Multilevel Classes are addressed again during public comment.
The December 16 School Committee meeting was split into two sessions: a one-hour special meeting to receive feedback from community focus groups on the new Newton Public Schools (NPS) Strategic Planning Committee, followed by the regularly scheduled meeting’s agenda. The special meeting was not recorded, but during the subsequent Superintendent’s Update, Dr. Anna Nolin shared that the session centered around the still-forming Planning Committee as it heard feedback from various community focus groups. The identities of the Committee members thus far are contained in the Update, which also contained news about upcoming web filters to be installed on NPS-issued student Chromebooks, as well as an award received by the NPS Business and Operations staff for excellence in budgeting.
The public comment to begin the regular meeting again contained statements by educators and parents against the current NPS practice of “multilevel” classrooms, but this meeting also heard comment from three Newton North High School educators who stated that the multilevel concept could work better with more time and financial resources devoted to it. The final public commenter was Newton Teacher’s Association officer Susan Cohen, also a Newton resident, who implored the School Committee to restore Kindergarten aides immediately, while awaiting the district’s appeal on the April 2024 arbitration ruling to restore these aides.
Superintendent Nolin addressed the multilevel comments in her Update memo by reiterating the need to gather data, and she stated that any substantial curriculum changes would not happen until the 2026-2027 school year. While Dr. Nolin stated she cannot speak to what occurred prior to her tenure beginning last year, both her comments and those of other educators during the past month of multilevel classroom debate conveyed the lack of curriculum and student assessment analysis existing upon her start in Newton.
Following the Update, the longest portion of the meeting was an almost one-hour presentation by NPS Director of Communication and Family Partnership Christina Maryland, about the newly created Office of Family & Community Partnerships. Ms. Maryland’s presentation discussed components of a 24-page memorandum for a strategic communications plan, summarized into four sections on pages 4-6 of the memo.
Next the Committee continued a discussion of the Spring 2024 MCAS results with Dr. Katy Hogue and Dr. Nolin by answering questions that were submitted by Committee members in advance regarding MCAS test structure and actionable conclusions from the results. During an extended back-and-forth, Rajeev Parlikar (Ward 1) and Drs. Hogue and Nolin discussed which school district’s were Newton’s relevant peers for comparative analysis, with Dr. Nolin noting that the peers selected in the NPS 2024 MCAS analysis have been consistent for the past three years. Dr. Nolin also informed the Committee that the DESE DART analysis tool, which groups similar districts together based on demographics and MCAS results, had a different group of peer districts for NPS, including Melrose and Chelmsford. Mr. Parlikar generally advocated for comparison with more geographically close neighboring districts such as Wellesley, Dover, and Weston. (Wellesley is an existing peer district in NPS-generated analysis.)
Prior to a vote to approve “non-aligned” (i.e. non-union) staff raises, the penultimate agenda item was the November Newton Community Education financial report, which indicated NCE was anticipated to meet its December plan. The context for this presentation was following up on the recently approved allocation of $500,000 (Action Item #1 in the NCE November 18th memorandum) from the NPS budget to support NCE. Paul Levy (Ward 6) questioned whether it was prudent to reduce expenses further in the near term, to add more clarity sooner to whether NCE will minimize any drawdown of the $500,000 reserve at the end of the fiscal year.
The regular meeting replay is available on NewTV.
