This Powerpoint presentation of the proposed budget contains some devastating cuts to elementary library services, increases to technology and transportation spending, and modest increases to user fees (including transportation)
Superintendent’s Proposed FY18 Budget
by Village 14 | Mar 26, 2017 | Schools | 50 comments
… so I guess another override then?
The Library cuts are at all levels. Middle schools will be down to half time libraries; High schools will have a roughly one third decrease in the amount of research classes.
Total failure for Setti and the school committee, no wonder Setti is stepping down. Over the past 2 decades Newton has spent close to $500 million on school renovations and rebuilds. In addition teacher salaries have increased significantly while city side workers have been let go. Add to that 4 gigantic over rides which prop 2 1/2 was supposed to control for tax payers. Now the government is ready to cut library hours and increase sports user fees, this is supreme absurdity.
How stupid do they think we are? Many of us have said for years the schools spend too much. When will this out of control spending cease? What does it take for them to understand that there are limits to unending tax increases. The more we pay up the more they need to keep this rate of spending going.
@Colleen 4 overrides only because the state School Building Authority forced us to separate the school building projects in the last override. By my counting there have only been 2.
As for overrides in general, the 2.5% is a made up number that is artificially low that has caused communities across Newton to under-invest in infrastructure. If you don’t get why starving communities of funds that they would use to maintain infrastructure, there is an article in yesterday’s Globe that points to the importance of house maintenance to save money over the long-term. Communities are no different. The mayor has done a good job in identifying structural deficiencies and plans to address them.
In looking at the proposed budget, there are very few cuts to the upper administration, where the salaries are the highest. Some cuts there could go a long way to retain librarians and classroom teachers. I can think of at least one administrative position, the one created for Brian Turner after his failed leadership at Day, that could free up $140,000.
Colleen -Please. You think the $500m in renovations weren’t necessary? We let the school facilities go to seed for decades, then had an increase of 2000 students in a relatively short period of time. How could the school budget NOT increase under these circumstances?
How do you educate the equivalent of 4 elementary school’s worth of students on the same budget? Where would you put the students? Who teaches them? Doesn’t it make sense that 2000 more students will require more staff? Or that 90-year-old elementary buildings rated as among the lowest 2% in the state by the Mass. State Building Authority need to be replaced?
As for the teacher salaries, Newton’s have dropped below those of comparable communities in the last 10 years. The average top teacher applicant has tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and they’re going to go to the districts with the best salary scale. That’s just reality. It’s a far more job competitive market out there than when our kids were in school.
We’re not having an override anytime soon in Newton. Look at our history: we’ve had 2 successful ones in 37 years – 2002 and 2013. Compare that to Wellesley where there’s been 24 successful overrides or Lexington’s 14 in the same period of time.
With all due respect, other communities are capable of living within the 2.5% increase year after year without having a $12 million override every 8 years.
Tough choices have to be made. Our elected leaders for decades have avoided making these difficult decisions. Maybe we might get that with our new Mayor.
Lets cut Brian Turner’s position as the #1 thing to do. 85% of the budget is salaries.
We need more STUDENT facing staff.
And if you build school buildings that contain 400 plus students you need an assistant principal. Either that or build smaller buildings . . . .
And stop charging me $$$$ for my kids to take the school bus to school. I am reducing traffic. And I can tell you that 50% of the parents don’t pay. There is no checking of bus passes. The staff doesn’t want to check. So the honest parents pay the money, and 50% of parents have the kids ride the bus for free.
Stop charging me for books! Yes, I am now required to buy novels (Romeo and Juliet) because Newton South isn’t providing them even though it is required reading.
I am not the NPS Bank account, but I am beginning to feel like it. . . .
NPS is educating more students in 30 years, but NPS is expected to make do with the same budget. There are way more kids than 5 years ago!
And the lead removal came out of the NPS budget, so that money is now gone also.
It is time for our leaders to FUND the schools or STOP building Avalon style apartment buildings. Where is that tax revenue going?
@Tom Which communities have made tough choices? What have they done?
