In February, Newton Mayor Fuller made an announcement that surprised more than a few people.
She reported the results of a demographic study showing that Newton Public Schools will have no difficulty accommodating an influx of students even if four proposed or pending mixed-use developments are approved by the City Council.
In fact, without the additional students from the additional housing units, school enrollment is expected to decline, Fuller wrote in one of her email newsletters.
“The full enrollment report will be available in the next month or two, but the preview indicates that even if all four proposals are eventually approved by the City Council, enrollment would continue to be manageable with just a slight increase in students,” Fuller wrote.
Professional demographers hired by Newton Public Schools began by evaluating current trends and projects already under construction. They then added in the projected impacts from a total of 1,785 potential new apartments from Northland on Needham Street, the Riverside Station in Auburndale, Riverdale in Nonantum and Chestnut Hill Square.
“Without the yet-to-be-approved developments, projections show an enrollment decline,” the mayor added.
That demographic study is now available online here.
And the City Council’s Programs and Services Committee and Finance Committee will hear a presentation about the enrollment study on Weds. April 10 at 7 p.m. at the City Hall.
Where is the report?
Riddle me this….
If the schools can handle new enrollment, why are KIDS reporting there is no space in their classrooms….that they have to sit on the floor because the busses are too crowded.
My son has told me this. His friends’ parents’ have told me this.
The young man – 6th grader but formerly an Ainger student – who bravely spoke up in last night’s meeting said the same.
Reality trumps “professional demographers”.
Sorry, I don’t believe it. We were also told that Avalon on Needham Street would not add to NPS and it did.
The lines at Brown middle school are VERY LONG and slow. The food is of poor quality, and even with poor food the line is too long. There are not enough spots for kids who want to participate in sports.
The high school theater program is competitive. More kids will compete.
Angier used to have three classrooms of each grade, and now it is four. Those kids move to Brown and South; and their numbers increase the number of kids competing for Theater and Sports.
I don’t believe the report.
BTW, the busses are bad. Families don’t pay the fees, but the kids use the busses. There are bus pass checks four times per year. The busses are over crowded. Kids sit on the floor or three to a seat.
I don’t believe the report.
I have seen the Newton South Band play at South – soooo many wonderful kids, but literally they fill the stage. The concerts are crowded.
I’m old enough to remember a 2014 consultant report used by the school committee for the Student Assignment Working Group that had growing elementary student population even without these new developments…..
Here is a link
http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/96266
The answer to the riddle is simple. Some schools are under capacity and others are over capacity. Apparently this so-called equity policy that each Newton student should have the same educational experience does not apply to the single biggest factor in their experience: student to teacher ratio.
Also I can validate the 6th Grader’s statement on the bus overcrowding. My child’s Brown bus stop which has been shifted to 3 different routes with the latest switch made due to kids having to sit in the aisle. Now my child gets on the bus at 7:45 and travels from Lake/Hyde Newton Highlands to Gibbs/Summer Newton Centre then onto Morton/Comm. NC followed by a lovely stop in Waban at Moffat/Montclair. The bus then travels to Brown by going through Upper Falls via Christina St area to arrive at 8:20. A very environmentally friendly route.
A crowded bus may or may not portend crowded classrooms. Couldn’t just be a sign that we don’t have enough buses or bad bust routes?
But mostly, it’s disappointing to read the rush to discredit this report before it’s even presented. You’d think folks would at least want to pretend to understand the methodology or conclusions before discrediting it.
There are 26 students in my daughter’s 2nd grade classroom at Mason-Rice. One of the other 2nd grade classrooms also has 26 students. The physical plant is a complete dump. The technology is aging out and there is no budget for replacement.
This is the life we are living as parents and taxpayers. It should not be surprising that many are skeptical that we can handle a ton of growth in student population right now.
