Tag Archives: Worcester Public Schools

InCity Voices

Special school vacation holiday events at the Worcester Public Library! Tomorrow! The Tanglewood Marionettes!

December 26, 2016 admin

But first …

The day after Christmas: Cece sleeping on Rose. Yes, she sleeps with and on Rose …

Cece hears early morning traffic … she’s not thrilled ..

Yep! It’s morning time in the ‘hood! pics:R.T.

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Holiday School Vacation Week Activities at the Worcester Public Library!

3 Salem Square, Worcester

FREE!

The Worcester Public Library has a variety of special events and programs planned for school vacation week at the Main Library from Tuesday, December 27 to Saturday, December 31.

In addition to some of the regularly scheduled programs, including TinkerLab, Stuffed Animal Storytime, Minecraft, Constructions & and Lego Club, and art lesons, the Youth Services Librarians will host special performances and programs by guests and children’s entertainers.

On Tuesday, December 27 the Tanglewood Marionettes will hold two presentations of “An Arabian Adventure” at 3 p.m., and again at 6 p.m.

A swashbuckling tale set in exotic lands and featuring their signature story book backdrop, “An Arabian Adventure” tells the tale of a Persian prince who is thrown into a dungeon because of his love for a beautiful princess. Facing danger at every turn, the courageous prince must use his wits to escape the prison, defeat the diabolical Vizier, and save the princess from a tragic fate. You won’t want to miss it!

On Wednesday, December 28 the Children’s Room will transform into a winter wonderland for two days of Polar Express magic! Children will want to stop by for the Polar Express Event on December 28 at 6 p.m. Come in your pajamas and join the fun as your Elf librarians host a fun-filled evening adventure featuring “all aboard” tickets for children, photo ops with our very own train conductor, and a reading of the award winning book “The Polar Express.” Cozy up with hot cocoa and cookies, and take home your very own jingle bell. Be sure to swing by on Thursday, December 29 at 2:30 p.m. for a screening of “The Polar Express” movie! Refreshments will be served.

The fun continues on Friday, December 30 with New Year’s Eve for Little Ones from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. During the Second Annual New Year’s Eve celebration for young children, children six and under are invited to experience a countdown to 2017. The event will include photos ops and photo frames, noisemakers and hats, refreshments, and lots of dancing. Dress your best and prepare for a time out on the town! Space is limited so please sign up with a grown-up, and don’t forget your camera!

The Tanglewood Marionettes, Polar Express Event, and New Year’s Eve for Little Ones are generously sponsored by the Friends of the Worcester Public Library.

There’s so much more going on during the week all over the library! For more information on the Worcester Public Library and a complete list of events and programs visit www.mywpl.org.

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Ballot Question 2 – What would “Ma” do?

October 13, 2016 admin

Yesterday: Rosalie and her smudged mirror

By Rosalie Tirella

What would “Ma” do?

That’s what I ask myself every time my “libby” (liberal) self is on the cusp of carrying away my more staid, practical, inner-city Green Island Grrrl self. My late Mom was way smarter than I am and more sensitive to others; she had an open heart and open mind at all times. But she was no push over. She knew how hard life could be – especially for poor folks – because her life was unremitting poverty. She made tough choices every day, yet she lived with such grace and wicked humor … Her life was outsized! Full! Her cup runneth over!

So I think of Ma when I think of Ballot Question 2: LIFTING THE CAP ON CHARTER SCHOOLS … MORE CHARTER SCHOOLS IN MASS. Up to 12.

At first, my liberal reaction: GAWD NO! For all the libby reasons. But then my mom and how she raised us kids in Green Island in the ’60s and ’70s surfaces…how she got the most out of Woo schools for her three girls – with no money, no connections, no car, not much of a clothing budget, no high school diploma (my mom completed the 8th grade and was promptly farmed out to Springfield, along with her three sisters, to be the Bishop of Springfield’s housekeeper/cook, during the Great Depression) but plenty of natural ability. Thanks to Ma, we kids got what we needed from the schools: for me, the Worcester Public Schools, K to 12. Ma knew I loved -LOVED!!! – to learn and that the best chance for her little whiz kid to excel was to keep her in the Worcester Public Schools with their smart, serious teachers, impressive science labs, serious sports equipment, big stately buildings (Prov) or spanking new digs (just built Burncoat), new text books, tons of homework and college-oriented goals. I was expected to – cuz I was smart – get straight As, take all honors classes at Providence Street Junior High and enroll in A.P./honors classes at Burncoat Senior High School. I did and Ma was over the moon! She also got a bit pushy – made me take accordion and violin lessons and pushed me to join the schools all city orchestra. I put my foot down: I was too shy for performing on stage and hated the old violin Ma rented for me out of some music store on Main Street where the piano teacher was deaf!, and I grew bored with my accordion, despite the sparkly rhinestones in some of its buttons and its cool iridescent mother of pearl front!

