During the October 6 School Committee meeting, a blink-and-you-missed-it 30-second portion of Dr. Anna Nolin’s regular Superintendent’s update gave a window into ongoing frictions and growing pains between two conjoined Newton institutions that are managed far differently today than only a few years ago:
- Newton Public Schools (NPS) is attempting a revitalization of its academic rigor and district-wide consistency under Dr. Nolin, who is beginning her third year, having made wholesale staff changes in the district’s central office.
- The Newton Teachers Association (NTA) emerged from the 2024 strike “victorious” (per its statements), educator Ryan Normandin – who during the broader 2023-2024 labor dispute became known for his blistering critiques of the Mayor and School Committee — has left Newton South to become a full-time NTA officer, and the NTA exists today alongside its increasingly activist statewide affiliate, the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
This wider context colors the public’s evaluation of whether the events Dr. Nolin shared, as well as subsequent statements by the parties involved, are a regrettable but isolated case of bureaucratic snafu, or part of a broader misalignment.
The events described by Dr. Nolin on October 6 centered on the prior week’s regular half-day (October 1) at NPS, which was when one of four Wednesday professional development (PD) sessions that had been designated prior to the school year as a “Citywide Department and Specialist Meeting.” The planned event was for teachers (who are classified as “Unit A” in the NTA contract) across schools to convene together to meet with district curriculum directors (classified as “Unit B”) for PD related to new math and English language arts curriculums being implemented.
Dr. Nolin stated during her October 6 update that a “job action” had occurred for the middle school Unit A teachers attending this October 1 PD, and due to its latter portion ending at 3:30/3:45PM (depending on session) and falling past their contractual work hours, the teachers “were advised to follow the contract and walk out of the meetings.” The problem stemmed from the staggered release times at Newton’s middle schools, which range from 1:35PM at Oak Hill to 2:05PM at Brown, with the north-side middle schools in between. Dr. Nolin stated she was working with the NTA to find a resolution for future half-day citywide meetings, but she thought the district “lost a month” on its curriculum rollouts.
Brief follow-up questioning from School Committee member Chris Brezski (Chair, Ward 2) and Alicia Piedalue (Ward 7) further elicited that historically, going back to 2021, there had been a “non-codified” understanding with prior NTA officer Christine Walsh (now retired) to flex Unit A hours later on these citywide Wednesdays, and allow those educators commensurate open time elsewhere in those weeks.
Background
Fig City News reached out to Dr. Nolin and NTA President Mike Zilles after this School Committee meeting, and both replied with additional information. Fig City News has reviewed correspondence between NPS and the NTA, and emails from both to educators, in reporting the following events and timeline:
- In December 2021, NPS assistant superintendent Renee McCall (no longer with NPS), emailed NTA officer Christine Walsh a “Guidelines for Scheduling” document that noted that middle school citywide meetings on early release Wednesdays could occur until 3:30PM (at south-side middle schools) and until 3:45PM (at north-side middle schools) despite the staggered student dismissal times at the four middle schools, which created uneven afternoon work hours for teachers at the respective schools.
- The NTA contract language mandated 31.75 hours per week for middle school educators, with staff ending time on “weekly student short days” (Wednesdays) occurring at “the end of the teacher workday.” Based on the aforementioned “Guidelines” document, this ranged from 75 to 90 minutes after student dismissal for a typical Wednesday, and longer for a Wednesday with citywide meetings.
- In the February 2024 NTA contract coinciding with the end of the strike, this language was changed from “end of the teacher workday” to “90 minutes after the dismissal of students.” This appears to lie on the edge of being a change in terms versus a clarifying edit, when compared with dismissal times.
- In a subsequent memorandum provided by NPS for the 2024-2025 school year, the Wednesday PD end times contained in the 2021 Guidelines were reiterated, and according to the district, PD did occur on Wednesdays within those times for that school year.
- According to Dr. Nolin, NPS staff was provided with the 2025-2026 PD schedule in the spring of 2025.
Week of September 29, 2025
- Two days prior to this school year’s first Wednesday citywide PD (scheduled for October 1), Mr. Zilles emailed NPS Assistant Superintendent for Teaching & Learning Gina Flanagan that morning, noting the February 2024 revisions to the contract would cause that Wednesday’s PD events — ending at 3:30PM per the prior Guidelines document — to fall outside the contract hours and could not occur.