I hope in 4 years to sell my house. I will have lived in it for 25 years by then. Raised 3 kids. Enjoyed all of what Newton and especially Newton Centre has to offer. I know that I will get back what I put into my home and then some. It isn’t only the renovations I have done, but the quality of the city and its services that have kept our house value rising far above the increases in taxes. Hard choices to not go well with housing appreciation.
Did the School Committee need to approve Brian Turner’s newly created position?
Any one care to comment? If so, was a vote of the Committee taken and recorded in the Minutes.
I wish the district would publish more facts about the shortage
Eg. What’s *really* causing the shortfall
Increases in admin costs, teacher costs, how much of the increase is costs are proportional to increase in students.
Could we avoid layoff by asking Boston to pay their fair share of Metco. Perhaps doing a cursory check of any out of district kids inside Newton schools ( I’m sure there will be a handful but I would be surprised if it’s in the 100s)
Here is a link to the entire budget – http://www.newton.k12.ma.us/cms/lib8/MA01907692/Centricity/Domain/73/FY18%20Proposed%20Budget.pdf
Page 30 offers a good overview of the costs – $152 million in salaries for over 2000 employees; $35 million in benefits for those employees; $32 million for everything else.
Since 2013 Newton has added 865 students.
@Margaret – the other half of the story (from that same doc) is that the same split in the 2013 budget was $121.9M for salaries for 1,872 employees, $25.7M in benefits, and $31.1M for everything else. Some quick math says the number of students has increased 5% since 2013 (+617 – the 865 is since 2012), while salaries have increased 25% (on a headcount increase of 11%), benefits have increased by 36%, and “all other” has increased by 2.5%.
… which is all mostly to say that the current issues with the operating budget are driven by increases in per-student costs (or more accurately, per-headcount costs) *far* more than the increase in the number of students. No value judgment about that either way; the benefits costs are closely tied to the greater healthcare economics issues, I’m sure, and there may well be merit to the “we have to pay that to get the best” argument on salaries. But it’s nice to have those numbers around the next time we hear the “school budgets are being destroyed by all these new students” argument.
Maybe we should look at cutting the health care costs by going to GIC/State Insurance. And definitely as Newton Teacher said – Eliminate Turners Position that was created for him – you get $140,000 right there.
And this is before we add any of the proposed high density development like Austin St or Washington Place. How exactly will we pay for the students from the proposed housing?
Just the Oak Street 1,000 units will add 400 – 500 students to the system. What services will we cut to accommodate them?
Would really like to hear from advocates like THM – do you really have a solution?
Alicia- you will have to do the research yourself, I don’t have time. BUT, I can assure you that other communities don’t ask for $12 m operating overrides every 8 or even 12 years. We should learn from communities like Wellesley or Weston who have better schools than us and still dont ask for ridiculous overrides. Maybe we are just too good to learn from others (sarcasm).
Wellesley has a lot of overrides – http://www.wellesleyma.gov/pages/FOV1-0001FDBB/OVERRIDEINDEX
Weston too – http://www.weston.org/DocumentCenter/View/615
Neil P,
From what I remember, the bulk of Newton’s tax revenue is spent on education.
Newton needs to expand its commercial base or introduce some kind of ‘tax/fee’ to these large developments? I definitely support these new buildings, but the school issue has not discussed at length
The fee/tax is likely illegal though, you cannot discriminate people who have kids, but whatever fee/tax will just get passed onto the renter/purchaser…
I don’t see how another override is unavoidable? unless the mcMansion tear downs is the key to propping up the tax base?
old tear down (likely NO kids) pays 5k property taxes, the new house (probably 2 kids) will pay 15k
Tom – A few corrections:
Newton has had 2 successful overrides in 36 years.
Wellesley has had 34 successful overrides in 36 years.
Weston has had an override EVERY year since 1883.
Lexington has had 17 successful overrides since 1988
Needham has had 34 successful overrides.
Jonathan – just a point of clarification, an individual teacher’s salary has not increased by 25%, which I don’t think you meant to imply. The student enrollment has been increasing steadily for 10 years, so extrapolating headcount costs from 2 years of student enrollment increases doesn’t present an accurate picture of the situation. The new students didn’t arrive at school facilities equipped to deal with the increase.Modulars had to be purchased, installed, outfitted, etc. during that time. Then there’s the increase in staffing of specialists, special education teachers and paraprofessionals, literacy aides, materials, technology, etc. It’s more than just an arithmetic.problem.
