How long have you lived in Newton, Jason?
Going on eight years. I date it from the age of my daughter. We were in the South End, and we moved when number two was on the way.
Did you move here for the schools?
Schools were the biggest driver. …We wanted a place that was relatively more diverse, more welcoming in the schools. And, both my wife and I are primarily products of public schools and wanted that for our kids. …So that was it.
How much have you been involved in the Peirce School?
I’ve served as a volunteer for a range of events. One that I did for many years that I really enjoyed is serving as a room parent …[and] in various activities, never in a leadership capacity. Another area that’s tangential to that [is] that I have been serving on the Peirce School Council.
What prompted you to be a room parent, and what did you do in that role?
I’d say it was two-fold. First and foremost, I felt it was a very direct and tangible way to provide support for our educators, which was important to me. Second, perhaps a bit more selfishly, I found it was a great way to have a closer sense of what was going on in the school — as well as a means to connect with fellow parents [via coordination responsibilities]. The role of room parent is, I’d say, a) providing tangible supports to things teachers need — soliciting donations, providing basic classroom supplies, etc. — and b) coordinating supportive activities among all the parents — setting up a parents’ WhatsApp, [getting] volunteers to come into the school for specific activities, ways to recognize the teachers at key moments of the year, etc. I was always lucky to serve as a co-room parent, and it was great to collaborate on the role with one or two other parents.
What does the School Council do?
It’s a function with representation from teachers and community members and parents. I think it runs the gamut in terms of the agenda with the principal. …Every year, Principal [Andrea] Vargas does a State of the School for the community. …We on the Peirce School Council got a preview of that, and we were able to give our feedback and thoughts and suggestions, which I will say, she took to heart and made quite a bit of adaptation based on our thoughts.
…The English Language, new reading curriculum was an area where there was a lot of feedback from parents. And so we had a discussion about how to get information out to the community, so maybe it’s a trial run of building those connections between the administration and the schools, and parents and community …not setting priorities, per se, in the way that a School Committee might, but nevertheless, having a voice with the school leader. The primary function was information-sharing, versus really directing activities at the school, per se.
Did teachers respond positively to having parents involved?
Yes! One functional aspect I’ll highlight that I believe was mutually appreciated was filling in gaps in understanding. Especially at the elementary level. Specifically, I mean gaps both a) on the parent and caregiver side — in terms of knowing what is going on in the class — and b) on the side of educators, especially in terms of what is being felt and perceived at home among students and parents. The 5-10 year olds are good story tellers, but sometimes adult-to-adult communication is helpful to bridge any gaps.
How did you develop your ideas about the academic process in the Newton Public School system?
It was a very organic process for me. …Like many parents, to learn more about schools, [I] was motivated principally by the same thought — getting involved related to academic issues for my oldest. …Every kid’s needs are different. My son really loved math at home but was coming home from school saying, ‘I hate math. It’s so boring.’ And that’s the thing that grabs you as a parent. …You want to learn more. …You want to learn how to be a supportive participant. I did have a disappointing experience in that first Curriculum Night that we had right after Covid. …There was a lot of important material covered on social-emotional recovery and re-establishing rhythms. There was not one slide with one bullet on academics. So that did start a bit of a process for me to learn more.
Have the Curriculum Night presentations changed?
Under [Superintendent of Newton Public Schools] Dr. Nolin , our Curriculum Nights are quite different. …[They] are very content rich, really energetic, and I think as I learned more, as I started going to School Committee meetings, I had this feeling that change was afoot with Dr. Nolin, and [I] became motivated to play a role supporting that change.
When did you decide to run for School Committee?
I understood in advance that there was going to be an upcoming vacancy. [The current Ward 3 School Committee member, Anping Shen is retiring after four terms, as required by Newton term limits.] And so it gave me [time] to get to know a lot more and to talk with Anping. …[A] friend encouraged me to consider the School Committee, and my initial reaction was: ‘You’re crazy! No way!’ And there’s this moment with my wife where it was: ‘the third night in a row where you’re watching School Committee reruns.’ …I think it crystallized for me that maybe there was something there for me. You can really feel the impact for kids …things big and small.
Have you had much interaction with Anping Shen?
A lot, and I’m very grateful for his endorsement. I think it’s important. ….We are at-large members, but we represent a ward, so I’ve talked to him on a range of different topics and have learned a ton, but especially on Ward 3 topics. It’s an area that I have and would like to continue to discuss with him, because he’s been very close to the community. I’m really invested in that. There’s another person I’ll highlight who has been very helpful to me and that is Ann Larner, who served …for two eight-year terms as a School Committee member, including as chair, for Ward 3 also. ….[She’s] been very helpful to me, really helped me understand the history of the School Committee and some topics in our ward ,as well.
