Large number of early childhood students requiring IEP’s blamed on pandemic isolation.
On Thursday March 20 and Monday March 25, the School Committee held its first two special meetings to review the Newton Public Schools (NPS) budget proposed by Superintendent Anna Nolin and NPS staff for Fiscal Year 2025 (fall 2024 through spring 2025 academic year). As previewed by Fig City News last week, the proposed budget characterizes funding as “Level Services +”, defined as no cuts to existing resources with selective new funding for certain programs described on Page 19 of the budget overview presentation.
After Superintendent Nolin’s review of the presentation, School Committee Chair Chris Brezksi stated, “This is third budget process I’ve been through, and it’s refreshing to be …talking about adding incremental supports as opposed to taking them away.” Prior to the March 20 meeting, a March 15 Boston Herald article cited large amounts of overtime pay to some NPS custodians as evidence of fiscal profligacy. During her presentation, Superintendent Nolin clarified that the majority of custodian overtime was paid by private parties renting school buildings for events, and that having many smaller, neighborhood elementary schools inherently led to a larger custodian staff.
The March 25 meeting centered on a presentation from Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Casey Ngo-Miller and the ensuing discussion regarding special education and related services. The presenters stated that out of 215 preschool students current enrolled at the Newton Early Childhood Program (NECP), 130 (60%) are on some form of Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Slide 16 of the their presentation states:
In their early formative years free playtime outdoors was limited, playgrounds were closed or if open, social distancing was required, and screen time was increased. Visitors to homes were limited, even immediate family members or friends, and infant/toddler Dr. visits were impacted.
[UPDATE] This trend is expected to continue in future years since NECP’s Early Intervention partners, most significantly Riverside Early Intervention which services Newton, Needham, Wellesley, and Weston children prior to their being of age to attend NECP, have notified NECP that approximately half of their current students live in Newton.
Related to the large amount of students across all grades requiring special services, NPS will be adding 22.6 full-time employees (FTE’s) across the district in FY 2025. These new hires include 10.0 new FTE’s for FY 2025 which the district is budgeting based on anticipated student special services needs, and 10.4 new FTE’s for both a new NECP classroom and more social workers in K-12 school buildings. Budgeting for special services resources focuses more on students with IEP’s rather than 504 plans due to the costs associated with the former.
Overall, the relatively benign budget discussions stood in stark contrast to the prior two years of NPS budget debates in 2022 and 2023 — which were marked by staff and program cuts driven by declining enrollment and budget cuts — and the resulting community advocacy to restore some of those cuts. This year’s discussion also differs from that in neighboring communities, such as Brookline, that are presently grappling with funding shortfalls.
[UPDATE] Ms. Ngo-Miller told Fig City News:
[I agree] that resources within Student Services are stable especially during a year when we will be expanding/maintaining expanded capacity (14th classroom at NECP). I am grateful for the support of both the Mayor’s office and Superintendent Nolin for their shared commitment to ensuring services and supports are in place for students. In my time in this district, I’ve learned that the community is very much engaged and informed in the goings on with the OSS [Office of Student Services]. It’s refreshing to have this level of discourse and transparency; I’m hopeful from this year’s budgeting process thus far that we can continue providing services and supports for all students who need it while also actively engaging with our community about where we are and what we are doing.
The next special School Committee budget meeting will be on Wednesday March 27 at 6:30PM and will focus on non-instructional NPS areas such as IT and transportation, followed by a public hearing on the budget on Monday, April 1 at 6PM.
The March 20 and March 25 meeting replays are available on NewTV.
Ed. Note: We updated this article, as indicated, subsequent to its original publication, to reflect additional context provided by NPS.