informational sessions for parents who may not know a lot about like what's going on in their child's high school or even just caregivers in Guardians um and we
005do think this goes along with like also mental health and how that's the big Focus this year because if the caregivers and the school can come together they can create a consistent support system for students and students won't have to separate their personal lives with their school lives like so consistently they can just be themselves they know they have this specific group of people to support them so that's why we submitted this item thank you and we s that Administration I'll set those that oppose no so audit so we move on to the consent agenda any questions on the consent agenda we approve that collectively roll call or let's do a roll call okay member Alvarez yes member ban carer yes member Banda yes member Guardiola yes member Vice chair Johnson yes member mailman yes
006member Mulla yes member Roy yes mayor Petty all right so pursuant to action taken in executive session it was moved to ratify the memorandum of agreement between the wer school committee and the Massachusetts Nurses Association for and on behalf of the wer School nurses for a period of July 1st 2023 through J June 30th 2026 roll call member Alvarez yes member B Cario yes member Benda yes member Guardiola yes Vice chair Johnson yes member mailman yes member McCulla yes member Roy yes mayor Petty public comment those who have two minutes to speak on item that's on the agenda um please state your name in city of residence please uh Fred Nathan Worcester uh with the pending uh budget Wes I hope the city is able to still have the summer waiting and the summer schools
007uh for the kids I think it would be a big Injustice if somehow money was not found uh for those items uh four uh four-h uh 58 on uh on the police mou with the city schools I don't know quite what they're going to do because there's never any backup information uh whatever it is it should be published and up here I hope that uh you uh keep the police or security for something because there's crazy things going on all over the country and we cannot look Beyond it and that would be uh horrible if they did so thank you anyone else for public comment is there anyone on the screen here no no Casey we we don't have anyone no okay so we'll close that portion so we have a public petition uh CMP
0084-5 Andrew Willis requests to address the committee regarding a agenda support plan that was presented by desie that um he would like to discuss um to consider using um especially in the secondary school level Mr Willis I have about 10 copies I'm not sure if everyone has copies or not at this point um if people need to see this or not I I think we have that in our back okay I just wanted to make sure that people had options to see this um so I'm from burnod high school I teach uh special ed math there I'm also the adviser and have been for about seven years of the gender and sexuality Alliance formerly called the GSA when we actually went through this gender Spectrum um gender support plan this was presented to the school
009district 28 months ago um and I'm not sure where it's gone since then so uh it was sent up to chain of command and last time you heard it was at the lawyers and that was a year ago and I'm not sure who to ask at this point so that's why I wanted to bring it to yall's attention um so the point of a gender support plan is when you have students who have a gender or a gender identity that is different or that is fluid um that's different than what their identity was at Birth the sex assigned at Birth um or if there's a change in the pronouns that they wish to be used uh Some people prefer they them for example as opposed to he him or she her this would give them
010the opportunity to do that as best as they can with a specific structured support plan is right now it's catch as catch can and unfortunately there have been mistakes made in who should know about what uh in the process within the schools at this point so this would give um the students the opportunity to advocate for themselves in the schools best run by a counselor and potentially uh someone who runs the GSA who has more experience with some of these items um it deals with both confidentiality and who should know whether that is the parents or not um because it is not necessary for the parents to know at the secondary level whether or not a student is changing their name we have that opportunity right now within our system um but we don't have
011a way to do it with pronouns and that's been a major issue within our schools uh because you have teachers who want to use the right pronouns but they don't know which ones they're supposed to to be using so there's no specific process for that to happen right now this would allow us to have a meeting to go through it's five pages it's fairly in depth but this would allow us to go through um with that meeting to know who's going to know what when and how also how things would go within the school bathrooms can be an issue so which bathrooms are they going to use um are they going to use the ones that were sex assigned at Birth are they going to use the ones that the gender that they identify with
012or are they only going to use the gender neutral bathrooms um what's going to happen with school sports what would happen if they had to go on a overnight uh trip are they going to stay with people that are the sex assigned at Birth or their current sex and if their gender fluid how does that work so there's a lot of conversations that do need to go on with within this and whether you have just School administrators or teachers and specific teachers or not known as we're going through I don't know how much detail you want me to go through since all of you do have this um but going through and uh looking at specifics of which people should not be told and specifics of what to do if uh there was a preaching
013confidentiality is something that needs to be addressed within both this plan but any plan uh the other thing that needs to be looked at is Siblings um and then any bullying that may come from any gender changes pronoun changes and that sort of thing so this is a comprehensive plan that desie presented at the family and Community engagement Forum something to that effect that you actually sent people to was about two years ago in CBD um and I would have presented this to the members of the district at that point but um none of the members that were there from the district actually went to the lgbtq um portion of the section so um this was presented by desie at that point as an Exemplar so that's why I think this would be a good
014option for us to use again I tried to go through the traditional method and we're at 28 months later this started 30 months before this and we went through and had my students in my GSA go through and vet this before we actually moved it on to make sure there weren't any questions that they had and no questions that they felt uncomfortable with or they felt that they needed to add um including students who are on the state Council for the safe schools program which is the lgbtq um program for uh safe schol schools was in students um who sort of design the programs for that so again I tried to go through the right methods and it sort of got lost somehow so I'm hoping that there's a way for this to be taken
015up either by the district or by the school committee um obviously there's a lot to go through and there's a lot of things to look at so I'm expecting this to have to be taken a fair amount of time to look through this and potentially have our lawyers but I want to get the process rolling again so that we can actually get this going um the people that I originally put this forward for are graduating next month so hopefully we'll have it in place for the next set of students okay thank you appreciate it we send this to tlss those that oppose no so AIT so move on to CP 4-6 I think that would have to go to Administration if I'm not wrong no you want it to go right to I Madam superintendent
016asked for it to go to T all right as long as that's where I just want to make sure it was going appropriately thank you no problem CMP 4-6 public petition filed by Maria camarano a request to consider adding bleaches to the North High School softball good evening I've requested to petition the Wier school public school committee for two sets of bleaches to be located at North High School softball field my granddaughter has played softball uh for North High since coming to live with us three years ago we've attended every home and away game that they have played during that time however we did notice that all the other schools in the city have bleaches for the parents and grandparents and anybody else that comes to the games to sit on while North High has
017none um as a result as I said there's nowhere for them to sit to watch the games as I stated my granddaughter has been playing softball for the school for three years now we saw a decrease in morale over this time D due to the softball team or North High allegedly not having the equipment needed for these girls to train realizing the lack of equipment was a morale deterrent and my husband and I took it upon ourselves to purchase batting Nets pitching Nets heavy balls Whiffle balls buckets of balls we also do donated a substantial amount of money to the softball team three years ago as we saw the lack of equipment was an issue with the girls training or practicing for games with that money at the time the team was able to purchase
018boomba bags which are very expensive and school color jackets for each player our donations have increased their morale every year as they now present as a team and they won their first game since 2018 last night 10 to nine we've considered purchasing two sets of bleaches for the school for a donation this year but unfortunately we cannot afford the cost of the bleaches I've researched the cost of the bleaches on the internet and they can be purchased for approximately $800 a set from um the Internet site the park my family intends to continue supporting the softball team and attending their games despite my granddaughter graduating and being recruited by Anam Maria College softball team we also intend on continuing to donate equipment at North High softball team anywhere that we see a need or benefit
019of equipment I'd respectfully request you consider my petition and thank you very much thank you we send this to um fog um okay those that a pop yeah we usually don't speak on public comments generally uh I I ask then that we suspend the rules on that we do yeah we SP the r today sure thank you I just wanted to say thank you very much not only for attending the games but certainly shows your support throughout the years and I think that's wonderful um hopefully um I am on the for committee and uh look forward to discussing this and hopefully come up with an Avenue that we can um whether we get them this year or next year will be one of the conditions but I certainly look forward to discussing this item and
020thank you and your family for your participation in any type of sports games that are played with our kids thank you okay so we're sitting at the fog those that oppos no so audit so we move on to the report of the superintendent Human Resources making connections thank you through the chair as our human resources team starts to come up front I want to thank Dr coup and her her team in the work that they have been doing this school year as we know Human Resources is the heart of a school district it is the first place our employees come to um come and work for us and it is the last place that they come upon retirement or if they choose to make some kind of career career change and so having a human
021resource department division that recognizes the importance of people is um just instrumental and Paramount I want to really recognize this team they have taken um human resources to a whole new level of professionalism of um teamwork with our schools with our negotiating unions and with our community and so tonight you're going to hear how we went from being um a HR that was described to me um as a decentralized HR to becoming a centralized HR we're not completely there yet but we are finding that that happy place in between um the change and then also the systems Improvement that has taken place as a result of that um tonight you're also going to see images which is what you're seeing on the screen right now of um Educators who have worked for Worcester public schools
022and um will be retiring this school year we continue to find ways to really recognize and honor them and so this is um a way that we're going to do that but we're ahead of ourselves in the slide so we'll we'll get that fixed for you that will be at the very end of the presentation a little bit of technical difficulties we're getting there getting a little Prelude there we go so thank you well we're getting that ready and I'm really really honored to be here tonight we had to make a slight change we did prepare for you a um you know just a slideshow of some of the wonderful Educators that we have in the west public schools that are retiring because a few of them came today and so we want to start
023with them um I'm sure they want to hear this wonderful presentation that we have but I sure I'm sure they also want to go and celebrate so I'm going to start there so I apologize that we had to make a slight change but we thought it was really important okay so I'm going to read each one each name out loud I think it's really important just like at the beginning of school year when we celebrated all of our new hires we want to make sure that we're also honoring our retirees so if you are here tonight and I read your name because I can't look forward and back at the same time if you would just like to come up and wave and if you have a few words of wisdom for us as you
024go into retirement um we would love to hear those too so we have Wagner Yan Kelly Chase Laura moo and as we're going through I want you to pay attention to the years it's amazing to see the dedication we have here in the west Public Schools Nancy Sullivan Margarita bayz who nin he was here we were looking to see if he was maybe he's started celebrating earlier Martha Cole Jovana Bas Kim L I'm gonna look leano I apologize if I'm saying these names incorrectly Jan etre Natalie Marino R rifa Cole Marine Barrett Roberta Mayo Ariana Alon Rick Torres Katherine odori I believe she's here tonight kather any words of wisdom for us words of wisdom um not really but I've enjoyed never thought I'd end my nursing career in the wer Public Schools I'm uh
025a wer public school student myself graduated um and I am celebrating my 50 years as a a nurse um from nursing school this may I graduated from um Wester Memorial Hospital attended Wester State College and also became certified in Occupational Health nursing and school nursing national school nurse so I am pleased to end my last 20 years in the city of Worcester with the beautiful children that we have in here and thank you for having me tonight thank you Heaven lerno Sally Maloney and again we sent this out to all of our retirees and as we get more back we will continue up toate you but a huge congratulations and thank you for sharing your career your time and your livelihood with the Wester Public Schools so thank you again okay so this presentation we
026are calling making connections and we're going to take on a little bit of a journey those of you who know me know I like Journeys so I am really honored to be here tonight with um my team my director team but also members of our team that who are on the ground so I'm just going to take a moment to introduce them I have Dr fanju apostu miss kahill miss abomi and Mr Olen um but I also have the audience me U some members from our team so as they know I like to embarrass them so I have Haley pathaway have Sarah Rivera and I have Cheryl Keller so thank you for being here and always being a part of our team no matter where we go so we appreciate them so very much and
027we also have a a big group of team at home watching us so thank you so first I want to start by reviewing our promise and priority statement to the Wester Public Schools as part as the Strategic plan we stated that Worcester public schools is committed to prioritizing valuing and compensating our staff by creating and ensuring a culture of inclusivity and growth for all that's our promise to the community and to all of you so that being said I want to reiterate that our aims for the next five years are really around three big buckets the first is really recruiting staff that reflect our students very important and when I say that it's more than just what we see reflection of students is everything that students associate with so being very mind mindful of that
028the second big bucket is how do we keep the really great talent that we currently have here what are we doing to make sure that we are retaining the talent that we have here and then lastly we know that we have a wonderful wonderful group of students who currently exist here in the Wester Public Schools how do we provide opportunities for them to continue to grow with wer Public Schools so as we do every single day we continue to modify what we do when things go wrong and we'll just continue so I'm going to allow you please allow me to take you on a journey over the last year and a half of my tenure here in this department I know for many of you it feels like I've been here forever but really it's