Kids in the new developments aren’t the problem when it comes to the operating budget. Depending on the mix of apartments (studio/1BR vs 2/3BR), you’re going to come out either a bit behind or a bit ahead on the marginal cost of new students vs marginal new tax revenue.
The number of additional children becomes an issue when it’s enough that you need one or more new schools… and that’s where you normally start talking about overrides (to pay the cost of the new bond issue for capex). That’s a completely different discussion from what we’re looking at in this PPT – Margaret identified exactly the table in question (page 30 of her linked doc), and you can easily look and see that it’s strictly operating expenses.
We’re contractually agreed to give our teachers raises substantially in excess of the rate at which tax revenues can increase, and healthcare economics are a challenge for every employer that offers benefits. That’s the problem we need to solve here to make the numbers work… and it’s a hard one to solve. Wellesley and Weston have had to resort to General Fund overrides to do so, as linked above. The superintendent has suggested FTE cuts (really the only source of salary flexibility) to fill this year’s gap. Increased commercial tax base is the golden goose, but it’s not like that is an easy or instant fix either.
(Incidentally, this is really just a real-life, up-close version of income redistribution via union negotiating that most in this community are probably abstractly in favor of. From the people who own the property to the collectively bargaining workers, pretty directly in this case since it’s such a large portion of the city budget. In those terms, the thought of another prospective override bugs me quite a bit less.)
@Jane – Correct, 25% for an individual teacher isn’t what I meant when I wrote it, of course. The 25% is inclusive of new teachers for new students. Note, though, that much more of that 25% comes from increases for the existing teachers than from adding new teachers. The same holds for the other employee categories. You can do that work pretty easily by looking at the page 30 chart as well as the union CBAs.
(If the same teacher is teaching with the same education level now that was there in 2013, they’re making between 15 and 25% more in the 2018 budget, depending on specifics. The combination of steps and yearly COLA is awesome for employees. Note again that I support this and think it’s correct that we’re paying our teachers more.)
The cost on the modulars and similar is either included elsewhere in the city budget or is not particularly material, given the categories and expenses in the school operating budget. Kind of hard to tell with some of the general categories in “Other Expenses”. Which were only up 2.5% over the 5-year time period, anyways.
My point was that it’s difficult to evaluate budgets based on several years’ experience, as line items can fluctuate significantly, based on the needs of the system at any given point in time and the marketplace.
From what I’ve heard, we’re by no means the only community to receive just one bid for transportation. It’s a common practice and one that’s suspect at best.
Does anyone know our % spend on central administration, and how it compares to similarly-sized, high-performing school districts? Would be great if Steve, Margaret or someone else knowledgeable could weigh in with some data.
In general, dollars seem best spent on student-facing FTEs and associated resources, and this budget seems to cut more of those than central administration.
@Paul: That is an interesting question. Unfortunately the answer is… challenging. In MA there are really no comparables for the number of students and quality combo:
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/enrollmentbygrade.aspx?mode=&year=2017&orderBy=TOTAL%20DESC
Brookline, Lexington, and Cambridge are the closest, and we have at least 4,000 (or 50%) more students than the largest of those. On top of that, Brookline and Lexington have both approved substantial overrides specifically for school operating expenses in the past decade (Brookline: $7M for school opex in 2015; Lexington: $4M for school opex in 2008), and Cambridge has the most unique revenue situation in the state between Kendall developments and the universities.
I dug a bit into the Brookline budget, and because of the difference in reporting categories, all I really learned is that it would take me a bunch more time to get a really good answer to that question. At first glance it does look like they spend less (relatively) on administration, but it’s hard to say that definitively without a reconciliation of what each city is placing in each category. All the data appears to be there for that… but the US Soccer game just started, so!
First, you can’t run a School system based on anticipated overrides. The School Committee and Superintendent need to live within a budget as most people do. There is NO appetite in this City for another override. Second, we need to downsize central school administration. Creating positions in central administration at the expense of teaching positions and resources is not fiscally prudent. Hopefully, voters will elect several new School Committee Members this November who will set a new tone and direction.
