On Sunday, January 14, over forty Newton parents, teachers, and elected officials met at the Scandinavian Cultural Center for an informal discussion about school funding. Horace Mann parents Alli Franke, Dan Evans, and Matt Mazer organized the meeting just days earlier and publicized it with the assistance of the Newton Parent Educator Collaborative (PEC).
Originally advertised as an opportunity for Newton Public Schools (NPS) parents to voice their concerns to City Councilors, the meeting evolved into a cooperative discussion among the attendees:
- NPS parents, educators — and those who are both — including members of PEC
- City Councilors Andrea Kelley, Pam Wright, Julia Malakie, Susan Albright, and David Micley
- School Committee Chair Chris Brezski and member Anping Shen
- Susan Cohen, Recording Secretary of the Newton Teachers Association (NTA)
Questions raised and discussed included:
- The City’s Free Cash: How much is available? How much is typically available? Can it be put into the City’s operating budget? Could an additional $2 million per year be available from the EverSource settlement?
- Can Newton borrow more in order to pay teachers?
- What additional funds will be freed up in 2032, when the City’s OPEB liability is scheduled to become fully funded?
- What is the City Council’s role in funding of NPS?
- Does anyone see a path forward in the NPS/NTA negotiations that is amenable to all sides?
- What can parents do to get the Mayor to agree to allocate more funding to NPS?
Several teachers spoke of low morale, burn-out, and insufficient support for students. They indicated that the negotiations — and the possibility of a strike — are not a matter only of pay but also of needing “more adults in the building” to provide support for students.
Retired teacher Jane Frantz noted that “a lot of the burnout has been a result of the cuts over the last five years,” with the same programs and expectations in place but with fewer staff people.
An NPS teacher and parent expressed concern about communications from the School Committee to the public. Another NPS teacher/parent said that more support is needed for students who are dealing with mental health issues, food insecurity, and housing insecurity — and without specialized staff, responsibility for all that falls on the teachers. “It’s not just about money; it’s about you don’t have enough providers for the kids who need it.”
Susan Cohen, NTA Recording Secretary, said that the negotiation process has been different this year, as the two sides have not been sitting at the table together (before the most recent session). She expressed concern that the “package” proposed by the School Committee includes “diminishing prep[aration] time for educators,” which teachers value.
School Committee Chair Brezski — who had distributed a one-page document about the NPS/NTA negotiations to attendees as they arrived — said that:
- NPS is not diminishing teachers’ preparation time but is reorganizing schedules to align student blocks so they can get the services they need.
- NPS does not want to have students in schools on Election Day this year, so NPS has proposed making that day a full day of professional development, held in buildings that are not polling locations. In return, NPS proposed dropping two unused days from the contract, bringing it from 182 student days to the 180 days that have actually been used in recent years.
- The School Committee will meet on Wednesday, January 17 to vote on permitting former School Committee member Kathy Shields to remain on the School Committee’s Negotiating Committee with continuing School Committee member Paul Levy, for the purposes of continuity.
- Breski will be managing the School Committee’s communications to the public regarding the negotiations, and he thinks it will be “a different style” than earlier.
School Committee member Anping Shen spoke of the recent experience of Andover schools, which raised pay by about 15% to settle a three-day strike and then issued a statement saying “the final agreement is inconsistent with the principles of the town’s long-range financial plan, so to live within our means, we will need to make meaningful program, service, and staff reductions.” He also noted that the percentage of the NPS budget designated for teachers’ pay has risen from 82% to over 88% over the last ten years.
City Councilor Susan Albright explained that Free Cash is typically $12 to $13 million, but it has been higher for the last two years. She said it typically is used for capital expenditures. She also noted that borrowing money is not an appropriate way to pay teachers – “That’s dangerous.” School Committee Chair Brezski noted that the amount of Free Cash at the end of a fiscal year depends in part on the assumptions used to develop the budget for that year, including assumptions about interest rates, which have varied widely recently.
A parent noted that the City’s projection of a 3.5% annual increase in City revenue is a policy choice and that, in the last five years, the annual increases in City revenue have been “sometimes closer to 4% and not less than 3.5%.” He also referred to additional funding from the EverSource settlement and high levels of Free Cash due in part to income from high interest rates, which “will not go back down to zero like they were during the pandemic.” He said that a policy choice of “underbudgeting” has resulted in layoffs and “morale problems …trying to do more with less people.” He asked, “What can parents do to get the Mayor to increase the allocation to …more than 3.5% and commit to doing it year over year? …If the NTA saw parents coming out, …then the pressure to have a strike would probably go down. …What can [parents] do to convince the Mayor to give our money back to our kids?”
Councilor Albright referred to her earlier experience in political organizing as a PTO president and said that in recent years she has “not seen the same level of parent political pressure” and that [to be effective] “PTOs have to be more active … pack the room constantly, time after time, night after night.”
School Committee Chair Brezski answered the parent’s question by saying, “You can’t just say, ‘Give us more.’ You actually have to put together a plan, and it has to be bullet-proof. You have to put together the slide deck and the numbers and the spreadsheets, and then you have to go sell that. …That’s the only way things get done.”
Near the end of the meeting, another parent asked what parents could do besides writing letters, and the responses included attending the Mayor’s office hours and attending a rally organized by the Angier PTO — for Wednesday, January 17, 9AM-9:30AM in front of City Hall.
Ed. Note: We revised this article to include a link to the document distributed by School Committee Chair Brezski and to clarify that Paul Levy continues as a member of both the School Committee and its negotiating committee.