Episode 4 of Cambridge InsideOut – Big Issues in the 2013 School Committee election.
This episode aired on Sept 17, 2013.
September 18, 2013
Episode 4 of Cambridge InsideOut – Big Issues in the 2013 School Committee election
June 17, 2013
MLK School Groundbreaking – June 17, 2013
June 17, 2013 – City and School Officials held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School & Putnam Avenue Upper School Monday, June 17. The existing structure at 100 Putnam Ave., Cambridge will be replaced with a new energy efficient NET ZERO building design. The final construction phase shall begin following final project bids due in December 2013 and occupancy is scheduled for September 2015.
June 13, 2013
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School & Putnam Avenue Upper School Groundbreaking Ceremony – Monday, June 17 at noon
Cambridge, MA — The City of Cambridge will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School & Putnam Avenue Upper School Monday, June 17, at 12:00pm, 100 Putnam Ave. (rear), Cambridge.
Note on Directions: Please access site from Kinnaird St. or Hayes St. only. Please do not use Magee St. This is an active construction site so please stay inside marked barriers for your safety.
Project Background
In July 2012, the city’s project architect, Perkins Eastman, presented City officials with its Feasibility Study for the new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Construction Project. Three options were considered and the final decision was to replace the existing structure with a new energy efficient NET ZERO building design. During the design phases, the occupants participated in the building programming, which included education of what a NET ZERO design consists of, and why their actions when using the building will help control the energy consumption. This design is scheduled to be completed for bid in early Fall 2013.
The Construction Manager at Risk, the Rich-Caulfield Venture, began abatement of hazardous materials and demolition in April 2013. These activities should be completed by the end of October 2013. The construction start date for the foundations, steel and geothermal wells is anticipated for early Fall 2013. The final construction phase shall begin following final project bids due in December 2013 and occupancy is scheduled for September 2015. The present total project costs approved by the City Council in September 2012 was $84,550,000. Design features of the 187,000 square foot building and indoor parking garage include:
- Geothermal Wells which extract heat from the ground thus helping keep energy costs low;
- Daylight Harvesting which includes glass and other design elements that enable natural light to pass through the building;
- Automatic Lighting Dimmer System which helps conserve energy use;
- Gray Water Storage System which helps conserve water use;
- 30 kBtu/sf/year which describes the building’s energy use and efficiency performance. The average K-12 school in America has an efficiency rating of 169 kBtu/sf/year. This design goal of 30 kBtu/sf/year means the new school will be 82% more efficient than the average American school.
The school will contain all new facilities and equipment for its classrooms, library, auditorium, gymnasium, community rooms, new outdoor play space and improved parking. For project updates, visit the Martin Luther King Construction Project Webpage, http://www.cambridgema.gov/cmanager/mlkjrschoolconstruction.aspx.
May 16, 2013
Communication from Councillors Cheung, Kelley, Reeves and Simmons to Mayor Davis (May 16, 2013)
May 16, 2013
Mayor Henrietta Davis
795 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Dear Mayor Davis:
With only three of all nine Councillors voting in favor of the Cambridge School Department budget on Thursday, it is clear that there is a heightened level of frustration and angst amongst the Council – one that should not go unnoticed. The principal duty of the Cambridge City Council is to exercise fiduciary control over the City of Cambridge to ensure that it is meeting and exceeding the goals set by the Council each session. As adopted in December of 2011, one of our principal goals is to "strengthen and support human services, public education, and out of school learning in Cambridge for the benefit of residents of all ages". On May 9, the will of the Council showed that questions and concerns remain as to whether the budget makes significant strides towards meeting this integral goal.
Many citizens throughout the City share this concern. In each of the last three Citizen Satisfaction Surveys, the quality of our public schools has been the top ranking concern amongst all Cambridge residents. It is crucial that all elected and appointed officials understand the importance of addressing the concerns that our community has expressed and that many Councillors raised in regard to the budget as it was presented at the May 9 Finance Committee meeting. We recognize that the wealth of concerns that were raised at this point may not be met in the next year, much less be solved during this current budget discussion, but it is important for the District to acknowledge that these concerns are real and that the District, coordinating with Cambridge’s elected officials and relevant City staff, will address them and develop a comprehensive, data-driven and outcomes-oriented long term plan to work towards accomplishing them in the years to come.
In particular, we think the District must make a clear and focused effort in these areas:
1. Research has time and time again demonstrated that youngsters who participate in a high-quality preschool program demonstrate higher levels of academic achievement, more socially responsible behavior, and make significantly higher earnings as an adult. We must invest in early childhood education to ensure that each and every child in Cambridge has the opportunity to attend preschool, and the current budget should more clearly explain how CPSD is supporting this notion now and how that support will be continued in the future. If the budget does not address this concern, it is not in line with the Council’s goal of strengthening public education.