Can we request that the school committee make a statement on the recently passed (by zoning & planning) zoning change which goes before the full City Council board on Monday next. Newton zoning and planning committee approved accessory apartments to give “as of right” permission to add an apartment inside or outside to any house (if it has FAR). According to the city report, 7,625 houses could add an external accessory apartment and a further 800 could expand an existing external apartment. More houses could convert inside their house to create an accessory apartment. Each unit may legally rented to 3 adults + their children. As far as I know no assessment on the impact to NPS was done. Zoning can’t impose taxes, and again as far as I know there is NO TAX PLAN or infrastructure plan to support this potential expansion in housing which could over burden our schools even more.
@Jonathan – Kids are not a problem, but definitely a cost driver. The Operating Override from 3-4 years ago used the growing school population as a core justification point.
Obviously, these high density developments just add more kids to the school system. And the problem will be further complicated by the accessory apartments as mentioned by @MotherS. Furthermore, you cannot legally limit the 2-3 bedroom apartments in these developments.
I wish the consultants had researched the impact on school system, before release their housing strategy.
Finally – speaking of teacher’s salaries – Newton is not the highest paying school district. Not even close. If you want good quality teachers, you have to pay for them. But without open dialog and honest analysis the school budget problem will just get worse.
To Paul’s question of NPS central administration staffing cost vs. that of other towns, the 2008 CAG report (http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/26967) notes on page 2-11 that our school administration cost is 14% below the average.
Although this is not new data, NPS Central Adminstration staffing is fairly similar to how it was a decade ago.
For strategy and data wonks the CAG report remains a good read.
Just want to add. . . . that we are “saving” money by having Sodexo be responsible for our school lunches. I have never heard so many complaints from my kids about school food as I hear about Sodexo. Whitsons was average, but the food quality at Sodexo is below average. And their customer service is lacking.
Back when NPS had in house food services, you could get information about ingredients in the food. Now, if your child has allergies, your child can not purchase lunch because no one will answer the questions about what is in the food.
AND, Sodexo often switches the menu with no notice. When I asked, I was told one day they will have a push to the website. . . . my response was that we are NOT the first school system to use Sodexo, so why doesn’t the technology already exist, and why not push it to the email? I never look at the website to find out if the menu changes, because in my ten years as a NPS parent, I haven’t ever needed to do that. And what is even better, Sodexo didn’t care that my kid went HUNGRY because the school lunch that she thought she was getting was switched to a lunch she doesn’t eat. I told Rachel that I pack the lunches, and I gladly would have sent her to school that day with a lunch that she would eat, rather than have her spend the money and eat nothing.
When you get the lowest bidder, you get low quality. I fear about next year’s school bus situation. If they were the ONLY bidder, then what service can we expect.
I have written to the superintendent and the school committee, and have been told to be patient. Again, this isn’t Sodexo’s first experience at a school lunch program. We are saving money, but what is the cost?
@NewtonMom, as a School Committee candidate, I too have big reservations with Sodexo. I put this on my website weeks ago (cyrusvaghar.com/pressing-issues/):
—This academic year, the School Committee decided to choose Sodexo, a company known for supplying prison food, as the new food supplier in the schools. A current School Committee member recently said, “Sodexo and Whitsons before them have been break-even leaving NPS with $1 million more annually to spend on our core mission, teaching our kids.” Wrong!
Healthy eating is vital for all students and is part of a well-balanced education. It is easy to try to nickel-and-dime your way when you do not have to eat food in the schools daily, but many Newton students rely on their breakfast and lunch as their most nutritious meals of the day.
Any open-bid contract should include specific healthy options for all students. Newton should be following groundwork laid out by small liberal arts colleges like Bowdoin, which include local and organic options, not outsourcing more jobs just to buy a few more outdated textbooks!—
I’ll be knocking on more doors this weekend and I hope to continue this discussion. Please feel free to email me at [email protected] or call me at (617)-823-2556, I’m particularly interested in hearing parent’s insight on how to improve the food service.
Newton Mom- the food offered in the Schools has never been good. Even in my day both at Brown and Newton South the lunches were horrible. Best to pack the kids a brown bag lunch.
