As the Newton Public Schools (NPS) parent and guardian community looks toward the 20-21 school year, it’s worth taking some time to quantify what is being lost and what can be regained. The delay in the start of the school year results in 10 fewer school days. Using the high schools as an example, academic time is decreasing from 6.1 hours per day over 180 days to 3.2 hours per day over 170 days. The combined effect amounts to a 50% loss in academic time.
The actual loss will be greater. Core academic delivery will be further decreased by class discussion. While valuable, the current model indicates this may amount to 75 percent of class time. . Also, the percentages above assume the same proportion of extra help time as in a standard school year. If Wednesday, 20 percent of the school week, becomes an extra help day, the decrease in core academic teaching is even greater.
Those who follow closely the trends at NPS have observed a movement away from rigor. The proposed high school grading model of A, B, Pass and No Grade, does not lead to motivated youth. This grading model does not inform parents, students, or colleges about subject mastery. The NNHS orientation call indicated that “for now” Advanced Placement (AP) exams will be retained, but parents will be informed of the final decision later. Should the high schools choose to no longer participate in Advanced Placement, this will result in further reduced rigor and parents will need to obtain permission from a nearby district to have their child join that district’s Advanced Placement exams.
A not-insubstantial number of students will rightly be invited back into the buildings for full time or frequent in person instruction. This group includes but is not limited to English Language Learners, those who did not well-access online learning in the Spring (20+ percent of NPS students did not routinely join Zoom classes), those deemed high needs for economic reasons, those in special education that are not in the general population or are otherwise deemed to need in-person instruction, some children of staff, and others the district would like to see in the building. This potentially large group means there will be two school systems operating – remote and in-person. Teacher-access in this model will be challenging at best, leading to further academic loss, especially for students not allowed into the building.
This review tells me that supplementing will be needed. If you share that view and would like to join an email distribution list that will work to put in place those supplements, either as a recipient or volunteer subject matter expert, please email me at [email protected]. I will collect names and progressively, through email, facilitate positive action for academic success as we know more about the curriculum over the next 30 days.
Thank you for your efforts.
The moment we knew there would be no in-person classes for most students (which should have been a month ago), the start date of school should have been moved back to the normal date. If we are being honest the date should never have been moved to begin with.
How many parents are thinking about moving their kids to private school?
Any recommendations of private schools still accepting students, specifically at the high school level?
On my Newton Centre street, 3 families have opted for private schools.
This post is riddled with errors and inaccuracies. The high school schedule has far more than 3 hours of class time per day and the “discussions” are actually a valuable part of the academic experience. And the new grading model does tell everyone about mastery, that’s what it’s based on – an A exceeds expectations, a B meets expectations, etc. Whether your kid got a 90 or an 89 or a 91 is meaningless in terms of assessing their overall competency. I welcome this change as it reduces Newton’s obsession with GPAs. And the high schools don’t administer the AP exams, that’s an outside organization, so they can’t commit to something out of its control. They WILL continue offering AP-level courses. There’s plenty to complain about how NPS handled things, but high school parents need to just accept this is the best it’s going to get to ensure equity and the broad array of diverse course offerings and levels everyone is so fond of.
@AnotherNewtonGutWithAnOpinion – my question about the new grading model is “why now?”.
If this was any other year and this was being proposed it wouldn’t particularly concern me. My concern with changing the grading model at this moment is that it almost certainly is inherently tied to what’s going on in NPS Covid world.
During last spring’s on-line program, grades pretty much went out the window (for undertstanable reasons).
With the schools promising that this year, whether its in-person or on-line every effort will made to cover curriculum and teach kids whatever should be covered for their grade. Admittedly that’s a tall order under these trying circumstances.
Changing the grading system right now to something that’s sort of similar but different seems like a “moving the goalposts” type of thing before we’ve even begun. What little I heard in the way of an explanation for why we would be undertaking a change to the grading system sounded a bit like doubletalk, and not like a clear cogent rationale.
I agree, I too would welcome an effort to reduce an obsession with GPA. I worry though that that is not what’s driving this change. With everything else going on this Sept I have hard time thinking this has nothing to with Covid’ville. The appropriate time to make a change like that seem to me to be at the start of a normal school year.
@AnotherNewtonGuyWithAnOpinion-I need to accept that “this is the best it’s going to get to ensureequity”? No, I don’t accept that, especially if “the best it’s going to get” looks anything like last spring. From what I heard and read, one of the main drivers for the spring experience was equity, and a repeat of that is unacceptable to me. Not sure if you had any kids in high school last year, but for my kid and many others I have spoken to, any teaching ended mid-March. I gave a pass to NPS in the spring due to the circumstances, but the story from NPS for the fall has been that “this year will be different”. So, I expect it to be. As far as grades, I am not at all obsessed with GPAs. I honestly could not tell you what my son’s GPA is, nor did I know what my daughter’s GPA was when she graduated. But guess who does care…..colleges. Yes, I’ve heard people say that things are changing and colleges no longer rely as much on GPAs or SAT scores. That was all before COVID hit. I fear that colleges will once again place a lot of weight on these because that is the only way they will be able to tell how much students in different districts and area of the country have actually learned. If we have another year of what we experienced in the spring, our kids will be at a major disadvantage compared to private schools and districts who are putting an emphasis on teaching and learning new content.
@Jerry Reilly The grading change is definitely in part due to COVID because there will be far less reliance on tests for assessment purposes. Projects and class participation don’t need to be graded so specifically. But regardless of the driver, I’m all for making some lemonade out of these lemons. “You’re knocking it out of the park,” “You’re meeting expectations,” “You need to do better,” and “You didn’t meet expectations and failed” might not be what we’re all USED to seeing from teachers, but that’s how we’re all evaluated in the real world.
@Patrick Foster – Last year’s final quarter is, unfortunately, clouding many parents’ perceptions of the year to come (and I’m not debating that it was a disaster). Everyone needs to view this year with as clean a slate as possible. HSers will be “in” class every day, all day. There will be attendance, mandatory work, new material being presented, etc. Yes, it will be over a screen and not in person, but otherwise it should be pretty much the same material being covered. I’m sure there will be a high variability in how teachers take advantage of (or don’t fully utilize) the online environment, and some classes might suck, and some students may struggle with not having someone physically looking over their shoulder all the time. I would hope teachers will have regular 1:1 sessions with their students to mitigate this. But we won’t know until we get into it and they work the kinks out. And when I talk about “the best it’s going to get to ensure equity” I just want people to stop thinking there’s some option that hasn’t been considered. Until every student, student’s family, and teacher are all 100% OK with going back into the building for an entire day five days a week, 100% remote is the only way to have an equitable offering, which is what you sign up for when you send your kids to public school. There is logistically no “separate but equal” option at the HS level.
I can’t tell you how the new grading system will fly with colleges and how they’re going to evaluate students during the next few years (and most likely they couldn’t tell you either, but they’re going to be scrambling for kids willing to pay tuition a lot more than they’ll be turning qualified applicants away). I can tell you that my senior isn’t even taking the SATs because not a single school she’s looking at requires them anymore, and she’s applying to some pretty competitive programs.
As a parent, I don’t know enough about the new grading system at high school to comment, but I can tell you that after 10 years of attending parent meetings about high school start times, that later start times are better for teens. But yet, after ten years of community discussion we haven’t been able to make the change.
But yet, in six months, NPS has made sweeping changes over the grading system without community meetings.
Why can we spend ten years talking about ONE subject (start time), and take months to change another (grading system) without community input?
@AnotherNewtonGuy,
Very curious whether you have any insight to share about how colleges that aren’t SAT required describe admissions process now. I know many say they use a holistic review but in the past those were heavily weighted on grades. Another factor- college admissions counselors do get to know high schools quite well – or so they claim. So they know which programs are “vigorous”. The whole admissions process has for years been high stakes stress for students – and very much dog-eat-dog if you read College Confidential (don’t is my advice). It would be nice if schools re-evaluated admissions more fully after the Varsity Blues fiasco but not holding my breath.
