Skip to main content

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.












Popular posts from this blog

Statement on Recusal

Here are the remarks I gave last night when letting my committee know my decision to recuse:  After the School Committee meeting on October 15th, several individuals wrote into the SpeakUp Natick portal requesting that I recuse myself from voting on the possible closure of Johnson.  The substance of these messages, sent to the full committee, carried a familiar refrain. The messages - often using the same language – said some version of the following:  Catherine Brunell should recuse herself from deliberating and voting on the closure of Johnson because she lacks objectivity, as her children go to school there and she is from that neighborhood. I asked myself the question if there was any merit to the request for me to recuse myself and started to do some research about why people recuse  From what I can tell from the minutes, in Natick, It’s never happened before - not with the Kennedy, Wilson or the High School - not even for members whose children were to attend t...

Let’s Have a Vision for Elementary Schools.

Faced with some monumental school facility and space decisions, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the quote that Dr. Nolin has below the signature line in her email:       The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on                building the new.     The emphasis in the quote is on what can come next. It is not about holding on tightly to what was, nor looking at an issue through only a technical, logistical lens but on moving forward with vision .  The administration, under advisement of the School Committee, is charged with setting that vision. The School Committee is charged with protecting that vision using the three roles within our domain - budget, policy and supervision of the Superintendent. All of us are working for the kids that are here today and those who will be here in the future.   Thankfully this time, as our School Committee grapp...

Vaccines

  The School Committee agenda for Monday, September 20th can be seen here .  (separate blog coming about the rest of the agenda...)  Mandates for student vaccinations for students participating in extracurricular activities, school and club sponsored events and athletics will be discussed and possibly voted on.   I have asked that the documents be linked asap so you can read it yourself but until then... The Quick Summary:  The draft policy is a mandate for students who are age-eligible through FDA approved vaccinations. In the case of a student who age eligible and is not vaccinated, a weekly PCR test is required. How many of our students are vaccinated? Department of Health (DPH) -   Vaccine tracker    - click on weekly municipal report to see chart below and compare. columns are: county, town, age range, # of people in that group, % that is that age, # of age group partially vaxed, proportion of full town partially vaxed, fully ...