The school Superintendents Proposed Budget for 2015 has been posted on-line in preparation for tonight School Committee meeting. Way down on page 208 there’s a note that says – “There is a proposed change to the FY15 fee policy to eliminate the elementary school bus fee”.
I have no idea whether that’s something that will be voted on at tonight’s meeting but it is a heartening sign that the school committee is prepared to move on this issue which has been a sore spot for many parents in the city – including me.
That would be terrific, but I think ALL BUS fees should be removed! If you live over a mile from school, you should be able to take the bus for free. It MIGHT cut down on the traffic around the middle and high schools also!
Too bad they can’t reimburse the parents for the bus fees already paid, since I feel that I saved my school the hassle of another car daily around the school (elementary and middle).
I am curious to see how this is received.
Get rid of all school fees and call it “taxpayer-funded public education.”
Isn’t that the definition of public education? What’s with the tautology, Bill?
Can anyone report what happened at the meeting?
Marie: Fees undermine that definition.
I was there with my husband (date night, I guess, though he was much more interested in the social emotional learning presentation than I was)
SC approved programmatic specifications for a 24 classroom (490 student), 80,00 sq. ft facility. Some said it was at the current site, others made it sound like it could be at another site, but that they were approving these specifications so that the process and feasibility study
The vote was Margaret Albright “No”, based on her feeling that it was too soon and that there had not been adequate community engagement. Everyone else, “Yes”.
Steve Siegel, Ward 5 rep, former Zervas parent and traffic-affected homeowner introduced the motion.
Zervas community turnout extremely disappointing. Sometimes, people, it’s about just showing up.
Margaret Albright’s singular sensitivity to community concerns and request to postpone the vote should be noted and remembered.
…so that the process and feasibility study could proceed..”
Karen,
Thanks for the update. I’m very glad I voted for Margaret! Did bus fees get discussed at all?
No elementary bus fees. Bone to Upper Falls where students are bussed bc they do not have a neighborhood school to walk to, though I always thought that it was mandatory to provide if the school wasn’t within a certain distance. This is a $90K stated value which will affect I don’t know how many students.
Karen,
Were the bus fees actually eliminated or was a recommendation made?
I thought they eliminated it, but don’t ask me. I followed Zervas for years and never thought they were going for more than 450 kids. So, obviously I can’t listen very well.
Yes, I wasn’t sure just what happened because the whole issue of bus fees affects 3 different school levels. This is a difficult issue and will need some stiff consideration. Also someone will have to come up with numbers and how the budget is affected and how these costs will be compensated for in the budget.
We haven’t heard the end of this one. Some fire works may erupt because bus fees are extremely unfair for many families throughout the city.
I applaud Margaret Albright for standing by the constituents concerns. It is too bad that the others on the SC didn’t consider that this is an issue that requires further discussion. I had one question though – did Ruth Goldman vote Yes or Abstain – it was hard to tell as it seemed that she raised her hand when it came to the abstain vote – I was watching from home so I might be wrong. Could anyone clarify that?
The bus fees were first introduced as help to the Angier / Cabot / Zervas communities so that when they are required to get to their “swing space” there would be no extra bus charges. Also, there is a desire to limit extra cars driving from Angier to Carr, so free transportation is an incentive. It also could be an equity issue because for the last 35 years, Upper Falls kids have been taken to Countryside, and Lower Falls kids have been taken to Angier. They have paid fees for years. If NPS offers free transportation during new construction, they are going to look at the charges for existing neighborhoods who have to cross Rte 128 or Rte 9. Those students will always need transportation to get to school, they will never have a way to walk to school.
Joanne, I believe the vote was 7 yes, 1 no, zero abstentions
Ruth Goldman and Steve S. strongly applaud the $40 million Zervas project. Matt Hills is the main force spearheading this and other projects. He is an investment banker and believes in Newton’s ability to sustain more overrides and incur further debt. He is very dismissive about any community attempt to hamper the school building projects.
His vision is Newton’s future and he has plenty of people to back him up.
To the Zervas community, our leaders will listen to your concerns; but will not change their course at this time. No matter what building obstacles emerge they feel confident that they can deal with them no matter the cost. However time may show them wrong. Politicians often enclose themselves in a bubble of very narrow thinking because they have power and have to solve difficult problems. We will watch and see how this story unfolds.
As to bus fees, Carr school was used 10 years ago for swing space for 2 or 3 other school construction projects. When the children were bused the city paid the transportation costs. They had no choice. The same holds true for these upcoming projects.