029been roughly about um 16 months and in those 16 months we've had a lot of learnings we've really really looked and um really thought about what is our role in The W of public schools the HR really needs to be more than hiring folks um sometimes firing folks and retiring folks we need to do a lot more than that and our job is to really inspire all of the folks that we touch we recognize that we are one of the few departments that have the wonderful opportunity to truly impact every single member that walks through our doors and so we take that um we take that promise very seriously it's very important to us that everything we do impacts everybody and so we we continue to really work on that experience so I when I
030walk probably about 18 months ago when Dr manares and I had a conversation about her vision for what human resources should be and really what she said to me is that she voiced her vision and I heard recently that she got this from somewhere else but that we wanted to move from a system of schools to a cohesive school system and we had an opportunity to do that when we literally we literally meet every single person there's not one person that exists here in the west of public schools that we don't either connect with talk to hire um Inspire work with so so with that shift in mind our goal truly was putting the human back in the word human resources and we remind our team very regularly that everything we do is about the
031experience of the folks that we see um so how do we how do we do that so how do we do that is we realized that there was an opportunity here to really um I feel like the slides are going a little crazy in this moment so it's perfectly okay um we had an opportunity to shift how the department can actually really um actualize this Vision by creating processes and systems so what we did was I spent a lot of time in my first couple of months really looking at what systems existed and what systems we needed to continue to create in order to make the experience much more efficient and effective for all of our staff so again it's so easy for HR as many departments to operate as an isolated department just completing
032the day-to-day task but we had to take a moment to stop and take a step back and think instead of continuing to work on each of these tasks how do we begin to put all those systems in place and that took a little bit of time but it's okay because in that time it gave us time to really reflect about what was working really well and how do we continue to do the things that were working really well and what were the system that we needed to continue to grow in order to continue to make it better because we should always be thinking about how do we get better at the work that we do so we needed to weave all of these connections and we needed them to be as seamless as possible in
033order for us to support all of the other departments and my staff it will regularly tell you that I say two things a lot one is that we should be the Disney World of w Public Schools the happiest place on Earth and secondly that it is our job it is truly our job to make sure that every single person's experience is supported by the things that we do because it matters and so you'll see the logo our logo is actually um changing lives because with every interaction that we have we have an opportunity to make that person decide if they want to stay with us they want to continue with us and how to grow with us or not and so at every juncture that we have we want to make sure that we're taking
034all of those things very importantly so lucky me right I joined the HR team um in the middle of negotiation season and if any of you remember last year I'm going to take you back to last it was a lot of fun I don't think I I don't think I saw my children or my husband um but what I learned from all of that is it gave us a real opportunity to really think about what our priorities are and how do we we show our priorities in the work that we do with the many unions that we work with the many folks that we continue to to work through and really see different people's perspective for me it gave me an example of truly thinking about how do we start to streamline some of the
035work we do across all of the unions what were some really important things that we want to make sure was in there and that we are saying these are really important things for us so as I said as crazy as that sounds it did allow me an opportunity to Think Through what our Focus not just for the moment but for the next couple years could be and that's how we um looked at the contracts that we negotiated we were looking as how does this change people's lives how would this attract people to come join us what are we doing what are we saying because it's more than the words we were saying it was the actions that we're putting behind that into these contracts um you know again we talked about an example is the
036financial agreements things that but more than just the financial pieces but information we put in there such as making sure that all of or many of our contract that we had an opportunity for folks to go back and continue the education we're in the business of education so it's really important for us that we had language that supported folks wanting to further educate to get their education all of those really important things um the other equally important component to negotiating is the opportunity to truly build relationships with all of the the unions that we were negotiating with because we it's not just in those moments of contract negotiations it's the continual work that happens afterwards so how do we build those relationships with all of them and uh it was really important to see value
037and understand each other even when we disagreed even when it was really hard to be in the same room with each other but we came back over and over because we truly believed in the same things which is giving the best to the folks that we serve so respect is key and crucial and I'm proud to say that in this last year we truly have built really strong relationships with all of our unions not just the aw that who is here today but in all of our unions we have really um I think showed over and over again that we want the same things we want the best for the folks again that we serve here because when we give our best they give the best of the kids which is ultimately what we want
038to do so in a minute you will hear from the union president president of the largest Union that we have but I am also very confident to say that if we asked any one of the other bargaining units um to come and speak on our behalf that senent will be the same that we have worked really hard to build cultivate and have mutual respect for the work that we do so I do have a tangible result when we really focus on respect and work um these are the current grievances for the past eight years and you'll see that in the last seven years the total average of grievances per year were was at 32.7 that's just the average this year we are at 12 that's actually a 60 over 63% difference that we've gone down
039um but it's more than just the Grievances that are filed we've had no arbitration and we are on track to have no ulps we're on track to make because we're resolving resolving we are really working together to make sure that we're solving problems together on the ground and so um I can't tell you how amazing it feels um just really knowing that if something comes up that we can have the conversation and we can brainstorm and work together and work through all of these things because we know that when we have to enter into grievances there's time money and effort that we are that we don't have the luxury of right in this moment so we're able to minimize all of these things really because we've put a focus on relationship and building relationship but
040again I've talked a lot right now so I'm going to bring up um Melissa ver the president of the aw to talk a little bit about what this means to her and to the members of the Union okay thank you um thank you Dr coup for allowing me to come up and speak tonight and I I appreciate the invitation so good evening to Vice chair Johnson and super end manaras and the distinguished members of our school committee um I'm here to speak tonight about the collaborative relationship uh that we've established between the eaw and the WPS um administrative team so we did not discuss what we were speaking and and frankly Dr coup has stolen some of my thunder but that is okay I will move on so um I just wanted to say that
041at Dr manaras and I started at the same time in July of 2022 and when we first met one of the things we spoke about is how we wanted to solve problems before they became problems so that was one of the first things that we started to do and there had been standing meetings um with the human resources department and they had not gone on for many many months previously um we did start establishing them late in the fall and then when Dr cou came on um late later fall and early winter they started to become a definite regular um we continue our weekly meetings we're able to discuss issues and we've worked really hard to allow members and District administration at the building level and at program level to learn how to solve problems
042without us so we really encourage people to solve problems at the building level or at at the program level or at the yard level if we're speaking about Transportation so we that's one of the things that we've really focused on and I think we've shown people how to commit to that and really work on things on their own um I think when that doesn't happen is when we start to see things come through um the eaw and that's when you would see a grievance process and so the grievance process works is it goes from the building principal or the program coordinator or what have you and it moves up the chain until it gets to if it gets to it doesn't always to the superintendent and then it would come to school committee if there's
043no resolution before then um what you saw in the slide that's not there now um is that nothing went to arbitration and nothing was an a ulp which for for those of us that don't know what that is it's an unfair Labor practice and so because those things have never we have not had to utilize those essentially that's a cost savings for the district and the eaw because we split the cost of those of the arbitrations and then we each pay our own legal fees so it it has been a a huge savings and that that's a really big deal um I speak financially for the eaw so I think that's huge but the collaboration has been excellent we've been able to to work on things um over a period of time and yes it
044doesn't get solved in one minute and yes we don't always agree and there are definitely tough moments um but we work through them and realize that we're here to do the job um and get that job done for our members but although I am the President of a union that is for educators I went into this role because of students and that is what's most important is to make sure that our students are getting all of their needs met and our members are getting their needs met too so I just wanted to thank you again for for having me speak um I do believe it's been very collaborative we've worked really well together Again difficult times you know uh but one of the things I was going to say okay that Dr C stole my
045thunder uh is that what I hear from Members is that human resources truly is a human experience now and they feel heard and when they call to speak with somebody they are able to speak with somebody and have answers met and it's it's a much more welcoming um feeling for members and that is the sentiment that I'm getting from people so thank you for that thank you Melissa I will promise not to stay get thund next time so I'm going to keep us moving along here one of the things that we are very committed to and I mention one of our first aim is really about making sure I think uh it was probably about a year ago this time around when we talked about what the research says about students who see themselves and
046the the folks that educate them really important the data is very clear about the percentage of H How likely students are to graduate high school to go to college we've recog recognize that that is crucial in the work that we do so one of our goals one of my goals um and the superintendent goal as a result is really making sure that when we hire we are looking for folks who represent our students earlier this uh in the fall I think it was we reported that we had already met our Target but our Target was low we need to do better and so I want to share with you that um just some of the data here so we did hit our Target of 20 2 3.5% which is a 5.5% growth over where we
047were the previous year but more importantly I want to share with you that in because of all the work that we put into being very intentional about hiring uh folks who represent our students again I'm going to frame this by this is self-reported so it's self-reported data but this year when we pull all of the data of all of our new hires we were at 34.9% which I'm so proud to say that not anywhere as good as we want to be but very good compared to where we were and this Ro that we want to be intentional about so a little bit more than a third of the the the people that we are hiring are folks who look like sound like and are reflective of the students that we serve and that is something
048that um we are very excited to report out we actually didn't know those percentages until we pulled them very recently and I think we were just so excited we we felt it but then we had the numbers to actually show it so again being very intentional um in our hiring practices and how we look across the board it all makes makes a difference and so I'm going to turn it to uh one of the directors here iGo to talk a little bit about the intentional work that she and her team has done about making sure this stays on the Forefront of the work that we do so Aiko thank you Dr coup and good evening everyone my name again is aeko in the last past 25 years I work in the public sector and education
049Focus only um from higher education but prior to going to higher education I work in teaching for a while and then I came to highed and then I'm now circling back to my home base which is the K through2 system so with that I just want to let you know that I joined the HR team and I had the privilege to join this wonderful team in August 2023 and a passion of mine has always been is finding new talents helping the youth to develop to their full potential and I was so happy that I have this opportunity here in with the public school staff development is another big key components in the Human Resources so I'm happy to report with my recruiting team efforts this school year that we have over 10,000 individual applicants applying
050wanting desire want to come to work for with the public schools so with that add to our potential of diverse um talents pool that we could attract that many of applicants some of those recruiting efforts resulting in this large number of applicants include attending college fairs job fairs community events working closely with the referrals from the chambers conference and Community agency locally here in Wester as well as leading our Virgil info sessions presenting at colleges classrooms promoting our open positions on social media platforms almost every month and more importantly is that we are PRI prioritizing our time to meet with individual applicants uh with the individual needs some might need um help with the School spring application some will say I need to navigate The Lure process so our recruiting efforts are ongoing and always
051intentionally align with our district strategic goal in this case it will be aligned with the aim one which Narrows the gap between overall student and staff diversifications to ensure that all students will have be represented and also to U reach their full potential down in the future I would like to introduce you to our par educator Ian clich he has a few words for us to share tonight thank you um my name is Ian um I'm a par educator Roosevelt Elementary um I've gotten a lot of help from the HR department and my aspiration to become a teacher and I've had help with terms of Li Insurance stuff and it it's a a really um rewarding experience to have people like that help you at your job to reach your goals and reach your aspirations
052I do enjoy my role but I do have a passion for teaching and I'm happy that they've helped me in this my professional development journey and shown the pathway to accomplish that and thank you very much thank you Ian uh my name is Laura kahill and I'm really happy to be here sharing our work with you uh specifically I want to talk about um how we've been connecting with new staff this year so after 25 years in this District I came on board to human resources in July 2023 on my second day in the role Dr coup asked how we could best support the new staff who would be starting the 2324 school year with us having been a new teacher myself I knew that access to critical information can mitigate some of those common
053anxieties that we can all feel we designed and held eight in-person halfday onboarding sessions in mid August new hires received information and resources around their benefits union membership with um our union members in in um in attendance the digital apps and programs we use logistical details such as how and when when they would receive their paychecks who to contact with various questions and an initial overview of instructional initiatives one of the most impactful parts of the onboarding sessions was our collaboration with it to give new hires access to their WPS accounts and laptops IT staff joined us to take everyone's ID photos distribute their MacBooks and get new teachers connected to their accounts right on the spot this meant for the first time ever all new staff who had been hired to that point had
