Brezski memo sparks School Committee debate on future of small schools.
The June 24 regular School Committee meeting, the last one for this school year, did not coast into the summer but ran almost four hours across several topics widely followed in the community.
The public comment period included three commenters from the PTOC Equity Committee, who had submitted a memorandum to the School Committee, all stated their disappointment that their positions are presently unfilled at the PTOC going into next year, and they expressed their frustration at their perception of lack of Newton Public Schools (NPS) coordination across the district in explaining and enforcing its PTO equity policy.
The meeting then moved to its posted agenda, beginning with the regular Superintendent’s update, during which Superintendent Anna Nolin defended the decision to have only half-days of school Thursday, June 20 and Friday, June 21 due to “heat,” although Friday’s high temperature was only in the low 80s. Dr. Nolin stated that temperatures inside the school buildings were much hotter and that operating only certain schools on a half-day schedule was impossible, partly due to constraints of school bus schedules.
Technology and Cell Phones
The meeting then moved to the use of technology at school, starting with an update about the newly formed high school working group, which will study limiting use of Internet-enabled devices (IEDs) at school. Further, the district will initiate pilot studies to expand the Yondr pouch program, presently deployed at Day Middle School, to the remaining middle schools. Committee Chair Chris Brezski (Ward 2) indicated that January 2025 may be the period when further IED restrictions are implemented at middle and high schools, and he clarified that the Yondr program would continue at Day this fall.
The School Committee then turned to reviewing anonymous survey results about technology use in school compiled by a Boston College researcher. The survey summary presentation contained several graphs and charts of participant responses, but it lacked clear conclusions and did not appear to contain significant insights not previously known to the audience.
DEI Year-End Report
Following the technology topics, the NPS Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) department presented its Year End Report, which contained information about staff hiring and development, student discipline and survey results, and community outreach. Somewhat overshadowing the large amount of data in the report, however were statements regarding the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The second page of the report cites the ADL as an “Equity Partner,” and when speaking to this page to begin the presentation, DEI Director Kathy Lopes stated:
I am aware of some of the controversy with ADL …our partnership with them is around their peer leadership program …and isn’t specific to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so I wanted …to differentiate that our work with ADL is in this particular manner with middle school students and their peer leadership.
DEI Director Kathy Lopes
After Ms. Lopes reviewed the report and during the Committee discussion, in response to a Committee member’s question about what additional support the department requires, the DEI Director stated that the whole community needed to support the work of the DEI Department and speak out against “resistance,” which she said can take the form of “the micro-aggressions of emails that come in that are harmful.”
Following this question and response, Committee Member Paul Levy (Ward 6) returned to Ms. Lopes’s earlier statement about the ADL and said that Ms. Lopes had “appeared to give the impression that NPS was not willing to have a more extensive engagement with the ADL …the ADL is one of the most moderate, peace-seeking of the mainstream Jewish philanthropies that we have in this region, that has a record that goes back decades in support of those kinds of approaches to complicated issues of discrimination, hate, antisemitism …and to the extent the Superintendent feels that engaging the ADL in assisting [NPS] in dealing with those issues of antisemitism beyond the project that they’re working with the DEI department on …in my view that’s a wise decision.”
At this point, Ms. Lopes requested to interrupt and stated, “I want to clarify that I did not say ‘not willing,'” however she “also hear[s] perspectives of other communities about their perspectives of the ADL, so I’m familiar and aware of concerns about the ADL.” Ms. Lopes further clarified that it was Superintendent Nolin rather than the DEI department who procured the grant that paid for the middle school peer leadership training conducted with the ADL.
Mr. Levy defended his original statement and replied to Ms. Lopes that she “maybe unintentionally gave the impression that we were limiting our engagement with this well-respected organization,” to which Ms. Lopes stated she hoped “it’s been clarified that that is not the intent.”
After the meeting, Fig City News requested a clarification from NPS officials regarding which controversy they were aware of regarding the ADL. Superintendent Nolin shared with FCN examples of public websites and online articles that questioned the integrity of the ADL’s activities and statistical methods, which she said had been sent to NPS. Superintendent Nolin provided further perspective on the June 24 meeting by stating that this school year district administrators “have had experiences that mimicked the meeting…observed last night. We have to be everyone’s superintendent and everyone’s DEI leadership–it’s a fine line to walk.”
