'Vision of a learner': Monárrez describes strategic plan for Worcester schools

WORCESTER - The Worcester Public Schools are heading into 2024 with optimism and a strategic plan of improvement across the district for the next five years.

The district unveiled its 2023-2028 Strategic Plan online last month, outlining six focus areas, each containing a goal, a vision and mission.

In the early planning stages, Superintendent Rachel Monárrez said she met with students, families and the community to discuss both strengths as well as parts of the school district that need improvement. Many of the priorities in the final plan came from her conversations with people in the community.

"The strategic plan is grounded in the priority areas and what we have labeled our 'vision of a learner,'" Monárrez said. "(The 'vision of a learner') are the skills and dispositions that we want every students from Worcester Public Schools to have upon graduation."

Monárrez said she worked with school principals to develop the plan's ultimate vision, to home in on fostering "future-ready skills," including updates in technology and buildings, and providing equitable resources in learning across the district.

Equitable resources and educational programs

As of 2022, English is not the primary language for one out of every three students in Worcester Public Schools, creating a gap in equitable learning opportunities for non-English students. The number of non-English speaking students keeps growing, Monárrez said.

The school district brought in a third party to evaluate the district's multilingual programs, which presented at last Thursday's School Committee meeting.

The audit found most English-language learner students measured between levels 2 and 4 of English-language proficiency, with most in kindergarten to fifth grade.

Since 2020, the district has been unable to make needed progress regarding English Language Arts for English-language learner students. According to the audit, the share of English-language learner students in grades three through five meeting or exceeding expectations has stayed at 5%; in 2019, that number was at 11%.

Different strategies are necessary for children at that developing level of kindergarten through fifth grade, Monárrez said. Some students are proficient in English socially and conversationally but not in an academic setting.

"We are being intentional about the instructional programming of what (English language learner students) received during the school day; we also had some after-school programs for those children," Monárrez said. "We will continue to use data to guide the children who are on the cusp. When we move them out of the program, it gives them more opportunity to access extracurricular and secondary spaces."

Essentially, the district wants to focus on strengthening its English-language learner programs. Providing students "on the cusp" with resources that will propel them out of English-language learning will allow the district to give more attention to children who are newer to the country.

"You don't want children in a program that they don't need anymore," Monárrez said. "You want to exit them out of those services and have a strategy that focuses on the newcomers."

Jessica Mandes serves as the new director of the district's multilingual program. Mandes has a team to strategize on how the district can best support teachers in instances of language barriers to teaching. In the past, Monárrez said while there has been support for English as a second language teachers, teachers in other areas did not receive necessary training.

"The rest of the day is just as important as that language development," Monárrez said. "So it's a lot of training and the supporting the teachers in the classroom setting."

Preparing students for the future

Improving infrastructure is just a fraction of what "modernizing" schools in the district is. The strategic plan aims to increase spending on facility repairs. It also aims to expand "future-ready" opportunities and learning environments. However, with the emergence of artificial intelligence, Monárrez said planning for the future of the workforce is a difficult task.

"Things have shifted. We have to be sure that children have lots of opportunities to experience different kinds of learning," Monárrez said. "We're thinking about that more in the elementary and middle schools, so by the time they go into high school, they have a better idea (of their future)."

Programming across the district has not been consistent, Monárrez said. Programs at schools depended on the principal rather than the district. As a result, Monárrez created an administrative director position for college and career aimed to expand opportunities for students and implement a cohesive, districtwide approach.

Modernizing WPS

The Massachusetts School Building Authority voted unanimously to make the new Burncoat High School construction project eligible for state funding. The process will take five to seven years, the superintendent said.

The district gathers information about changes needed in every school via surveys with some aiming for students' opinions while others are online for parents. Recently, the district started to make improvements to their website, specifically the enrollment page, which parents had issues with prior.

What the district has found through these surveys was again a lack of cohesiveness within the district.

"I'll use the phrase that was shared with me multiple times: 'Worcester is a district of schools, not a school district,'" Monárrez said.

Many schools within the district do not have libraries or the space for extracurriculars. While Burncoat High School is one of the district's priorities right now, Monárrez said working with the city is key to improve the district overall.

"We don't want the school district to be a district of schools. We need to work in collaboration with the city," Monárrez said. "Now, we hold monthly meetings with the city. We've widened these meetings to be only focused on facilities right now."

Monárrez said the district and the city have a master plan in the works that outlines priorities for both entities. There are many parts of municipal government that overlap with the district, such as economic development and new housing.

"We're starting to think about other ways that we can partner with community and existing facilities and how might that, in the future, create some building spaces," Monárrez said.

Implications of state's budget cuts

At the most recent School Committee meeting, the state cut the committee's fiscal year budget by $830,000.

"We were already preparing for any kind of fiscal cliff that was being thrown around," Monárrez said. "We want to make sure that what we do is having an intentional and positive impact on our youth and staff. We're already doing an audit of our existing funding so that we're ready."

Monárrez added the committee does not anticipate a shortfall because of the funding cuts. However if changes are needed, Monárrez said they will happen at the district level before schools.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester superintendent provides update on five-year plan