All the other existing bus fees which are extensive may be revised for the elementary schools. Those considerations are just beginning.
The unanimous vote was to end all bus fees for elementary schools in in the Fiscal Year 2015 Budget at reduction in Revenue of $90,000. There was no response to the fervent pleas of Mark and Maxine Bridger that fees charged for children from Upper Falls and other areas where there is no safe way for elementary school children to walk to school.
There was also no response to my suggestion in the public comment period that a cafeteria and an auditorium be built as additions to Zervas and that a new elementary school be built in the lower portions of the Braceland Playground in Upper Falls so that all the children in Upper Falls and the Margaret Road section of Newton Highlands could walk to school and that the children bused to Countryside from Avalon Bay and the Charlemont neighborhood could instead be bused to the new school. The freed up space could accomodate the children from the South of Route 9 Countryside Buffer Zone who now are sent to badly overcrowded Bowen.
It should also be noted that the vote to accept the Administration’s proposal for a 490 Children school at the Zervas site was over the objections of a Zervas parent who described her fellow parents and herself as ‘blindsided’ by the scale of the 24 classroom school presented to the Zervas parents two nights before. School officials stated that this concept in addition to fixing Zervas and giving it all the facilities that other elementary schools have like lunchrooms and auditorium was referred to in the detailed statements posted prior to the Tuesday meeting.
The means of fitting this program onto the site were left to the Zervas Working Group and Building Committee. It is unclear how much the cost of accomodating the water and soil conditions of the site and the traffic conditions to be generated by almost doubling the size of the school will be and if this will affect the feasibility of the site.
Sounds like you go to the party a little late, Brian. Did you not vote in favor of putting the override referendum without an Upper Falls school or any of your other requests out to voters? Why not take a stand then when it might have mattered?
Dear Bill,
I supported the inclusion of the Zervas repair and renovation money in the operating in the operating budget override in the foolish expectation that there would be full and fair review of the feasibility of all alternatives to meet the space needs just as there had been fair, even exhaustive review of Angier alternatives. My bad, I did not recognize that all sites, no matter how restricted by wetlands, poor soil, and narrow streets, would be expected to measure up tto the appropriate standards of a centrally located school like Angier. I did not understand that sites not actually in the proposed district would not be carefully examined. If there had been a public hearing on the alternatives to meeting space needs of Zervas, I would have pointed out that there would have been a l larger net increase in capacity with a minor addition at Zervas and a new Upper Falls School that could have freed up major space at Countryside to handle the students from south of Route 9 who are and were sent to overcrowded Bowen. If I was late to the party, it’s because I was not invited until too late to make any difference.
If I had been invited to participate in a timely fashion, I would have pointed out to anyone who said that Article 97 of the State Constitution prohibits using public open space for other uses without replacement, I would have pointed out that a comparable amount of open Space is being created near the Braceland playground in the Upper Falls Greenway through a grassroots partnership between the city, the state and the neighborhood. Article 97
permission would have easy to obtain if the NPS had been able to think outside the box to improve the walkability and lower the crowding of the schools in an innovative manner.
Brian: Okay. So what are you going to do now?
Okay, here you have a sitting alderman questioning this process. Let’s not mention the Newton Highlands and Upper Falls Area Councils.
So much for people not paying attention as the process advanced. What hubris to think that the NPS didn’t have to make sure that the one ward 5 alderman that they didn’t entrench on the committee had a say, much less the area councils that Mayor Warren, NOTABLY ABSENT from last night’s vote about Zervas, so strongly supports.
I’m just going to speak of myself, an above-average informed Newton citizen.
No, I didn’t go to a town hall meeting about the override. You know why? Because those public engagement opportunities weren’t targeted at parents of school aged children with real skin in the game. They were targeted at people who had to be convinced of the awful conditions because they were disconnected from them. I didn’t go to get my premonitory powerpoint because I was going to vote for the override no matter what. Because I’ve voted for EVERY OVERRIDE. Because I’m a bleeding heart liberal when it comes to investing in education. Because I was infused with trust for my new mayor and School Committee representation and leadership. Because if my taxes were increased twice as much as the last override, I would have paid them and offered more because I wanted to see Newton invest in education, our buildings and our future.
With such a larger vision involved, I would have been a complete a-hole to try to stop the override, even if I, or other engaged parents had even an inkling that my neighborhood school was going to become so key to short-term facilities needs.
