Back on January 10, in response to this letter from Newton’s doctors and scientists, a majority of the City Councilors sent this memo to the City. The memo outlined four steps that they were urging the Newton School Dept to take to help get our students back in school safely.
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On January 15 the mayor responded with this memo:
To the Honorable City Councilors who wrote regarding Reopening our Schools for In-Person Learning,
In-person schooling is so important to the overall well-being of our children. We all want our students in the classroom. Your passion and advocacy for in-person teaching and learning with appropriate risk mitigation protocols is widely shared.
HHS and NPS will continue to use effective, fact-based approaches and protocols from trusted researchers, scientists and medical professionals. That’s how we can fully reopen sooner rather than later.
We are already planning for next year, deciding on expanded testing for teachers, staff and potentially students, working with experts, and looking for ways to increase opportunities for in-person learning.
- In December, we launched a testing program for asymptomatic in-person school staff.
- We have established a working group, including medical expert consultants and a medical professional who is volunteering, to evaluate the potential expansion of testing protocols and the recent announcement of state resources.
- We have professional relationships with medical doctors who support decision making on in-person learning and risk mitigation strategies and we continue to learn from additional scientists and doctors.
- Vaccine distribution has already begun and HHS will work with many partners across the Commonwealth to ensure the widest and most expedient distribution possible according to state and federal priorities, including our educators. We recognize the vaccination of our educators is an important step toward full re-opening.
- With the vaccine on the horizon, NPS is exploring the implications for additional in-person learning for the spring. NPS is also planning for the fall with the goal of the option of full in-person teaching and learning for families.
Mayor Ruthanne Fuller
I vote for the City Council memo. I give the signers credit for keeping the pressure on the Mayor and School Administration. The actions of the Mayor and School Administration have consistently lagged the needs of the moment, going back to last summer. Time and time again there seems to be a reluctance to act, too much caution, until they are dragged by the weight of facts and logic to do the right thing.
The Mayor seems to be balancing her constituent’s demands. I don’t know how much she hears from people advising more caution, to go slow about reopening? However, in the absence of any news reporting, I think that people rely on her newsletters as an information source. The problem with that is the newsletters have an inherent bias. They fill a news vacuum with just one side. This is so unfortunate. I’ve said this before, quoting the Washington Post…Democracy Dies in Darkness.
Everything in Newton has taken longer in the Pandemic and we haven’t improved with experience. For the most part the citizens that have pointed to facts and science about school reopening have been proven right. We need bolder and bigger thinking, not the Mayor’s conservatism. It’s our kids who are being hurt and its enough. We’ve yet to fully appreciate the damage our inaction and bias towards conservatism has caused. What happens consistently now in Newton is not okay. It needs to change. Yet under Mayor Fuller and Superintendent Fleishman I do not see this happening.
Mr. Slater seems rather sanguine about playing with the health and safety of the citizens of Newton. Thank goodness he is not Mayor.
The Mayor is 100% correct to take it slowly and methodically rather than bowing to the pressure of the mob; a well meaning mob but a mob nonetheless.
At Elmo, who hides behind a pseudonym..
I’ve no desire or qualification to be Mayor! I do wish that one of the City Councilors that signed the letter would step up to provide us a choice.
I do have a child in our system. The damage from the effects of the pandemic has been profound. The parents are not a mob. Our Governor wants kids in school. Our President wants kids back in school. I work in person in a private school which is open full time. The fears are honest and valid but can be addressed with leadership and planning. The gains to being in person are immeasurable, and will follow our children throughout their lives.
Elmo,
The vast majority of Newton voters who want the kids back in school are not a “mob.” I would argue that the patience that has be shown to all of our leaders has been remarkable. That patience is very unlikely to continue if our kids are not fully back in school in the fall, and any elected leader that wishes to be reelected should fully understand the stakes of inaction.
On 1/6/21, a mob of pro-Trump supporters attacked the Capitol building in Washington and the country was horrified by this. Unfortunately, one of the aftereffects of this attack is that now some people try to win arguments by implying that any group who disagrees with them are similar to the perpetrators of the Capitol attack. I think that is what Elmo is doing by identifying the pro-school-opening faction as a mob.