054access to their District email and digital tools well prior to the first day of school although that may seem like a small logistical item in the grand scheme of everything we do in the past new staff often did not have access to their email the student information system or digital tools sometimes for weeks into the school year which posed a significant access and safety issue new teachers left the sessions with a toolbox of information and several peer connections to get them started many principls reached out to tell us what a positive impact these sessions had on the start of the school year and we'll hear from a principal in a little bit the other way we prepared and supported new teaching staff this year was through the district's annual new teacher orientation this brings all
055newly hired Educators together over the 3-day period prior to to the start of school a lot of us have been through that program and we're pretty familiar with it the purpose is for new Educators to spend time in their schools and classrooms take a deeper dive into instructional practices and work with their Department leadership as had been the model in recent years following the orientation we held an after action review to analyze the feedback we received which thankfully was very honest and very specific that has led us to plan a redesign of the 2425 new teacher orientation and I've asked principales and District Department staff to join us in this restructuring which will honor the feedback we receive from new hires and provide customized paths for new staff to meet their specific needs we're excited
056for the future of new teacher orientation as it will only continue to develop and grow from here the goal of these combined efforts is to retain our highly qualified staff by supporting them with transparent and consistent communication and information It's Not Unusual for us to hear directly from many of those new Educators we met over the summer which means they view us as an accessible resource one of our new teachers Anastasia capelles from Thorndike Road School shared her thoughts on the impact of the onboarding session she attended she said I found the summer onboarding training to be extremely helpful I felt prepared and well-versed in the technology as well as the expectations of an educator in regard to the vision of a Learner in the district being provided a few extra weeks with my device
057allowed me to prepare materials and collaborate with my co- teer before the beginning of the school year Additionally the time to ask any questions and receive one-on-one support from HR and the technology department was extremely helpful so we really need to thank it because they were they could have had roller skates on in those sessions but um we got everybody connected I'll now turn it back over to Dr coup thank you Laura so I hope you've noticed by now we have these beautiful circles and what we're trying to show is the connections that we're making and you know I we sat for a while planning what we wanted to say and there was just no um amount of hours I think that as we started dotting down all the things that we do so this
058is just a little snapshot of the work we do but um I think it might have been your first day when we sat and I said okay Laura we have all these folks coming we have to do something for them and so I you were very gracious saying it was day two but I'm pretty sure it was the first day that you started so um you know the next slide is really this is a heart and soul what we do right we have wonderful high quality Educators so what are we going to do to make sure that they want to continue to choose to be with the wor of public schools so I'm going to argue that the hard and very soul of our school system is our almost 5,000 employees that show up every
059single who show up every single day to serve the 25 almost 25 I think we're like at 24,800 and change but Brian's not here to tell me how off I am um of the students that we serve and so we when I started in this Ro a year and a half ago it was really important to have the opportunity to really hear from the folks on the ground we were hearing lots of different things but we really wanted to know about how they were feeling about what was happening at all of their sites as such we develop what we call a pulch check that would hopefully give voice to as many folks as we could reach because typically we hear we're almost at the opposite end we hear it from the ones who are doing
060who think we're doing a great job and we typically hear from the ones who tell us that we're not doing a great job but the bulk of our folks in the middle and so we needed to find a way to capture the voice which was very very important to us so when I sent this poll check out last to staff last year there were responses from just about a sixth of our total staff so about 733 responses so what we got um we looked at all those responses and as you can see here from quantitative data we noted that overall there was a score of 3.65 out of five in regards to feelings of safety welcoming and support in our buildings we were very excited to to see that this year when we sent the
061same pulse checkout around the same time of year we actually received more than double the responses and it's actually statistically relevant at this point because it's more than a third of our actual staff um but overall same exact questions that we asked we went up to 3.92 out of five so growth we're seeing some growth not just in the actual reporting of the data but in that people are really believing that we're reading these results for the share fact that double of the staff actually replied so we are making progress here but I also want to share the some of the qualitative because we ask quantitative information but we also ask qualitative questions and so some of the themes that came out of these qualitative items were things that were going well with stop collaboration
062administrative support teamwork and Community as well as student engagement and areas for growth including included staff and student relation better communication more time for planning and better compensation this is from last year and I'm so happy to report that we took care of a lot of those through the contract because I this is right before we settle our contract so this was not a surprise for us that these are some of the things that folks on the ground felt that we really need to focus on the great news is that um this year our themes of what's going well included collaboration and morale student support and engagement accessibility and support from Administration and Community involvement things that we have intent been very intention about working on it was great to see that they were showing
063up um in as part of this Poli check so areas that your folks do felt that we need to F focus on was um included better facilities a plan for student support enhanced professional development and a healthy work life balance uh feedback is crucial and Laura Russon this earlier we ask for feedback on everything all of our decisions are made are really based on what is being said on the ground and sometimes you read all of these reports and sometimes they're hard to read because they're hard to swallow you sit there and you're like wait we're doing this work how come no no one's noticing but the truth is that means we haven't done it well enough and you know first glance you're always like G but the truth is feedback is crucial and as
064someone who's read every single one of those words and every single one of those feedback um we learn a lot and so those are you watching I continue to ask you to continue to give us his feedback because we can only get better with you we don't want to get better without you so we will continue to listen to All of the voices as we plan thoughtfully for the future but I want to share a little bit about the the qualitative and quantitative data that we've been collecting um with you but I'm now excited to turn this over to triata to hear more about all the different pieces of work that we are doing to make sure that we are continuing to retain all of our staff thank you Dr coup good evening my name
065is Dr triara frangu APO and I'm eager to share with you how we have been making connections with our current staff our vision is that the human resources department serves as a hub for guidance support for all our employees ranging from clerical nutrition facilities Transportation nursing I'm sure I'm missing some to our instructional staff to increase the annual retention of Staff we focused on the concept of access to benefits to achieve a streamlined customer service experience for all our approach to retaining employees is two prong first staff must have access to accurate information related to their benefits and rights as employees second we are committed to being available for our staff members when they have clarifying questions or need guidance on options as they navigate through challenging life situations such as personal or family illness
066oftentimes support is needed when going through life changes ranging from Parenthood to retirement as these are chapters in life when one's employer can be of support through clear communication and compassionate assistance one example of our commitment to accessibility is our work on ensuring staff having information on leaves of absence this school year we have systematized our procedures to ensure that our employees know their rights under the Family Medical Leave Act and the Massachusetts parental Leave Act and how to request leaves of absence of needed for example we presented information regarding leaves of absence to principles and District leaders to established Clarity across the district we also distributed FMLA paperwork and posters for administrators to display in their buildings and departments I've also collaborate collaborated closely with the eaw to ensure that the language in our
067approval letters of leave to members is clear regarding expectations and recourse to ensure efficient communication and turnaround of requests we have also created an automated help email box that my team and I collectively monitor so there's no more than a two-day turnaround response time again the goal here is customer service when someone is going through a challenging life event they need support promptly in addition to providing clear and supportive communication on leaves of absence we have worked in conjunction with the eaw to provide information on what sick sick leave Bank benefits are and how to access them if eligible sick Bank membership provides a means to obtain additional sick leave days to avoid loss of compensation due to illness or injury that requires a leave of absence from work I'm excited to share that our
068collaboration with the eaw also led to the expansion of sick Bank benefits to include new groups such as therapy assistants ESL tutors and parently aison transportation staff will also be eligible for sick Bank membership next school year to ensure that sick leave Bank days are accessible we have created an electronic application form where receipt of requests is immediate ensuring timely processing our aim to retain staff included the development of a benefits package afforded to our 52- we non-represented staff members multiple non-rep staff raised the lack of clarity around benefits as a concern to us and and we listened for the first time ever we along with departmental directors created a written document outlining consistent non-rep benefits ranging from longevity to vacation time as we continue to ensure our staff has access to high quality support
069a recent development that will streamline the employee experience in the transition of the payroll office from the finance division to become part of Human Resources we have created a comprehensive compensation team who work together to support staff through all of the logistics from onboarding to retirement we are finding that staff are getting more consistent information more quickly than ever before and the potential points of error are minimized due to this restructuring allowing staff to focus on what is most important our students and now we will hear voices from the field I will start with a quote from Julia crumrine a focused instructional technology coach Julia is currently enjoying time with her adorable baby Violet as she is on leave Julia said leading up to my due date I reached out to human resources to see
070clarification regarding my maternity leave I was immediately connected with the HR Le's email address and from there directly to the leaves team a meeting was scheduled where they walked me through the exact process I needed to follow in order to get my leave approved after reading Julia's quote it reminds me of another benefit we have afforded our staff who are becoming parents previously staff were not able to apply this time towards reaching professional teacher status and now I am happy to announce that in working with the eaw we have made this change I will now turn it over to Melinda Martin who is a par educator at norback elementary melind Melinda will speak about her experiences this past year working in collaboration with the eaw and the district together thank you and first of all
071I'd like to take a moment of personal privilege to thank triata for inviting me here tonight um and now I know the is held high for how I perform tonight so please get your ratings in after um but thank you for inviting me it is truly a privileged to be on the same side as admin as any other time I have been up here it has been asking for something or doing something for negotiations two and a half three years ago I would not have been on this side speaking with HR stating how well we have worked together um so thank you for the invite I truly do appreciate being able to speak here um I want to share something that actually I just talked to someone today at the in norback um one of
072our nutrition staff just bought a house and took a couple of days off and I was saying tonight oh I'm going to be speaking on school committee if you can watch watch and she said what are you speak you know what are you speaking about I said I'm speaking with HR and she said oh my goodness I have the greatest experience to tell you about that and I said wow do you mind if I share and she said absolutely please do share so because she works in the kitchen she leaves for her house she leaves her house about 5:00 am she took Friday Monday and Tuesday off came back to work on Wednesday after moving and she sent an email at 500 am to HR questions Wister schools.net she got to work at 5:30 asking
073who do she contact to let them know of her change in address she got to work at 5:30 and had a response that not only said we're going to take care of the HR end we're also going to take care of payroll and there was one other group that she needed to notify So within 30 minutes that's a lot quicker than the two days you guys just gave she had an answer and her address had been changed so to state that it's a more streamlined process and it's a more human process I can definitely attest to that so thank you for that um as a par educator you've seen me up here many times asking for the donation of sick days for people that did not have access to the sick Bank I'm sorry I
074haven't been up here in over a year asking for that because par Educators as part of our contract now have access to that sick bank I am someone on that committee so I meet monthly and it's been great it it's been wonderful because there's a the same number of people from the eaw and from admin so it's equal so for that I I think not only do we have a seat at the table but we have a voice that's being heard and that hasn't happened before as someone that's been in this District only I'm going into my sixth year my voice hasn't been heard on a regular basis except to say can we collect donated sick days and you this for this person that doesn't have enough sick time and is going to be out
075so to be a part of this sick Bank committee and to see the the par Educators the esps that are being helped and not having to do much more than submit paperwork from a doctor um and to get their regular pay on a continuous basis that's been amazing and again I don't think two or three years ago that would have happened because the way to join the sick Bank Paris had to have 40 40 sick days before we're able to join now it's an opt out thanks to the new contract so everyone is in unless you purposely choose to not be a part of that so again giving us a seat at the table and a voice at the table and that's important to us um the other committee I'm on that works closely with
076HR and and Dr abber comi is the job description um our job description is pretty vague and we're doing with the change in our names from IIA to paraeducators um I think adding the Educators have just added a whole lot of more stuff that we're doing and now this is the first year our bilingual par educators are getting a stien for being able to speak another language that's great that was something that we H to get in the contract and we did our par Educators that are working in subpar um classrooms or you know more high-risk classrooms are getting a stien and that's great our next move move with this job description committee is to get more specific job descriptions so that when we're hiring people know what they're getting hired for they're just not
