There will be public forum on the “Student Assignment Review“proposal at the Education Center, Room 210, 100 Walnut Street, Newtonville, at 7:45 p.m. tonight.
More about this can be found here and here.
There will be draft boundary change scenario maps available for review and a brief description of the context and process to-date as well as an opportunity to comment.
And you can comment here too!
Hi there Anonymous V14 Thread Originator,
I just want to make a point of clarification regarding your post on tonight’s meeting: There is no proposal on the table. To date we have publicly discussed the objectives of the student assignment process, some of the tools at our disposal, and some scenarios that are intended to test whether we can provide sufficient space relief at overcapacity schools in a timeframe that stays ahead of enrollment growth. We continue to evolve the scenarios in anticipation of making a recommendation (proposal) around June 15th.
Tonight’s meeting will include a brief recap of where we are, a question and answer period, and then public comments. The meeting, which begins at 7:45 pm, will also be viewable on NewTV.
Thank you,
Steve Siegel
School Committee Member, Ward 5
Member, Student Assignment Working Group
Thanks for clarifying Steve.
@Paul: Thanks for thanking Steve.
@Greg
are you kidding me?
Ha ha. Actually Paul, your comment made me laugh. I thought you were channeling Neal Fleisher who used to get famously ticked off at me whenever I thanked elected officials on the Newton TAB Blog for commenting.
In all seriousness, Steve, Ted, Emily and other public officials do deserve the thanks. Their input is important.
And Paul, in all sincerity, even though you and I don’t often agree on the color of…dirt…showing up is 80% of life. Thanks for showing up.
There are good office holders, and bad. The good ones deserve “thanks.” The bad ones deserve to be booted out on their behinds. Unfortunately there are not enough people who run for School Committee, or this crew would be gone. The lies, the coverups, the law breaking, the movement away from neighborhood schools, the continued disregard for the health and well being of our high school students, and now redistricting, demonstrate [to me at least] that none of the current School Committee members are fit for their office.
Bring on the hate. I don’t care. I call ’em like I see ’em.
I’ve heard that a final vote on the redistricting is happening next week. And that a notice is going this Friday. Folks in my part of newton seem to be unaware of any of this.
One of the immutable rules of the universe is that when news is disseminated on the Friday of a holiday weekend, the sender is full of you know what.
Is Steve’s comment accurate and there is misinformation flying around?
Hi Dennis,
There will not be a vote on redistricting next week — the working group hasn’t even zeroed in on a recommendation to the School Committee yet. However the working group will be making buffer zone recommendations at the next SC meeting on the 27th, and notification on this is going out by tomorrow. This may be what morphed into the rumor you shared here. I don’t know whether there will be a vote on the 27th or if it will wait until the following meeting.
Recommendations on the formal longer plan of shifting some district lines is anticipated for June 15th. A public hearing will follow a week later and voting may come soon after that.
The buffer zone vote is coming first as we need them to prevent unreasonably high class sizes at a few schools this fall where projections are pushing classroom counts too high and there are no spaces that can be repurposed as classrooms. Buffer zone use around crowded schools is not our first choice but it can make a huge difference in classroom experience for students at both schools sharing a buffer zone.
To track down additional rumors feel free to contact me directly!
[email protected]
Best, Steve
Steve,
Thanks very much for the clear response, and for clarifying the distinction between buffering versus redistricting.
I do believe that the rationale, nuances and significance of even this buffering change have been poorly communicated to the masses (at best). Nobody I know seems to be aware this topic was even being considered, let alone up for a final vote. And this includes PTO leadership at one of the impacted elementary schools.
And I stand by my statement that sending out the meeting notice on the eve of a holiday weekend is junk policy and indicates a desire to obfuscate what’s going on.
YIf one considers the overall public good I do think that buffering and redistricting constitute valid means to balance classrooms and schools sizes and to create a better learning environment. However I strongly criticize the approach of implementing and communicating such policies so late in the season, especially in regards to the proposed Ward/Cabot buffer zone.If the real ultimate goal is to providing the best opportunity for learning to all the kindergarten students, what about the disadvantage of a 1.5 miles distant school? what about the difficulties of re- registering an upcoming kindergarten student to an after school program so late in the season, since was registered somewhere else? what about the absence of possible alternatives to the proposed school of placement, considering that every attempt for out of district placement and even enrollment to private schools is just unattainable due to missed and passed enrollment deadlines? These are all factors that objectively create a disadvantage to families affected by the late implemented policies and could potentially result in missed learning opportunities for the students.