I hope this new debate technique goes away soon.
Elmo-
If wanting my high school student to be back to in-person classes after not stepping foot in a classroom for almost 1 year makes me part of a mob…..then count me in! If wanting my high schooler back to in-person classes when ALL of his friends from other school districts and private schools have been hybrid since September with higher COVID rates compared to Newton makes me part of a mob….then count me in again!
Elmo the parents wanting our kids back in school are not a mob. Our kids are unfortunately going to pay the price for years to come. If you have been able to pay attention to the details of the situation you would see how poorly this has been managed. It could honestly be a case study on what not to do.
There has been no urgency on the Mayor’s part. There have been medical professionals and safe environment experts who have been willing to offer their expertise since at least July. She literally rebuffed Dr Walensky when she offered help in July. She has not been listening. She stated she was only one member of the SC rather than taking leadership and putting all hands on deck. No one has taken accountability between the Mayor, NHHS and the Superintendent. Watch the Program and Services meeting from Jan 6th where Dr. Youngblood answers questions around the 1:14:02 mark https://newtv.org/recent-video/107-committee-meetings-and-public-hearings/6577-programs-and-services-committee-january-6-2020 to hear the lack of accountability and lack of coordination of stakeholders. Brookline has working groups addressing every facet of this issue who meet regularly https://www.brookline.k12.ma.us/Page/2621.
My kids who are in Hs have not been in a school building for 10 months. It didn’t have to be this way. NPS did not prepare 3 workable plans in order to be able to transition between remote, hybrid or full in person based on what health conditions dictate. They didn’t start the HVAC review until mid September when the City Council put pressure in the SC and Mayor. In analyzing this crisis that should have been one of the first things addressed. I personally was wondering before the School Year started why they hadn’t come out with a document reviewing each building and as it turns out the reason they hadn’t was because they hadn’t reviewed the buildings. They let people worry about the safety of the schools. They have let fear cause division rather than having experts guide them. They have been unable to work with the stakeholders.
The whole situation has been enlightening on the poor decision making that has occurred with NPS, and the ultimate responsibility lies with the Mayor herself.,
Elmo,
I have been patient for a year (nearly). Newton isn’t going to add a grade 13 for these kids. At age 18 these kids will be expected to leave high school. Are these kids as well prepared for post high school? I don’t think these kids will have the same skills as recent graduates. These kids need school and they to have good, solid curriculum. Physics, chemistry, etc are hands on activities. I love Khan Academy, but I need my kid to have hands on learning.
And by no means, am I going to storm the Ed Center, like the people did on January 6 at the Capitol. I am going to continue to email the leadership to come up with a safe plan for the teachers and the students, so that we can continue to provide a solid education to the kids of Newton.
Last night’s email from the Mayor included the following:
An Ad Hoc Medical Advisory Task Force will work alongside the District Planning Team to advise on health and safety related issues. The medical advisory group consists of:
Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean, Brown University School of Public Health, NPS parent
Dr. Sandra Nelson, Infectious Disease Specialist, Mass General Hospital
Dr. Eric Rubin, Professor and Chair, Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard Chan School of Public Health
Dr. Brenda Anders Pring, Pediatrician, HHS Advisory Board, NPS parent
Dr. Karen Sadler, Pediatrician, NPS School Physician
Dr. Dori Zaleznik, Infectious Disease Specialist, former City of Newton Chief Administrative
Officer, HHS Commissioner and School Committee member
The mayor’s language— that she and the School Committee are “exploring the implications” for additional in-person learning this spring “with the goal of the option of full in-person teaching and learning” this fall—inspires neither urgency nor commitment.
Dr. Fleishman used similarly vague language during the five-slide presentation buried into hour 3 of the School Committee meeting on Monday, when he communicated about the newly proposed working group and ad-hoc medical advisory group, both of which the mayor has since asserted will steer Newton’s alleged, but wholly unformed, efforts to increase in-person learning this spring and fall.