Did the Covid backlash, the NTA strike, and the budget crisis play a role in your decision to run for the Ward 3 seat?
The animating [motive] for me was more on the topic of academics and change and excellence for all. As I was on that journey, those things were happening in the budget. Let’s say crises have been attention-grabbing. …My primary work is as the CEO of a small biotech. I manage a budget. I was at Bain & Company, so I have experience with managing large organization issues. I believe we’ve got a lot or work to do [on budgets]. We’ve got a bit of a hole from the band-aid that was put in place to get through last year, that we’ve got to fill to stay level before we can find resources to do the important work of finding resources to support Dr. Nolin’s vision. So I’m really committed to all of that.
How can you bring all the players together to work for solutions?
[Finding resources] is something that puts us paddling in the same direction with educators, and the NTA, is my hope. I think it is also really incumbent [on us] to partner with the rest of the City leadership — the City Councilors, the new administration — because I don’t think there’s one lever that’s going to get us there. It’s a complicated picture.From my perspective, the strike was hard for everyone. The strike was hard for educators. The strike was hard for parents, and I’d say, most of all, it was hard for kids. So, my outlook is what, as a School Committee prospective member, can I do to make sure we’re not there again, and I think: communication. A positive tone of communication is really one thing [for that]. Not only making sure we listen actively to educators, [but] meeting them where they are in a way that’s comfortable for them to give tactical feedback — because sometimes those tactical things really matter.
There’s been a lot of tension in the city, especially because of the strike and the budget crisis, especially between teachers in the city, parents, but also people who don’t have children in the schools. How do you bring all of the different interests together?
It’s a very long list. We have to interact better. There are certain venues in which I think the rhetoric, the back and forth, can be very polarized. It’s kind of like your pet project versus my pet project, and only one can move forward. And I find a very different dynamic when you’re a person with groups of parents, who you can tell have different pet projects, but the level of alignment when you’re in-person, talking together, twenty people hosted in someone’s home [talking] about schools, is so much greater. The support for educators is so much greater ….The support for educators is really strongly held. Finding those areas of common ground and agreeing that we can do multiple things well is really important — and is the tone we want to set. To that word ‘tone’: I think setting the right tone in communications, especially with educators — and making sure it’s not just lip service — [is really important]. We’re really making decisions with strong input taken into account. …I think that’s really important.
Will you publish a newsletter when you are a School Committee member?
The one area I have particular energy for is a newsletter because I think both for parents, but also for other stakeholders, it’s tough to get over to the Ed Center on a Monday night for three-and-a-half hours [for School Committee meetings]. And sometimes it’s that four minutes on one really dense slide that can really spark a lot of conversation — …or lead to a lot better understanding about direction. And so I have obviously been working on a [campaign] newsletter, but that’s something I would like to carry forward and continue to propagate as a way of spreading knowledge. I’ve heard from parents, and from educators, that they don’t always feel they have a full understanding of what information is available. Not that one newsletter can solve everything, but as an example of what we as a committee need to do more of, that would be an illustrative example — and one that I have particular energy for.
Sometimes [more communication] is more frustration in the moment. There have been changes that were made this year …I won’t put pressure by highlighting one in particular …but parents have said, ‘I didn’t know that was happening. I’m really concerned about that change.’ But, what’s the alternative? The alternative is they find out about it over time and don’t have the opportunity to provide input if they are fired up about it earlier, or change it, or make modifications. And, so in my view, it leads to more frustration down the line.
Some elected officials think people may be overwhelmed by too much information. What is your sense of that?
It’s a common theme of feedback from parents toward the school, too. …If I were an administrator of the schools who’s hearing that about feedback, …you can’t have it both ways. You either aren’t happy enough with the information, or it’s too much. And I do think it comes down to very simple things. …In some school communications, parents are getting these newsletters a couple of times a week with repetitive information because there are parents who are only going to tune into every third one, and the administration wants to make sure you don’t miss the things. Then those who are diligent are spending their time filtering and reading all three of them, seeing the same things three times. These aren’t easy things. They are nuts and bolts things, but it’s important. I do have ideas for how to solve those kinds of mechanical things. You might want to have [notes saying] …these are new announcements, …these are the important reminders. Then the parent who’s on top of things can maybe breeze through the latter list. But what it comes down to — the one or two things that matter to us, and how do you provide the service – is something I give a lot of thought to. I think it’s interesting, that setting the balance.
I hear from candidates running for City Council that they hear from residents who don’t have children in the schools and are concerned about the possibility of an override, and how it’s going to impact them. I’m sure that’s a word you’ve heard a lot.
