The Newton School Department has released their proposal for a new schedule for the city’s two high schools and no one is happy.
There’s been mounting pressure in recent years to switch to a later start time for the high schools. A wealth of evidence indicates that early start times for high school students leads to a variety of problems with both health of the students and their learning.
Over the past year the school department has surveyed parents, teachers, and administrators in an effort to fashion a new schedule that meets a series of contradictory goals. Says School Superintendent David Fleishman “It’s a hard problem. Moving to a later start time is clearly a desired goal. As we began to talk to parents and other stakeholders we heard grave concerns about later ending times raising havoc with everything from sports, to homework to transportation issues. The first proposal that we evaluated was to leave the end time the same but start later. There was quite a vocal objection to that plan since it sacrificed the number of hours of education that the students would be receiving.”
“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place on this issue and there is no one answer that will make everyone happy” said Superintendent Fleishman
Remarkably, the proposed plan that was released on Friday will probably make no one happy. Starting in September the two high schools will begin an hour later, keep the same finish time and move to a six day schedule with school on Monday-Saturday.
King Solomon himself could not have come up with a better solution.
Note to panicked high school students: The above post was just a little April Foolishness
It took 13 years of public outcry to reach THIS “solution.??? I’m not blaming NPS though. This lies squarely on successive school committees that have ignored the health issues associated with early start times in favor of continuously kicking the can down the road.
@Mike… Check today’s date. Do you really think the teachers would be willing to work six days a week? This is obviously fake news. (Or fool’s news.)
Oh, I hate that! Maybe I’ve lost my sense of humor about this stuff. But nothing surprises me in Newton. Particularly when it comes to the health of our youngsters. It’s just not something I’m capable of joking about anymore. Same with the cannabis moratorium. Nothing funny about these things to me. Sorry.
Good one!
This is what I proposed years ago. If your priority is to keep the same educational level and start later, the hours have to come from somewhere. I believe a six day school schedule is done in other countries. I think it’s the only thing that makes sense. Unfortunately this could have been resolved years ago…not rocket science.
Facts are being left out. High school will start two hours late and, in order promote Social and Emotional Learning, school will end two hours early. Lunch time will be extend by 15 minutes. Two groups of stakeholders chimed in–students and teachers. Both overwhelming support the proposal.
David Fleishman is considering a a second proposal to make classes optional. This won’t decrease learning since, if a student does not want to attend class, they can still learn by taking advantage of the high schools’ “open campus” policy that promotes learning about responsibility and independence. Before voting on this policy, the School Committee will survey students about whether they think it is a good idea.
Happy Passover, Happy Easter, and Happy April Fools day from all us Village14 fools.
April Fools, right?
… and for the 5th year running the MWRA has just announced the sign up for this year’s Inside the MWRA Tours 😉
Jeffrey, what do you think?? Do you support the concept??
I became suspicious when it was stated that both teachers and students were enthusiastically endorsing a 6 day school week. We would have rioted and perhaps even smashed some windows if the powers that be proposed this when I was at the old 3 building Newton High during the late 1950’s. But then I surmised that it was Jerry Reilly who had posted all of this and Jerry would never try and trick us into believing something that wasn’t true. Would he? No, not Jerry. Then I thought of it again and ——-
Here’s a fact: the option of a six day school week deters absences. The school I attended 7-12th grade held Saturday school for kids who missed a day for any reason. It also encourages sick kids to show up for school.
I knew it was a joke the second I read the 6 day school week. I particularly liked this because it seems lately everyone is unhappy about something.
As Mike Striar’s response suggests (and I’m not picking on you, Mike), it can often be difficult for local newspapers or other such media to do April Fools stories. A weekly paper I worked for years ago once ran a “news article” in its April 1 edition reporting that a local high school soccer team — which was a perennial contender for the state championship — was found to have hired “ringers” from the North American Soccer League as well as from South American national teams.
Sure enough, the editor got a phone call from a town official who was beside himself that such a thing could have happened, and promised to conduct a full investigation of the school’s athletic department.
Sometimes, the boundary between truth and satire (no matter how absurd) isn’t as well-defined as one might think.