077getting hired as a par educator at norback elementary you're going to have your a a more specific job description that says in a sale inclusive classroom or in a life skills classroom or a step classroom again giving us a voice a seat and helping us be heard so for that I can only say thank you to everyone that is help helped with that thank you for letting me speak tonight um I like being on the same side it's kind of a whole different feeling thank you so much sorry thank you Melinda thank you so much for your kind words and we appreciate your voice um anytime you are welcome to HR to share your concerns or ideas we love to hear more how we can improve and make it better for our staff and our
078students overall so the key factor of the health of any organization Workforce is retention by dedicating to the staff development we will we can help our staff to have the necessary skill to better serve our students which is our Focus here with the public schools and to reach their full potential whether they want to uh go college or they don't want to go College they want to get a job right away that's key for us to also help our students to build those skill sets all School District provides a multitude of ongoing training and professional development throughout the school year so did you know that recently Wester State University offer workshops for educators s such as how to share practices of well-being to students and the science of reading from Theory to practices both workshops
079are free for w the Public School staff to participate additionally clock University summer Institute coming up this summer will be providing free education courses um to our staff and one of those free courses is um the curriculum of knowing mathematics making mathematics fun and accessible to all students I love that I love math too so um if you would like to know more about all this opportunity fun stuff and want to learn more this is what education is all about please contact our HR office and our wonderful team members will help you connect the information or just contact me and I will be happy to share more um in addition to supporting our staff development we also host higher education College fairs at dab twice a year by collaborating with our local colleges and University
080we help our a pair Educators to become our W the public school teachers an example in has given you he inspired to be our next teachers here in W the public school um in addition to that working with the eaw we also really try to promote the par educator tuition reimbursement benefits another benefits that's coming up in the 2425 school year piloted is our unit a tuition reimbursement so more to come on that this later this summer um I don't know where my slide is but I'll keep going um so our our another pathway that we would like to build our teachers is giving them the opportunity to be our future administrators so we have an Educators to administrators program it's been a long standing W the public school with W the state but we
081also want to build and give our Educators the opportunities to know that they can be our next assistant principls or principles instructional coaches Department chairs um we're giving the younger generations to know that th this is a career pathway for you to look at not just to be working as a pair educator and that's could be one entry way but then you can grow and retire with us as well we believe that through all these opportunities for education and career growth at all levels we will retain the talents within our district our District staff development um lure is another part of our district retention in order to help our staff learning about the licenses um process they will learn more how to get what they need in the licenses so as you know during the
082covid years uh Desi has given uh District the opportunity to do emergency licenses for our Educators currently I can share with you we have 184 staff on emergency licenses and 113 on waivers this school year we streamlined the lenser process to better support our Educators and one of those exam init one of the example of this initiative is hosting multiple Q&A s SS to inform our staff of the lure process moreover we continue to support our staff with the check-ins throughout the school year to provide additional lure information and support this include the more importantly the one onone meetings as well as email reminders I would like um my team members SAR Riva HR quality assurance specialist to read you a message from one of our ESL teachers in our district Sarah good evening everybody
083um I'm just gonna quote what Michelle Lee has provided for us tonight um she stated from a journey that began as an English Learner in 1990 to standing as the Sal salutatorian of wer Vocational High School and later graduating with a Bachelor of Computer Science from Wester State University my path has been one of resilience and determination yet my heart has always been drawn to the classroom driven by the desire to support e students like myself today as an ESL teacher at Forest Grove Middle School I am fueled by the same passion that guided me on this journey every day I strive to grow to learn and to become the best educator I can be for my students through countless college courses and with the invaluable support of IO and sah I am working tirelessly
084to achieve my dream of becoming a certified teacher this journey is not just mine it's a testament to the power of Education resilience and unwavering support together we're rewriting The Narrative one student success story at a time thank you Sarah good evening everyone my name is James olon Valdez I joined the team after 10 years in the district as an ESL teacher and edtech Coach during this time I worked closely with really all of our schools and departments on data visualization Automation and AI integration as education becomes increasingly data driven ensuring the Integrity of our Personnel data is more critical than ever before data not only plays a pivotal role in decision-making it also connects teachers and students to schedules curriculum platforms assessments accessibility features and education apps these all depend on accurate backend fields
085to function efficiently even small errors can trigger a Cascade of Downstream issues to grow as a district we need accurate data that supports this scaling as HR professionals we play a large role in maintaining data Integrity this year we've worked closely with all of our schools departments and programs to verify and correct Personnel data we've updated hundreds of accurate fields and have collaborated with the budget office to track and accurately reconcile positions we've made and are continuing to make many Corrections all of which will become increasingly important as we move to our new Citywide human resources and payroll system workday it is crucial that our data migrates as clean as cleanly as possible to ensure seamless integration with Benefits absences recruitment retirement and payroll HR is often thought of as the first and last point
086of contact for employees which it is but one of the things that I've noticed in my time in HR is that we're really there the way the whole way through from payroll to absences longevity to training recruitment to retention our job is transforming raw data into actionable insights for a better workplace the ongoing effort to clean up our data is vital in building a system that runs smoothly and is automated as possible as we embark on our journey let's remember that our dedication to data Integrity isn't about numbers it's about people it's about creating a supportive environment where teachers and staff can focus on students knowing that they have a reliable Foundation to rely on these sentiments are echoed by Alex ve our senior systems analyst who says the following data is a large part
087of the decision- making process for many aspects of the district better quality data gives the district the ability to make better informed decisions as well as our administrative Director of Finance Sarah consalvo who states the newly restructured human resources department Fosters collaboration transparency and efficiency we have been able to develop Communications and strengthen decision-making processes that impact the daily Financial operations of the district I will now turn it over to Dr frangu aposto thank you James we will now transition to how our department is making connections with our Scholars specifically how we are increasing students access to the WPS employment pipeline currently we have 714 staff members who self-reported that they went through the Wester Public School System myself and my colleague Laura included thanks to the opportunities presented to funny thanks to the opportunities
088presented by me to me by UPS Educators I'm seated here before you the following slide provides some of the many opportunities for our students this school year we had the opportunity to speak with Juniors and seniors about the employment opportunities available to them in the Worcester public schools once they graduate high school for example we recruited students at the future Teachers Conference at Worcester State University and met with the Early Childhood students at Worcester Technical High School last summer we piloted a program for the speci special education extended school year program that I will refer to as esy by partner partner partnering with youth Works through the wer Community Action Council 22 high school students across the district had the opportunity to work as youth leaders under the supervision of Miss Gina Kramer at the
089sou high school esy program they acquired hands-on experience working with students who have special needs our esy youth leaders were also provided with a resume and cover letter Workshop shop I'm proud to share that all our student leaders left with a resume and cover letter in hand ready for the workforce most importantly our Scholars had the opportunity to take the paraprofessional exam for free 92% of the students passed the exam this means that these students will be employable by Wester Public Schools as par Educators once they graduate we look forward to continuing this pilot um this coming summer and now we have the distinct honor of hearing directly from South High School Scholars who served as esy youth leaders good evening everyone my name is Sophia Leong I'm a junior at South High community school
090and today we as a group are here to talk about our experiences with the extended summer program with the esy youth we each had the privilege of working as a part of this program and it truly was a changing a life-changing experience for example some of us were split into classes that were heavily academic allowing for all of us to display our academic AC abilities and tutoring skills working with other youth while some of us were also placed in classes that were heavy on activity and social skills building I personally was placed into a classroom like this and I can say that these young people changed my knowledge of how diverse disabilities really could be But continuing this allow owed us all to really engage and get to know the students that we were working
091with hello everyone my name is na Ari I'm a junior at South High and I'll be talking about some of the valueable aspects that I took away from this program um some valuable aspects of the program were the resume building workshop where we learned how to create a strong resume understanding the components necessary to include um this Workshop was really helpful for all of us as we will all be attending college and pursuing profession soon and another great opportunity that we were able to experience was being able to take their par professional exam for free uh the program provided us with study materials and a lot of support and I'm proud to say that almost all of us in the program passed this certification allow allowed us to understand what it really is to be
092an educator and has even led us to thinking about being becoming one in the future hi I'm Natalie Barrett and I'm also a junior at South High um adding on to what Nas said um beyond the professional benefits I would like to talk about my own personal experience um I grew up with a brother who does have special needs and did go to the life skills program with over the summer that we worked with um and being able to see and get that aspect of what other people's um lives were like at home and the kids that we worked with was a very lifechanging experi experience um I got to see and make new connections with these kids and see how much we were able to impact them and how much they impacted us as
093well hi my name is Maria Lewis I'm also a junior at South High community school and I'll be concluding our speech this job was learning experience for all of us we were very grateful for the friendships and connections that we made throughout this program let alone the new skills we picked up while working with the students we collectively as a whole are extremely excited to continue to work with these students this year along with continuing to build memories throughout this program we hope that the city continues to support this program and again thank you for dedicating your time to listen to us and thank you again Tria for having us have a good nightone thank you and it's so exciting to always see what the future of the wor of public schools can be and
094should be and is so thank you again truly the other reason why we continue to do the is crucial work and expand opportunities for all of our Scholars so um the last system I started this presentation by saying that our job is to build systems when I got to this department I you know HR just functioned differently it's what I always say um not better not worse just differently and so all of us here are systems Builder we love data we kind of geek out on it which is great um but the very last system that I really want to sh share with you is a really important work that we're embarking upon in providing supports for our leaders we know that the work starts and ends especially in schools with our leaders and how
095do we support them the work that they do is as a former principal I understand how it feels virtually impossible to on a day-to-day basis tackle and prioritize everything that comes our way so in HR we strive to make sure that we're making a commitment to support them so that they can do the really important work that they do every single day that being said we started looking at what are the processes we have to support them what are the structures and um what we realized is that it's wonderful as a former principal to be able to do whatever I wanted to do in my building but the truth is we are one school system and so how do we start to collectively become more consistent in our work so we've streamlined everything from how
096do we hire where are the expectations what do we look look for where are the questions where are the systems to um how do you investigate when something happens we've been modeling and working with all of our leaders to make sure that they don't have to create and recreate systems when essentially we can help provide them for them so everyone does things a little bit differently and that's okay but there has to be a core to the work that we do and so we started really building that out to make sure that there's fewer and fewer inconsistencies in our approach very important so here I just want to highlight some of this work um earli this year we had an opportunity as triot mentioned earlier we had an opportunity with all the principles to go
097over a variety of leaves explain the process both from a legal and bur bargaining agreement perspective we review Systems we're having difficult conversations I mention our hiring practices as well as how do we expect um how do we support all of our staff to full licenser we have a lot of information but not everyone knew how to access information use it and so we wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of all those things we've worked really hard with our schools to streamline our investigation mediation processes um by not only modeling by going to schools and actually doing it and modeling it but also putting together documentations and this is how we expect to see things in order to in order to support but also mitigate some of the financial aspects that come up
098when we're not doing the things that we need to do and so we really took that task on um additionally we continue to work with every school and Department we just came off of a three week almost um time period where we met with every single school to go over their Staffing and in those Staffing and this was a really difficult year for this but we all sat in there and we all worked with principles to really say how do we do this better how do we support you what are things that you want want to see and then how do we backwards map from there um we continue to reach out to all of our principls to work alongside and all the subcommittee work that we're embarking upon with thew and other unions but