As other commenters have mentioned, the city has a sketchy track record when it comes to projecting school enrolment. Countless students have had their school experience diminished by modular classrooms bolted to the side of school buildings. That alone is reason to scrutinize the impact of every large residential development on Newton’s public schools. But it’s not the only reason…
Our city built its reputation on stellar schools. We had small class sizes in neighborhood elementary schools, and offered much more programmatically in upper grades than we offer today. Projects like Northland [that need zoning regulations waived by the city], offer us an opportunity to reconfirm both our commitment to affordable housing AND our educational values. City leaders should be negotiating for 25% of the housing units to be designated “affordable” [as defined by state law], and a minimum 15K sf of educational space.
Whether the educational space is used as an elementary school, a STEM magnet school [that could reduce overcrowding at other schools], or an alternative high school [which many Newton teens could benefit from], would be an issue for the School Committee to eventually decide. But now is the time for Mayor Fuller to clearly articulate what benefits the people of Newton expect from the massive Northland development.
Bruce – I don’t believe there is a thing as undercapacity. I prefer to think of it as either at capacity or overcapacity. As you said, the biggest factor in excellent education is teacher/student ratio.
Mark, I think you are right. Just for fun, since someone mentioned the Avalon (Upper Falls), I looked at the following:
Property assessed value: $87,521,400 * $10.82/thousand tax rate = $946,981 tax revenue
102 enrolled students in building * $17,805.96 spend/student = $1,816,208 cost of educating students
Please help me if I’ve made errors.
Enrollment analysis link (see page 9):
https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=7479&dataid=11332&FileName=NOVEMBER%202018%20ENROLLMENT%20ANALYSIS%20REPORT_Online%20Version.pdf
Superintendent’s budget link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qE_2NyhnCN5WmuO9Nsn_igudKaelChXt/view
Hey if the demographer says we wont have difficulty, then I guess we wont have any difficulty 🙂
However few things to chew on (pg 5)-
Northland 822 units – will result in 91 students
Riverside 663 units – 73 students
Riverdale 200 units – 12 students
I am in the market to buy a bridge, is anyone selling 🙂
PS – Pet peeve – the pdf format does not allow text search. So annoying!
Wow, what a fun night tonight.
We hired a professional demographer who is telling us mixing over 55’s with families with young kids DOES NOT WORK!
Marian Knapp, Engine 6, Green Newton et al have been telling us for years how these new mixed use developments are desperately needed for our aging population. Does anybody recall what our planning department has been preaching?
So. Do we trust the Demographer, or do we believe what people have testified to in public hearings?
Its a poor analysis.
1. There is no consideration for the relative attractiveness of Newton real estate/Newton schools, and how that impacts the net influx of new young families into Newton.
2. The report mentions a “temporary wave” of increased elementary enrollment, yet gives no explanation of the driver of this wave, or the stated conclusion that it was temporary.
3. The analysis assumes 35 students in K-12 coming from 746 new housing units in 2025.
4. The report includes no analysis of student enrollment from similar housing developments.
5. There are no ranges or error bars on any of the projections– everything is assumed to be precisely accurate with no margin for error.
I could go on, but its not worth my time. I don’t believe its a good-faith effort by Fuller– its patently ridiculous to say that we can add 1000 units to the city, and it has no impact on student enrollment.
@Patrick Moriarity – I’ll tell you who’s really screwing the city. That would be me. Here’s my numbers.
Assessed value=455K * 10.82 per K = $4923
Cost to educate my child for a year = $17,805
I’m clearing $13K a year with this scam and loving it.
Those fool parents down in Avalon have no idea that us homeowners have a much better thing going.
@Jerry,
Next year I have 3 of them in the system!
That said, my property taxes have increased over 30% in the last 3 years!
Hi, can someone help me understand a piece of the chart on Pg 9 of the enrollment report? It states out of the 44 elementary students coming out of the Avalon at Newton Highlands 20 of those went “out of assigned district “ to a school. What does this mean? Did they have to be reassigned due to capacity issues? Is this a result of a special education need?
