‘Still the best thing in Worcester’: A decade of growth transformed the Canal District; Plans for 2021, beyond build off that momentum
Updated Feb 14, 2021;
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A decade isn’t long in a city like Worcester, which began its history under British rule.
But within a few square blocks of the Canal District, the last decade created a lifetime of change.
Turn back the clock to 2011 and the landscape of the city’s most bustling neighborhoods is unrecognizable.
Kelley Square - without a peanut - remains one of the state’s most dangerous intersections. A vacant dirt lot sits where the Worcester Public Market now welcomes hundreds of people daily. North, up Green Street, Crompton Collective, Birchtree Bread, Smokestack Urban Barbecue are yet calling the District home.
A coalition of Black and Hispanic residents of Worcester on Monday filed a federal voting rights lawsuit alleging that the City’s at-large system for electing School Committee members discriminates against communities of color.
The plaintiffs also inclu
Updated on February 3, 2021 at 7:12 pm
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A new initiative that will provide a sort of mental health lifeline for some Massachusetts students, teachers and school administrators kicks off this week.
The Mental Health in Schools initiative is a partnership between human development organization Open Sky Community Services, Worcester Public Schools and districts in 20 other communities across the commonwealth.
“I think it’s important to acknowledge that this pandemic really has been a traumatic experience for all of us on some level,” said Suzy Langevin, director of training and professional development for Open Sky Community Services.
Through the initiative, Open Sky is facilitating a series of workshops to provide evidence-based training to help schools better support student mental health, through individual development and district-wide interventions. The first will be held Friday.
WORCESTER The Worcester Public Library Foundation was awarded a $3,500 grant to support a program for teens on art and activism at the Worcester Public Library.
The grant from the Library Initiative for Teens and Tweens will fund the teen program Out of the Box Art-ivism and will extend through June. Out of the Box Art-ivism” is designed to encourage Worcester teens to engage both civically and artistically.
“I’m very excited to be able to continue offering Art-ivism to our teens,” said Erin O’Neall, teen services librarian at WPL and the director of the program.
“The pandemic has really left a lot of people struggling to find community, and this
Trust between Worcester’s Latinx community and public schools must be rebuilt to improve outcomes for students, families, report finds
Updated Jan 26, 2021;
For Latinx families and students to thrive in Worcester, there must be accountability and rebuilt trust between the community and the Worcester Public Schools, officials said.
Leaders in Worcester have spent more than a year analyzing data and the community to make recommendations to improve achievement for Latinx residents, who make up about 21% of Worcester’s population and 43% of students enrolled in the Worcester Public Schools.
In an effort to respond to concerns about Worcester’s Latinx community, Mayor Joe Petty tapped Quinsigamond Community College President Luis Pedraja and Mary Jo Marion, the assistant vice president for urban affairs and the Latino Education Institute at Worcester State University, to head up the Commission on Latino Advancement and Education, which led to a newly-released report on the way