The November 4th regular School Committee meeting ran almost four hours across a meaningful agenda including a stark update about the state of Newton Community Education’s budget, a curriculum update, the 2025-2026 school calendar, and private school busing provided by Newton Public Schools (NPS).
Prior to the published agenda, however, several NPS high school educators made public comments deriding the implementation of “multilevel” classes under the previous longtime Superintendent David Fleishman — a practice continued by the two current high school principals: Henry Turner (Newton North) and Tami Straus (Newton South). Multilevel classes have students who are at different learning levels combined in the same classroom, forcing the teacher to adjust curriculum content for multiple skill levels. Levels are defined in NPS as college preparatory (CP), advanced college preparatory (ACP), honors, and advanced placement (AP).
Leading the public speakers was frequent School Committee commenter Ryan Normandin, a Newton South High School math and science teacher who further identified himself as head of that school’s faculty council. Mr. Normandin stated that multilevel classes were implemented with “no metric for success” and that “no evidence presented that implementation of these classes has improved outcomes for any group of students.” The educators asked NPS to rollback multilevel classes in at least math, science, and world language classes.
Significantly, Mr. Normandin also stated he had reached out to educators at Newton North High School who he said would not give their opinions about multilevel classes because they “feared retaliation from [Principal] Henry Turner.” Following these comments, the School Committee listened to an entry plan report from Assistant Superintendent for Teaching & Learning Dr. Gina Flanagan that addressed the status of NPS curriculum review. Multiple School Committee members, including Paul Levy, Anping Shen, and Rajeev Parlikar, appeared to agree with educators commenting against multilevel classrooms.
Additional topics in the meeting included:
- Preliminary NPS enrollment report for the current academic year largely tracked the forecast from Spring 2024.
- School Committee approved the 2025-2026 academic calendar, with a last day of school on Monday June 22, 2026 (assuming no snow days).
- The School Committee received a memorandum from the Director of Newton Community Education (NCE), Kate Carpenter Bernier, which stated that NCE was experiencing significant financial distress and that the program is at risk of closure.
The meeting replay is available on NewTV.