Superintendent Nolin links decline in math scores to High School class sizes
At the November 6 scheduled School Committee meeting, Ryan Normandin, math and science teacher at Newton South High School, gave a public comment during which he sharply criticized Mayor Fuller for under-funding NPS and stated that his recent honors and BC calculus math classes had 32-36 students and that “students sat on radiators…because there weren’t enough desks.”
Mr. Normandin’s comment was timely. Later in the meeting, as part of the planned agenda, NPS Chief of Data and Research Katy Hogue gave a presentation on class sizes throughout NPS. Her report covered elementary, middle, and high schools, however the majority of the ensuing School Committee discussion focused on the high school level. While Ms. Hogue noted that there were no class sizes over 25 students in any NPS elementary school, significant percentages of both NNHS and NSHS class sizes were over 25 students. Superintendent Anna Nolin stated, “anything over 25 [students] compounds teacher load,” though she cautioned that figure can depend on classroom layout.
Ms. Hogue stated that the majority of classes that had over 25 students were mixed-level Honors/ACP, ACP/CP, and Honors/ACP/CP classrooms. School Committee members Chris Brezski (Ward 2) and Kathy Shields (Ward 7) asked questions related to how many high school students were not receiving their preferred classes, and whether students with unscheduled WIN periods received those blocks due to not receiving course preferences. Assistant Superintendent Toby Romer responded that while that level of data was not available at the meeting, it was available for future analysis, and he believed large class sizes were related to many students not receiving their first choices because they created a cascading effect whereby those students dropped to the same alternate classes once their initial choices were at capacity.
Mayor Fuller acknowledged that too many classes were too overpopulated and that “we have work to do,” however she noted that the class size report did not contain any NSHS class sizes of 35 or 36 students, as had been stated by the public commenter. The School Committee student representative followed up on the Mayor’s comment by reiterating how large the class sizes are, including “virtually every math honors class I know is overfilled, and I was actually a student that sat on the radiator.” He stated that with a class that size, there’s “less focus, [and] side conversations…and can be very detrimental to learning.”
Superintendent Nolin then gave further examples of how class sizes of 25 or more can put too many demands on educators’ time and limit their time spent per student. She stated, “We’ve had a lot of public dialog in Newton about what’s happening to math scores. I’m going to tell you this is what’s happening to math scores,” and said that teachers do not have the time in any given section for one-on-one interventions.
The meeting replay is available here.