Dr. Nolin then told Fig City News that Ms. Lopes’s initial comment about the ADL’s work being confined to the middle school leadership training was in response to a public comment, and that during the School Committee meeting the DEI Director “shared the predominant work ADL does for the district: peer leadership curriculum for all middle schoolers…many districts use this program for peer leadership (this is my 20th year using it in one district or another). The ADL has also helped many districts over the decade if issues of racism or antisemitism occur and there is a targeted response. This year, we used some ADL staff training to help staff, post October 7, to lean into supportive conversations to mediate the varied perspectives and needs for safety and belonging from many different groups within our district–all with an eye toward ending hateful speech or actions.”
School Building Planning
Following the DEI Year End Report discussion, Superintendent Nolin shared a memo that included her recommendation to follow the Building Commissioner’s suggestions to keep the Countryside, Franklin, and Lincoln-Eliot student populations in their current buildings through those school construction projects, while moving the Horace-Mann population to the district’s swing space at 191 Pearl Street during that school’s renovation.
The meeting then returned to the topic of long-range facilities planning, discussed extensively during the previous School Committee meeting on June 10. Mr. Brezski distributed a memo he authored for discussion at the June 24 meeting, which attempted to frame the School Committee’s decision making process for what future school building size, design, and location features it would prioritize when making decisions about facilities. These priorities would be conveyed to the NPS Long Range Planning Committee, presently consisting of Mr. Brezski, Committee Member Tamika Olszewski (Ward 4), and members of the NPS Business, Finance & Planning team.
After several comments from the members, Committee member Barry Greenstein (Ward 8) made the clearest statement thus far that walkability may not be able to be the top goal of facilities planning, and he shared his family’s perspective that not being able to walk to school was not an impediment to their feelings of neighborhood and community.
Following this, Amy Davenport (Ward 7) stated, “I can’t see us recommending to build a school of 200 kids, even if I think it’s been a really fantastic experience,” which in practice agreed with Mr. Greenstein’s statement since building fewer, larger schools implies that not every older school building will be reconstructed in its present location. Ms. Davenport then requested the other members give their views on the questions raised in Mr. Brezski’s memo. The other members gave varying rationales but generally agreed that rebuilding new, relatively small schools on the same sites where smaller schools presently stand was challenging.
After the meeting, Fig City News requested clarification on what the next steps would be following the meeting discussion, and Mr. Brezski responded:
The work of the [Long Range Planning] Committee had largely been on hold following the disbanding of the Ward / Underwood Working Group last year, as the School Committee was asked to provide more guidance given a consensus that Ward and Underwood could not be viewed in isolation.
Our discussion over the last two meetings were intended to provide some part of that guidance, though I am not certain a clear consensus emerged. The Long Range Planning Committee will likely engage over the course of the next year to attempt to answer the questions raised in the halted Ward / Underwood process.
It is important to note that the Committee reached a consensus (there was no formal vote) that the Ward and Underwood communities may reasonably expect that no major changes will take place at Ward and Underwood (i.e., closure or consolidation) for at least five years. This will be communicated directly to those communities from NPS administration and/or the School Committee.
School Committee Chair Chris Brezski
Superintendent Evaluation
The final substantive agenda item was the Superintendent’s annual evaluation by the School Committee, which is required by law. The 83-page document gave Dr. Nolin an overall grade of “Proficient” — the second-highest other than “Exemplary” — however comments by several School Committee members were highly supportive of Dr. Nolin and indicated the Proficient evaluation was largely due to the teachers’ union work-to-rule and strike during the school year, which made completion of annual goals challenging. Mr. Brezski conveyed “universal gratitude for what [Dr. Nolin] put forth this year, for making the progress we were able to make given the difficulty of the year we were in.”
The meeting replay is available on NewTV.
Ed. Note: this article has been revised to include the link to the memorandum submitted by members of the PTOC Equity Committee.