099this is simply the start of our work what I anticipate even further is having a more robust Leadership Academy so that we continue to streamline the work that we do but more importantly opportunities to share with each other and to learn from each other because the work is too hard to do alone and so I can go on and on as you all know but I will stop there and we do have a principal here tonight to talk a little bit about the impact the work that HR has t has had on his work as a principal good evening everybody my name is Fodor duam the principal at Clark Street School uh and the reason why you said that she's going to stop because she could go on and on is because she knew I
100was going to pick up where she left off uh so um I I'm here to speak on from a principal standpoint on I think some of the improvements that we've felt on our side and uh when it comes down to it uh usually you know myself and most of my colleagues will call HR when there's an issue to be resolved if we want Clarity on a specific policy uh data that would help us make better decisions or uh very timely uh things like like hiring or posting something and uh so uh overall you know things that make a difference uh you know they all go down to the exact same thing and uh you know it sounds like the HR department uh is summarizing under the theme of making connections uh but on my end
101I look at it like three different things or three buckets one is coherence responsiveness uh and efficiency uh because time is the most valuable thing that we have as principles and uh that we have with our Educators so uh along those lines uh when it comes to coherence um it's very much about not uh what one person knows or um or how one goes about solving those problems I've been fortunate enough to be in the district now for seven years as a principal and and without any of the improvements I feel like I had the people that I would call for different things and uh that was very helpful to me because I would be able to find Solutions uh and get answers in a relatively quick way uh the changes that uh I've noticed
102in this past year have been more systemic in nature like Dr Q said uh uh you um and uh the most knowledable one being that of uh when it comes to the hiring process uh where if we're Educators in the Worcester public schools uh and we love our job there's no way of doing that unless you're there for the kids and if you're there for the kids you're there for the teachers and staff that make that job happen so uh as a principal I want to make sure that I hire the best people I can possibly hire so they can make the best colleagues they can possibly make to support the students and and purs and and support their learning in the best way possible so you can't do that unless um you have some
103uh some systems in place that allow you to hire early on hire the best people and uh allow you to remove barriers that don't make those things that I just mentioned possible uh so um and I've felt that as a principle the urgency that we feel at the building level of getting this done uh has been met by the EHR team um appreciated all the uh the phone calls that everybody's picked up shout out to the people on the back here and everyone at home uh and uh because it's it's it's truly that um so the clarity of the positions of the various members of the HR team have made it easy for not just myself but even someone that have may have joined the district recently as a principal uh to get answers in
104in in a timely manner um one thing that has specifically made a difference also has been um providing the new hires with laptops and access account so that they would have those day one I know in the past it's always been a a struggle from a from a school leadership standpoint because uh teachers show up on that orientation week and we're trying to get them acclimated to all the structures and the systems that we have in place and uh postco all those are you know Google driven you have to go to the drive you have to go to the clever platform and you can't get those things done and Coach people on how to access those on how to use those unless they already have access to it and you know educators are very resilient
105they have a tendency to uh kind of like adjust on the spot and uh I feel like every couple of years the the saying of uh learning how to you know building building an airplane while flying it too becomes something that we repeat more more than usual and uh you know while that's something that we absolutely do uh it feels nice when we have an airplane and we can focus on flying it effectively so uh I feel like that small change uh made it possible to focus a little more on the on the fly in the airplane for us than more on the building of it so that was greatly appreciated um something else I want to highlight is that you know HR is the first place or the first experience that any new hire
106has within the Worcester public schools it is true that the school-based team does the interviews they come to the school but uh um whatever feelings a new hire experiences when they go through the hiring process either get validated or they experience a setback once they have that first interaction with HR and uh we can even either leave people with a feeling of uh just have joined a district that is competent values Educators values their time and truthfully cares about them because we at the at the beyond all we care about the kids so that's why we really care about them or a feeling of like ah we're kind of like trying to figure things out and everybody has good intentions but the systems that are highlighted earlier and I think some of the things that
107I'm hearing here from the HR team allow us as a district to hire the best pie people we possibly can make sure those people do feel the privilege that is of becoming a member of the Worcester public schools team um at the orientation stage at the onboarding stage and every step in between and uh so um a lot of it has to do with responsiveness coherence and obviously efficiency because it's whatever time we have available but uh being proactive about getting the desirable outcome is something that um I value and I see where we're going uh as far as the HR office is concerned um I'm very fortunate and I want to thank the HR team and Dr Q leading it uh I've been part of a subcommittee in trying to think uh thought about
108how we create how do we make sure that these new hires experience an effective orientation an effective introduction to becoming a member of the Worcester public schools uh and uh and we were we're kind of using the same lens that we use in the in the classroom at the school level with backward design things what is it that we want as desirable outcomes and what do we put in place so that we get those results uh in the end um what's exciting about it is that uh we're not trying to get things done we're trying trying to get things done in a systemic way in a way that's coherent in a way that allows and it makes it very clear that we're responsive to our Educators needs uh and we're efficient with the time that
109we use which allows us to be more effective with our job so for that as a principle I'd like to thank you and the greater uh Administration as a whole thanks thank you principal duai um as Dr C Illustrated at the beginning of our presentation it would be all too easy for a re a human resources department to exist in isolation and to Res to limit our work to just reacting to the many needs as they arise um that's something that's always going to be necessary and something that we do every day but we strive to become consistently proactive uh by providing our colleagues with the support resources and programming they deserve I can't tell you how many times a day we use the word proactive um and the connections we've made so far give
110us the foundation to do just that so I'm going to turn it back over to Dr cou to close us out so thank you for being with us for this um long long explanation of of the work that we are embarking on and we say this a lot I want to thank you sincerely for having this opportunity to leave this as you can see phenomenal department but our work is only as good as the people that we serve and how we best do that is by making sure we have really strong proactive system um to ensure that our work doesn't get derail if we continue to be proactive we continue to build a system our work becomes invisible and we become the Invisible Thread of the wor of public schools so I thank you for
111this opportunity um and thank you to all of our voices those who sent in quotes and those who came here in person on that note I will turn it over to [Music] questions thank you do you and your team so who we have M Banda uh thank you for your um excellent presentation um having worked with all of you before and knowing the excellent jobs that you did in your past jobs and then transferred uh your skills to to this job I just have a couple of questions uh one you know I like data also so I was just wondering on that diversity uh slide for some reason what's on uh paper and was on there with different numbers could could you update us and just send us a copy of of the other slide
112it may be in here because we got several copies of the report of the superintendent so that would be wonderful also can you break it down on because I think the goals were in the past how many administrators were hired how many Educators par Educators how many Educators bus drivers cafeteria workers culture climate could you break it down by positions because I think that's an a Very uh important part and I think the goals to address like you know how many educators are there that are diverse um the second part is on retention that's one of your buckets of current employees so I have been you know reading the paper and looking at the budget book and I saw there is a decrease of 40 somewhere around 40 teachers that were leaving some on early
113retirement and some I'll leave in the district so my question is will we get the results of exit well first of all will exit interviews occur does HR do that and will we get the results of those so last year we implemented an exit interview form for every single person who leaves us um for whatever reason when we send them the letter we always say here is a form and I can certainly give you some of the feedback from those and we also ask in that exit interview would you like for us to meet with you in person so that was um again feedback is crucial so we I can definitely get you that that that is great and then with the cuts that you know uh we're going to be experiencing I think the
114role of HR is going to be extremely important um so I there were some cuts that were posted and employees were not notified that their jobs were being cut if they were in the book that was posted on Friday and some of them were very upset so I think that I just mention it because uh I know from phone calls that that happened I know I've been receiving phone calls from LD teachers par Educators all wondering you know what's going on and I think HR besides probably the administrative structure that's going to be a very sensitive subject going forward and a lot of people are going to need support in that area and I'm assuming that you have a plan for that also well our plan right now is we're currently not sleeping at all
115um because the the truth is we do recognize how important this is and we put we've put a lot of work into making sure this happens and you know I've been talking to a lot of Educators also and people calling and principles and really saying like oh my shot this doesn't match right what I've said is the budget book has to go to print at some point and things are constantly moving but I can definitely say for certainty that we are very cognizant of every single cut we're making as we um really thinking through all of this and recognizing that this is so impactful in every single person's life and so we do not take that lightly at all you know as so I to Echo your sentiment like we are very conscientious of it
116and there are reasons and rational for each of those as we know um by state law we have to notify people if they're non-renewal by June 15th yes it is May 16th today and we have started to do that because we want to be supportive of people so we're actually doing this a month earlier than we normally would have done it every year because of that very reason to allow people opportunities to think ahead and so what I appreciate um the concerns of people we are doing this so much earlier than we've ever had to we we've been working with principls and with staff to say we are so sorry that this is happening but unfortunately we do have we've been very transparent about um the fact that the budget is not our friend this
117year and so to to answer your question we are we think about it every day we we talk about it every day we are very proactive Ive and think about The Who and the how and how do we support people you know having uh been through this uh myself when two and a half happened right which probably many people in here weren't even born yet but uh that was traumatic and to you know that June 15th date I always thought that if you were you know a single parent and you have to pay a mortgage and your last check is is probably coming to you by the end of that month or maybe the first week in July it's a very traumatic time are for you and your family and you know with the budget
118cuts I think a lot of time needs to be spent explaining to people you know they can collect and if their job of course is being eliminated it might be another conversation but I we haven't had have Cuts like this for a very long time and I think your shift is that going to be hiring people for some of the jobs also right that are available at the same time providing comfort and support to those who aren't going to have their job so I think that's going to be a very difficult job for all of you and yeah I do wish you uh support and luck with that because you are going to be probably the people that everyone's going to rely on when that does happen um the other last concern I have is
119on the leadership programs at Worcester State you know I was called by Wester State very upset about the programs that are being eliminated because of the budget uh in particularly there are six um teachers that when we started the program they have a paper from me that says that they entered this administrative program at Worcester State and the last year they would be able to um have substitutes for them and they would be in leadership positions that program has now been pulled from them after we had a signed agreement that we were going to continue so I'm concerned about that uh you spoke about your pipeline programs here we also had started the uh with wer State the par teacher program and that's another important program so you know we talk about programs that are
120working and programs that we don't want to lose uh those are two programs that we really want to uh continue with so thank you Madam superintendent through the chair as it relates to any funding changes that are being recommended in the budget book the committee will have an opportunity to um make any recommendations during the budget process and so as you know that is part of the committee's job in that um as a District administration as the superintendent my job is to make the recommendations the committee then can make changes as necessary when it comes to deciding if were going to um adhere to something that was agreed to three years ago when funds existed and now the funds are being um eliminated we can do whatever we want with the money the district receives
121we can't do all of it and so we have to prioritize the recommendations that are brought forward are the recommendations from me and the committee will have that opportunity to change if if this committee so chooses as a collective may I add to that if that's okay so I I want to respond to that because I want to share that there's currently five teachers in that program I met with all of them earlier this week to explain why the why and I also it's not that we don't want to support them what I said to we want to continue to support them how do we come become really creative in a time where we don't have the funding so I do want to share that I did meet with them along with Dr Mills to
122really carve out how do we do this differently um and how do we to commit to you but we do have five in that pipeline that I am working with individually thank you that no one just want to rep to that through the chair um however there is that other W to public school program of uh uncertified in some cases um people that are in internships currently in schools and um that's interesting that we would continue something like that and uh not keep an agreement that was made um with carment with Public Schools Employees that's disturbing to me I just want to mention that thank you thank you sir uh member Malla thank you and thank you all for the presentation I think that one thing I you know certainly obviously we know it's a
123challenging time with the budget so I do appreciate apprciate the work that you are going to be doing as member Banda said um with supporting the employees that unfortunately will not be coming back with us next year so I do understand that as a challenging time for you in the midst of doing all the work that you're doing um you know certainly this is a very in-depth report that we received tonight in presentation with so much work that has been going on you know and things that that we've been trying to work on for years and work that has been going into things and you know maybe taking different approaches now at looking that way we're doing HR I won't um you know as working on the negotiations with the eaw certainly when Dr coup
