The December 4 School Committee meeting agenda included the Superintendent’s regular report, as well as updates regarding negotiations with the Newton Teachers Association, progress on this year’s NPS systemwide goals, human resources, PTO spending, and NPS budget planning.
Kathy Shields (Ward 7, Vice Chair) who sits on the SC Negotiations Subcommittee, reported to the Committee on a negotiation session with NTA that occurred earlier that day. Her update included:
- NPS increased its offered Cost of Living Adjustments (“COLA’s) to “all units,” although Ms. Shields did not specify the amounts.
- NPS reached “tentative agreement” with the NTA on the union’s proposal to eliminate the lowest two “steps” of incoming Unit C employees, meaning those new hires would start higher on the salary scale.
- NPS proposed higher Unit C COLA increases for those employees at the lower end of that scale than the increases previously offered to all Unit C employees, although Ms. Shields did not specify the amount of increase).
Ms. Shields then informed the School Committee that eligible NPS employees have received their annual step salary raises for the current academic year. These raises averaged 4.0-6.0% depending on which Unit the employee is in. Since step increases are awarded to educators as they gain years of experience, but only up to a certain number of years, highly tenured, long-standing educators did not received these raises.
Tamika Olzsewski (Ward 4, Chair), who also sits on the Negotiations Subcommittee, followed Ms. Shields by reiterating that coming to tentative agreements on certain items “demonstrates the School Committee is continuously operating under good faith to put forward an agreement that would be mutually beneficial.” Ms. Shields stated that the next negotiation session with the NTA is scheduled for December 18, indicating that the parties did not expect to come to a final agreement before then. As of this writing, the Newton Teachers Association had not yet made a public statement regarding the School Committee’s negotiations update.
Following Ms. Shields statements, Dr. Joany Santa, who began as NPS Director of Human Resource this academic year, gave a presentation on her entry plan to the district. Dr. Santa stated that based on her interactions with exiting employees, those leaving the district are resigning predominantly for personal life events such as a spouse moving, and not due to dissatisfaction with NPS. Dr. Santa conceded that because the district has not conducted exit interviews in the past, a practice she hopes to revive, this view was not yet based on formal data.
A substantive discussion regarding teacher absences and the role of substitutes, initiated by a question from Chris Brezski (Ward 2), begins at the 1:25:20 minute mark of the meeting’s recording and lasts for over 15 minutes. During that time, Anping Shen (Ward 3) stated that his children’s high school experience was impacted by teacher absences, and Dr. Nolin stated she was “very concerned about this issue,” citing that 30 classes per day are cancelled at each high school.
Dr. Santa generally received praise from the School Committee members for her focus on data gathering and implementing best practices.
The full meeting replay can be found on NewTV here.