That is an interesting idea to pack a brown bag lunch. If everyone did that instead of buying breakfast, lunch, and snacks, our deficit would be even larger, because there are revenues from sales. A lot of upperclassmen with cars drive out of Newton South daily for runs to Lees Burgers, Tango Mango, Anna’s Taqueria, etc. Newton North students are lucky that they can walk to Newtonville where there are a lot of eateries. We also receive funding from the government for students below the poverty level who receive a hot breakfast, and lunch. Yes, there are families in Newton who don’t earn 6 figure salaries, and qualify for assistance. Food services will always cycle, we used to run it in-house, then outsources to Whitman’s, now to Sodexo.
Jo-Louise,
I have also seen Newton South kids have pizza delivered to school during the lunch block.
We have stopped purchasing lunches all together from NPS since December vacation. My daughter only got lunch twice a week (max) and when pizza became disgusting she stopped ordering the pizza on a weekly basis.
I don’t expect NPS School lunches to be gourmet, but I do expect them to be edible. I have ten years of experience of NPS school lunches, and this year is the first time it was too disgusting to eat.
And kids that depend on the reduced and free lunches are just not eating quality food. I feel terrible for the kids that can’t bring their own lunches because there isn’t food in their house.
A few years back there was a salad bar that made it to the old Angier and the parents were told it would rotate back . . . . . we have never seen it again, and it received fantastic support from the kids, teachers and parents. Too bad it disappeared.
And to top it off, I don’t believe Sodexo is taking advantage of the full kitchen they have at Angier. I feel that the food must be carted in and not prepared. Whitsons prepared many dishes at Angier, and my kid loved it.
Having good quality food offerings in our Schools is an important issue. With all due respect, have any School Committee Members actually eaten a lunch in our Schools?
The state foundational level takes into account all of the school demographics, and the residential tax rate takes into account all of the past overrides. In comparison:
(Town – Residential Rate @ Jan 2016 – Net School Spending as a % of the foundational level for FY17)
Newton – $11.38 – 170%
Needham – $11.54 – 166%
Wellesley – $11.83 – 173%
Weston – $12.16 – 233%
Belmont – $12.56 – 130%
Arlington – $12.80 -134%
Lexington – $14.60 – 178%
You can reach your own conclusions, but mine is that our school spending is in-line with comparable communities and our tax rate is low (note, as property values increase the tax rate needed for equivalent revenue decreases – so we would expect Needham & Arlington to be higher, but Weston & Lexington to be lower)
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/01/interactive_map_what_is_the_av.html
http://www.doe.mass.edu/finance/chapter70/comply16.xlsx
@Steve
That is great data, thanks for posting.
My read is that while the central administration spend is 14% lower than other educationally-oriented communities, the average population of those communities is less than 50% Newton. There should be scale effects with central administration spend, so ours should be lower. Not sure 14% is sufficient. Of note is towns like Wellesley and Lexington that spend 40-50% less per pupil on central administration than we do. (Brookline is an odd outlier the other way).
Coupling that with NPS having higher “other teaching services” spend, which looks to be an amorphous budget line, it does feel like we should have more scrutiny on our non-direct school spend before cutting things like librarian FTEs.
Admittedly a quick look, but my 2c.
PS The Turner situation makes it easy for everyday citizens to believe our central administration isn’t overly expensive too. That’s a tough one to reconcile when other cuts are being proposed.
Anne,
IMHO I don’t think comparing Newton with Belmont, Wellesley and Needham is fair because our school system is larger than those communities. I don’t know how many students Cambridge public schools have, but unfortunately the larger public school systems in MA (like Brockton and Lawerence) might have the same size student population.
Just a word of caution about deriving too much meaning out of raw numbers before vetting the details. We may be getting great scale effects but at the same time our school administration may have other work on their plate than other districts.
For example, over the past ten years Newton has been a giant school construction zone. We’ve built a new high school, extensively renovated and expanded a middle school and an elementary school swing space, built two new elementary schools, partially renovated the new Aquinas space for the preschool, and we’re about to rebuild Cabot.
