Thread by @TracyNovick

Heading Worcester City Hall-ward, as the school budget is before City Council at 4-ish.

Tweeting to follow.

Liveblog will go up here: who-cester.blogspot.com/2018/05/worces… Some "things to look for" already posted.

if you're a WPS budget bingo player, you'll want to have:

"largest sector of the Worcester budget"
(the person saying it gets minus points for somehow thinking they're allocating Ch.70)

some mention of cooperation/coordination/relationships between city and schools
(bonus square if it happens in both directions; aka, city side says it to schools and school side says it to city)

a city councilor asking a question for which the answer is in the WPS budget book (if it gets an actual page number reference in the answer, well, you know your stuff)

You'll want to have a square for the high school building projects. If the councilor somehow manages to extract themselves from this statement without mention the $70M in urgent repairs and $300M in repairs overall, take two. (telegram.com/news/20180528/…)

and they're underway...

Petty: now we're going to talk about the budget questions and answer those first...how are we looking this year for teachers this year?

Allen: reallocation of teachers from elementary to secondary...if the Senate number is approved, it's about $3.3M for us, we'd restore those elementary positions and add additional positions as well

...there was a long and ridiculous sequence there of Rosen talking about how wonderful having police in schools were, giving the superintendent a chance to do that again...

so far, the only budgetary question Rosen asked was the first one, on "the lawsuit we have with other cities and towns" which the Mayor told him was subject to executive session
(#FBRC)

Binienda clearly taken aback by Rosen suggesting one could build onto or over a current downtown building for a new Doherty

King: "I've always been someone who has stated on this floor that the ideal scenerio would be to have those police phased out and replaced with school social workers"

Binienda: "I'm not a supporter of replacing police with social workers; I think we need police in the schools"

when students have been involved in altercations, "it was not a social worker that I wanted to call; it was a police officer"

"in large high schools, we have two school adjustment counselors...enrollment is between 1300 to 1500 students...usually 4 to 5 guidance counselors"

King asks how many adjustment counselors to student: 1200 to 1

suggested ratio is 250 to 1

Binienda announces two girl and boy sports for all three seasons in all middle schools next year

(someone please check the superintendent on Title IX! )

Rivera notes success of evidence-based models that actual prevent altercations in the first place; what increases are happening in those models?

Binienda gives a "looking to expand" but there's no money there

significant citation from Rivera on effective models of preventing youth violence rather than reactive ones

I think the superintendent just allocated possible Senate funding in a fourth direction

(even if the Leg goes for all the $3.3M...it's only $3.3M! So far we've got both secondary and elementary teachers, the tutors back, an MCAS specialist for Claremont...)

oh! And 4 or 5 adjustment counselors! #magicmoney

that's some amazing budgetary allocation...

Bergman asks if "the schools" belong to @massteacher
Binienda clarifies that the teachers do.

Bergman: "I don't want to tell people considering the Worcester Public Schools that we've added social workers but elimintated police"

Lukes on the Janus case: "if in fact those unions cease to exist in their current form, do you have any plans in place for how you're going to deal with issues from grievances to negotiations?"

Binienda said "I guess we would have less grievances"

Somehow we just went from a coding question right to career pathways starting in elementary schools (?)

apparently if that early college grant comes through, they're going to require a 9th grade 10 week class in careers and a full year one for 10th graders?!?!

man, what a waste.

anyway, WPS budget passes
Over and out.

I would characterize that as “not budgetarily informative, but politically informative” #worcpoli

And jeez, I wish these got more coverage.

Oh, and let me acknowledge that my budget bingo was totally wrong tonight!