What the School Committee did this summer

The Warwick School Committee met five times between June 9 and August 26. The minutes for all five are now filed with the Secretary of State, and I have read them so that you do not have to. Every recorded vote was unanimous, which is worth noticing on a committee that split 3-2 on teacher layoffs as recently as May. Here is what I think a District 2 parent should know.

Redistricting is moving

On July 14 the committee voted 5-0 for a resolution requesting a redistricting analysis, following a similar 5-0 vote in May. The filed minutes do not say who will run the study or when it is due.

On August 11, Superintendent McCaffrey reported that a redistricting advisory committee would hold its first meeting on August 25. He said it would look at enrollment, special services, transportation, and operational efficiency, and that the goal is to “balance schools and optimize resource use without school closures.” I have not yet found a membership list or a meeting notice for that advisory committee in the public record, and I am going to keep looking.

My own position has not changed. The building-by-building numbers should be public before anyone, including me, starts talking about a specific school.

The administration building needs a roof

The district’s central office is in the former Gorton Junior High, which was built in 1944. On August 11 the Superintendent reported a third-party estimate of $2.1 million to replace the roof, with estimates for electrical, heating and cooling, and insulation work still to come. Whether the administration stays or moves is supposed to rest on a cost-benefit analysis, and city officials are part of that conversation.

FEMA money that is not coming

On July 14 the finance office reported an estimated $260,000 shortfall in last year’s budget because the state denied FEMA funds for the 2026 blizzard. The books for that fiscal year were still being closed in August.

At the August meeting, committee members asked for three things: updated year-end deficit figures in September, the approved FY27 budget posted on the district website, and more line-item detail in the monthly finance reports. Those are the right asks, and I will be watching to see whether they are answered.

New kindergarten classrooms

The committee added a kindergarten teacher and a teacher assistant at Norwood Elementary on August 11, where the principal described a substantial wait list, and did the same at Hoxsie Elementary on August 26.

Test scores

The district presented its end-of-year i-Ready results on August 11. Warwick students came in above state and national averages in both math and reading at the elementary and middle school levels, with median growth of about 111 percent in math and 127 percent in reading. i-Ready is the district’s own diagnostic rather than the state test, and members asked the administration to compare these results with RICAS scores, which is the comparison I would want to see too.

Also on the record

• June 9: the committee approved the district’s 2027-2029 strategic plan and adopted a policy creating a student liaison to the School Committee.
• June 30: in a special meeting, the committee voted 5-0 to authorize the Superintendent to appeal a decision of the state education commissioner (Case No. 26-003A) and to pursue mediation and settlement talks. Any settlement has to come back to the committee for approval.
• August 11: a proposed payroll manager position was tabled, and the administration was asked to study outsourcing payroll instead.

Check my reading

Agendas and minutes for every meeting are on the Secretary of State’s open meetings portal. The regular meetings are also recorded: June 9, July 14, and August 11. If you think I got something wrong, email me and I will fix it.