The administrative staff resources necessary to support this work has been staggering and many of the same people are also doing the routinely heroic efforts of running our schools. Come to the Ed Center and look around – senior staff puts in lots of 12+ hour days. Reduce there and you’ll reduce educational, teacher and facility supports for our students that we care deeply about.
@NewtonMom – The reason I used the budget as a percentage of the foundational level is that the foundational level takes in the number of students and (to an extent) additional costs of educating them into account. So all of those numbers are normalized for the size of the district. You can learn more about the foundational level at MassBudget.org
Yes, these schools are smaller, but I chose them mostly because these were all communities we looked at when buying a home – they have similar home values, home types, school quality, access to transportation and Boston, etc. etc. Here’s a more full table (from the same XLS source)
District Name . . . . . . . Foundation . . FY17 Budget . . %
WESTON . . . . . . . . . . . . $20.9 M . . . . . . $46.6 M . . . . . . 223%
WATERTOWN . . . . . . . $27.6 M . . . . . . $50.2 M . . . . . . 182%
BELMONT . . . . . . . . . . . $40.7 M . . . . . . $53.0 M . . . . . . 130%
WELLESLEY . . . . . . . . . $49.0 M . . . . . . $85.0 M . . . . . . 173%
NEEDHAM. . . . . . . . . . . $52.2 M . . . . . . $86.6 M . . . . . . 166%
SOMERVILLE . . . . . . . . $62.0 M . . . . . . $93.7 M . . . . . . 151%
WALTHAM. . . . . . . . . . . $62.3 M . . . . . . $104.5 M . . . . . . 168%
LEXINGTON . . . . . . . . . $69.1 M . . . . . . $122.7 M . . . . . . 178%
BROOKLINE . . . . . . . . . $73.4 M . . . . . . $129.0 M . . . . . . 176%
NEWTON. . . . . . . . . . . $126.4 M . . . . . . $216.3 M . . . . . . 171%
Massachusetts-wide the average spend is 125% of the foundational level.I think that how much a community spends as percentage of the foundational level is an indicator of how much they are willing to raise their taxes over the required amount to increase the $/student there.
We are the largest community in MA that funds it’s schools to more than 150% of the foundation budget. The next closest are Framingham ($97.4 M foundation, budgeted at 155% of that) and Cambridge ($80.6 M foundation, and budgeted at 234.3% of the required level!) So there are going to be issues – and benefits – with that.
I hope this was helpful for you!
@Cyrus,
I don’t want to derail the discussion of the budget, but I have to respond to your comment about Sodexo. Phrases like “a company known for supplying prison food” are exactly why it is so hard to have meaningful, respectful discussions about so many issues nowadays.
Sodexo may serve prisons (I frankly don’t know), but they also serve universities, corporate cafeterias, and schools throughout the world. I work in the Longwood Medical Area, and at least three of the cafeterias in the hospitals and the Medical School are run by Sodexo. In general, those cafeterias are popular, at least as popular as those run through other means.
That may not mean that much with regard to Newton school lunches, but it shows how much of a strawman a throwaway line about prison food is, and it trivializes the work that I’m sure went into the selection of Sodexo last year.
You point to Sodexo food as un-nutritious. I don’t think that’s the issue. As a huge food service company, Sodexo probably has a better than average grasp of nutrition guidelines compared to most companies, and anyone who has heard their rep Rachel Oppenheimer talk knows that they take the nutrition part seriously, and they are actively looking for locally-sourced and organic products. The complaints I’ve heard from parents seem primarily to be about selection, food quality/taste, and operational/personnel issues, some of which may actually be exacerbated by adherence to nutrition guidelines. Solutions to those issues are possible, but they aren’t easy.
School meals, like school budgets and many other topics faced by the school committee, are a serious and complicated issue with imperfect tradeoffs. Thoughtful, measured dialog matters.
“If you think there’s an easy solution, you’ve probably overlooked something.”
@Mike
This is exactly why companies like Sodexo and Aramark, who do serve prison food, are so successful, they serve quality food for those who have influence and power, but give the least amount of quality those that do not. Remember, they serve in a level system (generally 1-5). Maybe your office space has 5, the best quality food. A prison has 1. My College? 2. The Newton Schools? Unsure, as they don’t release that info. It is so similar to the climate “debate”, the fossil fuel companies take care of just enough of the people at the top so as to cause confusion, so the finger isn’t always pointed at them.
