NPS’s Math Night presentation emphasized three elements: the data the district is using to both support changes to the math curriculum and determine how students will access them, the anticipated pathway possibilities within middle school and high school math curriculum options, and the budget needs to effect these changes.
Setting the stage
The Newton Public Schools Math Curriculum Night started promptly at 6:30 with about 50 attendees, in addition to the school department staff on hand to present. District staff included Superintendent Dr. Anna Nolin, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning Dr. Gina Flanagan, Director of Mathematics PK-12 Jennifer Shore, NNHS Department Chair Jennifer Letourneau, NSHS Department Chair Alex Kraus, and middle school math teachers Britni Brierly and Oliver Ward from Day Middle School.
In the lobby before the presentation, there were high school students who invited adults to work with them on some of the types of math work they are doing in school. Early on in the presentation, there were some examples of “low-floor, high-ceiling” problems currently used in middle school math for differentiation. Towards the end of the presentation, a district official referred to the extracurricular math team at the high-school level as an opportunity for extension. Aside from these examples, there were few details over the course of the evening of exactly which math topics and in what order are currently being taught and how parents might expect to see that change with either of the two possible new curricula.
The 6:30-7:30 time block was honored and efficiently used. One thing that facilitated this was that the district staff took questions via QR code, with the option to have questions answered individually if participants entered their contact information. This innovation seemed to contribute to a smooth flow and an equity of opportunity to ask questions. However, only one question was answered in the course of the presentation, so attendees were not able to hear others’ questions nor the responses to them. NPS indicated that it would be responding by email to each questioner. The meeting was not recorded.
UPDATE: After NPS had responded by email to each question individually, NPS provided Fig City News with a copy of all 18 questions and NPS’s responses to them and encouraged their publication.
Data
First off, NPS noted that Newton is in a strong position compared to much of Massachusetts: across the Commonwealth, 62% of 8th graders scored below meeting expectations on the Mathematics test, but in Newton that number is only 24%. For Grades 3-8, 60-76% of Newton students have met or exceeded expectations on Math MCAS. MCAS Data 2025
Other data that has been analyzed by NPS:
- Stakeholder surveys
- Curriculum Alignment Review
- Existing curriculum guides
- Empirically taught curriculum
- Assessments
- State standards
Dr. Nolin noted that the Curriculum Alignment Review indicated that there were discrepancies between all of the schools at each grade level where not all the schools were covering all the standards and not the same standards as each other. There were also redundancies across grade levels, some of them due to lack of inter-grade communication, some of them attempts to make up for material that students from certain feeder schools had not covered in prior grades. She indicated that this is one reason for the district to move towards more standardized curricular materials. As Dr. Nolin said, “If every year 7th grade teachers are having to go back to 4th grade skills, we are not doing our job as a system.”
Dr. Nolin took a moment to acknowledge the wide range of developmental patterns within “normal development,” starting from when students first learn to walk. Some infants start at ten months, others not until fifteen months, but all of these are normal, and we support babies learning to walk at the moment they are ready for it. Dr. Nolin claimed that middle school has the most variability of any childhood development moment and that is one of the reasons we need to be ready to support kids continuously when they are ready to develop certain skills. As she said, “these kids [with their variety of normal developmental patterns] exist whether they are in leveled classes or not.” Later in the evening, she also acknowledged that in the strategic planning process from last spring, which included 150 community members, one of the recurring themes was that participants didn’t want to incubate a “Race to Nowhere” pressure-cooker environment that, as she noted, some community members felt contributed to three suicides in 2013.
One set of statistics that was mentioned was that when the district removed barriers to taking calculus, the number of students taking AB Calculus quadrupled, even as BC Calc and AP Statistics enrollment also increased. Newton does not require students enrolled in AP classes to take the AP test, so staff claimed that the district does not have tight data on how the AP test scores compare before and after this enrollment surge.
Pathways and transition
The district is currently piloting two different math curricula in many classrooms. One of these is an “Integrated Math” (IM) curriculum, and the other is a more traditional “Algebra 1 – Geometry – Algebra 2 – Precalculus” sequence curriculum, and the district has not yet decided between them. While the curricula being piloted were not named in this presentation, they are listed in the presentation to the School Committee from September 25, 2025 as follows:
- Pre-K: still being decided
- K-5: Amplify Desmos and Experience Math (Savvas)
- 6-7: Amplify Desmos and MidSchoolMath
- 8-11: CPM and Carnegie
With either curriculum, a specific goal is to move towards having the middle school curriculum condensed so that topics currently being covered starting in 9th grade will begin to be covered in 8th grade instead. This is in response to data indicating that a significant majority of our late elementary and middle school students are ready for more advanced instruction than they are currently working on. Another pacing consideration is making sure there is alignment between the math and physics curricula.
Whichever curriculum is chosen, math teachers at the high schools teach between 1-3 different courses each year and will need time to transition and prepare to teach a different sequence of classes. There will also be the need for targeted catch-up help for students who are not currently prepared to follow the new sequence.
Student placement in different pathways will be based on math data collection rather than parent requests or outside coursework. Data will include unit assessments, STAR assessments, and MCAS. The intention is for assessments to emphasize conceptual mastery and problem solving application vs. procedural speed on algorithmic problems. The district is looking to foster creative applications of the curriculum and passion for careers that involve mathematics in solving urgent problems. Given examples of these were: public health modeling, rocketry and GPS, economics and finance, climate science, and artificial intelligence.
The Flow Chart below, excerpted from the presentation slides, shows the pathways envisioned if the district were to opt for the Integrated Math curriculum set. While it was not explicitly stated in this presentation, during the School Committee meeting on September 24, 2025 Dr. Nolin stated that, whichever curriculum the district chooses, “we will no longer have that multi-level program. Instead, we will switch to a data-driven, rigorous, and supportive math program that allows for more personalized math pathways for all students.”
Budget
The math curriculum will be the centerpiece of the budget that Dr. Nolin presents to the School Committee this spring. Fully funding it will require providing funds for curricular materials, professional development for teachers [both learning new methods and time to prepare with new curricular materials and lessons], and dedicated staff both during the school year and over the summer for students catching up or changing pathways (“jumping up”). Dr. Nolin made the case that Newton will have to provide these resources as a City if this curricular change is to be successful.
For example, Dr. Nolin pointed out that the current middle school staff plan for NPS only has one Math Specialist, at Bigelow, because that position is funded with Federal Title I grant money, and that one person only provides support services to struggling students during extension blocks. The other middle schools do not have Math Specialists and will need them for these curricular changes to be implemented successfully. The district would like to hire enough Math Specialists that they would also be able to provide advanced experiences in math during extension blocks, which is currently not happening at any of the middle schools.
Further, Dr. Nolin said that at the high school level, NPS must keep things that are required and has curtailed things not required, which has largely meant cutting elective courses. Many math and science electives have been cut, and she would like to reinstate them as an outlet for offering advanced extension coursework.
Ed. Note: We updated this article to include a link to a copy of all 18 questions that were submitted during the meeting, along with the responses that NPS sent by email to each questioner.
