In this week’s Village14 Open Post, NewtonCare’s wants to discuss how the Newton Schools have been doing in response to the ongoing crisis ….
Newton Schools have FAILED. No formal online learning. All optional. Other towns hit the ground running with 4 to 5 full days and homework. Newton should be the leader, but is way behind and has failed its students. The Superintendent should be accountable and should have been gone a long time ago.
discusss …
I’m actually really pleased with how NPS has handled this. My child’s teacher have given out a pretty robust, clear-cut schedule with the knowledge that it is optional and that your child’s emotional health comes FIRST. They have two Zoom meetings a week which are very supportive in nature.
On the flip side, I was talking to my friend who sends her kids to a nearby very expensive private school. They have to be on Zoom all morning with their teacher, then they have to do work solo, and then they all log back on to Zoom. It takes all day and it’s excruciating for the kids.
My sister doesn’t live locally but her kids schooling has been a disaster. They have an excessive amount of mandatory assignments and they’re spending their time at home miserable.
In my house, we do the assignments in the morning along with the Zoom meetings. We finish at lunchtime and have the afternoon free to enjoy ourselves with virtual socialization, gardening, taking walks, exercising together. The anxiety levels are very low. The support from the teacher has been amazing. I had been furloughed which has been difficult financially, but at least it gives me the opportunity to help with the schoolwork – if I was still working I’m not sure how much of it would get done at all.
Full days of school and homework from home sounds like absolute hell to me. The kids will be fine if they miss a few months of academic work. But they may never mentally recover from an ugly and tense situation made worse by unrealistic school demands.
Hug your kids, have them read a lot, make sure they stay in touch with friends, and be kind to the teachers and the administrators. The real crises are public health and mental health. Be kind.
I think the teachers have been amazing. The high school is minimum amount of zoom classes (one class per week plus office hours), and alot of work. While they are high schoolers and can do alot of work, it is more like an independent study for each grade. My kid benefits from more Zoom classes and less work.
The middle school program is zoom twice a week per class, which my kid is fine with plus work. My kid finishes the work by Wednesday night so my child has Friday’s free. I am not complaining.
Both kids would appreciate more instruction time. I think the high school delivery system is low Zoom and high amount of work. My kid misses the class discussion in each subject.
Both kids miss their friends – ALOT. And I am getting more concerned about their well being, as they are social beings, and Zoom/FaceTime doesn’t make a friendship. Since Day 1 I have heard that each family has their own social distancing rules. Ours has been strict. It is the four of us. We don’t go visiting places unless we can walk there. We have heard families visiting their friends in the park, and I am not ready for that until the Governor says we can do it. We have heard that some families chose another family to social distance with and again, we aren’t doing that. So yes, my teens are lonely.
Jerry-
Point of clarification: can you explain who or what NewtonCares is? What is its mission? What is its connection to NPS? How many Newton residents belong to this group?
Thanks.
From my limited perspective (one high school junior) I’d say the schools have been doing pretty well given the circumstances, but I’d like to see some changes in the month ahead. As NewtonMom says, in high school it’s been very limited Zoom class work but a lot of independent work. That works reasonably well for my daughter but I’m guessing less well for some students.
In the weeks ahead, I’d like to see the amount of on-line class room time increase – i.e. more actual instruction time from the teachers. Lots of high school age kids can do pretty well with a lot of guided self-instruction and assignments but at some point they will all need actual teaching – some kids more than others, and some subjects more than others.
@Jane Frantz – I think you might have missed the taking off point. We tried an experiment today and we’ll see how it goes, for future consideration.
Fignewtonville floated the idea of a weekly Open Post where people could suggest topics that they would like to see discussed on Village14. Two individuals (Isabelle and NewtonCares ) asked that two topics (“opening recreational facilities” and “how are Newton Schools doing”) be discussed. Both topics seemed to be of general interest to me and worth their own post.
I posted each of their brief individual comments as a start of discussion for those two topics.
So to answer you question. Newton Cares, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Newton Mom, and Jerry Reilly are just individual citizens offering their personal opinion of “how Newton Schools are doing”. We’d love to have you join the conversation since I’m sure you have a lot more info and perspective on the topic than we do.