To be honest, nutrition is my biggest reservation with the company. I should know because I have to suffer through Aramark’s (one of the other large food providers), meals day in and day out. I have also heard the same complaints with friends who go to top schools served by the companies. Many of them claim to have locally sourced products, but wont release numbers of how much.
Ms. Oppenheimer sounds like a nice woman, but unless Sodexo will publish the facts about what percentage of their food is organic/locally sourced/where their products come from (Which I have asked for), I will not blindly-support them just because a few people have had good experiences.
If you are a parent in the schools, you should definitely be concerned about the quality of food being served, especially meats that are coming from the lowest quality farms in State & country. If elected to the SC, I would stand up for those who do not have a voice in this matter, because the meat industry in America is very powerful & has a vast amount of control.
I recommend this article: https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/study-finds-sharp-rise-in-colon-cancer-and-rectal-cancer-rates-among-young-adults.html The American cancer society specifically recommends against less red meat (beef, pork, or lamb) and processed meats (hot dogs and some luncheon meats).
Mike, my overall point is this: Always ask questions. Never just assume because you have had good experiences with something that others have had the same. When thousands young people’s lives are on the line, I have not and never will take one woman’s claim that they are doing the best for your children for granted. The minimum food guidelines are easy to meet, I would like to see Newton institute its own guidelines with the help of leading experts in the fields.
I’ll be knocking on doors this weekend, but please feel free to call me at 617-823-2556 or email [email protected] to discuss this issue further. All insight in welcome.
@Cyrus:
The parent thread here about NPS’s budget shows how involved and difficult solving our schools’ challenges will be. They will require focused, measured, pragmatic and cooperative action as well as energy and enthusiasm. The candidates I’m looking for need to have that discipline.
I would personally view a school committee member’s agenda that prioritizes “speaking for the voiceless” and taking on the meat industry’s influence as one distracted from the local, immediate, and nitty-gritty problems that our schools face — independent of my personal respect for those goals.
I appreciate your comments and wish you the best, but I’m afraid you lost my vote.
@Mike
Take a look at my website (https://cyrusvaghar.com/pressing-issues/), and see the first bold point, “Part of what makes a successful team leader is their ability to reach across the aisle to come up with solutions to pressing issues, which is why compromising will be the name of the game.”
Nonetheless, If our priorities don’t line up, they don’t line up.
Still, I have never had the pleasure of speaking with you before. Please give me a call or email to share your views, and that is the same for every person reading this. I’m always willing to talk with constituents & students.
@Steve
Caution heeded.
I’d suggest we’d benefit from a better understanding of how Wellesley and Lexington accomplishes their goals with significantly lower central administration spend.
I have no doubt that folks in the Ed Center are working hard. But on balance: would the principals value more resources in school or what they’re receiving from Central Ed? The Ed Center ultimately exists to serve the needs of the schools, and I’d want to hear from David and ideally the principals themselves if they think we have achieved that balance (and to David, why he believes so, to what degree does he have feedback from his principals). Its a similar issue multi-national global companies deal with in allocating resources between HQ and the country subsidiaries responsible for actual sales. HQ always believes what they’re doing is important, but they’re not the ones responsible for delivering revenue. The analogy is hopefully clear.
@Paul (to expand on your comment)
I’d appreciate knowing how Lexington is +3.9 grades compared to Newtons +3.1 with the same spending rate (~175%) of foundational level .
Or how (per today’s NYT upshot article) Belmont is +3.2 grades and Arlington is +2.8 while only spending ~135% of their foundational level.
Total spending per pupil (2015, from mass DOE)
Arlington: $13,383 (134% of foundation, +2.8 grades)
Belmont: $13,029 (130% of foundation, +3.2 grades)
Lexington: $17,867 (178% of foundation, +3.9 grades)
Newton: $18,096 (170% of foundation, +3.1 grades)
Wellesley: $18,185 (173% of foundation, +2.7 grades)
Weston: $22,768 (233% of foundation, +3.1 grades)
So it seems to me that Wellesley spends -slightly- more as a % of foundation, and as a per student cost than Newton does, and is -slightly- behind in terms of overall education.
