Newton Public Schools presented its Enrollment Planning and Class Size Report to the School Committee on Monday. The presentation begins at the 10:00 mark,
Highlights of the presentation, according to the most recent School Committee update, included:
- Elementary School:
- Average class size down.
- Percent of classes with 25 or more students is down (2%).
- 5-year enrollment projections to decrease by 277 students.
- Middle School:
- Large grade cohorts arrive and move on to high school in next 5 years.
- Projected # of teams increase next year, remain stable and then decrease in FY24 and FY25.
- Large grade cohorts arrive and move on to high school in next 5 years.
- High School:
- Both schools projected over 2,100 students over the next 5 years.
- Enrollment to stay elevated until larger cohorts start graduating in 2026-27.
- Elementary School:
Average class size changes are in decimals, not large numbers….not that that matters as it relates Northland and other super-dense projects.
This data only forecasts 3-5 years out and these projects prob won’t start adding enrollment until year 6….and in large scale with immediate needs.
Here’s the full report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KfJx5kjsgVXLlvnrLV0YJkbkvi7GIKml/view?usp=drivesdk
No one wonder that poster did so anonymously as “Village14”.
@Matt: Yikes! Not you too with the conspiracy theories. The same link to the report you shared is part of the original thread.
@Matt – Just so you know. People post on their name if they are posting opinion – i.e. the majority of posts.
When just posting news release, official statements, videos, etc with no, or minimal, additional comment, analysis or opinion they can post under the generic Village14 byline.
Yes, this post did include the author’s selection of highlights – i.e. some enrollments going up, others going down.
Why not always include the poster’s name? What is the advantage of doing otherwise? In the past, I have had the same reaction at Matt Lai.
@Jeffrey: I favor the “Village 14” byline when we are calling attention to someone else’s reporting or work. If all were doing is posting a link to a video or a statement by the mayor or an article in the Globe, then we use “Village 14.” It signals that were sharing something that’s not necessarily our view and certainly not our work.
As for this post, I was the one who created it. Not only did I include the link to the official report, I was careful to note that the bullet points under the video were “according to the most recent School Committee update.” The School Committee chose to summarize those points, not me, in an email blast they sent yesterday. At the time I posted it, I hadn’t read the report (still haven’t) so I was sharing it but not suggesting that they were the points I would have highlighted.
If your kids are in the large size cohort, then they are in it for the whole career at NPS. My kids have had large classes in elementary, middle and high school. And that effects gym, music, drama, lunch lines. It totally stinks.
Honestly, let me know when class size is 18-20. That would be ideal. 25 is too big for all grades. Sorry.
And once Northland, Riverside, etc are built, please remind me where the enrollment dip is? Can’t wait to see how crowded buses are once we get there. At the start of this year and the proceeding year, my kids busses had kids sitting on the floor. While it was solved, it took 3 weeks to solve, and all it takes is one crash during that three weeks for kids to fly across the bus and get seriously injured in a low speed crash.
What NewtonMom said. As I posted on another thread, there will be exponentially more traffic as the result of the monstrous developments planned. No way there won’t be! More accidents (fatalities?) are inevitable.
People are human- rush hour is horrendous enough now. The frustration level will increase. There will be blood on some hands. (Already some poor woman’s dog.) Do the math, people.
@ Pat – your post reads like a review for a movie depicting the apocalypse or some approaching zombie horde. You gave us “blood”, “horrendous”, “monstrous”, “fatalities” and, of course, the sad death of a pet. All in such a small space , AND in response to a post concerning NPS class size! Thoroughly enjoyed it!
As for the video and the link to the study, it speaks for itself. Some good news and some warning signs that we hope our elected officials and all Newton residents will pay attention to. Thanks!
Everybody uses these reports for their own purposes. I’m not looking at this as a development issue. Just as someone who has multiple kids in the bubble I agree with Newton mom it is not an ideal situation at all, my kids have been in classrooms which are way too large and if you have any child with a learning disability or a situation that doesn’t fit well with a large classroom newton is completely unable to deal when the classes are that large. I don’t look at that as a development issue as I do about the ability of the school system to be flexible and bring more resources to bear when bubbles like this happen, as I would imagine they do. Instead the school system seems very much designed to lower cost wherever possible to bring administrative and bureaucratic hurdles into place to delay actions as much as possible and to not acknowledge that larger classrooms and a more burdened special education department can’t handle the load.
As i often say more than one thing can be true. Perhaps long-term trends are accurate and overall school enrollment will be going down, but Newton needs to get better with dealing with the problems in hand. We are riding our school reputation but it is not reality. the bubble that this post so blasély talks about doesn’t reflect the tears of my child when he comes home and is upset because he can’t understand the work and there’s no one to help him. Or the delays we’ve had to get services.
Development isn’t the only issue. How we fund our schools is as well.
Why would any Newton parent have confidence that a group of School Committee members who can’t even figure out how to change today’s high school schedule, are capable of accurately predicting the city’s future population makeup? Who fixes the overcrowded classroom problem when the School Committee gets these projections wrong?
All these developments on Washington Street, Austin Street, Elm Street, Riverside, Riverdale, Northland are going to =more people=overcrowding in schools, more vehicles/cars, =more traffic=more accidents, fender benders, road rage
@Mike Striar is is the School Dept that creates the report not the School,Committee. That said I’ve found sometimes the School Committee doesn’t have the same feel at the detail level for what is going on as the people who are experiencing these “trends”.
The report is saying that MS and HS enrollments are going up and elementary are going down. This is due to the fact that the large grades are moving up. They are expecting over 1000 kids in grade six next year. South is at its historical peak and the enrollment will continue to increase as the larger grades roll through.
Some quotes from the report:
“ These projections, at best, provide only the direction or trend enrollments will take into the future. This is because beyond the fourth year of the projection, elementary enrollments must be predicted on a calendar year that is not complete…”
“The more stable the community or the individual school neighborhood, the easier and more reliable the projections are. “
Honestly I hope their predictions are right that there will be a decrease at the elementary level as schools have been overcrowded at the recent levels.
Elementary numbers are the hardest to predict because it relies on births that have not occurred and also this is the time when people tend to move in for the schools. It’s also worth noting that Riverside is not in the predictions and Williams is expected to decline in the report.