124first came in I remember some comments of like oh a principales taking over HR that's interesting but as we can see not only has that really worked for us but also there are several former Educators sitting at this table who were in classroom roles or other types of roles who are now being brought in so I think that perspective of former classroom or building Educators coming in and fulfilling HR roles has really benefited our HR department and I've had the opportunity to be down at um The District administration building Durkin administration building several times including recently some time at HR with um reviewing the safety audit and not only when you walk into the two HR offices are is it not as um you know I don't know if I want to say as dry
125as you may think it was but people genuinely seem like they're enjoying what they're doing and who thinks of HR and thinks of people being uh Overjoyed when people are visiting them in their office so I want to say that I appreciate the energy that a lot of the people in this room and at this table show in their jobs each and every day and I know it is challenging and you know certainly a lot of work been that has been going on over the years to not only try to recruit but retain and that's something that goes on not only in the public sector but certainly in the private sector um uh especially postco I think we've seen a lot of that being a challenge right there's a lot more desire for people to
126have that work life balance and there's a lot more focus on wellness and emotional well-being for not only the students but the staff and how do we balance those needs so I appreciate a lot of the supports that are being put in place and you know for years there have been the conversations about how do we provide more mentorship in different ways and how do we provide um support for leadership and certainly there have been a lot of great things that have happened over the years in different pockets and now really combining these forces to create as you're saying a system right it's all different systems that tie in together is really starting to show a change and I think having the students come in here today and share that experience is just absolutely amazing
127because this is something you know I've talked about other people on this committee have talked about is how do we get our students to not only know that being in education is attainable but that it's desirable and that is a huge way we are going to shift how we're looking at things and how we're going to attract not only our own students but more diverse population of Educators that will help support our students so they see people that are looking like them every day you know see more people that look like them every day and have that confidence and knowing that that is a field that they can go into but it's also a field that you should want to go into right we know teaching and educating and being support staff in all different
128ways is very challenging role so to know that we're doing more with the leadership support to know that a lot of this is tying into how then our Educators can become better evaluators so that we do hire Educators we are providing them those supports and providing them that lens that we need to have to ensure that we're keeping the best Educators and if it's educator that's not a fit for the district that we're utilizing those resources as well but how do we get people into the right roles and to be better fit so um I could go on because I think you know it's covering a lot of what you already did in the presentation but it's a lot of what I'm seeing um I would say I the one question I have through the
129chair to Administration is we're talking a lot about the supports and the systems when we look at our overall hiring policy is there a policy or things that are being worked on in HR of when someone does apply to a position what the expectations are on responding to those individuals timelines you know whether it's their getting an interview not being considered um is that something that we do have a policy on or you know internally or something that's being looked at as these overall structures are occurring through the chair to Administration so through the chair uh we are we've put some documents together we put it out there we're revamping things because you know I always say that we put things out we get feedback but is in the practice that we need to make
130sure we're also monitoring and supporting so absolutely we have systems such as a three tier hiring practice that we're looking when we're looking at school spring we're making sure that we're looking to hire to interview a minimum all bipod candidates and those type of things uh we do have a document to remind principles or hiring managers every time they go to hire these are the things that our expectation but I think it's in the practice that we want to make sure we start aligning it so we will continue to get better thank you I appreciate that and I'll on this end on this one note even though principal has left I really loved the analogy we've always heard you know the teachers and Educators and our staff are always trying to build a plane while
131flying it and it's nice that we're starting to get the planes in place so that there's not as much building while the flying goes on so I appreciate it and thank you for all your work member mail man thank you um thank you for the presentation tonight is a lot of great stuff and I guess what sits with me the most is that um as we talk as we think about budget and we think about strong Administration team I think you can see clearly how the impact of a strong Administration team moves through the district and moves to our students ultimately benefiting those students so great presentation and great picture of how that can work in a bunch of different places and I appreciate that for sure um also at the state level we're doing
132a lot of talking about um educator apprenticeship so that's kind of exciting and they actually have some money for it already in the um up in the NorthShore area so hopefully we'll get our money with some grant opportunities that come through um I wanted to ask a question about uh the the diversifying our Workforce the same as well I don't know if it's the same question or not but I think that although all we can rely on is self-reporting I think that we need to start showing those numbers across classification because I think as I think you pointed out that you know the more data that we have there the more that we are going to see people change their mind about reporting because we're going to be showing results and I know that you
133and I've had conversations with you and I know that the goal is with new hires we're GNA really have that conversation because it's important and and across our entire State it's it's you know it's a priority everywhere and so I would like to see us and hope and would like to ask through the chair if we will have a system in place for the for the beginning of the year can we can we expect and will we be able to go I'd like to see what we have now in all categories teachers bus drivers custodians whatever um um administrators and then I'd also want to understand um the non-tenure teachers that will will potentially lose their jobs um in June what those demographics are as well too um and I wish you luck and um
134offer any support there's a lot of community that's watching these numbers and let me ask a question the 23 so there was a slide up here that said 23.5 are they different numbers or are the 3 what can you just tell us what that means through the chair through the chair um the 23.5 is a overall of self-reported total okay the the new highers were at the 34.9 great thank you very much thanks thanks for the report thank you member being and Carri thank you first of all um when we look at the Wester public school student employment pipeline I worked for a number of years on internships um in the district uh as the district coordinator for program such as that and uh each year we would work on how to promote working not
135only in what to Public Schools but simply in the educational area and we would flag many uh potential careers for students um however the shorter one was always in education um so we always try to have different programs different presentations um to entice them into looking at what this would work for uh we had a few programs that were at North High that were very successful they were coordinated with quinaman Community College and wer State College um so I I feel as though um looking at this is certainly something that I truly appreciate because it is not always easy to then um have students who are looking outside to actually look inside the Box um we tend to say what career you interested in when it's actually something perhaps that can be right in front
136of them so I certainly appreciate that um when we look at um the retention and we're talking about par educated to teacher leadership programs higher education Fields um we have new teachers orientation one-on-one meetings um and uh lessons in sessions uh that can be virtual um I feel as though when we looked at this for a number of years um the word cohort always came up and I had to look at what we were doing and how many were actually interested that were employed um so I do understand um the superintendent making the statement that it is something that we can look at at the budget book but I too have heard from some of the folks that were involved in that program and um it always seemed to be beneficial so I I certainly
137look forward to L discussions during budget time in reference to this program um but I do don't feel as though when we say to someone um here is human resources we are making connections we are offering a number of programs we certainly are looking at how we can move you from position a position B and also the fact that we are accommodating um losing teachers and moving into another um area and how can we take perhaps some of the teachers that are in those positions and afford them to move into the other positions can we fit that and I think those are further discussions that we need to have um thank you very much for your time tonight and it was great to hear a lot of your success stories thanks all set yes no
138one's on no Alex no nothing okay so motion to approve the report of the superintendent thank you very much Dr q and your team thank you for the presentation let's do a roll call on this roll call member alz yes member bian carer yes member Banda yes member Guardiola yes Vice chair Johnson yes member m yes member Mulla member Roy yes mayor Petty so we're moving on report of our standing committee member Malla thank you so the report of the standing committee on finance operations and governance the meeting was held on April 29th 2024 present were myself member ban Cara member Johnson member Roy Deputy superintendent Brian Allen assistant superintendent Dr Marie Morris budget director Sarah consalvo executive director Ellen Kelly Dr Kem Tatum will Foley Tim Sipple and director of positive Youth Development Tom
139Tony the first item that we took was General business four-45 to review and make necessary changes to the 2425 student handbook and we only took the first three pages which are essentially the members names the title and the year and the calendar and on a motion of three to zero that motion passes the next item were taken together which was 3-22 by Tracy oconnell novic to create a reasonable Future Ready District cell phone policy and item 3- 93 filed by myself to consider adding airpod usage to the policy handbook and utilizing administrator educator and student feedback during the development of the policy Dr moris began by noting the Administration has spent a full year working on developing this policy by engaging administrators principles students and parents in a back and forth discussion and in input
140sessions Mr Foley executive director of the burnco quadrant described the process of developing the policy on the best way for cell phones and wireless or wired listening devices to be integrated while not posing a distraction after many discussions this is the policy that was developed for our consideration and just to note the original item I had filed referenced airpods but per the district recommendation it is adjusted to earbuds and wired headphones as to not be exclusionary towards one type of listening device I made I asked some clarifying questions and I also made a motion per the request of a transportation member to add some language around the volume of electronic devices on school buses Mr Foley noted that they would um input that or consider that for addition member B and car asked some clar
141ifying questions around disciplinary consequences for violations of this policy which were answered as there are tiered policy violations noted to be used by Educators who are not allowing the cell phones in their classroom examples were such as the first time was a warning the second time is taking the phone away from the student and the third time could be a parent meeting when uh taking the phone away in a parent meeting before the student comes back or not before the student comes back it's not a suspension but to have a conversation with the family pardon for that um mistake member Johnson oh member B carrier also made a motion to hold a presentation or provide some type of presentation at the beginning of the school year for all students so they're aware of what the
142policy actually is and any adjustments to the policy that were made member Johnson asked some clarifying questions regarding stakeholder concerns for Banning cell phones altogether to which Dr Morris answered that the administration felt that this policy was a solid middle ground and he noted this was more clear and direct policy than we have now I'm made the motion to approve the policy and send it to the full committee with the additional afor aforementioned motions and on a roll call of four to zero the motion passed item 2- 294 um to review current policy regarding service and support animals in school and make any necessary changes um to those policies I made the motion to hold the emotional support dog policy to get some further backup from Administration while moving forward on the service animal policy
143member ban carer made a motion to add the word therapy after emotional support so it reads emotional support therapy dog policy I noted that the service animal policy looks to be in order um legal regulations and requirements and ties into the appropriate needs of service dogs in the schools member banara asked how many service dogs current WBS currently has to which Dr Murray answered that we have none at this time but they are being tracked and member B and carer also made a motion to add just temper to the list of required vaccines for service dogs on a motion um to approve the service dog policy with the for mentioned motions on a roll call of four to zero the motion passed and then we had item 3-1 195 from an Administration to review the
144status of the fy2 24 budget and make appropriate transfers as required um Sarah consalvo presented the update and questions were asked regarding the cost of special education tuition and eight new students requiring outof District placement and translation and interpretation Services also continuing to increase and the family and Community engagement is utilizing cost measures by hiring parttime staff to alleviate the need for contracted Services accounts with projected balances include the utility account Maintenance and Facilities and workers comp unemployment account athletics department deficits will be covered by the Athletics revolving accounts and the budget office continues to monitor the purchase order balances I reviewed some of the points with director consalvo to reiterate what the Motions were on the table and member BN car asked about special education Vans to which Mr Allen noted that we will
145replace approximately 40 Vans to provide in-house Transportation reducing the number of contracted Vans by half resulting in a significant savings and they expect the Vans to be fully staffed with drivers by the 2425 school year I made the motion to approve the following third quart budg third quarter budget transfers and hold the item so it's $300,000 from school clerical salaries to Transportation 300,000 from maintenance service salaries to Transportation OT 200,000 from maintenance service salaries to custodial OT and on a roll call of four to zero the uh item passed and on a roll call of four to zero the meeting was adjourned thank you member B and car prior to requesting the approval of the um minutes from that meeting I ask that the cell phone policy remove be removed so it is a separate
146item please yep I that yes remember mailman that's right is that what you okay okay so you want to discuss the I'm just asking that at this time that we can approve the minutes that were remaining however the cell phone policy be pulled out pulled out and discussed now on the Flor if so be it yes point of order I believe that it would have to be pulled out and member B and car would have to make a motion around it so then there could be discussion and the rest of the report I believe would be voted separately after we can do that or before whatever is a preference of the clerk probably after but that the motion would be whatever she wants to make it okay so what what's the motion motion would be