I don’t think there’s any one lever that if we put all our weight on that lever, that it will work. …It won’t be enough, or it’ll be too much pressure on the lever, or both. I really think there needs to be a high bar, and all the diligence in place before we would consider that …I say ‘we’ acknowledging that that’s certainly something the School Committee could play a role in, from cheerleading. If we did go down that path, it would be a School Committee member’s job to help explain the vision for why — if there’s a school component of an override or if it is driving the override — why is that valuable to the community, and what specifically is that.
…I’ve given some thought to some of the major components of Dr. Nolin’s vision that I think actually fit to me, a criteria that if we couldn’t find the money another way, it could meet an override type of vision. There’s an area of investment in an initiative that the Superintendent calls MTSS — Multi-Tiered System of Supports — but I’ll call that sort of more responsive, interventionist involvement that leads to better education outcomes and less reliance and lower cost for one-on-one aides and very high resources intervention later. So the challenge is is you put the money in now, and you see efficiency come back over a number of years. But it is the best. …If it goes the way the pilots have gone, which is really, really well, it really would be an amazing investment for our community. So that’s the type of thing that’s complicated and would bear simplifying, but I think could be something that the community would hopefully see some resonance in. But that doesn’t mean that’s where we’re headed. It needs to be in partnership with the rest of City leadership. We need to be sure we’ve done our diligence to show that there’s not another, better alternative to do that. I’m just giving you, I guess, early illustrative thinking.
Bearing in mind that the Mayor is the one with the megaphone, how will the City Council and the School Committee fit into decision-making?
Megaphone and decision rights! It seems very encouraging to have someone [referring to City Council President Marc Laredo, who is a candidate for Mayor] with the experience of kids going through the schools — and being on the School Committee and serving as chair — and yes, knowing all of those voices that you mentioned before about concerns over resources and overrides. …That sounds like a good platform for balanced decision-making, from my perspective, and so I think the key is partnering well, communicating well. I’m optimistic. The job I’m signing up for is the schools, and that doesn’t mean that we don’t recognize we’re in the ecosystem, but we want to make sure we understand what would be best for the schools.
There has been considerable criticism of Multi-Level classrooms in Newton, placing students at a range of achievement and ability together, rather than separating them in subject classes determined by their level of proficiency, or, as you say, for the next challenge. What is your assessment of that approach?
In general, the greatest amount of data [on this] is in math because the Superintendent has led a very detailed review in that area, including surveying of parents, of teachers, and of students. I think in math, it’s safe to say that everyone agrees it’s not working. And by the way, the data shows that it’s not working, and the folks for whom this was most designed, it’s actually hurting the most. So I think we have to recognize that and make a change.
I think the new MTSS plan [providing educational support based on student’s performance level] that’s been recently introduced and rolled out by the Superintendent really meaningfully addresses that. I’m really supportive of that move. I think it’s responsive to the feedback from educators, the feedback from the community, and from students. Now we really have to support the Superintendent in that change and make sure the pacing works. That’s one of the big pieces of feedback that I hear from educators. There’s a huge amount of support for the vision …and very appropriate and natural concerns about making sure that we bridge to that, both in terms of the pacing, but also the support for professional development.
For math, it’s a pretty clear story, and I’m supportive of the change. …When I’ve talked to educators, conceptually I think similar reviews will be conducted across other subject areas, as well. It’s the more hierarchical subjects for which it’s harder for me to see the multi-level structure working well. And that’s their feedback as well. So that would not just be for math, but other science and technology courses where you have to move from Step A to B to C, and when you have a wide range of levels in one classroom, it’s very difficult. Foreign languages is another area where that’s been brought up, and that does resonate with me as a layperson. I’ve heard a range of perspectives on more recursive humanities as well, and maybe it can work better there, but I’ve certainly talked to English teachers [for example] in our high schools [who] had their concerns about multi-level also, so I think it needs a subject-by-subject review, and I’m really glad we’re making appropriate changes in math.
Many years ago, the federal government threatened to withhold Title One funding to the Newton Public Schools because of unequal distribution of educational resources between north and south side schools, with schools on the south side of Newton benefitting from more and better programs.
That level of intervention has not crossed my radar. There are always going to be differences in a community, and you start with neighborhood schools, and you can feel that. I think we always need to be mindful of that. I think it is really important, this concept that Dr. Nolin espouses around [Newton being a] school district, not a district of disparate schools. And we need to listen and make sure that we are not removing teacher autonomy when we hopefully support [Dr. Nolin’s] initiative to set a framework that actually provides more resources, enables teachers to have more autonomy, while also making sure that, like, the kids on my soccer team from across the city don’t talk about 4th and 5th grade in totally different ways.
I’ve heard similar worries from communities when we’re talking about rebuilding schools: …Will a community’s views be valued in the same light as another community’s views? That’s really important.
