Format: 2 minute opening statements, questions: primary responders get 1 minute, 30 seconds to responders…each candidate will get 3 questions
Opening Statements
Clancey running for her third term; bachelor’s and master’s; WPS parent; very active in community, coach softball, past and current PTO pres at Nelson Place, licensed guidance counselor, had worked 17 years with kids in juvenile justice system. Worked tirelessly during covid – incredible work during that time. One of goals is top-notch education for all, new super, in-house transpo, along with Novick has been working on updating outdated policies.
Novick in her fifth term; mother of 2 WPS alums, one senior in Burncoat/dual language, bachelor’s, MAT, works in school finance. Proud of work done this term; does not remember a time when she has been so proud of sc’s work. National search – results in superintendent – moving ahead together as a governance team. As a parent, nothing like knowing the bus will turn up. Facilities funding – 3rd year of implementing Student Opportunity Act. On accountability, we have good chance to continue work.
Mailman she’s 61 years old, worked in family biz for 38 years. Attended college for many nights while working full-time. Son Jeff graduated in Burncoat and died at age 21. That loss has changed her and increased her sense of urgency in improving our little corner of the world. Chaired and served on various boards; at the heart of all: K-12 PS system needs to be the best. Equity/social emotional health/robust community partners important. Skilled tradespeople, project managers, etc. – rounded, safe, robust education.
Binienda possesses a comprehensive understanding of the issue. HAS WORKED WITH MULTIPLE SCHOOL COMMITTEES SUCCESSFULLY. has a bachelor’s and a couple of master’s. She is well-versed in educational leadership; 46 years in WPS. Has prioritized safety, Early College, CH74, dual language program expansion. During the pandemic, SHE INITIATED WAITING ROOMS, SCREENING. Her tenure at South High School, fostering learning environment. educator to administrator.
Q : what do you see as role (at large vs district)? First item of business.
Clancey: top priority is enhancing school safety. study will be released in November. Looking at new positions and enhancing – pilots were successful last year.
Binienda first of all, need good communication btw at large and district candidates. Improve school safety. Academic access, school partnerships.
Novick the good work of admin and SC needs to get underway. Strategic plan implementation. 3rd, 4th, 5th years of Student Opportunity Act, school safety needs to be looked at, multilingual program comprehensive review, facilities (fed, state, city level).
Mailman City Council represents biz + residents. In SC, just residents. People in your district that go to school in other places – not the same job as in the city side. Tracy Novick will ensure that MASC’s rules will be in front of us.
Q: buildings. WPS manages 62 facilities, handful built/substantially renovated in 15 years. increased construction costs. How to plan, prioritize, fund?
Mailman one minute to answer 100 year old question. We don’t have any great solutions yet. Student Opp Act $ does not give us bldg funds – look statewide, nationally, grants – Burncoat needs to get done. 50/50 voke/arts school. Hopefully the state will fund 90% if more than 10% voke component.
Clancey keep up with facilities master plan, which is a live document. Expand roles in facilities dept. Quarterly updates at F&O meetings. Admin has set bar for turnaround time – will see incredible impacts.
Novick Student Opp Act – increasing operational budget. State discussion, same as other Gateway cities; partly a federal issue. Feds finally have a sense – need to put some money behind that.
Binienda important to state that WPS has a capital plan written many years ago – she was part of it. List of bldgs and what needs to be fixed. In budget, $14 mil for some work in the schools.
Mailman plans that were drawn up 5-10 years ago need to be revisited, we are doing that work right now.
Q for strategic plan and implementation
Clancey her committee directly works on this. improving acad scores, esp in reading. Align these goals with what we do yearly with super’s evaluation. You will get a sense of how the strategic plan is going. Proud of hard work we are doing on this.
Novick SC isn’t setting the priorities. From listening/learning tour by super – community groups. Will be tied into superintendent’s evaluation.
Binienda – has been involved in the last two strategic plans. Great strategic plan at the time. Some priorities have shifted. Budgetary – how will things be paid for
Mailman as part of last strategic plans as part of the community – we as community pushed because we did not have buy-in — what we have different this time is engaged educators, saw photos from session today.
Clancey looking at strat plan – priorities from admin, unlike in the past we did not get updates, will move in a clearer direction this time.
Q: Technology – maintaining investments like Chromebooks. How to continue innovation, how to fund, integrate in classroom?