147to remove the cell phone policy from the minutes that were presented um and if we would um then be available for discussion okay so we're we're pull the cell phone policy for further discussion M anyone mailman point of order why can't we just comment on the minutes and for discussion I I member Mala thank you through the chair again apologize for making this more confusing than it needs to be so member B and Cara has made the motion to take the item separately and I believe if either she or another member would make a motion to do the inverse of approving it or some other type of motion they would need to make that motion as well so then we take a vote on either the motion to approve or the motion that the other
148member is making so I don't know if another member is looking to make a motion I'd make a motion to approve the cell phone policy although it's part of the minutes my motion policy then your motion would then be your motion there'll be two separate motions that we are looking at at this particular time so I certainly understand that if they want to do it um in the fact that there would be no discussion that would be up to the committee however what I'm asking at this time is my motion is very specific that is to remove the cell phone policy from the minutes of the fog meeting so as the chair of fog I would just say we're what we're doing right now is we are separating out the item so that's pulled out
149but now if You' like to make a motion to reject it then you'd have to make that motion because we need to take a vote so then if you it's already it's already agreed upon that it's removed from the vote of the overall thing so that's vote is going to be separate yes yes it's agreed upon that it's taken away what what I ask is that we vote on the minutes from the original meeting that was held and then if there's a discussion on the cell phone from that point yeah because it's removed now so we don't have the minutes hanging out there we can have our discussion but to get that thought over with well usually we would take the motion that to what your new motion is first and then we would take
150the minutes separately if that works for you remember right either way whatever okay so we're gonna have disc would like to do on this so what's the discussion um member Roy hi I agree with member being carrier that think we should make this a further discussion to be brought to the table um and to further further um review the the cell phone policy thank you so we are we holding it for are we discussing this now or you holding it for further discussion I'm confused I think we I think we should hold it for further discussion member Roy hold on got it and member being and carriers motion goes first right so this would be a motion to hold the cell phone policy is to hold hold the cell phone policy it's the motion to
151hold the cell phone policy so that will be the vote the motion to hold the cell phone policy that's the first vote that's the first vote Ro member Alvarez I'm g go with no if I understood that correctly yeah member B uh member B and carer yes member bendo yes member guolo no Vice chair Johnson no member mailman no member Mulla no member Roy yes May so motion to approve the minute with the cell phone policy in it right roll up moot oh yeah okay so motion to approve the cell phone policy roll call member Alvarez yes member ban carer no member Benda no member guadi Ola yes Vice chair Johnson yes member mailman yes member McCulla yes member Roy no and may C motion to approve the minutes roll call member Alvarez yes member
152ban carer yes member Benda yes member Guardiola yes Vice chair Johnson yes member mailman yes member Mulla yes member Roy yes may P next approval grants and uh other Finance items anyone want to pull anything from that we could take those collectively those that oppose no so udit moving on to General business GB 4-20 um it's a response for administration from mailman requests a report of all after school programs funding source and the number of students served and to offer a suggested alternative providers and funding models any questions member mailman just a comment please I mean these are stunning numbers right 32 elementary schools 10 secondaries and approximately 3,900 students so these after school programs that we have this is a significant area I think for us to look at in Grants with whatever funding
153we can get this is not new news we knew this was coming um but I think that I just this is really important stuff and what this doesn't show is um all the programs that are still ongoing and all our the work of our partners to um to to continue with the programs they have but they're going to need our support to expand to offer services to our kids so I just think this is a very significant item and I thank you for the information and um I'm sure we'll discuss this in budget thank you m being carrier just a moment of record here that um we actually should have started with GB 2- 294 from Clancy we missed an item it's at the top at the bottom of page three top of page four
154from what I have in h copy I I don't have that in my copy okay that was okay should we that motion of file those that oppos no so Ed GB 4-21 mailman response from the administration request a report on our October 1st total enrollment by grade school class size by grade and quadrant for the last five years in the report please indicate when last Foods were redistri redistributed and if there were plans to do this again in the near future any questions member mailman just a comment a couple of comments I guess um the report that was backup for us um is really useful um and especially as we go into budget and as we look at the budget book and I want to make a comment about that book that I'm it's come
155up here several times tonight that that book that's the good news and the bad news the transparency of having that book is awesome the um the uh the quandaries and the questions that are created because of the situation that we're faced with because for in a large part our funding formulas across the state are horrible that um the state of Massachusetts that desie Etc have not we did a student Opportunity Act and we didn't do anything about um formulas it's absurd to me so um I think that this entire item although it doesn't say you know we're going to be able to look at it in however many years it's it's clear to me that this is this is really important work that I would imagine and I guess through the chair to the superintendent
156we will be focused on this work in a pretty significant way I would think as time goes by and can you can you offer any thoughts about that Madam superintendent through the chair yes we actually started to backward map um if we were to make any recommendations on any potential changes to boundaries based off current enrollment enrollment when how much time do we need because it's not something you do to community you must do that with community um and so the early and we have to bring it to you of course and then it needs to go probably to finance operations and governance so the earliest that we could see that there would even be a potential implementation of change would be school year 2526 it's it's going to take some time um but we
157are looking at the numbers and this is part of that grand facilities master plan that we're doing with the city as we watch um new housing come into the city we also have to factor that in thank you very much thank you so we'll file that those that poos no so ordered uh GB3 d253 point1 provide the school committee with a fee schedule of all chapter 74 and N chapter 74 programs any questions file that those that oppose no so audit and r 4-5 to receive a report that can measure time in the shops for all the programs SL shops at all at the Comprehensive High Schools any questions member mailman I just thank you for the report and I just want to um point out that and and I we've talked about this a
158few times I don't think that we've I think we've been put a lot in place this year um with the hiring of Julianne gamas some of the work that's done but I think that to me the goal must be to increase the number of Shop hours for the comprehensive um shops and so I'd like to see us get creative about that and um because families need to understand that's a that's a significant difference in how a chapter 74 program comes together and that we also have significant dollars invested in these program so um I hope that becomes a priority in the with all your other millions of priorities um that that is again we're spending big dollars and these students deserve more Shop hours thank you member beranda I just do want to State however
159that they do meet the guidelines uh set up by chapter 74 obviously that there it's going to be very difficult Comprehensive High schools to have at wi Tech they have a week of shop and a week of academics and related it would be wonderful we could figure that out but there's just not enough hours in the day so I think though it is important that we know that they are meeting this chapter 74 guidelines thank you remember mail I'd still maintain we can do better and we should lead the state and Sh them how to get it done thank you so power that those that oppose no or audit we go to R 4-7 provide a description of all culture and climate staff members Deans and CNC team members any questions not at this time
160not at this time thank you thank you we file that those that oppos no so ordered r 4-8 to receive a list of all sports programs in the wer Public Schools any questions remember being and carrier thank you uh Mr chair I um certainly appreciate the listing however um it doesn't tell me the school sites so when I look at this listing it tells me all sports programs and I realized um I did word it asking for a list of all sports programs in Wier Public Schools however um I need to add in that um I would like this list that includes what schools have these particular Sports um and um I certainly would appreciate that sooner than later due to the fact that we're looking at budget so if they could add in what
161schools have these Sports it would certainly help me make some determinations to Administration isn't that on the website they in the backup they also um gave us a copy of the website I think all the sports are listed on the website in regards to what schools um offer what sports I think it correct me if I'm wrong I mean I could be wrong I mean maybe a executive director or someone could probably help me out here but I think the school the sports that they have listed there are sports that are at all schools and then the ones that we saw on the backup in regards to um like then some of the schools are combined together because they don't have enough kids to fill that team so it's a city Citywide thing am I
162correct on that or no so through the chair it is listed on the website and next to the um team name it lists uh the the school the letter of the school next to the team okay then I would ask that uh to our school committee um clerk that I receive a h copy of that listing place I don't always have access to my laptop um and when I have my discussions in neighborhood meetings I like to be able to have something in that I refer to when I um go with my briefcase and uh not always have access to of the laptop so I clearly understand what you are saying however um I would need that so if you could print that out for me I would appreciate it I don't know if anyone
163else needs that but so if you send it to everyone that's fine no so we all set um you get a hard copy from the clerk um so we look to file that correct although anyone oppose no so order so we are going to gb4 d52 to provide current data on how many scholars with disabilities are placed in a non subpar classrooms in each district and how many inclusive teachers are assigned slw work in each district member [Music] alareas this item comes from last presentation um I was a little confused so I just I received some clarification and I just wanted to to share that with the public thank you so we're send that to Administration those that oppose no so audit so we have GB 4-53 to provide a report on what system does
164special education currently have in place to monitor uh compensatory Services Me by alarz compens Services I'm sorry it's okay so this item came from um for myself and I know everyone here uh we're going through through a lot right now right and I'm very aware that uh there's a lot of improvements that need to be made um and we're working on them so I like to problem solve so this this item on this agenda is just to um take a look at the data that we have now and uh move forward thank you so we send that to Administration those that oppos no so ordered GB 4-54 to request Administration have a summer reading kickoff by having a reading in our city week the week of June 10 2024 member Roy as it reads than
165you yes sir so we send that Administration if I could um respond to this this request I have actually some information that may be helpful um for the committee so we did some research just to take a look at what already exists so we're not duplicating efforts um and so that we can stay really focused on our summer program and so um the Wester Public Library will be every year they run free programs um we reached out to them they have not updated the website yet but they will be updating it um in early June and it will follow the same schedule as it had last year and so that included um a lot of summer reading programs what I'd like to offer is that Wester Public Schools will advertise those summer reading pro programs
166so our families know about it um and and that that meet the need that um member Roy is is seeking which is to really create a a culture of reading throughout the city but that we do that and let this the library take the lead on that so I would um ask to file this knowing that we will um advertise that member Roy I think that's a really good idea um as long as there is plenty of follow through and to make sure that we get that information thank you as to when what the library plans on doing okay so I me the motion five those that oppose no so ordered GB 4-55 a report to the Wester school committee the summer school plan including dates of summer school approximate number of how many students
167will participate a plan to promote and encourage attendance by students an incentive program in pre- and post testing of students attending summer school member Roy yes what I'd like to see happen is that um you know our CH our children our students that are going to be attending summer school that we have follow through with that and increase the attendance rate and I was actually thinking of maybe a way of partnering with some area businesses in far as far as giving like gift certificates or something so as long as they attend so many days there's um they could get a gift certificate to to Mo or some other company um you know to eat um so that is what it's really important to me um and to have a pre-testing and post- testing to make
168sure the students are meeting the goals set for them so we'll send that to uh Administration so you are you still looking for a report on that um yes I would like what the report would read that how many students are anticipated on on to participate in the summer school program and to make sure we have all the necessary um things put in place to make sure that they succeed okay do we do we do pre have we ever do we do pre pre and post testing in summer school I never heard of that okay all right so remember being carrier while we're looking at the SU School plan um thank you uh School Committee Member Roy for putting this on here I would ask that we make a friendly Amendment while we are reviewing
169everything that is in the that's going to occur this summer and we're getting the information um along um the next few weeks what I would ask that would be added into this um um the uh Amendment would be that we add in um what we would be doing for lunches because that would be part of a program so instead of doing a separate item in reference to summer programs it could just be added into this because it's pretty much covered um all bases on asking what we're doing for a summer school plan um and the lunch portion and breakfast portion usually included in that report so I would make a friendly M to this to ask for that okay if that's possible that's yeah member Roy's also with that she's also oh yes I I
170definitely agree okay thank you through the chair if you want me to answer our summer program plans are on our website and we do pre and post testing but our summer programs are only a short period of time they don't go for the duration of the summer so we use end of year and beginning of year star data to track the impact of the summer program thank [Music] you uh Madam superintendent through the chair um I've provided this information in one of the um what's happening or the Friday letters u probably about three weeks ago I'm happy to put it back in there again for you to reference um we includes the the lunch as part of our program um and I can provide for you right now the actual number of of spots that
171we are offering for our summer program if you'd like that or I can add it to the uh what's happening but it has been provided and we provided it prior to putting it um on the website so that we can start not only um recruiting students but then um looking at recruiting staff so um it's up to the committee if you'd like me to read the number of students but um we have a considering that we have a budget um shortfall we did recognize that we want to make sure that we have summer programming for Youth and so we have Elementary we have a middle school of course our High School Credit Recovery we've got some collaboration with Early College um at Worcester State Early College at um Clark and qcc we've got a music