My two kid sisters attended Lamartine Street School until grade 4, then Mom transfered them to St. Mary’s, her alma mater, on Richland Street. My mom felt my kid sisters “wouldn’t make it” in the rough and tumble Worcester Public Schools where kids often fought in the school yard and a few, I remember my pal showed me hers!, even carried knives. St. Mary’s, the little school for Polish kids and families, was much tamer (and to me sooo BORING): small, intimate and safe. Students had to wear conservative looking school uniforms, go to mass at least once a week at the mother church across the street on Ward Street – Our Lady of Czetchowa – and kow tow to nuns who taught most of the classes and brooked no bull shit. The nuns could be sadistic – they were allowed to pull kids up out of their chairs by their ears! The first grade and seond grade nun/teachers were young and sweet and round faced (I went to St. Mary’s catechism class every Monday eve so I knew my sisters’ teachers), but things progressed badly as you went up in grades. In your 10th grade biology class you could see the hair growing out of your nun’s nostrils! The nuns at the high school weren’t sweet and they certainly weren’t pretty.

I could also tell my sisters’ St. Mary’s school books weren’t as up to date or challenging as mine, their homework was easier and they had much less of it. But St. Mary’s was way less rough than Lamartine and “Prov.” Everyone was kind of the same. My sisters, twins, awefully skinny, kinda shy and didn’t crush the books the way I could, were happy at St. M’s. They weren’t beaten up anymore. They had fun. They had friends. They liked their classes – and the penguins aka nuns! Ma knew my public school honors classes would be tough for them – no matter how hard Ma tried to help them with homework – and Ma did sit with us and struggle through our projects with us! But she was ok with less excellence because my sisters didn’t crave it like I did. Sure, I was bullied at Lamartine and Prov cuz I was a straight A brainy nearsighted bookworm, and Ma knew it. But I was so crazy about my schools, my teachers, the competitiveness of my fellow smarties and the friendship of my good gal pals that I stuck it all out. And Ma loved her chubby little shining star!

My mom knew she had to make school work for my kid sisters who wouldn’t thrive in public schools. She was too poor to pay for a private Catholic school, but she, like her Mom before her, was a parishoner of Our Lady of Czetchowa and worked a special deal with the church for its St. Mary’s school: free tuition up to graduation from high school (St Mary’s went K to 12), free everything for her two girls (except uniforms). Why? Because Ma was a parishoner who was a single mom who worked 60 hours a week at the dry cleaners for minimum wage and was killing herself to pay the bills and provide a good life for her girls and Polish immigrant mother (“Bapy”) who lived with the family on Lafayette Street. And she and her girls walked to church to attend mass every Sunday morning and on every Holy Day of obligation – of which there are a multitude, if you’re an old school Catholic. Which my mom was.

We were a well deserving church “charity case.”

Fast forward to 2016. St. Mary’s school doesn’t offer the same deal to my mom cuz the pastor is an ASSHOLE. I’ve written about him in this space… you all know the straight dope.

So…What would Ma do for my two kid sisters today? How would she educate two fragile little inner city gals today?

SEND THEM TO A CHARTER SCHOOL.

WORK IT SO THAT HER TWO GIRLS COULD ATTEND A CHARTER SCHOOL – the perfect place for them to learn!

Today Worcester’s charter schools offer a CHOICE to parents like my mom. Parents who don’t often have a lot of choices in their lives and are DOING THEIR BEST AND WANT THE BEST FOR THEIR KIDS. They can’t afford chi chi private schools, they may not be able to drive their kids to another town’s safer, (better???) schools. They may feel, like my mom did, that their kids can’t thrive in a sometimes chaotic public school setting and that they may need smaller and intimate classroom settings. They may feel their kids need to go to school with kids who don’t pose huge discipline problems. School uniforms may help parents save money – I know that was the case for my mom. And while the school’s curriculum or teachers may not be inspiring, they are solid – their kids will graduate knowing how to read and write and do arithmetic. They’ll have a grasp of the basics and can go on from there.

