Boycott of Old Sturbridge Village to go before Worcester School Committee

WORCESTER — School Committee member Tracy O’Connell Novick is calling on district administrators to work to ensure that no money from the Worcester Public Schools district is being allocated to Old Sturbridge Village for things like field trips in her agenda item listed for this week’s meeting.

The agenda item was submitted due to O'Connell Novick's concerns with the museum’s use of state education funds being used to cover operating costs through its ties with Old Sturbridge Academy and the incoming Worcester Cultural Academy Public Charter School.

The committee could vote on Thursday to send the agenda item to administrators to look into diverting district funds.

“They are an organization that depends on, generally speaking, admission in order to pay their bills,” O’Connell Novick said. “If they are acting in a way that is, in our estimation, unethical, then something we can do as consumers is say that we’re not going to spend our money there anymore.”

When asking for the district's view on O'Connell Novick's agenda item and whether it supported it, district spokesperson Dan O'Brien provided the following statement:

"Worcester Public Schools is not planning additional field trips to Old Sturbridge Village next year due to the many issues raised in recent months regarding Worcester Cultural Academy, which include conflict-of-interest concerns."

The effort to divert funds away from the museum first came in February when Educational Association of Worcester and the Massachusetts Teachers Association — the local and state educator’s union — called for a boycott pending an investigation into the financial agreement between the museum and charter schools.

“It seems to me that if there was any place in Massachusetts that should take them up on that boycott, it should be the Worcester Public Schools,” O’Connell said.

Field-trip alternatives to OSV

The agenda item also requests that district administrators look into alternatives for field trips to learn about Massachusetts state history instead of taking students to Old Sturbridge Village.

When asked if she had any alternative field trip locations in mind, O’Connell Novick said she would defer to others like teachers who would know what trip alternatives would match up with what the students need to learn.

“There's lots and lots of opportunities for great field trips for Massachusetts state history,” she said. “Now that we have so much more flexibility around field trips, due to having our own transportation, I think that that just adds to the ability to be more creative.”

Concerns about the financial agreement between the museum and the charter schools have been raised previously by the School Committee members, Superintendent Rachel H. Monárrez and the Educational Association of Worcester.

In February, the School Committee called a special meeting to vote on calling the state auditor, the inspector general and the state Ethics Commission to investigate the financial status of the group.

During that meeting, Deputy Superintendent Brian Allen reviewed the financial agreement between the museum and Old Sturbridge Academy, and highlighted a concern about state education funds being used for operating costs.

Despite the call for investigation and concerns about the financial agreement, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted 7-4 to award the proposed Worcester Cultural Academy a charter in February.

The day after the vote, State Auditor Diana DiZoglio said she would evaluate the concerns raised by the Worcester School Committee.

When asked if she would be open to sending students to Old Sturbridge Village again if an investigation cleared them of improperly using state education funds, O’Connell Novick said she is more concerned with the “crux” of the issue.

“The Department [of Elementary and Secondary Education] itself has allowed for a private institution to, as itself testified, create a financial relationship,” she said. “This isn't simply an oversight, this is actually something they're depending on as a source of income.”

She said that until that issue has been resolved, she would rather the district look at using its own state education funds to be “better used elsewhere.”

The School Committee is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Esther Howland South Chamber in City Hall.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester School Committee to weigh boycott of Old Sturbridge Village