- Subsequent emails exchanged between Ms. Flanagan, Dr. Nolin, and Mr. Zilles on Tuesday, September 30, discussed the prior Guidelines, which Mr. Zilles stated he had not previously discussed with Ms. Walsh. While cordial and expressing desire to find a future solution, these emails did not resolve the timing issue of the middle school contracted hours ending between 3:05PM and 3:35PM (depending on the school). Another factor affecting the work hours was the travel time for north-side educators to reach the Brown and Oak Hill middle school PD locations, to enable the common training for all teachers during the same time.
- At 8:27PM on Tuesday night, Dr. Nolin emailed the middle school NPS staff to share the disagreement about the next day’s PD events. She forwarded that day’s communications described above and stated, “the last thing any of us want is staff feeling stuck between competing versions of a story.” The email then said the Unit B curriculum directors had “put a great deal of effort into ensuring a strong learning day” and further stated, “The day will run as planned and [PD] will be offered according to attendance hours. If the day overruns your belief about contractual work hours, you are free to leave.”
- Mr. Zilles also communicated with the Unit A teachers prior to the Wednesday event. He told Fig City News, “There was a difference in emphasis – Anna gave permission, I encouraged members to leave at their contractual work day, reminding them that Anna had given permission, and we should not be working in excess of our contractual work day.” Mr. Zilles also said the exact PD schedule for October 1 was shared with teachers only a few days prior, and “many Unit A members expressed concern.”
- On Wednesday, October 1, according to people present, the middle school Unit A educators did exit the PD sessions in the middle of the curriculum sessions, on a rolling basis according to the day’s contractual end-of-work hours, depending on their school. Fig City News was told by NPS staff that union representatives at the event guided teachers to exit the room per the contract hours. Dr. Nolin added this dynamic of specific directions given to staff caused her to use the label “job action”.
- Mr. Zilles emailed the affected educators following their early exit from the October 1 PD, acknowledging the prior day’s events were suboptimal. He wrote:
One of the things that I did not intend, but should have been realized before I emailed you, was that in asking you to leave your meetings when your contractual day ended, I was putting your supervisors in an awkward and tense position.
The last thing we need in this difficult year is to create conflict between Unit A members and Unit B members. I will do better in the future. And I can say with confidence that Unit B members had nothing to do with requiring you to stay beyond your contractual work day. They were given a middle school meeting schedule that the NTA should have reviewed after we made changes to the Time and Learning Agreement. They used this schedule, which needs revision.
Since October 6 School Committee Meeting
On an October 13 NTA blog post, Mr. Zilles reiterated comments he also provided to Fig City News that he disagreed with Dr. Nolin’s characterization to the School Committee of the October 1 events as a labor “job action,” since Dr. Nolin’s email to staff had given permission to exit. Mr. Normandin made this same point during public comment to the School Committee on October 20.
In a follow-up conversation with Fig City News, when questioned why the curtailment to the October 1 PD equated to “losing a month,” Dr. Nolin stated there are only four citywide PD days per year, and the curriculum must proceed in sequence. She further said, “The parent community is waiting for our strategic plan. People are waiting for new math pathways. [We need] this coordinated time. When teachers don’t get their questions answered about what to do [for curriculum], they have to [craft their own].”
Dr. Nolin also stated that she and the union were “close to solving it,” and there is a labor-management meeting scheduled for next week.
Mr. Zilles, separately, generally confirmed this current status: “Having spoken with a number of the interested parties, I believe we have a good solution in mind that both adheres to the contract and meets the district’s PD goals. But Anna and I have not yet directly discussed this solution, which I hope to share with her soon.”
Unlike during the peak acrimony before and during the 2024 strike – when there were fundamental differences-of-fact between the parties over items like the components of offers and counter-offers, or whether the parties were available to meet or not – there appears to be no material gap in facts between the above statements of Dr. Nolin and Mr. Zilles. However, the residual tensions of the past labor disputes overlay what might have been an unfortunate but containable difference over understanding of how the contract should be operationalized. The community’s high expectations of Dr. Nolin’s ambitious agenda – and the need for NPS to recover what she has publicly said were years of uneven curricula across its schools – magnify the impact of any delays in implementing those goals.
Corroborating the quick pace of change, Mr. Zilles told Fig City News, “Too much is happening too fast. I have communication channels set up so that I can get information from buildings in a very timely manner. But things like this can happen when the pace is too fast.”
Ed. Note: The original publication of this article incorrectly stated the date of “Tuesday, September 29”, the article has been corrected to state “Tuesday, September 30”.