If my mom had boys she would be checking out the Nativity School in the old Girls Club Lincoln House building.

She’d be intrigued by the WPS school President Obama visited a few years ago: Worcester Technical High School. For awhile, as a kid, my mother attended the WPS’s Girls Trade School. Something for which she was always grateful and proud.

Ma would look for the best schools that fit her kids in the best possible way – taking into account a lot more than academics. And because she’d be poor the school choices had to be free. The Worcester Public Schools did well by my immigrant Polish and Italian family: two doctors, a few school teachers, a nurse, a nursing home administrator, an accountant, a lawyer…many of us the first in the family to go to college. Many living the American Dream! There’s even a Hollywood set painter … and a feisty editor of a feisty inner-city community newspaper!

Ma would vote YES ON QUESTION 2.

So will I.

InCity Yum Yums

At the YWCA … Abby’s House and Our Story Edutainment … Tom Petty … and more!

October 7, 2016 admin

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pic:R.T.

Abby’s House and Our Story Edutainment present Love Shouldn’t Hurt

Spoken Word and Lyrics

In Honor and Remembrance of Victims and Survivors of Domestic Violence

When: Wednesday, October 19

Where: Worcester Public Library

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Please join us for an evening of caring and remembrance as Worcester’s finest
poets and singers Honor victims and Celebrate survivors of Domestic Violence.

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Oct. 20 at Clark University, 950 Main St. …

Tom Petty biographer talks about men’s emotion in rock music

Clark University presents “Men, Masculinities and Emotion in Rock and Roll,” a conversation with Warren Zanes, author of “Petty: the Biography,” and executive director of the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation, beginning at 7 p.m., Oct. 20, in the Daniels Theater at Atwood Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Zanes’ book about Petty, released in late 2015, has been hailed as a masterpiece in biography, revealing “an X-ray of the most fragile, most volatile, and most sublime social unit ever invented: the rock-and-roll band. The alliances, the distortions, the deep bruises and the absurd elations that can never be explained to an outsider” (Journalist/author Stephen Dubner).

Warren Zanes

Zanes, who has taught at several U.S. universities, also was vice president at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His writing subjects range from Jimmy Rogers to Dusty Springfield, to the Willburn Brothers to the History of Warner Bros. Records. Additionally, Zanes made three records with the 1980s rock and roll band the Del Fuegos and three as a solo artist.

Michael Addis, professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University, organized the talk and will serve as moderator. Addis is director of the Research Group on Men’s Well-Being. He is an expert on men’s help seeking, masculinity, depression and men’s health issues, and is the author of “Invisible Men: Men’s Inner Lives and the Consequences of Silence.”

“Rock and blues music is one of the only places in popular culture where men reveal pure emotional vulnerability, although it’s often hidden in layers of anger and other more hypermasculine ways of expressing pain.” ~ Michael Addis

“Warren Zanes is a true polymath; accomplished musician, author, professor of visual and cultural arts … We are very fortunate, and very excited, to have him visit Clark,” noted Addis.

Addis, a musician himself, described his connection with Zanes: “Over the last ten years I have been using Tom Petty’s music and lyrics regularly in my psychology of men and masculinity and psychology of music classes. When I read Warren’s recent biography on Petty I was so impressed with it that I contacted him immediately and found out not only that he had a connection with Clark (the Del Fuegos were Boston-Based and played at Clark in the ‘80s), but also that he was interested in the psychology of music, and in the issues of silence and invisibility in musician’s lives – something I had written about extensively in my book, ‘Invisible Men.’ ”

The talk is sponsored by the Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology at Clark University.

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Today! REC FARMERS MARKET AT BEAVER BROOK PARK – ACROSS FROM FOLEY STADIUM, Chandler Street!

Rose’s roses. pic:R.T.

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MAIN SOUTH! Tomorrow! SATURDAY!

And …

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FREE FOR ALL SCHOOL TEACHERS! How to implement suicide prevention programs in their schools

We are hosting a few trainings across Massachusetts for middle and high school staff.