Instead, I watched an override presentation on NewTv, only because I, personally and painfully watch a heck of a lot more Newton municipal government programming than the average busy working parent. I try to be informed.
Shame on me for not hearing the “490” number until I — per the thinking of current process apologists– got off my lazy ass last week to attend a meeting of the Zervas Working Group, whose public meeting times would not even have been publicized if not for their mention at at an SC meeting, Margaret Albright’s insistence that the date be clarified on NewTV and Bruce Henderson’s diligence at publicizing a previously (deliberately?)under the radar meeting.
When I went to the NPS meeting at Zervas this past Tuesday, I saw a lot of parents like me. They weren’t dumb uninformed voters. They were past PTO presidents, School Council members, and current PTO leadership at Oak Hill and South. They were the informed, engaged parents like me. Not the people too lazy to go to a meeting or be disconnected with civic affairs.
Shame on us for not going to override presentations geared at anti-tax conservatives to get the asterisked and heavily veiled reality check. Shame on us for not defeating the override that would provide relief to our neighborhood school because we did not agree on a 450 population (which was the only public forecast at the time) If this is the party line, it is neither justified or wise. It sets up a culture in which Newton citizen voters must be suspicious and scrupulous. Where we feel like we have to proofread every powerpoint, as per Gail Spector’s “proof points” on another thread
Or, maybe they’re total rubes like me that didn’t instantly equate a call for a an 80,00 sqf facility with a population of 490.
The thing that irks me most about recent events isn’t the size and scope of the current Zervas project, but the total lack of respect by the SC (with the exception of Margaret Albright) for the intelligence of the Zervas community, which extends beyond those who have K-5 age children.
Can someone educate me here regarding the OVERCROWDING Bowen, or Zervas? How come these schools have a healthy population of METCO kids?
Bowen – 20
Zervas – 9
192 in the entire school system, sufficient for 4-5 classrooms.
I thoughts principals only admit METCO when they have excess capacity.
I don’t think we have capacity problems! Well at least the principals don’t think so.
http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/44/enrollment%20analysis%20report%20-%2011-25-13_0.pdf pg 92
Because it depends on the size of the class for each age group. You can’t just divide the entire population by 25 and make a classroom.
Alright Adam, then look at the “over crowded Bowen”.
2 in K
3 in 1st
4 in 2nd for total of 20 kids.. Would you agree then Bowen is NOT crowded?
PS – I am not against METCO, just dont like it when politicians try to have it both ways and get away with it!
Newton Dad, regarding your post, I have been pointing out the out-of-district students issue for the last year. Bill Heck raised that issue in his mayoral campaign as well.
My predecessor Al Cecchinelli has raised the out-of-district students issue for the last decade and was called all kinds of hateful names and was accused of not understanding the math of the situation. He has been told that the 583 out-of-district students don’t add to the cost of educating our students because they sit in seats that would go unoccupied. His reply is that Boston & other communities tax their residents and business’ to educate their children, where is this money going?
Why did we just have three overrides last year and Boston has never had one and has a $1.5 Billion portfolio of investment securities? Why do we send 200 Newton-resident students to other schools outside the Newton Public Schools system and it costs us $12 million annually and it costs us $8 million annually to educate 583 out-of-district students who attend Newton Public Schools? Newton taxpayers pay both ways; it was very unfair to have three overrides. Let Boston have the overrides instead.
My question was more directed toward comment from Ald Yates (who I respect deeply). I am not interested in getting into an idealogical discussion either on right (I totally support teacher’s children educating in NPS) or from the left (yes to METCO despite overcrowding).
Has ANYONE from Ald or SC asked the question on how METCO and overcrowding fit in same sentence?
Newton Dad, I have two kids in over-crowded Bowen and and share your leftist views. Bowen enrollment is much higher than I’d like it to be — I prefer a smaller school — but that’s different from classroom crowding. Yes, some classes are overcrowded, but METCO is really not a factor. Those numbers you give round up to a single student per class. It all comes down to the number of classrooms in a school for a given grade, and those 2-4 kids really aren’t going to throw that balance. In some cases, even a school like Bowen with bursting enrollment will have reasonable class sizes of 21 or so (I think that’s the case with the first grade, but I don’t have current info at my fingertips, so I could be wrong) Kindergarten is the exception. 24-25 is way too big for a kindergarten. We really should have had a fifth K classroom, but there was no place to put it. Next year, when the K target 18-20 class size is no longer an issue, those two kids will also be a non-issue, especially if a fifth classroom frees up.