Thanks, Lisa
Just a FYI, there is a proposed 40R being developed by John Hancock in Wellesley right after the 128 interchange on the Newton side. There are two phases first 350 units and second 250 units. John Hancock is using an average multiplier of .46 to calculate school age children. They averaged in the average of 3 Newton complexes, which was noted as .51, with a few other towns to get the .46 multiplier.
@Patrick Moriarty,
You made 2 very common errors in your analysis:
1. The average cost per student is not the marginal cost per student. If you take one student out of the system (or add one student), you don’t save $17,800 (or spend an additional $17,800). The marginal cost of 102 students is nowhere near $946,000.
2. Many families renting at Avalon or elsewhere in Newton already own a home in Newton that is being renovated, or are looking to buy a home and renting temporarily. So these are student who are already in the system, or who, absent Avalon, would just be renting somewhere else while they look.
@Rhanna Kidwell,
1. 86% of the school budget is salaries and benefits, which are a variable cost to school population. Of the remaining 14%, some must be variable and some fixed, I don’t know. Regardless, the vast majority of the cost is marginal.
2. There is no data to support this statement.
Rhanna.
For point 2… define many. I would be extremely surprised if its more than 1 or 2% ..
@Rhanna Kidwell how do you back up statement #2? The families I know living there are not living there during a renovation, etc but that is only my anectdotal experience. I’m sure there is a portion of both situations.
@LMF6599 the enrollment report indicates the following regarding those out of assigned districts:
“ Students attend out-of-assigned district schools for a variety of reasons including educational needs, family relocation within Newton, changes in school district boundaries or buffer zones.”
Avalon Needham St is located in the Countryside/Zervas Buffer Zone which was created in 2015 and specifically covers Avalon. From the map I don’t believe there are any other residences in that Buffer Zone. If you look at page 106 of the most recent enrollment report it shows 20 kids going from that Buffer Zone to Zervas which matches the out of district number (their primary school is listed as Countryside). So I would say that they are being allocated to Zervas over Countryside due to space availability.
@Rhanna Kidwell
See the breakout on page 26. I calculate the fixed costs to be:
3.9% Custodial / Secretarial
3.4% District Admin
3.3% Leadership
2.0% Utilities
1.3% Maintenance
Adds up to about 13.9%. There is almost no operational leverage in the schools. 86% of the budget is marginal.
By Rhanna’s logic, there is one child in a classroom who cost $200K-$300K and the rest are free. Afteral, we are not hiring teacher for child 2, 3, 4 onwards.
Or for that matter, one day when we have to build an additional school (like Brookline had to) – there will be one child who will cost us $50M but the marginal cost for rest is $0.
Love it!
BTW – Why cant I use the same logic at restaurants, theaters etc. Maybe I should. 🙂
Rhana, who are you trying to fool by saying many families living at Avalon also own a home in Newton? Please provide a source to back this up.
What’s interesting about this report is THIS issue is what is impacting Newton Schools. Overcrowding. Not enough resources. Space allocation. Potentially forecasting that there will be more space when those in the trenches are disagreeing. Here we are discussing the real issues and what the school committee should be analyzing on our town and on our children’s behalf.
Instead, the school committee is wasting time and resources and playing politics at every opportunity. We have Matthew Miller spit balling blue zone changes in the Newton Parents Facebook group in order to pander to his easily riled up and sadly uninformed base. It’s shameful that the people who were voted to look after our schools with a critical eye are instead playing at popularity contests and focusing their attention on distractions like that are meant to keep Newton Parents uninformed and arguing among themselves. Blue zone changes? Not as important as confirming that this report is accurate. Equity committee and equity working group to analyze the peanuts that the parents raise through PTO? Also not as important. School Committee, DO YOUR JOB. You are failing the children of Newton. Those that are matriculating now, those that are about to enter, and those that have to leave the school and apply to college with programs that colleges deem “not strong”. (That’s a direct quote from an admissions dean from a school that many Newton students would be thrilled to attend) We’re having the critical conversations here, but Matthew Miller, Kathy Shields et al are having community divisive red herring conversations that only serve to divide, lower standards and distract.