The training teaches schools basic suicide prevention knowledge and how to implement and evidence-based suicide prevention program in their school.

The training is free and gives attendees the opportunity to get the program for free.

This is a half-day training appropriate for any school staff or community members who will implement the SOS program or provide gatekeeper training.

Topics include:

· Warning signs, risk factors, and symptoms of depression and suicide in youth

· How to respond to youth at risk

· SOS Signs of Suicide Prevention Program implementation best practices

· How to talk safely to teens about suicide

· Training adults in your communities and schools to support at-risk youth in seeking help

· Tips on breaking down barriers to youth suicide prevention and action steps

As you may know, Massachusetts passed legislation that encourages school personnel to receive training on suicide prevention.

Staff who attend this training will be prepared to return to their schools and deliver suicide prevention gatekeeper training to all staff.

North Central Massachusetts – October 19 – Gardner

In partnership, the Montachusett Suicide Prevention Taskforce and SMH invite your staff to a training at Heywood Hospital in Gardner.

This training is provided free of charge thanks to the support of Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Western Massachusetts – Date TBD – Location TBD
This training is provided free of charge thanks to the support of Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Southern Massachusetts – Date TBD – Raynham MA
In partnership, Bristol County Suicide Prevention Coalition and SMH invite your staff to a training at the First Congressional Church of Raynham. Date and time TBD.
This training is provided free of charge thanks to the support of the Makayla Fund

To learn more about the trainings, feel free to contact Chelsea Biggs at cbiggs@mentalhealthscreening.org.

Animal Issues

Meet WPS Superintendent Maureen Binienda

September 19, 2016 admin

Maureen Binienda’s new digs on Irving Street pic:R.T.

By Edith Morgan

Many years ago, one of our vice-presidents (Spiro Agnew, I believe) referred to the naysayers and critics with the unforgettable phrase: “nattering nabobs of negativity”. The phrase stuck in my mind, not only because of its unusual use of vocabulary, and its alliteration, which enabled me to remember it, but also because of the sound of the words. That phrase has come back to me repeatedly over the years, as I listened to the critics and pessimists run down everything that was proposed or planned.

But now it seems to me there is a new feeling the air, and new optimism. I credit much of that to our governing triumvirate: our mayor Joe Petty, our city manager Ed Augustus, and the newest addition to that team, our superintendent Maureen Binienda. All three are unabashed ly optimistic and hopeful for our city and its citizens.

I have to admit that when the superintendent search was narrowed down to local talent, I had some moments of misgivings, as I have always been in favor of finding new ideas, new solutions, new methods, to solve long-term problems. And more often than not, they come from outside. But as I see how our local government is now functioning, I have to admit that I was wrong.

We in Worcester are very fortunate to have chosen leadership that is positive, optimistic, and above all that has the quality that makes it possible to enlist the cooperation of others to accomplish their goals.

I interviewed Superintendent Maureen Binienda in her office on Irving Street on a Friday afternoon. And even though it was just after school began, there was a sense of calm and confidence in the whole office, an attitude of “what can we do for you”, that put me at ease immediately.

I have known Maureen Binienda for over 40 years, off and on in many settings – we both were teachers and then administrators for many years. Our paths crossed frequently in different venues – and I always found her to be a whirlwind of activity , always positive, and always ready to listen.

Maureen is small in stature, and looks so much like my image of the typical Irish colleen – with her blue eyes and black hair, though I am not sure she has the freckles….. But she comes by it all very naturally: those of you who have been in Worcester a long time surely know the Callans; Maureen comes from a long line of Worcester Public Schools employees: her grandfather was principal of the former Millbury Street Elementary School, he rmother secretary of WPS; both her husband and daughter are also teachers.
Maureen attended Catholic School after the eighth grade, , graduated from Fitchburg State in 1976 with a degree in Special Education, Her scholarship and other qualities were repeatedly recognized, as she was awarded full Jacob Hyatt Scholarship to Harvard to pursue her education. She says “it is nice to give back”, after having been given these great opportunities.

When I asked her what her main goals and dreams were, she mentioned first that she would focus on Pre- K literacy. We need to start the children out as early as possible . She also would like to bring back “community Schools “ which were so successful but suffered from the cuts that rained down on our schools when so much public money was little by little withdrawn from city schools.