I think our school system, like most other public institutions, is trying to get everything right and balanced under extremely trying circumstances. I applaud their moderation compared to some of the private schools noted earlier. Zoom sessions have been a great substitute for most of the in person political, professional and social gatherings I used to attend before the current debacle drove everything off the rails. They are a tremendous lifeline to people, places and things. That said, the idea that very young people (actually people of any age) would be forced to suffer through hours and hours of ZOOM instruction every day seems cruel and counterproductive. In the good old days, we would have chalked it up for time off in Purgatory, but I don’t know how the Curia keeps score on things like that today. Sitting through multiple Power Point presentations as an adult during my last years in government was bad enough, but at least you could get the main points and nod off. I suspect a lot (maybe most) of the kids nod off or tune out if too much is thrown at them. I know I could be physically in the classroom, but my mind would be climbing Mount Monadnock or racing my 3 speed up 128 in the early 50s. I’m certain students like me are a continuing challenge.
Is Newton Cares an organization or you and two anonymous posters?
Newtoncares argument is a poor launching point for a discussion since it is loose on facts at best. First, it’s not all optional – there has been required classes and work for several weeks now. And other nearby towns like Needham and Wellesley that we are often compared with are following a similar model.
I have a very different opinion of how NPS is doing: I think that it is failing big time and that many of the problems are the result of poor administrative leadership.
My high school freshman is not finding the current approach at all low-stress. In theory, he could just blow it all off, since it’s technically optional–that is, he wouldn’t flunk for not doing any more work at all. But in practice, he’s well aware that he’s going to be behind in next year’s classes, especially math, even doing all the work they assign (which is less than will be expected next year).
There are myriad problems, but let me just mention two and their mental health implications. First, the onus is entirely on the students (with or without parental support) to coordinate postings, emails, and announcements for 6-8 classes (math, science, history, English, foreign language, health [req’d], and up to two electives). And since teachers all put the required information in different places, sometimes from week to week, it’s quite a rabbit hunt to find it all.
Second, there is NO INSTRUCTION on the materials for assignments–the SCHEDULE DOES NOT ALLOW it. Assignments are posted Monday morning, teacher office hours are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, classes are Thursdays and Fridays, and assignments are due by the end of the day on Friday. Teachers are ONLY AVAILABLE for individual student questions during their office hours, so students have to self-instruct and do enough work on the materials and assignments in a subject before the teacher’s office hours in order to have any one-on-one answers to questions. That requires adult-level planning and the stress of trying to finish a lot of work on Mondays and Tuesdays. My son talked with one teacher in office hours on Tuesday, did more of the work that day and the next day, found he had another question, so emailed to request speaking with the teacher again, and got the response that teachers are only allowed to have individual meetings with students during office hours. (And this is a teacher that we know from earlier in the year to be conscientious and responsive to students!) Class time is 20 minutes per week for each class. The main subjects (math, English, etc.) are usually 4 hours per week. That’s about 8 percent of the usual class time. No matter how wonderful a teacher, no one can cover even 1/10th of the weekly material in that time!
All this organizing and planning and self-instruction is stressfully difficult for teenagers. The executive functioning part of the brain that handles these skills doesn’t fully develop until about age 21. Why does NPS demonstrate no evidence of knowledge about this cognitive and educational research?! The stress involved in trying to handle such an inappropriate organization load is irresponsible on the part of the district, because the arrangement of when classes and office hours occur as well as whether teachers are allowed to have additional one-on-one meetings with students are administrative decisions.
Fleischman has proven a very poor leader in how he’s handled many issues, including
(1) burying later-school start times in committee (when educational research shows it saves lives, improves grades, reduces athletic injuries, reduces achievement gaps, and more),
(2) trying to cover up racist incidents at schools,
(3) bad-mouthing the district in a national newspaper (he told the Wall Street Journal there are too many Newton kids on IEPs), and
(4) mishandling the accusations of an anti-Semitic curriculum (he should have released the curriculum materials immediately to show the accusations were unfounded).