Newton seems to be very average in terms of it’s peers – we can look to Arlington and Belmont to see if there’s something there that would help us keep our school quality and spend less – we can look to Lexington to see what would produce better results with roughly the same spend.
I wouldn’t look to Weston though 😉
My personal suspicion is that some of it is school structure – lexington is K-8, while Weston is K-4, 5, & 6-8. Transitions are hard on kids, and there is some good research [citation needed] that the K-8 environment reduces bullying. (My personal belief is that the “mistake” made when closing the schools was not the closures per se, but that the city could have closed the middle schools and gone to a neighborhood K-8 program)
@Anne
Love the data-oriented approach.
Need to adjust for differences in demographics when comparing overall school performance– i.e. median income, % below poverty level, % ESL. Newton has a tougher challenge than most of the other towns on your list.
Think the H2H with Wellesley, when factoring that in, gives a slight edge to Newton, for example.
Anne – Great data. Very helpful. What Paul said about demographics. It’s a major factor.
As you know, Brookline has a K-8 model and I taught there for 12 years. While the model definitely has advantages, I found that K-5 teachers and students didn’t receive sufficient attention because the 6th – 8th graders commanded so much of the administrative, guidance, etc. time.
The middle school years can be very tough time for a lot of kids who are going to be just fine in life. They need supports and personnel with the expertise to address adolescent concerns. I taught 6th grade and kindergarten in the same school, with the same personnel. I had much more consistent contact with the principal, asst. principal, guidance, etc. as a 6th-grade teacher than as a kindergarten teacher. I was pretty much on my own as a kindergarten teacher.
@Jane
Interesting! I hadn’t thought of it from a teacher’s perspective. My personal feeling is that continuity of location is good for kids, and having the littles in with the 7th and 8th graders cuts down on bullying (from what I’ve read and seen, the older students are babysitting age and – as the clear top of the school – tend to stomp it out when say a 5th grader goes after a 4th grader rather than the awful social interactions of 12-14 year olds stuck together) – but if the younger grades are shortchanged from a teaching and academic standpoint, that could be a problem.
Wow! I’m really impressed at the interest in the data. The chapter 70/foundation budget formula is extremely complex and most districts spend above foundation.
The DESE website has a convenient tool called DART which allows comparisons of enrollment, assessment, achievement gap, finance and management, student support and governance. It also provides a cohort of districts with similar demographics and distribution of subgroups. Neither Wellesley nor Needham is in our DART cohort. Brookline, Lexington, Arlington and Westborough are. None of these districts, however, is anywhere near as large as Newton. Newton is the 8th largest district in the state and closer in size to New Bedford and Lawrence. We have no peer district in terms of both size and performance.
As to school lunch, this is a much more complex issue than it seems on the surface. Newton’s lunch program is run by Sodexo. Last year we put the lunch program out to bid with an extensive RFP addressing a number of issues. Sodexo was chosen through that competitive process.
The Federal School Lunch Program, administered by the USDA is highly regulated with strict rules about nutritional content, portion size and calorie counts. Over 1,300 students in our district receive free/reduced lunch and the price of the regular lunch is also subsidized through the USDA program. Sodexo operates the program with no subsidy from the Newton Public Schools. It is paid for through the per meal price families pay plus the USDA funding.
Not to hijack but now that’s been brought up, my two personal experiences with the K- 8 set-up were less than optimal to say the least. The daily grouping of 5 year-olds on the school bus with 13 year-olds exposed these naive children to attitudes, behavior and language way before they were ready to normally process it over the course of eight years. By the time they got to the school which was also not segregated, these children became hardened FAST. The loss of their quiet normal innocence made me sad. Last I heard the district had finally recognized this was a big part of their discipline problem and were looking to segregate them back. The expensive private school down the street from me has a similar set-up and just the encounters in the hallways during my brief time teaching there confirmed for me that it’s a negative set-up. I always appreciated Day Middle school having the 6th graders in their own section of the building, recognizing that they also needed some transition time even at that age.