She is also hoping to get more opportunities for high school students to get college credits while still finishing high school. And she mentioned that there ought to be more merit scholarships available . While we always need more funds to help poor children, she will not neglect middle class children.
While our schools have received many donations of instruments for our music programs, she would like to have instruments for all our schools, (Music and the arts have been cut too often and too much recently – ).
She says every child should have a Chrome Book, and our technology needs to be improved (constantly?) . And (still dreaming?) the system should have vans to take students to internship sites to practice civic engagement.

I am not sure how she finds time to pursue her hobbies: she loves to swim, has been a lifeguard and swimming instructor. She hopes to travel, especially wants to get to visit the Caribbean. She has been to Ireland three times already, but wants to see Italy still.

Maureen could have retired some time ago, but when I asked why she stays on, she said she would retire when her work is done – when all our schools are recognized by the State and nation as providing effective education for ALL our students . I would add that when all our students are assured that there will be enough , regular funding to achieve the goal of providing a quality education to all, for as long as it takes to get there.

While Maureen has the education, the dedication, and the experience, there is one more quality that I believe will be crucial to her success: it was exemplified in her “opening salvo”: it was when she assembled ALL staff together: not just teachers and professionals, but also aides, custodians, food services personnel – EVERYONE (I’m sure I left out someone –sorry!) . For the first time, all those who come into the lives of our children were all together one place, and all members of a team and all part of a larger enterprise, all with the same goal. The rest of the year, there is little opportunity to see the larger picture, and to meet face to face. So I believe this was a great idea –and one that will be repeated.

As a Worcester resident, and lifelong educator and supporter of the best in public schools, I wish our superintendent much success – I know she will continue to do great work as she has done in the past .
Just a quick commercial: I visited South High when Maureen was principal there, and saw what the students were doing with Andy’s Attic – as I recently saw that donations are needed of clothing and other items (they will take donations too), I end this article with an appeal for help to South High so they can pass it on…..

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Edith parked in Rose’s space: NO ON QUESTION 2!!

September 11, 2016 admin

How will YOU vote on November 8???? pic:R.T.

By Edith Morgan

Maybe November 8 will be different – maybe everyone will show up to vote! (We’re electing our President, after all!) Or maybe the new early voting days will bring out enough of us to really make a difference.

Certainly the turnout on September 8 did not make me feel very hopeful, although there was some excuse for the lack of interest, in that there were unusual factors: 1) election day fell on a Thursday; 2) it was really poorly advertised by the parties: 3) there were too many wards where there was no contest; 4) I suspect a certain fatigue on the part of the voters, having been barraged with the incessant stupidities of the presidential campaign.

Still, some people who have never missed an election DID show up – even just to be counted, where they had no choices provided.

But November 8 will give us plenty to think about and to choose! As a retired educator and with a lifetime dedication to the idea of universal public education, I have watched for several decades now as the privatizers and money/power grabbers slowly made inroads into our public school systems: nationally, they cut public funding, closed many neighborhood schools and imposed a spurious testing system designed to punish the schools attended by the poorest and minority children.

Since most of the American public has for some time strongly supported their public schools, a direct frontal attack would have met with real resistance. So, there had to be the scurrilous, undercover attacks on aspects of the system that were vulnerable.

In addition to budget cuts, attacks on teachers and multiple choice tests designed to put down rather than to help the most needy, the notion of “choice” was sold as an alternative to making EVERY American school good and great. While we were promised that charter schools would introduce creative and innovative education ideas, to be then introduced to the public schools, that idea soon got lost …The rest of the story is history …

But now, with Ballot Question 2, we have a chance to at least put a halt on the draining of the life-blood of our schools.

Question 2 proposes to lift the cap on further charter school expansion in Massachusetts.

So, a NO vote will keep the cap we have now at its present level.

We have a chance to stop the erosion in its tracks – it’s the least we can do. So I urge, plead, entreat EVERY VOTER to cast a ballot and at least vote No on 2! Even if you are totally turned off by the Presidential race, give our children a chance! Make sure that the very necessary funding our public schools depend on is not drained away any more. It’s the least any of us can do!

Animal Issues

Too many American schools are still flunking lunch!

September 5, 2016 admin

This summer the City of Worcester ran a kick-ass summer lunch/snack program for low-income/hungry kids at our parks – the USDA’s national Summer Food Service Program! This blue bus (pictured above) could be seen rolling down our city streets, even making stops at our branch libraries! … School’s begun! Hola, Ms. Lunch Lady! Unlike lots of school districts, the Worcester Public Schools work to incorporate fresh veggies and fruits into students’ meals – at every grade level! AND EVERY STUDENT CAN GET A FREE LUNCH! Go, WPS, go!!! – Rosalie T.

By Heather Moore

I don’t care what kids say — the school lunch lady is not trying to kill them. The federal government is. Well, I have my suspicions, at least. Many of the meals served as part of the National School Lunch Program are high in fat and cholesterol and contain considerably more sodium than fiber. They’re a heart attack in the making. I wonder if that’s why the American Heart Association has warned us that atherosclerosis – hardening of the arteries — begins in childhood and progresses into adulthood, at which point it can lead to coronary heart disease.

Most American schools serve the same artery-clogging meals that were served when I was a student, and frozen meals still had to be baked in the oven. How can we expect students to take a health teacher’s “healthy eating tips” seriously when their school cafeteria is serving unhealthy foods?

Salisbury steak, pepperoni pizza and chicken nuggets need to go the way of film projectors and hand-crank pencil sharpeners. And fast-food corporations should also be expelled from schools — or at least suspended until they serve more plant-based meals.

As Dr. Neal Barnard, the president of the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, says, “Fresh produce, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds are nutritional powerhouses that study after study has shown to be quite literally lifesaving .… [D]iets high in animal protein are associated with a fourfold increase in the chance of dying from cancer or diabetes — making heavy meat and dairy consumption just as dangerous as smoking.”

Responsible parents teach their children not to smoke because cigarettes cause cancer and other health problems. For the same reason, they should make sure their kids don’t get hooked on hamburgers and other unhealthy foods. Let’s put more emphasis on teaching children to eat vegan meals — at school and at home. Kids will gladly eat plant-based meals, such as pasta, veggie burgers and black bean chili, if they’re delicious as well as nutritious.

Knowing this, the Coalition for Healthy School Food created the Cool School Food program to develop, test and implement plant-based meals in school cafeterias. The program — which helped two public schools in New York implement the first entirely plant-based school menus in the U.S. — aims to make it fun and exciting for young people to try new foods and learn about their health benefits.

Food Is Elementary, another school program that was recently featured in VegNews magazine, is also working to introduce children to plant-based foods, which the kids prepare and eat as part of a curriculum established by the founder of the Food Studies Institute, a New York-based nonprofit that helps school cafeterias incorporate low-fat, high-fiber foods into their menus.

We need more programs like these. Students are fed up with the unappetizing, inhumane and potentially disease-promoting fare that passes as lunch in many school cafeterias. Last year, students at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago boycotted school lunch in an attempt to persuade officials to serve healthier meals, including more fresh fruit and vegetables.

That’s hardly an unreasonable request. The school cafeteria is supposed to be a source of nourishment, not disease. This year’s National School Lunch Week, which will be observed in October, aims to remind “parents, students and school officials that a healthy lunch helps students power through the day!”

But how can we expect kids to make it through the day — and learn compassion and empathy — if they’re eating unhealthy animal-based foods? We need to teach children that “v” is for vegan and serve them healthy, tasty, cruelty-free plant-based foods.

InCity Yum Yums

Save Our Schools

August 4, 2016 admin

By Edith Morgan

Many years ago, I participated in a grant from the U.S. government, under a new program called “Title IVC” – which granted applying school districts funds for three years to develop innovative public school programs and pilot them in school districts. Many schools applied and many great programs were developed. Since they had been paid for with public funds, they remained in the public domain, and the schools that wanted to do so, could implement them.

This was before we passed our Education Reform Act. At that time we were promised that, since innovation was so difficult under the current restraints that public schools face, we would try some innovative “charter schools” that would be freed from the bureaucratic restraints faced by public schools. We could try new ideas, and if they proved successful, they could be implemented in our public schools.

Under no circumstances would I EVER have approved of for-profit-schools run with public funds! Nor did it make any sense to me that if the State already knew what prevented real creativity and innovation in our schools’ classrooms, they would create a system of schools to compete with our schools – siphon away funds where they were most needed and trick parents and the public into believing that “choice” was what they were getting.