Students also have a very poor opinion of Fleischman. It was South students who outed his plagiarism six years ago and were furious that the School Committee only gave him a slap on the wrist for it. Students also organized a few years ago to support the custodians when Fleischman was going to throw them all out of work by outsourcing NPS janitorial work. Now Fleischman’s proving his substandard leadership by having waited around for the state to tell him to begin to plan for schooling the district’s students remotely and then by producing a plan that demonstrates zero comprehension of the educational research on cognitive development and learning.
In ten years in NPS, I have met two administrators who have impressed me as stunning in both their knowledge and their efforts on behalf of students, and they have now BOTH resigned. Karen Shmukler was Assistant Superintendent of Student Services for only two years (she’d been in a similar position at Brookline for ten years); she was fantastic and beginning to make some badly needed improvements. But Fleischman’s bad-mouthing NPS Student Services to the WSJ put her in an untenable position, and she resigned.
Joel Stembridge has been principal of Newton South High School for about ten years, and he has done excellent things, including instituting the SOS program to ensure that there are no more suicides at South. He also advocated for later school start times (which lower suicide rates)–that advocacy must have been difficult given Fleischman’s opposition, which basically amounted to admission that he didn’t have the leadership skills to handle implementation of later school start times. On Friday (May 1), Stembridge announced his resignation, having accepted a position elsewhere.
It is not a good sign when such excellent staff leave the district! At that level of administration, it is the superintendent’s direct responsibility to retain excellent staff. So either Fleischman didn’t recognize them as excellent staff or he was unable to retain them. Either way, these resignations are further evidence that Fleischman is a poor leader.
The School Committee needs to step up and do a very in-depth examination of the competence of Fleischman. I don’t expect them to take my word for it. I am confident that an independent assessment will demonstrate how many ways he is failing the district. With such evidence in hand, they need to remove him from office and hire someone who is knowledgeable about educational research; whom students, teachers, and staff can respect; and who is not merely an experienced administrator but a proven leader in educating students for the 21st century! Newton deserves better!
I don’t know the organization Newton Cares, but it sounded familiar, so I googled it and this came up: https://patch.com/massachusetts/newton/newton-cares-heres-13-reasons-why
@Jane Frantz – I’m at a loss about your confusion. The first italicized line in the post above explains that this post (and the one below it) were instigated by individual V14 commenters.
Further down in the comments, when you asked about how many people are in Newton Cares etc, I explained again that this post is not a Guest Post by an organization but was a request by an individual commenter who’s V14 handle is “NewtonCares”. Much like the post below was requested by “Isabelle”
In both cases, though I have some differences of opinions with both Isabelle and NewtonCares on the topics, I thought they both raised timely topics worth discussing. In the case of this thread in particular, I think the range of opinions expressed is important and worth airing.
We are all involved in a big and difficult experiment that has been thrust upon us and our children by the Covid19 situation. The school department, the teachers, the students, and their parents are all struggling to make this radically different form of schooling work as best as it can. Its not surprising that there is such a wide variety of opinions about what’s “working”, “what’s not” and what various stakeholder would like to see improved.
As an educator, I’d love to hear your take on the issues being discussed rather than repeated attempts to somehow discredit the person who raised this very timely and important topic.
What do you think is working? What do you think isn’t? What incremental improvements do you think are desired/practical/possible over the remainder of the school year?
Jane, I’m not part of any group related to the schools, unless you count the PTO. I do think the Newton schools are trying, and clearly the teachers are trying. For the high achievers and kids working above grade level, I think it is working, although they were exceeding grade level so who knows if they are making the same progress, especially in the younger grades. But for kids that were struggling, this has been a horrible development. Very few of the parents I’ve talked to have thought this process is working for the kids on IEPs or 504s. It barely worked before.
One of my kids can finish the work for the week by Monday afternoon, the other is in tears by 2. I’m spending 3 to 4 hours a day teaching my kids, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, for them or me.
I’m not blaming anyone for this. But if this is the new normal for next year at some point, I’m hoping the school system can use the summer to figure out what worked, what didn’t work, and do a more effective job.
I can certainly understand the frustrations on all sides. The teachers often have young kids too, and I’m on the zoom calls, I know how hard this is. But I’m not going to pretend it is working so folks feel better about the situation.
My only resolution is to keep my kids learning through the summer since they no longer have summer camp. Focus on reading and math enrichment. What else can I do?
