WORCESTER After hours of debate and years of trying to get to this point the School Committee on Thursday voted to implement a district-wide comprehensive sex education curriculum.
In a 5-2 vote, the full committee approved a prior 2-1 vote by its Standing Committee on Teaching, Learning and Student Supports to go with a model called Rights, Respect, Responsibility.
RRR was one of two curricula put forward by a panel of health educators earlier this year.
Mayor Joseph Petty, the chairman, and members Molly McCullough, Laura Clancey, Tracy O’Connell Novick, and Jack Foley voted for the motion; Dianna Biancheria and John Monfredo were opposed.
UpdatedFri, May 7, 2021 at 11:08 am ET
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Twenty-four candidates for City Council and School Committee had returned signatures as of May 6. (Neal McNamara/Patch)
WORCESTER, MA An important milestone in the 2021 Worcester city election is coming up on with candidates under a Tuesday deadline to submit signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
As of Thursday, two dozen candidates had already submitted enough signatures to get on the ballot, including all but two incumbents and a slew of challengers.
Although many candidates have been campaigning for months, some surprising new contenders have emerged recently.
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Two police officers have gathered enough signatures, including state police Sgt. Gregory Stratman and Worcester police union leader Richard Cipro known for clashing with city officials, and co-administering a Facebook page that often features right-wing memes.
Worcester schools MCAS Superintendent Maureen Binienda Department of Elementary and Secondary Education telegram.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from telegram.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Potential candidates are still flocking to City Hall to take out nomination papers for the November election, but with the May 11 deadline to return those papers looming, it s still unclear who will make the cut to get on the November municipal election ballot.
Since Feb. 5, 13 candidates have taken out nomination papers for either at-large City Council, School Committee or district City Council seats, bringing the total to a robust 35.
Since we last checked in, Sue Mailman joined Jermoh Kamara in the School Committee race. Well, at least it was a race, until longtime committee member Jack Foley s announcement last week that he s not running again. Another longtime member, John Monfredo, also recently announced he won t seek reelection, which means that as it stands, Mailman and Kamara could sail onto the board unchallenged.
WORCESTER – School Committee members on Thursday were encouraged by the district’s latest graduation and dropout rate improvements, in particular by the better results for the system’s English language learners.
School officials consequently floated the theory that ELLs’ success stemmed in part from the state’s sidelining of the MCAS graduation requirement for those students last spring because of the pandemic.
Committee member Tracy O’Connell Novick moved for the district to formally testify to the state that Worcester’s improved ELL graduation and dropout rates speak to the “artificial barrier” created by the MCAS, and that those students would be better served by a different evaluation to determine their readiness to leave school.