So what did we get?

Schools which functione pretty much independently of the community, representing a tiny fraction of the community, hiring untrained and uncertified teachers, paid below certified ones, with great turnover, and in several cases, using the innovative programs we had developed years earlier.

With little oversight, little control, little requirement that they serve those most in need, but a great PR machine, they are now pushing to get many more of the same.

So once more it becomes necessary for us to defend our public schools from the continuing battle to privatize them – turn them into “cash cows” for those who see our public school system as the last great publicly owned and run system to undermine. And take over for profit. This has been going on for decades but must not succeed.

A good public education is the foundation of our democracy!

Animal Issues

Edith’s parked in A.I: Summer thoughts

June 15, 2016 admin

By Edith Morgan

School’s out – the kids say “hurrah,” the parents groan. The City of Worcester offers a wonderful array of things to do, using our school buildings, our parks, and a summer staff to keep them occupied, and learning experiences to prevent their backsliding and forgetting much of what they learned in the past year. I applaud all these efforts and really hope that those children who need such support the most will take full advantage of all these offerings.

These programs are a far cary from what we knew when we were young: summer was a time for outdoor activity, for getting around the neighborhood and for pursuing our own interests – hobbies, arts, explorations of all sorts. Most parents were very busy just surviving, and we kids did not need (nor WANT) to be constantly entertained. We were told “Go out and play, get back in here for supper,” or “when it gets dark.” We roller-skated, played football or baseball (if we could round up enough players) and read a mountain of comic books when our parents were not looking, as mine frowned on them, and since we had no money to buy a lot of them, we had a store around the corner where we could exchange the ones we had bought for 10 cents, receive 2 cents for the ones we had read, and trade five old ones for a new one. We were all well acquainted with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Archie and the classic comics. It was not great literature, but generally harmless and easy reading.

Our “Superheroes” fought evildoers and won without a great deal of destruction and bloodshed, and did not, by and large, bend the law. How times have changed … .

For parents, this summer time might be a great time to think deeply about our schools this summer: we have a lot of decisions to make, not just about our own children, but also about all the other children in our schools.

I believe that EVERY child, in EVERY Public School, is entitled to a quality education – and that the schools are the place where children learn to be fully functioning citizens, responsible human beings and lifelong learners.

And they should be taught the skills and attitudes and habits they need to live decent lives, develop their talents to the fullest and pay forward to the next generation what they were given.

We were promised that when we established charter schools that they would have the freedom to innovate, try new and better things, and share their discoveries with the public schools. Instead, too many of them have cut corners, have hired persons ill prepared and unqualified and, in some instances, put profits ahead of performance. When we knew all along that excessive bureaucracy and insufficient support of teachers who innovate were major stumbling blocks to improvement, why did we not just change what we knew to be wrong in the existing schools so all of them could be innovative?

Was there another agenda, hidden behind the promise of “Choice”?

Have we been had?

InCity Voices

The Worcester Public Schools and the Drug Fantasies of the State House

March 19, 2016 admin

By Gordon Davis

First, let me start off by saying that the opioid crisis is real and something needs to be done about it. Overall, it is a good thing that the State House recently passed an opioid bill.

The bill mandates drug screenings for public school children. However, there does not seem to be any evidence that the crisis is particularly acute in public schools. In fact, the statistical evidence is that drug use of any kind among high schools is declining.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse in a recent report said the following:

2014’s Monitoring the Future survey of drug use and attitudes among American 8th, 10th, and 12th graders continued to show encouraging news about youth drug use, including decreasing use of alcohol, cigarettes, and prescription pain relievers; no increase in use of marijuana; decreasing use of inhalants and synthetic drugs, including K2/Spice and bath salts; and a general decline over the last two decades in the use of illicit drugs.

Misuse and abuse (or “non-medical use”) of prescription and over-the-counter drugs continues to decline among the nation’s youth. Past-year use of the opioid pain reliever Vicodin has dropped significantly over the past 5 years; 4.8 percent of 12th graders used Vicodin for non-medical reasons in 2014, compared to 9.7 percent in 2009. Past-year use of narcotics other than heroin (which includes all opioid pain relievers) among high school seniors dropped from 7.1 percent in 2013 to 6.1 percent in 2014; 9.5 percent of seniors had reported past-year use of these drugs in 2004.