Dang, Jerry, the limitations of virtual communication! There is, in fact, an organization called Newton Cares. In a time when new organizations and FaceBook pages have popped up and redefined their mission, I was wondering if this was the case. Believe it or not, my life is incredibly busy right now, and I misread your second comment.
Unfortunately, I have had a very bad, ongoing experience with an anonymous poster on V14 and since that time have a long-standing policy of not responding to people who do not post under their real name. That being said, I’m more than happy to have a conversation with you. BTW, Tricia is not anonymous (at least to me).
The positives. The teachers are trying. We will survive this. Thank goodness for technology. I was a critic of the NPS’ focus on Chromebooks. If not for the virus, I would still be, but in retrospect it was a good decision.
The negatives. NPS was late to the game. Instead of declaring a week of “snow days” and telling teachers that they were off, the administration should have mobilized immediately. Wellesley and Weston immediately contacted parents about internet service and computer access. NPS took well over a week to get around to this first step.
Thanks to teachers, things are moving. Still, the administration is pushing for education “light.” Why focus only on classes on Thursday and Friday? The administration is guiding teachers to move AWAY from online classes and rather have the kids watch a video. Online classes give the kids a chance to interact with their teachers and other students during a difficult time? Why cut this off?
Is the NPS effectively using the $1.5 million dollars of city resources they receive per day to deliver education in this difficult time? I don’t know. To answer this we need to compare notes with parents in other towns.
Since teacher/admin salaries are compared to neighboring districts during contract negotiation time… it is very fair to compare Newton’s performance against other school districts..
The robustness and leadership of any organization can often be judged during a crisis.
OK; I have written 3 responses and deleted them all. Mostly due to the probability of getting ‘flamed’.
But a few thoughts:
– When did the ‘deal’ between parents and schools change? Why do schools focus more on social-emotional support and not teaching? I want the schools to provide the eduction, and let parents raise their children.
– How is 20-40 minutes of instruction, per week per subject seen as OK? This is WOEFULLY INADEQUATE.
– Curriculums are designed to be incremental .. to build on previous lessons … and we’re effectively missing 3 1/2 months of an entire academic year’s worth. HOW CAN ANYONE THINK THIS IS OK?
– NPS (and perhaps Mr Fleischman in particular) needs to proactively determine how they’ll get our students ready to ‘step-up’; be innovative, be creative and DO SOMETHING. I am not optimistic that our current leadership will get this right – it would be first time in 9 years.
I settled in Newton in part because of the ‘awesome’ school system here. What happened? Why are we content to compare ourselves to neighboring communities and be satisfied with ‘comparable’?
Other than this, no strong feelings on the subject.
I don’t have kids in the NPS, but live in a neighborhood with many young families. What I am hearing from neighborhood parents is kids with IEPs are struggling – A LOT. Parents I speak to say Newton schools started late compared to neighboring districts, and then took April vacation (?) A teenager who is a neighbor is really worried that he’s not learning anything in math and wonders what is going to happen next year. Another teenager up the street has already been accepted to college and thinks it’s all a joke because apparently there is no grading and everything is optional (?) so he’s not bothering. Not sure how accurate this is, but this is what parents have told me directly.
Newton Runner: On the math subject, from experience the math enrichment programs run by various groups around the city are terrific. Difficult to schedule, but terrific. If there is a kid that likes math, I highly recommend. Not for everyone, but it has been terrific for one of my kids.
Newton did not take April vacation. Just Patriot’s Day.
I will add that our school was not proactive about maintaining IEP needs during this time. I had to specifically reach out to them and once I did, I had a meeting with the IEP team and they developed some ways to help. At first I was told that they were not ALLOWED to provide SPED services per Fleishman which was kind of ridiculous. They were later allowed to do it, but it took action on my part. Now my child on an IEP is having Zoom meetings 4x a week with special educators and some helpful apps for additional academic support.
@NewtonMom and @fignewtonville thanks for your replies. I had placed question marks next to the statements made to me that seemed dubious (April vacation and no grading) because, not having kids in the schools, my information was not from the primary source. I’ll pass on the info to the kid who likes math and wants to keep learning (and his parents)