Novick: need a plan, and luckily we do. Tech plan – over a decade of chromebooks and teacher laptops – we will need to work on maintenance, item she filed will have report from IT about budget responsibilities. Need to review policies, like access. Spark Academy intended to look at this kind of thing.
Binienda – Chromebooks on leases, we need to continue to do that for financing. Grants and SLA.
Mailman AI and Tech – what we will see in tech in 5 years is beyond what we have seen in the last 30 years. We have to stay ahead of game – we have super very interested in this work.
Clancey integrating into learning, so that kids are prepared. Curriculum that will prepare kids for an unknown world.
Novick administration is not afraid of tech. Many lock it out as much as possible. This does not prepare kids for the workforce – kids need to be ready for technology.
Q: WPS safety audit. do you support current school safety strategy?
Binienda: has a lot of experience with safety. Lists her resume again. Most important thing is that schools are safe. Students cannot learn unless they feel safety. Current WPS mostly provides safety but more can be done.
Mailman building audit – we will have bldg safety issues addressed with current audit. In favor of process taking now – climate officers, differnt approach.
Clancey safety audit – not afraid to see where the inadequacies are. Budget choice, serious changes.
Novick as a parent, no stronger statement in safety than sending kids on the bus every day, which is what she has done for 17 years. How does it feel to be LGBTQ student, black student, more than single facet.
Binienda students should be expected to acknowledge respect, conform to school rules, we have to develop policy around that.
Q strengthen/expand early education
Novick Student Opportunity Act $100mil/6 years – helping to expand, we know that parents have been frustrated for a long time – esp with half day programs. Ongoing collab with early childhood providers also important. Working with community in all kinds of ways – pay attention to those relationships bc those kids will be in WPS.
Binienda – program for kids who have kids at South, worked on expanding preschool there. Need to continue to expand
Mailman from community side, we get to place where we have universal pre-K, that we don’t destroy our current childcare providers. I needed those services. When we get to that, we need to collab with community.
Clancey – she had asked for early childhood center from previous admin (BINIENDA) and nothing happened. Compliments to current programs, like Head Start.
Novick Head Start will be impacted by fed gov’t shutdown. In listening sessions, this has come up quite a bit. What do our families need from us as a district and how are we responding to that?
Q about superintendent eval? how’s she doing?
Binienda – loves the super’s rubric set by DESE. Under each category, there are also indicators. Just been updated. As far as current super, doesn’t have info to do that at this point. All new supers go to new program to learn job as you go.
Novick state eval system set by regs, no option. We do set goals – we are told to choose from indicators based on goals. First SC she’s worked with where there was a conversation, she came back with feedback. On the same page which is refreshing. Updates throughout the year which makes evaluation easy.
Mailman became familiar with state’s rigid guidelines – we are going to be measuring student achievement, recruit/retention of staff, 72 hour response time; grade 3 reading.
Clancey I know the superintendent is doing a wonderful job – in the schools every day and can see it. She goes over the basics of the state system. Refreshing last year – felt like she did a concrete, concise, exactly what we were looking for.
Q restricting cell phones, review of acceptable use policy. What to support?
Binienda: THIS POLICY IS BAD. not a learning tool, they are a distraction. Those cell phones should be shut off, this is a place of learning, teachers don’t need to tell kids to take the earbuds off of their ears.
Mailman: my answer is less definite. In our schools, we have principals who are trying to figure out what works. We have asked for a citywide policy. Could we evaluate what cream rises to the top?
Clancey: current policy was from previous administration. Get opinions from different folks, make policy based on facts.
Novick: policy is vague and not implementable. Has a Master of Arts in Teaching – we did this with ballpoint pens, whatever the new tech is, we can’t handle it.
Binienda: FIRST OF ALL, phones are not like ballpoint pens. Admin was also not asked about the cell phone policy before it was voted in.
Q: MCAS for graduation and as a metric
Mailman 700 students in MA who do not graduate bc they did not pass MCAS. Having worked at QCC board, readiness for college takes many forms. Not sure MCAS has to be the final – certainly not for apprenticeship.
Clancey as an educator, people in 30s who only have cert of attainment because they couldn’t pass MCAS. Believes in standards but not tying MCAS to hs grad.
Novick cannot answer in 30 secs. Competency determination in MGL goes not need to be MCAS – constitutional obligation – state has to have some way. Not sure how the state will do that.
Binienda – so old that she was around before the MCAS. Before MCAS, we were not meeting standards. WE NEED ONE TEST – has to be the whole test – employers need to know this!!
Mailman doesn’t think employers evaluate based on this test.