Private schools are not required to carry out drug screenings. Given that this is a medical issue, it seems prejudicial that the state Legislature was silent on drug screening for private schools. There are state laws on vaccinations that apply to private schools.

This seems to be another instance where public school children are treated in a disparate and maybe an unlawful manner. The issue of mandatory drug screening certainly raises Fourth Amendment issues of searches by government agencies without probable cause. In this matter, it is a search without reasonable cause.

The drug screenings are to be conducted by school nurses or other medical personnel.

I do not think each high school and middle school in Worcester has a school nurse; many of them were eliminated in budget cuts while ago. It is likely that there will be more layoffs next fiscal year due to school underfunding.

In theory, the parents of a child are able to opt out their child from the drug screening. This raises process and procedure questions as to how the parents will be informed about the substance and implication of the drug screening and how to opt their child out.

There are also questions about medical records. From my experience in discrimination law, every “oral“ warning was actually written down and placed in the employee’s file. I am pretty sure that the same will happen with these drug screenings.

I cannot imagine what the process would be if the nurse or other interrogator came to the conclusion that a child was abusing drugs. Such a conclusion is likely an automatic suspension from school. Although the conversations with medical personnel are “confidential,” it is not the same as the lawyer-client privilege. Medical personnel can be summoned to give an affidavit or to court.

The Mass Human Rights and PLP plan to raise these issues with the Worcester School Administration and the Worester School Committee.

It seems like an issue other groups should be interested in – groups such as CPPAC and Jobs/School Not Jail.

With the transition to a new WPS Superintendent Worcester might not get to these issues for a while. How other school districts handle this new drug screening mandate could prove helpful.

Perhaps the Worcester legislative senators and representatives and the governor’s office can sponsor an information session on how to carry out this mandate without violating children’s civil rights.

InCity Voices

With new WPS super, Worcester should consider district representation on the Worcester School Committee

March 15, 2016 admin

By Gordon Davis
photos by Gordon Davis

What is to be done now that Maureen Binienda is the new Worcester Public Schools Superintendent?

The success and education of our children are the only issues now. We have to work together to effectuate these goals. Any division or animosity within the Worcester School District must be put aside.

Dr. Binienda

Since the search was internal to the Worcester School District, the candidates for the schools superintendent job still have important jobs to do and must continue to do their good work: Dr. Mulcahy teaching English, Dr. Allen running Norrback Elementary School and Dr. Rodrigues continuing his work as Assistant WPS Superintendent.

Dr. Rodrigues faces a test of character, as he has to teach his replacement the ropes. I am sure he will pass this test and be of great help to Dr. Binienda.

Dr. Rodrigues

I think Dr. Rodrigues will eventually be scooped up by some school district which has a better appreciation of his talents, experience and education.

I think Dr. Binienda will do a good job until she retires in a few years.

As I have pointed out before, there seems to be something irrational or illogical regarding this WPS superintendent selection process. The irrationality became more evident when the two progressive Worcester School Committee members – Hilda Ramirez and Tracy Novick – were voted out of office this past November. They were replaced by at least one ideologue.

I also have to say that I was surprised by the votes of some long-time Worcester School Committee members who I thought were more level-headed.

One time, several years ago, then Worcester Mayor Joseph O’Brian suggested that there should be regional or district representation on the Worcester School Committee similar to that found on the Worcester City Council to ensure minority representation, to reflect the diversity of the students/families of the Worcester Public Schools. To ensure their voices, needs and perspectives were heard. I was skeptical at the time, as there is a so called minority majority State Representative district in our area that has never been filled by a minority.

After the recent events, I may have to concede the point to our former mayor.

The Worcester School Committee is entirely white – even though most of the children in the Worcester schools are not.

I do not think that this should last for long, for the good of the city.

For years the Worcester School District has been underfunded. It should be receiving at least $90 million a year more than it is now receiving in accordance with Chapter 70 of State statutes. Yet I have seen no urgency by the Worcester School Committee to fully fund the schools.

There has been no effort to organize parents or teachers or the community in general to demand full funding.

Compare this to the student walk out in Boston.

The children once again lead the way.

There is a definite need for a change in leadership in Worcester.

It is not clear to me that the Dr. Binienda choice is a symptom of this lack of leadership. I wish her good fortune in running our public schools; our kids’ lives depend upon it.