Worcester Officials Seek Council, School Committee District Alignment

WORCESTER, MA — Political districts in Worcester may soon be too complicated for voters to understand, prompting local officials to begin talks about possibly aligning city council and school committee lines.

The Worcester School Committee will soon redraw districts to move from an all at-large system to one with six district seats and two at-large seats. The changes come after a lawsuit settlement between the city and community groups over how the at-large system led to mostly white residents getting elected to the committee.

But the proposed new school committee districts will not line up with the five Worcester City Council district seats, according to proposed maps released last week. That creates a scenario where a single council district could have several school committee districts inside it.

On Monday evening, the School Committee Finance and Operations subcommittee and the Council's Committee on Education held a joint meeting to in part discuss the problem. School Committee member Tracy O'Connell Novick formally asked the council to consider rearranging district lines to lessen confusion.

Committee members Jermoh Kamara and Sue Mailman backed up Novick's request, saying they had heard concerns from voters about possible confusion in future elections if the districts don't align.

At-Large Councilor Donna Colorio said she would oppose changing council lines because the lawsuit did not involve city council districts. Colorio said it would be better to educate the public about the new political lines.

"I think what you're experiencing now is people are going to have confusion," Colorio said. "The city council was not sued, so our organization is not in question right now."

"I'd like to focus on the positive thing, which is that we did fulfill this, and we didn't go to litigation, we were able to resolve this," she continued.

Novick responded that the council may want to ensure that its districts are fair to avoid lawsuits in the future.

"I think it's probably better if the governing body doesn't wait to be sued to make fixes, and that's what we did in Worcester," Novick said. "I think we can be proactive in fixing this problem before someone has to sue to fix it."

Education subcommittee chair Thu Nguyen said a complicated system of school and council districts could push voter turnout even lower in the future. Turnout in Worcester municipal elections did not crack 18 percent in the 2021, 2019 and 2017. Turnout reached just over 21 percent in 2015.

"We know that right now for our local elections we do not have a 20 percent mark of people who vote," Nguyen said. "The simpler, the better; we're trying to get people engaged."

Nguyen concluded the meeting by sending an order to the full city council to examine how to align school and council districts.

At the same time, the Worcester Board of Election Commissioners will continue to hold public hearings across the city — the first was held last Thursday — to discuss the six proposed school committee districts. The next meeting is set for Thursday at the Worcester Housing Authority office, 630 Plantation St.