In a recent conversation with Mary Gormley, Superintendent of the Milton Public Schools, we discussed the status of Consolidated Facilities, the impact of Common Core Curriculum standards, the recent $275K windfall from the federal government and the formation of a committee to review participation in the state’s school choice program (And, no, that is not me in the picture.)

The initiative to establish a Consolidated Facilities Department does not get much attention, yet it represents the most significant change to the structure of the town, its departments and their operations to be seen in years. Assuming the Consolidated Facilities effort reaches full fruition, there will be a new town department that consolidates the personnel, equipment, and associated resources that currently maintain and care for buildings in the individual departments (Police, Fire, Schools, Cemetary, etc.) into a single entity that can flexibly deploy and allocate resources in support of the town’s buildings and grounds as efficiently as possiible. It will remove redundancy and establish a capital plan.

The town department making the largest contribution of resources to this effort and which will experience the greatest change is the schools. Though some degree of apprehension is natural given the scope of the change; Ms. Gormley is in support of the new department. And while the custodians will continue to be part of the schools for up to 24 months per the most recent version of the MOA – Ms. Gormley confirmed that is a transitional period, not a trial. The MOA between the schools and town is reaching its final form. The new department head will report into both the Superintendent and Town Administrator. Town Meeting has allocated seed funding and assuming the MOA is signed, the hope is to hire a director before year’s end. The respective committees (School Committee and Board of Selectmen) will be voting to approve the memorandum at future sessions. From Gormley’s point of view there are no outstanding issues. Consolidated facilities is moving forward.

Massachusetts has adopted the Common Core curriculum standards set out by the federal government. Perhaps this was doen becsuse it makes educational sense, perhaps to help secure “Race to the Top” funding. Regardless, questions such as “How do they map to the existing Massachusetts curriculum frameworks and what impact if any will there be here in Milton?” need to be asked. To answer that question Ms. Gormley shared a report completed by the staff at the MA Dept of Elem and Secondary Education in collaboration with the staff of Achieve, Inc., “an organization with expertise in assessment and alignment studies.” This was one of a series of evaluative studies that were performed. You can find a memo from Mitchell Chester, Commissioner of Education summarizing these studies here. It contains links to the source documents. Regarding the report which Ms. Gormley shared (i.e.Comparative Analyses of the Massachusetts Working Drafts and the Common Core Standards), Mr. Chester states:

Overall, the report finds a high degree of consistency between the two sets of documents. In both mathematics and English language arts, 90% of the Common Core standards were matched to Massachusetts standards. The fact that the Common Core standards go into more depth in some areas mostly accounts for the 10% of Common Core standards that could not be matched by Massachusetts draft standards.

The key difference appears to be a the Core Curriculum’s greater emphasis on literacy (reading and writing) across the curriculum. Coincidently, there was a front page story in the New York Times regarding the stunning progress made by the Brockton Public Schools. This progress was attributed to the Principals’s efforts to promote reading and writing throughout the curriculum, including phys ed. You can find that story here.

Ms. Gormley noted that one area that needs to be clarified is to what extent the new standards will affect or influence MCAS questions. MCAS is not going away.

In late August state officials announced that Milton would receive $327K in school funding as a result of congressional approval of the Education Jobs Fund. Asked how those funds would be used, Gormley said the federal funds will be put to bringing back 2 reading teachers (1 French, 1 English). Gormley consulted with teachers and the consensus was that, as much as aides can contribute, the contribution of supplemental reading instruction is greater. Gormley will also be working with the leadership team and school committee on exploring how to best address guidance requirements.

There was also a brief discussion of School Choice. School Committee member Chris Huban as been advocating to have this option reviewed. As a result, a committee is being formed that will look at the feasibility of Milton participating in the state’s School Choice program which enables students to go to school out of district and for a school to accept students from out of district. You can find comprehensive information regarding the state’s school choice program here.

Closing out the conversation were two minor but significant items. When school opened this past fall some families had to send their children to a school outside their neighborhood if they wanted to enroll in a particular program. Specifically, about 5 Collicott families sent their children to Tucker to be enrolled in the French Immersion program as the program at Collicott was oversubscribed. As it happened, over the course of the summer some students matriculated out for a variety of reasons and space became available. Given the option to return almost all the families elected to keep their children at Tucker. Clearly, Gormley was proud of this and while she did not say so the reason was clear: once parents are exposed to a school, its administration, and faculty, they will realize that all the schools in Milton are good schools.

Lastly, there is the issue of security. The close of the school year saw several incidents of ammunition being found which resulted on lockdowns. More recently, one special needs student injured another on a school van. Gormley recognizes that it does not present a good picture and parents and students may be fearful; but she has a very strong and collaborative relationship with the Milton Police Department. The rules and procedures are in place and were followed and the staff and administration. They were calm and confident throughout and Gormley was proud of her staff’s response. “Everybody was safe.”

On a side note, Ms. Gormley was recently a guest on Senator Joyce’s cable program which can be seen on MATV. Here is a shot of them (photo courtesy of the Office of Senator Joyce).