School Committee's Turn to Old School Policies

The Worcester School Committee Takes a Turn to Old School Policies

The two liberal or progressive members of the School Committee, Hilda Ramirez and Tracy A. O’Connell Novick will be replaced by what some consider to be a right wing challenger, Donna M. Colorio, and a relatively unknown, Molly McCullough.  I say that Ms. Ramirez and Ms. O’Connell Novick are progressive because from my experience they understood the changes that the Worcester Public School is going through as it becomes more of a majority minority school system. They did more than just maintained a color blind system of public education, but instead tried to accommodate each child level of educational ability.

It is clear what the school committee women elect will do.  It has been my experience that Ms. Coloria does not understand the school changes and is resistant to them.  There are some who say that she is connected to the racist Tea Party which has consistently displayed bias toward newcomers, especially Hispanic people. I suppose we can expect what is on the surface are color blind decisions by Ms. Colorio that will prove to have disparately adverse impact on many kids without adequate educational resources outside of the school, especially Black and Latino kids.

I only know Ms. McCullough from her literature and I do not have any strong opinions about her. Most of her election statements seem to be the usual stuff that do not say much nor offends anyone. I suppose we will soon find out about her real thinking and character in the near term.

It is unfortunate to have lost both Ms. O’Connell Novick and Ms. Ramirez. The City’s failure to re elect Ms. Ramirez is especially a blow as there are now no so called minorities on the School Committee. There are no Asians, no Blacks, nor Latinos.

I know and like Messrs O’Connell, Foley, and Monfredo. They are decent people and well qualified such that it is likely their decisions will be based on a pedagogy that will do no harm.

Ms. Briancharia has not shown to me that she has the capacity or the compassion to be on the school committee, but many people in Worcester do. Her almost irrational demands about cops in the schools are particularly worrisome. Sometimes I feel that her lack of a college degree and any experience in education makes her less capable than some of the others who ran for school committee.

Now that Ms. Colorio has won, it appears that Mr. Rodrigues chances of becoming the contractual School Superintendent are greatly reduced. From all accounts Ms. Maureen Binienda, principal of South High School, is well qualified to be a superintendent of schools. However I wonder if her backers in the Worcester School Committee have taken into account the changes aforementioned. Sometimes a color blind policy is not what is needed to address the particulars of a situation.

The cops in schools was rammed down the throat of the school system so quickly that there is no policy nor protocol for the arrest of kids at school, the use of police force at school, nor the interactions of administration and police. The police powers are authorized under a different state statute than are found in the Department of Education regulations.  There will be city wide meeting Nov, 18, 2015, 6 PM at Centro, 11 Sycamore St.  to discuss this lack of policy issue.

I hope that the inconsistencies between police authority and Department of Education authority can be resolved in such a way as not to be harmful to the students. I also hope that a school committee that is now all white can make compassionate and good decisions for a school system that is now majority minority.