Q on student outcomes. only 30% of WPS students earn certification or degree by mid-20s.
Clancey: we are tying this to 3rd grade reading level. This sets students up for graduating – high standards for all students, including at alternative schools. Make sure that we start in earlier grades – then better outcomes and middle/hs.
Novick – not familiar with one of the statistics cited. Ongoing q about longterm – seems to be earlier indicators.
Binienda – has always been on her mind. Began Early College, Innovation Pathways, so students would be able tohave opportunities.
Mailman – not a straight line – the governor’s decision to fund community college at age 25, hopes youngest stepson is listening, at 25 you’re more ready than at age 18.
Clancey – start them for success early.
Q – learning loss, social/emotional needs, how to support/retain teachers
Binienda – provide training for teachers, observe classrooms, provide mentoring, no teacher should feel like they are out there on their own.
Mailman – retention is a big question across all industries. For teaching, people want to work for a system that is going forward, that people in charge are building a team around them.
Clancey – start with positive school culture. We have seen that in this administration. In this SC, best contract in 20 years.
Novick – relationship with union is deliberately built, comprehensive support of schools across the district. (She had something else that I missed)
Binienda – on first day, brought everybody together. Everyone with same goal.
Q – remote learning and the pandemic. Wraparound coordinators, how else to respond?
Novick: first, acknowledging that they existed. Making sure that we had sufficient staff, over the past year using community partners. Wraparound partners referring people to mental health supports in the community. Current staff keeping tabs on kids. Sometimes it’s not a teacher, sometimes it’s someone else, more of those “someone elses” are a good thing.
Binienda: SELs should be part of the curriculum. Now that we have staff – focus back on academics, along with integrated SEL.
Mailman: it’s not about academics or SEL – it’s about both, it’s about supporting kids. I don’t see this as OR, see it as BOTH every day in school.
Clancey: we are creating a climate and culture – having community agencies to help staff – she has brought this up to previous admin, it’s taken this admin to get it done
Novick: you need to meet kid’s basic needs before they can larn – this is why we feed them, have clothes, laundry, sel is like this.
Q: is WPS doing enough to serve increasingly diverse student body?
Novick – we can always do more, Student Opportunity Act is helping. Make sure staff is reflective, family/community engagement directors added.
Clancey: getting there, need staff that reflects student body. Look at addl resources for special ed students. People in front of students that reflect them. Huge difference in student morale.
Binienda – has put washing machines in schools, clothing, college tours, babysitting, has done this. WPS has done a great job in the past and still doing a great job.
Mailman: in so many areas, we have been behind the 8 ball. Some of it funding – some of it leadership and structure. Rethinking how we are supporting the district.
Clancey: we need to be intentional in hiring. We are making huge improvements to chief equity office.
Q: SC salaries to be the same as CC
Mailman: hoped you were going to ask this. In this city we don’t look at hard qs – I didn’t say that the SC should be doubled – it should NOT be 50%. CC would rather not talk about it.
Clancey as a single mom, should want it – but happy with compensation as is.
Novick – most SCs in MA are not paid at all. Pay determines who gets to do this. She started this as a stay-at-home mom. If we believe in it, we should put money behind it.
Binienda feels that all the money should go to kids.
Mailman talks about this as an equity issue.
Q about how you differentiate yourself
Mailman: community relationships, familiarity with vocational education. Jermoh Kamara brings a different perspective than she does, everyone brings something.
Binienda is the only one who has been a teacher, asst principal, principal, superintendent. SHE HAS POSITIVELY THE LIVES OF THOUSANDS OF STUDENT
Clancey is active in schools but also an educator in this district and 30 others. Works well with all of her colleagues. As Tracy said, we all work together well.
Novick: EMBRACES HER IDENTITY AS A WONK. I do budget and policy as my full-time job. I know what I know because of Worcester and serving on school committee. This is what I now do for work. Appreciates that colleagues and admin find her valuable. In this spring, third child will graduate high school.
Closing
Novick: joy from incumbents because we’ve been able to get things done, we are not putting out fires because we have a strong administration. Current super said she wouldn’t be putting out fires because she would make sure they wouldn’t get set. Only three more years of Student Opportunity Act – pick wisely!
Clancey: builds consensus to get things done. Kids in schools, educator in schools on a daily basis.
Binienda – was a student in the WPS, her daughter is a graduate of Doherty. Spent time in Boston on SOA. She is a lifetime public servant.
(I am going to tap out – just watch the video)
Nicole, Worcester 