Lack of school safety policy, School Committee pay and lining up election districts topics at joint committee meeting

WORCESTER — The need for a policy to reflect the city's shifting approach to school safety; concerns that newly proposed School Committee Districts are confusing; and pay disparities in elected positions were major topics of a joint meeting Monday.

The School Committee's Standing Committee on Finance and Operations, and the City Council’s Standing Committee on Education held the meeting.

Members of the School Committee and the City Council said it is necessary for the public to have a memorandum of understanding that reflected the city's removal of school resource officers (SROs) and move to a school liaison officer (SRO) model for officers responding to school needs.

"That continues to leave me in a very uncomfortable position as a School Committee member because as the legal body of the school district, there is no legal agreement that's actually governing the liaison model that we currently have," Tracy O'Connell Novick, School Committee member and standing committee chair, said.

Novick said that the city's December presentation on the safety plan indicated that there would be an interim MOU in the end of January on the role of SLOs that would be evaluated in the crafting of a longer-term MOU.

Whereas SROs were stationed full-time inside of a school building, six SLOs will be assigned to four quadrants where they will be present for arrivals, dismissals and available to respond to calls from schools in their assigned area.

The city's new safety plan was unveiled in December after the City Council followed City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr.'s recommendation to remove SROs in a report on the role structural racism plays in the city.

Laurie Ross, a professor of Community Development and Planning at Clark University, told the committee during public comment that she has been working to provide data to the School Safety Taskforce including monitoring police incident data at schools since the SLO model was initiated.

The data showed that there have been about 1,200 police check-ins at schools since Jan. 1 and 390 of those were more than just officers' regular check-ins. Ross said that compared to the timespan of September of 2021 through December of 2021, the number of safety incidents from Jan. 1 to the current date are virtually the same.

"There were concerns that removing the SROs from daily presence at the schools would lead to more safety incidents at the schools," Ross said. "This data does not seem to indicate that."

Ross said that areas that have seen increases in incidents seem to indicate areas where students are in distress, such as alternative schools.

Parlee Jones, shelter advocate at Abby’s House

Parlee Jones, shelter advocate at Abby’s House and member of the School Safety Taskforce said that the task force has asked the school district and the police department to draft a memorandum of understanding that reflects the SLO model that the city is using. Jones said that it was important for incoming Worcester schools Superintendent Rachel Monárrez to be onboard for full input into the MOU.

School Committee member Sue Coghlin Mailman said the School Committee expected to see an MOU about a month ago, but has received no reports from the administration on the matter.

Novick said that the response the School Committee received from the administration was that the SLO model is governed under a previous agreement, but she said that agreement does not cover the current process.

While she recognized the need for both Monárrez and incoming Acting City Manager Eric Batista to be able to weigh in on the new policy, Novick said she was still concerned about not having a current policy for the rest of the school year.

City Councilor and Education Committee chair Thu Nguyen said they heard concerns from residents about whether the change to the model was just cosmetic and did not address deeper issues with policing in schools.

"A lot of folks are wondering if it's just a name change. Is it just a location change, now that we moved the officers to a new location but their function is still the same?" Nguyen said.

Nguyen emphasized that it is important to take time in drafting a long-term policy so the policy reflects the goals of equity that the removal of SROs was supposed to accomplish.

City Councilor Donna Colorio reiterated that she opposed the removal of SROs from schools, but said that she hoped the shift is successful. Colorio said she was interested in seeing the exact training the officers will receive and whether the training will be offered to school administration, noting that they are said to include equity focused practices and cultural responsiveness training.

Colorio also called for more Worcester-based research of the school safety model in the future.

"While I respect that this is a very well-put together report, a lot of the research in here is more generalized to the nation or the state," Colorio said.

Batista told the joint committee that an MOU is not currently in place for the new SLO model. The city looked at the template of the attorney general's office on SROs but the template includes language specific to SROs and could not fit into the city's model. The law department told the administration that the template needed "major surgery" to fit the city, Batista said.

The city has to look at whether it wants to rush to change the template document for the current year, or spend more time for a policy that includes more research and input, Batista said.

The city's goal is to have a final MOU in place by the beginning of the school year, Batista said.

City Councilor Khrystian King told the joint committee that the lack of an MOU is an issue for students, staff and police right now. King said all of them need to understand the parameters of interactions between students and police.

"As a father of two kids in Worcester Public Schools, it's important that all parties know the terms of engagement even on an interim level," King said. "An interim was necessary and I believe remains necessary." 

Nguyen submitted chairman's orders to request the city manager to update the Council on work the School Safety Taskforce has been doing as well and a report on data on disciplinary measures and incidents of SLO intervention, an order requesting a report on training practices for SLOs and an order for a report from the city solicitor on whether the city is obligated temporarily adopt a state model MOU.

The Standing Committee on Finance and Operations also filed an order to request school safety data as well as an order for a report on community-based justice practices in schools.

The joint committee also discussed an item file by Mailman to request that the administration evaluate and update compensation practices where School Committee members make about 50% of City Council level.

Mailman said the lower pay scale felt arbitrary and wondered whether sexist ideas that women are more associated with the School Committee played a part in the creation of the pay scale.

"I have no idea how long this practice has been in place, but it strikes me as out-of-bounds right now," Mailman said. "Especially in light of the districts that we're going to be talking about and especially in light of people making decisions about running for district seats."

Colorio, who has also served on the School Committee, said that she was told that the pay discrepancy comes from there being more work involved with being in the City Council, an assessment she did not agree with. Pay rates for public officials were also not comparable to rates in Boston or in other cities, Colorio said.

Both Colorio and Mailman acknowledged that the topic of raising pay for elected officials could provoke backlash from the public.

Nguyen said the conversation was worthwhile and important to consider as city officials consider who should be able to serve in public office, adding that a lower pay scale could be a barrier for entry for some candidates.

Finally, the joint committee discussed an item from Novick requesting the City Council ensure that the new School Committee districts and Council districts are parallel to ensure clarity for voters.

Last year, the City Council voted to pursue a consent decree to avoid litigation in a lawsuit brought on by the Worcester chapter of the NAACP and Worcester Interfaith alleging the all at-large model of the School Committee created all-white board that lives in a small geographic area of the city.

Last week, the city clerk's office released proposals for six new districts along with two at-large districts. Novick said the proposed districts could create confusion by not being parallel with the five City Council districts.

"The School Committee wishes to make sure that we are accessible and representative, but we want to make sure that our government as a whole is also accessible and representative," Novick said. "We want to make sure that we don't upset the apple cart such that we end up with something that's even more confusing at the end of it."

Novick said no current plan exists within the City Council to adjust their districts to match the new School Committee districts.

Mailman said that reassurances that voters will eventually get used to the new map is not good enough when voter turnout for municipal elections is already low.

Colorio said the City Council worked with the lawsuit and the outcome was the only way that they could fulfill the obligation of the lawsuit, she added that the City Council was not sued and their districts were not in question. She said work will need to be done to educate the public.

The committee should also recognize the positives of the City Council's decisions regarding the lawsuit, as they avoided litigation and took multiple perspectives into account, Colorio said.

Novick responded that the governing body should not wait for a lawsuit in order to make fixes and she was troubled by the notion that officials should congratulate themselves on not going to court.

School Committee Member Jermoh Kamara said that the city is in the position to make municipal politics less confusing and the city should try to make elections as simple as possible.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Lack of school safety policy, School Committee pay and lining up election districts topics at joint committee meeting