2. Throughout discussions about CPSD with current, former, and prospective families, classroom management, school climate and teacher training are consistently recurring issues, as is supported by past CPSD parent surveys. We would like to see a budget that sets clear goals for teacher training as it relates to classroom management and school climate, along with associated data about student disciplinary issues. We understand that the CPSD budget cannot include every effort that the District is making, but it is important that the budget reflect the attempts made to address major concerns raised by the families it has been created to serve. A failure to assess these issues in the current budget is not in line with the Council’s goal of strengthening public education.
3. Family engagement has been another important issue that the FY2014 School Department budget appears to overlook. The Family Liaisons play critical roles in ensuring that parents have a steady guide through all school-related issues and concerns, and they are tireless advocates for the children they work with, often going above and beyond their job descriptions to ensure that our kids get the very best educational experience possible. Study after study has shown that children do better at school when there is an active partnership with the parents and the families, yet the money devoted to Family Liaisons and the family engagement process is nowhere as robust as it needs to be. A failure to assess this great need in the current budget is not in line with the Council’s goal of strengthening public education.
4. Understanding why students and families opt to leave the District, whether it be to attend a charter school, private school, or school in another district, is crucial for schools to improve. At present, the City spends approximately 9-11 million dollars annually, depending on state reimbursement formulas, on charter schools and a significant proportion of school-aged residents opt not to attend Cambridge public schools. Making an aggressive attempt to understand what educational needs that families perceive CPSD as not well-equipped to meet seems like a logical first step in figuring out how to address these concerns. If we do not address the concerns of residents who ultimately decide to send their children to academic institutions outside of CPSD, the Council is not furthering its goal of strengthening public education in the City of Cambridge.
5. The Council has committed to an extensive school building upgrade project that will add a quarter of a billion dollars to our City’s debt load, a figure that will bring our total debt load beyond the level at which we have traditionally set the limit. Additionally, we’ve discussed the potential of extended day, expanded pre-k, eventually expanding the wrap around program, giving computers to kids, broader world language offerings, an office of college success, and other potentially large programmatic expenditures which are not accounted for in the long-term budgetary plan. While we are fully in support of investing in programs and facilities to give our students and staff the facilities they need to grow and thrive, we need a more comprehensive long-term picture to make informed decisions about expenditures that will ultimately be reflected in higher taxes for our residents. We also need to understand the trade-offs and considerations that go in to thinking about how these programs and facilities will increase our return on investment, given that Cambridge already has one of the highest per pupil costs in the state. The failure of the budget to address this concern is not in line with the Council’s goal of "[evaluating] City expenditures with a view of maintaining a strong fiscal position and awareness of the impact on taxpayers while providing a high quality array of city services".
6. There is a concern that the population growth may not keep pace with the amount of building renovation called for in the proposed school budget. It would be most unfortunate if, after a decade of renovations, the City has four state-of-the-art school buildings with precious few students to occupy them. This is why it is important that we have at least a five-year projection for the Innovation Agenda. We would be much better served if we have a sense of how much this will cost going forward, if we can anticipate what additional expenses may need to be called for, what additional positions may be created that will need funding, how many students will be expected to be housed in these buildings, and so forth. The failure of the budget to address this concern is not in line with the Council’s goal of "[evaluating] City expenditures with a view of maintaining a strong fiscal position and awareness of the impact on taxpayers while providing a high quality array of city services".
7. Why, in a District that is very multi-cultural, do so many events, activities, programs and awards seem to be demographically disparate? The systemic inequities and racial unbalances that continue to exist between student populations strongly impact the ability of all of our children to reach their full potential. Failure to address this concern is not in line with the Council’s goal to "value and support the racial, socio-economic, cultural and religious diversity of our city".
Given the scope of the $150,000,000 CPSD budget, along with the roughly 22 million dollars in charter school payments and school construction debt service, it is clear to us that not all of our concerns will be able to be met immediately. We would like a clear commitment from the School Committee and CPSD staff that the next budget year will start with a focused discussion with the City Council and City staff of the above-listed concerns, and that measurable steps will be taken to ensure that additional concerns of families, students, and members of the community are addressed as well. If we can get that clear commitment, we would be willing to support this year’s CPSD budget and work with all concerned parties to make sure future budgets better reflect the fiscal and educational concerns of the City.
Several years ago, we initiated the practice of holding City Council-School Committee Roundtables to increase the amount of communication between these two bodies, in the hopes of avoiding the very situation in which we now find ourselves. It would appear that we either need to increase the number of Roundtables we hold each year, or we need to set aside specific Roundtables each year to devote exclusively to discussing drafting the school budget, to ensure that City Councillors are able to publicly provide feedback as a group and air concerns during the budget drafting process.
Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any questions or concerns about this communication.
Sincerely,
Councillor Leland Cheung
Councillor Craig Kelley
Councillor Kenneth E. Reeves
Vice Mayor E. Denise Simmons
Cc: Councillor Marjorie Decker, Finance Committee Chair
City Council
School Committee
Superintendent Jeff Young
City Manager Bob Healy
Deputy City Manager Richard Rossi
May 13, 2013
Letter from Marc McGovern and Richard Harding, Co-chairs of the Budget Subcommittee of the Cambridge School Committee
As Co-Chairs of the Budget Subcommittee of the School Committee, we are writing to express our complete disappointment in the actions taken by a handful of City Councilors who, on May 9, 2013 voted against next year’s school department budget. The school department budget process began over 8 months ago. During that time, numerous public meetings were held to gain community input. Meetings were also held by school councils made up of parents, teachers and administrators who made recommendations to the administration regarding budget priorities. Meetings were held with principals, the teachers’ union, the special education parent advisory council and others to gain budget insight. Many difficult and challenging conversations were had over these months culminating in a balanced budget that was voted unanimously by the School Committee.
It should be noted that these councilors did not express their reasons for voting against the budget at the time of the meeting. Some of the councilors asked only a few questions, never indicating that they would take such action. Since the meeting, three of the five councilors have provided information as to their concerns, none of which relate to the budget itself. The two major concerns expressed were controlled choice and charter school enrollment. These are two important issues and we do not question that they are worth discussion. What is confusing to us, however, is how will voting against the budget help better understand either of these issues? The truth is, it won’t. Families send their children to charter schools for various reasons. Every public school district in the country is aware of this issue and works to keep students in district, Cambridge is no different. In regard to controlled choice, the School Committee, the administration and the public have been working hard on this issue for the past two years, starting with a working group led by Patty Nolan and Richard Harding, and now a subcommittee of the whole led by Alice Turkel and Fred Fantini. Over 20 meetings have been held and as recently as May 7, 2013 the School Committee held a public meeting to review over a dozen recommendations as to how to improve controlled choice. If this issue was of such concern to these councilors that they took this unprecedented step, why didn’t they come to any of these meetings? Why didn’t they raise this concern sooner? Why didn’t they write an email, make a phone call or sit down for coffee to discuss these concerns? Their lack of communication makes us wonder if these are real concerns or just political posturing.
Let us be very clear, the political maneuvering that was carried out at this meeting will do absolutely nothing to help address these concerns. The councilors have done nothing to help bring us together as city leaders. What they did do, is drive a wedge between the school community and the city community. What they did do was potentially damage contract negotiations. What they did do was show that making a political statement was more important than insulting, disrespecting and undermining several months of work by parents, teachers, principals and school administrators. If that is not bad enough, they did it all without any communication, warning or chance for the superintendent or School Committee to be prepared. This was a complete and utter blindside to all who worked so hard.
What is also confusing is that since the School Committee passed the budget several weeks ago, not one of these councilors contacted us with any concerns or questions. Even prior to the meeting, none of these councilors pulled us aside and asked for explanations or gave any indication that they might vote against the budget.
It is important for the public to know that the City Council does not have the authority, nor is it their role, to vote specific budget allocations up or down. The Council must vote on the budget as a whole. So to make a political point these councilors voted down the entire budget which included funding for an additional autism classroom for our autistic children. They voted down adding additional school psychologists, inclusion specialists, athletic trainers, and additional staffing for our new upper schools. They voted down adding an additional Special Start classroom and funding the Wrap Around Zone at the Fletcher Maynard Academy modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone. They voted down funding for professional development for our teachers, for paying our teachers, and for providing school improvement funds. They voted down funding for additional community outreach, and against our partners: Cambridge School Volunteers, City Sprouts, Science Club for Girls, and Breakthrough.
We stand with our parents, teachers, superintendent and School Committee colleagues who worked so hard on the proposed budget which we believe will help move our district forward.
Hopefully, with some time to catch our collective breath, more rational heads will prevail and these Councilors will see that their actions were more damaging than helpful.
Sincerely,
Marc McGovern and Richard Harding
Co-Chairs of the Budget Subcommittee of the Cambridge School Committee
May 10, 2013
FY2014 School Department Budget Stalled by City Council
The Cambridge City Council at its FY2014 Budget Hearing on May 9 failed to approve the School Department Budget of $150,989,445 on a 3-4-1-1 vote [YES – Decker, Maher, Davis; NO – Simmons, Kelley, Cheung, vanBeuzekom; PRESENT – Toomey; ABSENT: Reeves]. The budgeted amount represents a 4.1% increase over the previous year and is in line with the increases of other City departments. This should require at least one more meeting of the Finance Committee to take up the FY2014 Budget and, presumably, another meeting of the School Committee to respond to the rejection of its budget. [Update – The Budget was not rejected, but held in the Finance Committee pending the resolution of a variety of questions. It was subsequently discharged on May 20 without any of these questions being addressed.]