Whereas, the Newton Public Schools system will be spending $650 Million from 2014 to 2033 to increase its capacity in order to deal with enrollment growth,
Whereas, the Newton Public Schools system is planning on redistricting student enrollment in order to deal with capacity constraints,
Whereas, the Newton Public Schools system educates ~600 students who don’t live in Newton at an annual cost of $8.5 Million net of state aid
Therefore, the Newton Public Schools system and Newton’s elected officials needs to obtain an additional $8.5 Million in annual payments from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the City of Boston and or other communities that send us their kids.
@Joshua – “at an annual cost of 8.5 million”
Endlessly repeating the same number does not make it any more true.
Jerry, I disagree with your conclusion about the cost of out-of-district students.
Whenever any out-of-district students attend Newton schools, Newton needs to be paid, fully and fairly, to provide an education to these children. Think about this: Taxpayers in Boston and other communities pay city taxes to educate their students in their public school systems. When Boston students attend Newton schools, Boston sends its students but keeps the tax money. Boston is a wealthy city with a $1.5 billion investment portfolio, an enormous $32 billion commercial tax base, and hundreds of residents who are millionaires and billionaires. Boston residential taxpayers also get a 30 percent residential exemption whereas Newton doesn’t. Moreover, Newton’s residential tax rate of $11.61/$1,000 is higher than Boston’s adjusted effective residential tax rate of $8.806/$1,000. Boston saves nearly $52 Million annually by sending nearly 3,200 of its students to other school districts.
http://newton.wickedlocal.com/article/20141218/OPINION/141216463/0/SEARCH
@Joshua
My only conclusion is that endlessly repeating that 8.5 million figure as a hard fact is inherently misleading and backing it up with a link to a column that you wrote that repeats it again does not bolster the credibility of that number.
As I and many others have pointed out there is no hard and fast cost that can definitively be attributed to what Newton pays to educate Metco students. There are a number of different assumptions you can make that will result in wildly different numbers from $0 – $8.5 million. At one end of the spectrum you could ask the question “what would be the effect on the school department budget if you ended the entire Metco program tomorrow” That answer is close to zero, probably the only concrete saving to the city would be perhaps a Metco administrator’s salary.
At the other end of the spectrum you can take the entire budget of the school department, divide it by the number of students and calculate a cost per student.
Multiply that by the number of Metco students and voila! – you have the cost to the city of the Metco program – 8.5 million.
That conveniently leaves out a number of important facts – the biggest one being that Metco students are only assigned to schools with excess capacity so there is no significant incremental cost for adding those students.
Certainly reasonable people can disagree about what the most appropriate figure should be when costing the Metco program. But endlessly repeating the highest possible number as a hard fact, without acknowledging either that you are using the most extreme form of costing or that there are no more complexities to this than determining the cost of a gallon of milk – is extremely misleading.
All of this of course has been pointed out to you numerous times by numerous people, but your response is always the same – just keep repeating $8.5 million and back that up with links to you saying $8.5 million somewhere else.
metco expenses are only a part of the problem.
the real problem is nobody realizes it. nobody.
sam robbins
[email protected]
Sam, for what its worth, I’ve been raising awareness of Newton’s $1.15 Billion Borrowing Blob, as well as the out of control compensation costs of the unions.
http://newton.wickedlocal.com/article/20150523/OPINION/150528888
In the Tab today, along with the update on the discarded Cabot-Ward buffering plan, Steve Siegel and Matt Hills are quoted and says:
“This proposal was first put before the School Committee on May 11, and on Monday May 18 the panel had a meeting devoted to public comments including a few parents who spoke about buffer zones, though not about the Cabot-Ward buffer zone.”
This May 18 meeting was publicized as a info session on redistricting and was confirmed by Steve Siegel on V14.
“Ward community members said there was no meeting at the school and they received no official emails until May 22.”
This was at the end of the column. I don’t know when this first appeared in the Tab, but it would have only added to the confusion since it isn’t accurate or even close, with 2 major errors.
“The School Committee meeting is
[voting on six new buffer zones on Wednesday, May 22]
at 7 p.m. in room 210 at the Ed Center at 100 Walnut St.
There will be 30 minutes slated for public comments starting at 7 p.m.”