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COVID Recovery and the Need for Data


On Monday June 14th, the Natick School Committee may vote on how to allocate an unprecedented amount of funding - $2.1 million plus another $400,000- to support COVID recovery.  I am using the word unprecedented literally: nationally schools have never received this amount of money from the federal government and, from what I can tell, our School Committee has not voted on an amount of new funds this large after the passage of our district's budget.

To date, the School Committee’s engagement with this topic has been:

-        Responding to a presentation on these funds, around 5 minutes in length, linked here. See minutes 1:37-1:43.

-        Reviewing a list of positions/expenditures that would be funded.

-        Reading a draft of the Superintendent’s slide deck for Monday, June 14th – linked here (version as of 11 pm on Sunday night).

Our engagement with this topic – before our vote on Monday on $2.5mm - has been lacking. Therefore, I will be coming to the meeting on Monday with two questions in mind, the first of substance and the second of process:

1.     Substance: Can the School Committee say that we have reviewed enough data justifying our COVID recovery plan?  

2.     Process: Can the School Committee say that there has been “robust” stakeholder engagement - which by law must be done – informing our COVID recovery plan?[1]


On the substance question…

Any public board or committee charged with approving $2.5mm of public funds – (Read: YOUR federal, state and local tax dollars) - should expect a well-articulated, detailed and evidence-based proposal that gives confidence that the needs of the target group (in our case, students) are being met.  Data should be the center of the district’s proposal to use $2.5mm in funding. We're not there yet.

I have great trust in our district’s leadership to come up with a sound COVID recovery plan, and I know that this is not my role. My role, however, is to verify that there is data supporting the district’s expenditures, especially considering the importance of this moment. Tomorrow night's middle school data is a good start, and points us in the direction for more data crunching in our district. Our students' futures demand this.  As a point of comparison, please see the year over year data that Needham Public School offered their community in May - slides 40 through 72 linked here.  Specifically, here's a screen shot of one slide on longitudinal sub group data. 

We need a similar level of data presentation on why Natick's plan should be supported; we need data that tells the story of the entire district.  


On the process question…

 Any body seeking to expend these ESSER funds must, by law, engage stakeholders. Here is a screenshot from the guidelines published by our state Dept. of Ed: 

I'm not sure that we have met the "must" groups in the above. We should have more stakeholder engagement before we proceed.  

--------------

Finally, if you’re experiencing déjà vu to last spring, you’re not alone. The facts are a little different - last spring, we were talking about dramatic cuts (cutting extracurriculars, closing a school, shuttering the arts) and this spring, we’re talking about dramatic additions (more staff, more programs). But we can’t make the same mistake twice:

-       We can’t make decisions of this magnitude without data (last spring was financial data, this spring is student-level data).

-       We can’t make decisions of this magnitude without stakeholder input.

Last year, I spoke out against that type of decision-making as a citizen. Now, as a member of this committee, I will continue to speak out for data and for the community’s involvement. 


See you at Monday’s meeting, zoom information and agenda here.  Start time of our business meeting will be around 7:00 p.m. as we have an Executive Session starting at 6:00.  


[1] Please note that I voiced my substance and process concerns to the Superintendent and the Chair this past week. I raised my process concerns during the School Committee Meeting on June 7th (see the 1:47:40 mark). My substance concerns about the need for more data were sent via email through Chair to the Superintendent. The Chair and the Superintendent, responsible for creating the agenda by committee policy, have decided to keep the vote on the agenda for Monday, and therefore, I felt compelled to share my concerns beyond my committee and with my community.












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