172program we've got um a a specialized program that we're doing in our more challenging area of the city uh this is a pilot that we're starting this year and then finally of course our extended year so if I could um recommend that I provide this information um again in the what's happening for tomorrow so that you have that information um and again it is on the website now for [Music] families member Roy would that be sufficient through through the chair to um the superintendent yes that that would be right and I do apologize I'm losing my voice no problem so we'll get that in um what's happening tomorrow so motion to file those that oppos no so ordered we have GB 4-56 to consider changing the name of Chandler magnet La Familiar school to La
173Familiar on Chandler mad Chandler Multicultural School we are going to send that to fog no we're sending we we have to send that to governance no we we send that to governance remember berand I'm just trying to figure out is it is it La at Chandler Multicultural school or on on does that make sense on on CH yeah so we're sitting at the fog because we we need to do that for um a time frame for public um comment so the public weigh in um so we'll send that to fog those that oppose no so order is she a call sorry I just didn't think that was grammatically correct so that's why I was asking about on but that's what the study said right the survey so I guess that's what you're going forward with
174thank you GB 4-57 request the administration to provide a report to the school committee on the status of the SLO school program M being and carrier uh yes um I sent this to Administration in reference um to how we were going to um open our school year in uh September uh with the same number of Leons um if the city council has informed them of of the funding um that we presently have slos that are um available to us outside of the building um at our high schools and I didn't know if that is um presently a program that what what is moving forward for the status of the program and this is why this item is on here who would send that to Administration through the chair I I'm not sure I understand the
175question I want to make sure that what we're bringing back is accurate um what I would um appreciate is information in reference to the status of the SLO program so that the number of slos that we presently have are we going to have them looking forward to the 2425 school year and how we're going to work the program so you're request through the chair you're requesting about the SLO program for next school year correct okay so should the because it doesn't say that so I was prepared to speak to our SLO program this school year which we have theou that's in place and we the um chief of the interim chief of police has his assigned individuals they're not just supporting our high schools they are supporting the schools in the quadrant as necessary um
176but they also get called on other calls because they work for the entire police department in the current um mou the the chief of police is to um do an annual report every year and then provide that report to the superintendent the chief of police and um and who's the other person I have it written down um superintendent myself and it must be the city manager that he is to report provide that report we are um just starting conversation for next school year this and and just as a reminder um because this was something I had to work on pretty quickly when I started last school year the actual mou is um under the purview of administration the school committee looks at it only through the lens of any possible changes for policy or um
177I think that's actually the only thing right and if there's any conflict with a student handbook or there's any budget budgetary budgetary needs implication so so um it the the chief is we are just starting conversation on this and the mou will be revised over the summer I I will say that um ironically enough I know that theou is actually on the website for w Public Schools so um it's not something that we don't look at we see after it's correct it's a public document right yes okay it just the way you just said it it sounded like it wasn't that's why I was kind of smirking thinking it's the one thing I know that's on the website so that I actually saw R and comp um went through that because I actually had questions
178at a neighborhood meeting in reference to it so that um if you would read the the um so the item that is 4-57 in reference to the SLO school program um you are going to be working on the status of [Music] 2425 over the summer am I correct correct so the the way it works the chief will do a report of the um overall SLO program at the end of this school year he will provide the data that is then necessary to submit to desie and um and then we will determine if there needs to be any changes to the existing mou prior to the start of the next school year so um what I ask is that this would stay in be sent to Administration and when um that is updated and determined that
179we receive information in reference to it okay thank you okay so we're send that to Administration those that oppos no so order so we'll go to gb4 d58 request that the administration provide the school committee allus signed by the superintendent in the present chief of police member B and carrier the mou signed by the superintendent and the chief of police is the um item on the website is under the former uh chief of police chief Sergeant so I didn't know if we have a new mou under our tentative police chief at this time through the chair no it it remains in place for the entire school year so the the there is no new documentation is in reference to that and you would when would you be signing the new mou with the tentative police
180chief or police chief at that time what is the schedule that's the summer time that's summer that would be included in everything correct okay and again I would ask that this go to Administration and update us uh when possible on that thank you so we send that to Administration just for an update on I mean where get that any yeah yeah um once you update theou and it's signed or any any changes in it with get a copy of that so we send that to Administration for report back once that is done those that oppose no so order gb4 d59 request Administration provide a job description and specific plan to replace security guards at all high school middle school and Elementary School and how this will affect the budget member being carrier yes um last
181at at our last school committee meeting it um we we had gone over the facts that the security guards um would be removed from our schools and they would be replaced um with either the culture in climate assistance um is from what I understood what we were told a couple weeks ago so I'm looking at the job description for security guard when you look at it it's a it's definitely a a plan on what occurs during the day what the job functions are so to replace that particular security guard at the high school middle school um and so on are we are we looking at a specific job description for that position and and when I say position I'm talking about the fact that they are at the desk they are there for the students
182in the morning they become familiar with the students of that particular school but they're also there when uh people are coming to the school um and so on so they have a presence that is um at a particular location at all times so I just would like Administration to give us what their plan is in order to um have that replacement but they won't be a security guard um they will be again I have to culture and climate assistant that will be performing that uh job so and how will this affect the budget because originally when I asked that a couple of weeks ago I was told that um it would be cheaper was the word that um I was given from Administration in reference to that however um when I looked at the budget
183book it didn't seem like it was cheaper so I um that's why I asked how does it affect the budget Madam superintendent through the chair member ban K I'm happy to provide some of that information for you right now so um first of all just as a reminder just for those who are not as familiar as member B carer um we currently um contract with an outside company to provide um security which they serve as visitor management at the front of our our high schools um this school year we um have we don't have any at of our elementary schools and we have one at one Middle School um so overwhelmingly it's it's at our high schools the Personnel are used to sign V visitors in and out of the building um they're not responsible
184for responding to safety incidents um they are not implementing proactive safety measures or helping to build a safe culture they're there to do visitor management um they do wear uniforms the cost of these um individuals or that that cont contract this school year is $337,000 738 and they would these schools will make sure that there is always one person in the front that it's doing the same visitor management um that the security um officers are doing the benefit of having these individuals working for wer Public Schools is um when we have we have a decision in who is hired that's that's really important um if they're not working we can do what we need to do evaluatively um the other piece of it is they become part of the school family they get to know
185the students they get to know the families um they are part of the school culture and that's really especially for high schoolers they'll be a face that they recognize when they come in and that's that's a positive we know that um that helps to build positive relationships what you'll see what you saw in the budget book the additional cost is we're also recommending some um additional climate and culture assistance um beyond the replacement of the um the cost of the security company uh and so that does increase it we have some high schools that are very large South High School is much larger um and now dhy as it's opening up so and then we're placing we're making a recommendation to place some additional ones at our middle schools and even at some of our
186smaller high schools that we did not have in the past so that's the additional cost is we're making the recommendation to not only take the money that the security um company cost us but also um higher additional climate and culture assistance I hope that provides more clarity it does provide more clarity because um few weeks back when the response was it is cheaper when I looked at this just with benefits and so on it really isn't so it's not um the cheaper part of it but this does extend to how this will affect the budget so if we could have a um spreadsheet and Analysis on how this is going to work because we were looking at an additional um staff members throughout our system and we have seven that were security guards uh at
187337 um we'll say uh 338,000 so um when you look at what we're looking at for um additional staff members that are coming on to not only take on this position but certainly additional positions um and job functions but between um culture and climate assistance and some of the wraparound coordinators we're looking um o over a m um a million5 for cost so um that that's a huge difference so I'm just trying to um look at this and I have 24 years of Finance background so I tend to do it in detail so I would appreciate if we could have something um that surrounds this uh particular area um and if it's possible prior to the budget discussions or um prior to the second budget discussion at bus and again that that's it bus can
188can you just clarify all right so you want her to provide a analysis of the plan this this ask um how will it affect the the budget yeah and we specifically if we have someone who is always at the door then how will we how are we doing it so it's twofold as it says specific plan to replace the security guards because someone was at the front door at all times and then how this will affect the budget so it's um as as it's as it reads we'll go I I'll go with that that's that that's the best way to put yeah I'm just I okay I I get I get what you're saying but it's a it's a recommendation that we have in regards to client in culture and increasing that stat like it's
189a recommendation that we we're doing away with the contract for the security guards and that we're going to do climate and culture that's a but something that we would take up at the budget right am might confute maybe I'm I'm misunderstanding because we already have some culture and climate assistance so what I'm looking for is how the additional the removal of the security guards is going to impact the budget done and then how this will affect the budget so if we're looking at 338,000 originally but we're looking at hiring um this number to go up to a million over a million5 I I I need some clarity on how that is going to coordinate into our budget and that's why I'm asking these questions so we it's a numbers game definitely and how will it
190affect the budget it's a dollar dollar amount but it's also the idea that this was determined and it's what's the specific plan for it to work I can through the chair I can answer that so currently this school year we have 19 in total climate and culture assistance throughout our middle school and high school schools we are recommending the reallocation of the cost of the security contract which would add which would cover seven additional that's the seven that's that's the cost of the security we are also recommending eight on top of that so that we can have more at our bigger high schools we can add additional ones at our middle schools and add to um some of our smaller high schools not not everyone University Park Campus yes um we and and at the
191Gerald Kramer Center so in total currently 19 additional seven from the cost of the security off um contract and additional eight from the new budget allocation which would take us to 34 climate and culture we have visited high schools in other districts other states and it is very common that they they had at least six if not more they didn't call it climate and culture but they had outof classroom people that did exactly what our climate and culture people have done so um for us to what what this addition will do is to take um some of our high schools like South for example will the recommendation is that they will have five instead of the three that they have this school year dhy next year will also have five in in of the three
192they have this school year burn code High School will have four instead of the three we have that those numbers and I'm happy to again add that to the Friday tomorrow even for you because I can get that in there ready tomorrow that's fine okay thank you thank you um and I certainly appreciate you reviewing the numbers and you can add that um into this Friday's report that would be certainly um sufficient um and again my my concern is um when the the the plan to replace the security guards because they have a presence and they at some schools they were doing the um entrance of students who perhaps were tiddy um and uh whether it be by five minutes so for 20 minutes um but they were signing in and they needed to slip
193and so on and the actual security guards were doing that so if they are walking around the halls observing students and ensuring that they are doing all of their job function um I'm just concerned that the front door isn't cut so that's what I was looking at um because it does read under um their positions that they are supporting the enforcement of school rules regulations and procedures so um it's different um I'm not saying it's good I'm not saying it's bad I'm just trying to figure out more about it um so that's why I asked for a specific plan um so if you could Enlighten us a little not this evening certainly um just let let us know in in the letter on what you are looking at um to say how this is going
194to gel together ready to the schools and you've had um what you're saying is you looked at other schools for examples um and um when you are doing that um there's a way of making your plans for wor the public schools so that's what I'm looking for thank you thank you so that uh ends the meeting so we do I just want to announce we do have um public um budget hearing on Monday May 20th at 6 o'clock we actually have fog fog um subcommittee meeting prized at at 4:45 um and I believe there is tlss um fog is here um here in the um chamber right before the public Hearing in tlss is on Wednesday um at 4 um May 22nd remember B and car I mean I'm sorry member Banda just quick question
195uh is it possible for us to get a copy what the handbook unless they already came today the handbook changes prior to that uh meeting did you say it was at 4:45 for the hand book changes yeah would we be able to are we just doing another couple of pages or are we doing the whole book I I think we're looking to get the whole book book done because we we need to kind of get that get that to the full committee get it approved so we could get it out to print and stuff yeah am I correct M Malla through the chair and I would just answer um member vanda's question that it we did get the email today and it has the backup with the side-by-side comparison of the current versus the proposed
196um and we will as member Johnson referenced we will do as much of it as we can prior to the end of that meeting ideally we will get through the bulk of it as most of the proposed changes are legalities or grammatical or procedural in nature upet thank you