Under the Charter, the City Council may reduce any submitted departmental budgets but they may not increase them. On the other hand, requests can be made through the City Manager to adjust and resubmit budgets. Cambridge being Cambridge, it’s likely that the budget rejection is based on a desire to spend MORE money rather than less money. It is the responsibility of the Cambridge School Committee to determine how money is allocated within the School Department budget. The City Council can only vote on the bottom line. If the intention of the City Council is to now involve itself in specific School Department budget items, this represents a radical departure from what is permitted under the Charter and calls into question the role and responsibilities of the School Committee. – RW
Reference: Cambridge Chronicle story
January 19, 2012
Cambridge Public Schools Academic Challenge Plan
Jan 17, 2012 – The Cambridge Public Schools Academic Challenge Plan for the new upper schools is now available. You can view it at http://rwinters.com/school/AcademicChallenge2012Jan16.pdf. You may also wish to read the Appendices at http://rwinters.com/school/AcademicChallengeAppendices.pdf.
Personally, I’m primarily interested in the plans for mathematics in the upper schools and the high school, and it’s hard to discern from this plan what exactly will happen. There appears to be a rigidity of thought regarding sticking with "differentiated instruction" without any mention of what might happen if the difference in skills within a classroom turns out to be too great. There can be a breaking point where all the "professional development" in the world cannot yield appropriate instruction for all students. This report indicates only that "the Math Academic Honors option will offer students the choice of selecting honors on a unit-by-unit basis rather than enrolling students in a separate honors course." A quick read seems to suggest that the plan is to merely direct advanced mathematics learners to supplement their education with online options – something that advanced mathematics learners may well be doing regardless of the plans of the Cambridge Public Schools.
The plan will be presented at the January 17 School Committee meeting (starting 6:00pm).
Additional Public Comment will be received at the Tuesday, January 24 School Committee meeting (starting 6:00pm).
The plan will be voted on in early February.
I am very interested to hear what others may have to say about this plan. – Robert Winters
My Follow-Up Comments & Questions (based on the Jan 17 presentation):
1) I would like to hear more details about the "Subject Acceleration Protocol". It sounds almost like an IEP (individualized education program) for advanced learners. What are the possible choices that could be proposed for such students who are several years above grade level?
2) What will happen if the plans for systemwide "differentiated instruction in heterogeneous classrooms" fails to deliver on its promises and the result is primarily chaos and mediocrity? The plan leans heavily on teachers to carry out this plan – and the teachers were barely consulted in the development of the plan. It’s easy to claim that "professional development" can prepare all teachers to carry this out, but the reality may prove otherwise. Is there a backup plan?
3) The Scholars Challenge outlined in the proposal is terribly vague. Much of it sounds like things I thought any school system would already be doing routinely.
4) The Math Honors Option seems somewhat contrived – an acknowledgement that the Cambridge Public Schools must do something with accelerated students while remaining strapped to the mast of its ideology. One School Committee member noted that it’s a very real possibility that there will be two kinds of students – one group who chooses the honors option for every unit where this is permitted and another group who never choose the honors option. The system abhors sorting students by ability, but the students will likely do it on their own (and have no problem doing so).
5) Might there be a conflict between the Math Honors Option and the Subject Acceleration Protocol? I can easily imagine students first choosing the (embedded) honors option and then deciding to seek a more appropriate solution via the Subject Acceleration Protocol. Will acceleration be denied by school staff in order to make the embedded honors option work?
6) How exactly will the Math Honors Option be engineered? Will the Honors students gather in a separate room for these selected units? One School Committee member seemed horrified at the thought – even though this may be the only practical and sensible way to engineer this option. What will happen if there’s a great disparity in the number of students choosing the Honors option? Is there sufficient flexibility in the design to manage this?
7) What will be the protocol for dealing with noncooperative/disruptive students in heterogeneous classrooms? You can talk about beliefs and "habits of scholarship" and "creative environments conducive to learning", but you cannot wish away problematic behavior.
8) What exactly is meant by culturally competent teaching? How does this differ from what teachers do now?
9) Is there a transition plan for students who will be in the 7th or 8th Grade this coming fall? [The new upper schools will consist of Grades 6, 7, and 8.]
10) How does the new plan mesh with the high school curriculum and protocols?
11) Most people will agree that choice of electives and "leveling" of classes becomes appropriate at some point. What is this point? The underlying belief in this Academic Challenge Plan is that such choices are not appropriate at Grades 6, 7, and 8 (and earlier). Is Grade 9 and the beginning of high school the point where student choice becomes permissible?