Plan For New Worcester School Committee Seats Take Shape

WORCESTER, MA — The Worcester City Council on Tuesday took a key step toward reshaping the Worcester School Committee, voting for a plan that would create school committee districts and add new members.

The change comes after the Worcester Branch NAACP and other local groups filed a federal Voting Rights Act lawsuit over the makeup of the school committee. Right now, all members serve at-large, which led to a homogenous school committee.

"Despite this composition and the rapid growth of the Hispanic/Latino and Black communities, Worcester's six-member School Committee is all-white and with very few exceptions, has been all-white during the course of the city's history," the NAACP said when it sued in February.

The Council agreed in April to change how voters pick school committee members.

The Council voted in favor of a hybrid option that would create six School Committee districts — similar to the City Council districts — plus two majority-minority at-large districts. The mayor would also retain their seat on the committee. The selection came after the Council Municipal and Legislative Operations committee held a series of public meetings about options for the School Committee change.

Worcester now has to ask the Legislature for a home rule petition to put the new system in place. The city also still has to draw lines for the new districts.

Election expert and Stanford Law School professor Nathaniel Persily drafted maps for Worcester illustrating the possible district lines. Persily's maps created school committee districts with different lines than City Council districts, which could complicate elections. The city would need to create 16 different ballot types and add nine new voting precincts if the districts don't line up.

The Council initially voted 7-4 on the new school committee system with Councilors Sarai Rivera, Donna Colorio, Morris Bergman and George Russell voting no — those members preferred a six-member plan with no additional at-large districts. The Council later reconsidered the vote and passed the new seat arrangement unanimously.