District has big vision for Worcester’s students
The major responsibility of the Worcester Public Schools is to provide a high-quality education to all its 25,000 students — each with different gifts, needs and expectations.
Meeting this responsibility requires skilled teachers and a well-considered and efficient administrative structure that provides the full range of supports they need to be successful. Like other urban districts, Worcester has a large and complex education system that needs to maintain the facilities where students learn, and offer transportation that students need to get to school safely, along with many other important supporting services.
A district requires a skilled group of administrators to oversee, carry out and improve these various services. To draw an analogy from flight, without an experienced pilot and air traffic controllers, a plane is likely to fall from the sky or veer off course.
Superintendent Rachel Monárrez has assembled a strong crew of seasoned educators with a deep understanding of the needs of Worcester children. These administrators work with teachers and others directly involved with students whose passion, compassion and expertise create the conditions for students to succeed. Teams led by these administrators are deployed daily in schools across the district to share their knowledge and experience, help address emerging and long-standing issues, and seek solutions to these issues.
Achieving excellence in education and capturing or cultivating opportunities to enhance student learning demands that the district not only face inward but also outward. Communicating regularly with parents is essential to engaging them in supporting their children's learning. Involving businesses and employers in our city is crucial to tapping into their expertise and resources. Communicating with state and federal agencies is required to keep dollars flowing and to assure local accountability. Monárrez has recruited administrators with the skills and disposition to conduct this work successfully.
Recently, the Worcester School Committee adopted an ambitious five-year strategic plan. The plan, crafted through a process involving critical stakeholders from the district and the community, details a path forward to allow our students to graduate with the knowledge and skills necessary for success. The administrative structure currently in place in our district was carefully developed to support the aims of the plan, ensuring a transformation in the way that education is delivered and achieving the inherent promises to our young people that the plan holds.
Some have claimed that Worcester has a “bloated” administrator budget. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The cost of our administrative infrastructure has historically been one of the lowest in the commonwealth, averaging only $524 in per-pupil costs — higher only than Lawrence ($464) in peer communities.
The current administrative structure builds on and reorganizes positions that were proposed by previous superintendents and approved by previous School Committees. Looking back over eight years of spending, we see that the prior administration funded 18 positions that would cost $2,566,885 in current dollars. By contrast, the current administrative structure has 16 senior administrators reporting to the superintendent at a total cost of $2,143,275 for a cost savings of $423,610.
In recent months, we have learned of significant constraints in the district's 2024-25 budget because of reductions in state aid. This tight budget will make it more challenging to achieve the aims of the plan and will demand difficult conversations and difficult choices. We have lived through challenging budget cycles before and have often looked at reducing administrative line items in the false assumption that these positions are unnecessary and not central to the delivery of high-quality education. We must not repeat those mistakes.
We must recognize that not all of the work of education occurs in the classroom. If students are to thrive and our city is to thrive along with them, we must take a broader and longer view of what it takes to run a top-notch district. The current superintendent has put in place a structure to strengthen and maintain a complex administrative system that serves the needs of young people with a diversity of strengths and needs while also supporting instructors, aids and other specialists eager to do their best.
As we prepare to make the hard choices ahead, let's take care to retain a balance between real administrative needs and direct services to students. We must not sacrifice our ability to achieve the big vision embodied in the district's new strategic plan.
Karen Pelletier is executive vice president of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce.