The Newton School Department has just sent out this letter …
Dear NPS Families,
Thank you for your patience as we have worked with our NPS administrators and faculty to determine the best way to provide learning opportunities to our students during this extended school closure.
As many of you have quickly learned over the past few days, it is not possible to truly replicate the traditional PreK-12 school day at home. School is a place where learning is engaging, creative, and differentiated. It is a place where students receive academic, as well as social and emotional supports. And so, while we cannot re-create the school day at home, we can provide you with resources that will provide continuity of learning for our students during this uncertain time.
NPS Learning from Home
Below you will find links to resource pages our teachers and staff have compiled for families. The resources are divided by level (PreK-5, Middle, High) and many are further divided into “Review and Practice,” “Games and Activities,” and “Extend Your Thinking.” You can access the resources through the district COVID-19 resource website
Over the next three weeks, teachers will be reaching out through weekly communication to their classes with specific recommendations for learning activities that students and families complete each week. These activities are grade appropriate and can be completed by students independently or with support from their family. Special education staff, English language learning teachers, and counselors and other staff are also available to communicate with students and families.
Access to Internet and Technology
We are committed to helping families that may need access to devices at home in order to engage in online learning opportunities. If you do not have a web-capable device at home other than a cell phone (such as an iPad, Chromebook, PC, or Mac) please complete this request form (https://forms.gle/K3SgotNY38V1ncNe9) Our technology support team will be in touch with you to discuss next steps.
FAQs and Next Steps
We are aware of the stress that the closure of school has created for families and the need to provide structure and learning opportunities for students while school is closed. These resources, as well as additional supports found on our website, will help you navigate this difficult time. In addition, we have developed a Frequently Asked Questions document to answer questions you might have.
Please understand that what we have outlined is only in effect until April 3rd. Should schools be closed for a longer period, we will adjust our plan as necessary. Thank you again for your understanding as we transition to this new learning environment during the next few weeks.
Sincerely,
David Fleishman
Superintendent of Schools
Weston’s MCAS scores blow NPS away. This is how Weston is handling things.
https://sites.google.com/weston.org/wpsfromhome612/resources-for-home
I don’t understand why we don’t copy Weston and deliver the kids an education.
Jeffrey-
This is what’s happening right now with my three adult sons, their spouses and their children:
One son is a fifth-grade teacher in a NJ suburb demographically similar to Newton. Last Wednesday, the entire staff was given an emergency professional development day to prepare plans almost identical to those outlined on the Weston website. They sent kids home on Friday with materials, instructions, etc. for 14 days of home instruction.
I spoke with him last night and after just two days, he was tearing his hair out – apparently, it’s next to impossible to get students who live 45 minutes away to do “school at home”. He spends his days emailing children and parents to get a system that’s more cumbersome than meets the eye to work. This, despite the best-laid plans. Luckily he doesn’t have children at home so he can spend the time on this. For a teacher who has kids at home to care for, it’s an impossible situation.
For the many teachers and parents who are working remotely with kids at home, my other two sons’ and their spouses’ situation may sound familiar. They’re trying to work remotely with two small children each underfoot. The four parents have a constant stream of conference calls that require quiet in the house and often last 45 minutes to an hour. While on a conference call, the kids in one family watch a sweet program called Paw Patrol because it’s the show most likely to keep them quiet for the duration; in the other family, they play in a closed-off room as far as possible from the parent on the call. None of it is close to a good situation. In fact, in normal times, these solutions would be unacceptable in both homes.
What do parents do if they don’t have a support system to help out? Most importantly, what do parents who are struggling to figure out how to feed their kids and keep a roof over their heads do? Too many people in our community are not in a position to carry out well thought out and well-intended educational plans. It’s NPS’s and the city’s responsibility to deal with the full spectrum of family needs. To expect that it’s going to happen in less than a week, or any solution will replicate an excellent education simply isn’t realistic.
In each episode of Paw Patrol, three puppies meet people with a terrible problem and they swoop in and “save the day”- and miraculously they manage to do it every single time! Oh, that there could be a Paw Patrol for us all right now. Unfortunately, this is the real deal and we’re going to have to be patient with one another, nimble with solutions that don’t pan out as expected, pivot, find different solutions, and figure out new ways of living our lives for what may be a good long time.
While these are definitely challenging times, NPS’s response is pathetic! Here is the posted learning that is “not required”: https://sites.google.com/newton.k12.ma.us/nps-learning-from-home-9-12/home.
We’ll see tomorrow if the individual teacher responses are any better. I’m only expecting 2 of my son’s 5 main-subject teachers to have a serious response.
With one kid who graduated NPS in 2017 and another in high school now, I’m terribly disappointed in NPS. We moved here from out of state 10 years ago and picked Newton because of the public school reputation. It was a big mistake because NPS has not lived up to the claimed reputation at any level: elementary, middle, or high school. My mom was a superintendent of schools in another state, so I can see that the problems I’ve seen in NPS are systemic and due to poor leadership by Supt. Fleischman–something we can all clearly see in this inadequate response to the crisis.
@Jane – I strongly agree with your sentiment and applaud the efforts of all three of your sons and their families. It’s absurd to expect any school system – even s small and privileged one like Weston’s where most of the students are able to Zoom from the comfort of their mansions’ studies – to suddenly and effectively metamorphose from schoolrooms to a virtual environment with which few of the participants have any real experience or comfort.
However, I’d like to point out that your reference to Paw Patrol struck a sour note with me, as I suspect it might for many parents. Whenever we turn on the TV in our house, our daughter (who turned 3 yesterday) invariably asks that we change the channel to Télé-Québec so that she can watch the dubbed French version of that show (La Pat’Patrouille). Since neither my wife nor I are native French speakers, we’re normally thrilled whenever she asks to watch a French channel, but IMHO that show is vraiment horrible. I’d recommend that you intervene to curtail your grandkids’ viewing of it if it’s not too late.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/15/paw-patrol-the-megalomaniacal-kids-tv-show-thats-ruining-my-life
If the NPS does not try to educate our kids, they won’t educate our kids. Every shot you don’t take does not go in. If NPS tries, it may be stressful or hectic, but as the weeks go by, the process will improve and kinks will get worked out.
The NPS is not trying. Weston is. NPS decided to call the first 4 days of canceled school “snow days.” During this time, I heard that teachers were told that they were “off.” (Jane, this is what I heard. Is it true?) This time could have been used to develop content. By the way, I salute the teachers who did not take the time off and have been in contact with students with course content. They are heroes.
Now, the NPS rolls out non-required “games and activities” and once per week contact with teachers. Teachers are a valuable and expensive resource. Is the administration effectively using this resource to educate? It does not look like it.
I predict we won’t be back to normal on April 6. All of April might be lost. If this happens will the NPS step up to the plate?
While I agree with Jeffrey, I understand that Weston and where my daughter lives in Cheshire, CT have fewer students than Newton. My daughter already worked remotely for the American Cancer Society national in ATL, which is taking a major hit with donations and volunteers helping cancer patients, and now has three teen sons at home. Luckily the Cheshire school system has one-to-one chrome books that the students take home and do their work on so transferring to remote “required” learning from 9:30-2:00 daily was easier than in places like Newton.
NPS has to do better for all its students. Students don’t need enrichment activities, they need to keep up with their leaning program or they won’t be ready for next year. According to many experts the US is far from the peak of this epidemic mainly because we don’t have anywhere close to enough test kits or other supplies, like regulation masks. The main way to slow this virus down and move toward flattening the curve is to test early, often and widely. We are not doing this.
Folks are also confused by the media and the government referring to the drive-by specimen gathering sites as “drive-by test sites.” These places don’t have testing capabilities, they just swab your nose. The actual testing sites are running out of tests and some have closed. So this virus is probably here for a while.
Perhaps the Corona Virus will be the death knell for our 10 week summer vacation. It could help solve the summer slide problem too.
@Lucia – What’s the summer slide problem?
Jerry, good to hear about your teen.
The summer slide is the knowledge that students loose over the summer.
Here’s one data point. My high school daughter, for the first time since this began, is immersed in school work this morning. That’s a good thing.
The summer slide is ‘summer learning loss” which relates to the achievement gap. “income-based reading gaps grew over the summer, given that middle class students tended to show improvement in reading skills while lower-income students tended to experience loss” https://www.brookings.edu/research/summer-learning-loss-what-is-it-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/
I was very disappointed when I looked the learning from home website. For my kids’ grades (3 and 5), it is little more than a collection of links to various resources. There is zero information about how to structure a daily lesson plan. The “daily activities” for math take five minutes or less to do. I am at a loss of how to support my children’s learning while my husband and I still try to do our jobs.
Families in other districts are being given much more support, and not just in wealthy districts like Weston. Our friends with children in the Portland, ME public schools (not a particularly wealthy district) are being given a daily curriculum that occupies most of a school day. While parental support is of course needed, they aren’t requiring each parent to individually plan the day’s work in a grade-appropriate way. Our family in Mt. Pleasant has been given a chromebook for each child and they are video conferencing daily with our teachers.
I am disappointed in the lack of leadership from NPS. Given the size of the district, it seems like it would be possible to pool resources to develop daily lesson plans at each grade level without overloading any individual teacher. I recognize that this is a challenging time for everyone, but with 50(?) teachers at each grade level across the system, surely this is something that could be done.
Ali
Sorry about the difficult-to-read text above, I meant to put /s (for sarcasm) after my Paw Patrol remarks and not only did I forget to do that, I also forgot to close the italics with /i. Whoops!
Ali – I’m a big fan of Khan Academy, esp. for math. It’s free and you can set up an account for your kids and monitor their progress. It’s interactive, but not edutainment. They set up instruction by grade, taking kids sequentially though the curriculum.
I’m using it now with my Junior to practice for the SAT.
I agree with Lucia about Khan Academy. It’s great for every grade, especially math, and it helps motivate students to continue by giving them instant feedback.
Thanks, Lucia – I took a look at Khan Academy and think there will be a lot of that in our near future!
The first FAQ from the email makes clear what NPS position is:
“These are non-school days. These days will essentially be considered a three week school closing period (March 13-April 5). The state has been clear that there is no expectation of formal online instruction or for the provision of normal educational services during this period. It is important to note that the school year will not extend beyond the 185th day (June 24, 2020)”
While I personally understand that they can replicate the “normal educational services”, I find it shocking that they do not feel compelled to try to make something work.
And who’s to say the school’s will be opened after April 5. The experts have all said they can’t estimate when the Coronavirus will be slowed enough to open anything.
Along with Khan Academy, this site has “THE ENTIRE LIST OF EDUCATION COMPANIES OFFERING FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS DUE TO SCHOOL CLOSINGS”
There are many to choose from but I don’t know anything about them so check them out first.
Tim – I absolutely agree.
I certainly understand that the Newton School dept, like virtually every organization in the country, finds itself in an extremely difficult situation. I’m also more than willing to cut the school dept and every other organization a lot of slack while they improvise some way to carry on through all of this.
What wouldn’t be acceptable to me is if the School Dept just throws in the towel – and sticks to “the state has let us off the hook about educating our students”. I can’t and don’t believe that at the moment. Every day that goes by though makes me more worried.
Yesterday’s email from the superintendent is a start, a very modest start. I sure hope it is followed very soon with something much more concrete. Until we see the School Dept clearly demonstrate that it hasn’t given up on schooling our kids through this crisis, I remain very alarmed.
Once some kind of clear daily educational process is in place I’m more than willing to deal with the inevitable hiccups, complications, and mistakes while we all, together, figure out how to continue providing this essential service of government through the duration of this crisis.
A very long vacation is definitely NOT an acceptable plan. Ever the optimist, I’m certain NPS has something in the works. I sure hope so.
WGBH is coordinating with Mass Dept of Ed on this website with grade level resources for the ‘heath care crisis’
https://www.wgbh.org/distance-learning-center
Khan Academy put up sample daily schedules for students k-12 for this health care crisis.
J Pontiff and Friends,
There are far more important things to worry about than NPS falling behind WPS. Learning, productivity, and achievement can be put on hold while the country is in the clutches of a pandemic. Take a pause in light of what is afoot and put comparisons on the shelf. It is preposterous to be preoccupied with this “issue.” Imagine what so many people around the country are dealing with. Meanwhile, in Newton, MA, it is paramount to be keeping pace with another town’s superior approach to online learning-yuck. Shame on you.
For me, it has nothing to do with trying to keep up with WPS or any other school system. What I am hoping/expecting from NPS is that they will make an effort to provide some sort of curriculum to help keep our students’ minds engaged, as other schools have done. I am an educator myself, and my university (along with all the rest) has moved to online classes for the rest of the academic year. No one is expecting these experiences at home to replicate the in-class environment; I know my online classes sure won’t (especially as we try to juggle the kids). But I’m trying to help my students keep learning while also giving my students a lot of flexibility, given the situation.
BTW, the Khan Academy suggestion was a great one; my kids are both really enjoying it.
~ald
Just because other districts are doing online learning it doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do. There are a lot of serious equity issues to contend with. No internet access, no devices, IEPs, both working parents, parents that don’t speak English. It isn’t easy for them to make it a useful experience for all.
Couple of thoughts:
1) Do we know how many households in Newton don’t have internet? Can we find a out and find a way to change that?
2) I know that NewTV has closed it facility due to Covid-19, but why couldn’t NewTV be used to broadcast the Newton curriculum into Newton homes? Maybe focusing on Grades 3 through 8? I don’t have children in the schools and I would guess there are different levels of say Grade 4 math, but focus on just the basics with maybe some additional assignments for more advanced classes.
I’m sure there are lots of reasons why people might think this might not work, but maybe we could focus on how it could work?
Ali,
Online learning would be an incredibly arduous process for legions of NPS students. Can you imagine what this would entail for kids with serious learning, attention, and emotional issues? Being in the classroom is essential and the services that are provided are commonly what gets some students through their day. MMQC put it in simple and straightforward terms. I agree with your notion of engagement and keeping students’ minds active. Yet, there is a multitude of hurdles that can’t be ironed out in a week (like some seem to think). Some people merely don’t understand how public education functions. A lot of people see the product, but certainly don’t comprehend the process.
The irony is that for many of us, the equity issues in our schools is only visible now because they may impact our kid’s education.
The deal is, though, that the equity issues were always there. Every day. They just didn’t impact the majority of us so overtly. Inequity affects the voiceless and the invisible all the time. And if believe in the strength of community, in the common good, in the potential in all of us, we were shortchanging both the less advantaged and our entire society all along by not working harder to help every person live up to their full potential.
As one of the most affluent communities in the nation, we didn’t take advantage of the good times to address these issues of inequity. We could have done better. We should have done better.
Unaddressed inequity is at the root of so many things that will make getting through this crisis harder. Poor healthcare for everyone means everyone is more at risk. Poor wage security means stress, more desperation and potentially riskier behavior. Lack of standard sick pay means more people working when they shouldn’t.
Because of this crisis, we can plainly see that our personal health and well-being is directly tied to that of the most vulnerable person amongst us. But truth is, that was always the case. It just wasn’t an urgent a priority for us as a society.
When we’re done with this and picking up the pieces, let’s not make the same mistakes. Floating all boats, while important all the time, is easier to do when you actually have water. And it’s the right thing to do.
From Marti Bowen’s link, here are the sites I know are easy for parents to use, kids might already know how to use them, and have valuable content:
Brainpop (I assume Brainpop ESL is free as well, but not sure)
Khan Academy (excellent for math and has a Spanish version as well)
NewsELA (good social studies content)
PebbleG0 (good stories for young children)
Scholastic
Not all sites are created equal. If the site isn’t user friendly, don’t go down a rabbit hole trying to figure it out. It usually means that there’s not much there there.
Disappointed to see IXL have so many ads to purchase a subscription on this page. Really bad form.
Gonoodle is a good free site for indoor gym
Jane (or one of the other teachers), could you please tell us what is going on behind-the-scenes? What is David Fleishman telling teachers to do during the workday? Is the administration working with teachers to create a back-up plan if the April 7 back-to-school date is pushed back? Are they telling teachers that do not use Schoology to start doing so?