@Lisap This is our first go-round with the application process, so I am not claiming to be an expert in the slightest. We just researched each school and program and checked to see if they require test scores this year (and they don’t). My understanding is that grades, letters of recommendation, their “resume”, etc., are part of it, and there’s a major emphasis on essays (the schools that have gone test-optional are usually requiring extra essays). Plus I’m guessing interviews will play a larger role.
Side note: This week the state of California ruled that the UC system can’t consider SAT/ACT scores AT ALL. California’s college system is so large it often is a precursor for what happens elsewhere. I’d guess all state schools will be in the same boat pretty soon.
@AnotherGuy
Got it. Been through it 3 times with mine and now anticipating at least one grad school app. The alumni interviews can be helpful or highly stressful for kids. My sense is they don’t really matter to admissions, but essays matter a lot! Presumably any interviews with admissions will be via zoom. Here’s one good thing – with virus students shouldn’t get dinged for not visiting campus (some schools have weighed that as a factor). I wish you and your daughter best success!
My eldest got into an ivy with the world’s lamest essay. She also had outstanding SAT and AP scores. I would not bank on California leading the way educationally. We were in CA when they had the self esteem curriculum, whole language curriculum (ie no phonics in learning to read) and new math curriculum all of which have been abandoned because educational research proved them ineffective.
To keep going Santa Cruz began as a grades free college, and quickly reverted to grading college students traditionally. And one of the leading educational proponents of all this nonsense, Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford Professor, founded a Charter school based on these types of theories that the State of California shut down because it was failing the children.
@Lucia,
Somehow I think your eldest was an academic star even with a lame essay.
Did anyone watch the Newton South Q&A Zoom this morning? I watched chunks but since there was no call in audio number i missed a portion when I had to leave the house as I lost connection on my iPad. The parts I heard where very unsatisfying. A few takeaways I had:
*The Interim Principal, Mark Aaronson started and ended the meeting admonishing the parents on the tone communications were taking. He felt it brought about an initial defensive response from the person receiving the communications – Honestly this was the wrong approach. He should have acknowledged that people are angry and in my opinion been empathetic to how we are feeling.
*He said he did not want to communicate wrong information so he is holding off on communicating information. – Great so we will be waiting until the last minute to know anything,
*When asked about the schedule he said that was still being “negotiated”. He said it was a challenge not having teacher input when creating schedules so now they are getting their input.
*No schedule changes will be allowed for students because if every student cannot have things changed then it is not equitable. *Discussed Wednesdays – I guess I missed this info from the SC presentations but on this day learning does not occur. It is reserved for office hours. Someone asked how thar would work and he said that would depend on staff and student willingness – so basically this is a non school day. I don’t usually get fixated in hours of learning but how does this figure into thar calculation and how can the hs be even close to meeting what is required?
*There was a question about technology- he said that if they were not able to get the technology to all students then all would have to take a step back, – Let’s hope that enough parents indicated that their child already has access to a device and isn’t dependent on NPS to supply one to make it possible for NPS to provide for the students in need.
This is just so messed up. I wish I were sending my kids to private school.
@Newton Highlands Mom – From the sounds of it, the NNHS & NSHS presentations couldn’t have been more different. I only attended the North one but they really had their act together, were extremely upbeat and positive, and had some very creative solutions to the challenges of the coming year. I came away feeling great about their plans. They also did it a week earlier. I’m guessing it’s a bad year to have an interim principal…
If you wanna see how the other half lives: https://youtu.be/vGZVLvS_868
I sat through both the NNHS and the NSHS presentations and I agree with @ANGWAO – the NNHS one – while still unsatisfactory – had a lot more info. As @Newton Highlands Mom says, the NSHS presentation was – let’s just say – infuriating. To start out and end by chiding parents on their ‘tone’ without acknowledging the amazing mess we are all in right now was unbelievable. Plus, there was NO information at all on anything. Everything was still ‘in progress’ or they were still ‘trying to figure things out’. On Sep 2. And there was maybe 5 mins on actual educational content that was going to be covered. Instead, we were again chided on expecting that the schools would be able to cover the curriculum at all. It’s almost like there was no summer and nothing it seems was thought out at all during this time. My child is despondent.