I am grateful to these City Councillors for speaking up for our children and articulating the urgent need for specifics, action, and assurances from school leadership.
Ashish Jha has been advocating for safely opening schools since the summer. I’m glad he will be on board.
Ashish is a wonderful and thoughtful and knowledgeable person. I’m not familiar with all of the others, but it is generous of them to serve. The issue that was left unclear by the Superintendent’s rather quick presentation is, “What is the charter for this group?” The 100+ doctor-parents who sent in their letter, and the City Council in their memo, and the petition sent in by many dozen of parents set forth several objectives for an expert advisory panel. It would be interesting to cross-reference that with the ultimate work plan requested of this group and see where there are similarities and differences.
I predict that the mayor and school administration will run out the clock. They will delay until the pandemic is under control and then say the entire process of getting kids back to school is moot.
@Newton Highlands Mom, I so agree with everything you say esp:
“They let people worry about the safety of the schools. They have let fear cause division rather than having experts guide them. They have been unable to work with the stakeholders.”
David Fleishman is the man with the “plan” that was not usable, that excluded not only the experts in pedagogy and the buildings, but the SC too. I remember the stunned look on the SC members’ faces when DF unveiled the first plan minutes before the meeting when SC members were to vote on it. Really? I’ve seen CEOs fired for stuff like this and I feel unfortunately that is the only way things are going to change.
The teachers need to be included in the plan or the plan is not going to work, not because they are union members, but because they know what they speak of.
Let’s remember teachers are our top revenue-producing employees. Our school systems has the largest impact on our revenue and property prices.
You want to keep your top employees happy, stop treating them like this. Duh.
BTW the reason the buildings and HVACS were checked because NTA kept insisting on it.
In general, NPS should be given a break given the pandemic.. HOWEVER
The difference between NPS and neighboring schools (and even private schools within Newton) is so staggering that the only explanation is “incompetence” or ???
Lack of leadership from all parties involved and I hope people remember when its time to vote
The Ad Hoc Medical Advisory Task Force needs to include conversations with NPS teachers and staff as part of its work. The unsustainable workload, as well as the lack of understanding of the reality of this year within the schools, have had a serious physical and emotional impact on every NPS employee.
In order to move forward, we need active listeners from the task force to spend at least some time in a school while it’s in session in order to understand the challenges teachers and staff face during a pandemic.
My message to the Medical Advisory Task Force: teachers and staff who work in the schools have a unique and important story to tell about their experiences during this pandemic. If the voices of those who work in the trenches are not included, your work will be incomplete.
Make no mistake – I’m completely supportive of the establishment of this task force and think its existence is critically important in the decision making process as we move forward. However, up to this point – almost one year into the pandemic — the outreach to NPS staff from the medical community other than the Broad Institute – has been missing. While I appreciate seeing Dr. Ashish Jha on the David Muir news show several times a week, he and his colleagues might think about a few zoom meetings with NPS employees to hear another perspective on the issues the task force needs to grapple with.
@Jane: I don’t think there really is time for the task force to now also start meetings and interviews with numerous teachers and staff to discuss their unique and important stories. Let’s not forget the emotional impact on the children and families in the NPS system as well.
To your second point, are you really suggesting we should now first start to discuss and debate which types of experts can be considered experts on the expert panel that is being created to expedite the reopening of schools? What criteria do you suggest (which degrees, field of expertise)?
Roadblock after roadblock is being created. I have no deeper insights in the power struggles between city/NPS/NTA, but in the mean time, people who can are running from NPS to private schools as fast as they can (unfortunately).
I agree totally with Jane. While the disruption in education has been pervasive through the vast diversity of student learners, there is no doubt that the impact on teachers, school nurses, and other staff has also been substantial and needs to be addressed in an empathetic and positive manner. Doing so well and throughly requires the type of listening she suggests.
Needham High is now closed after its 30th positive case in ten days, with evidence of in-school transmission.
https://www.facebook.com/TheNeedhamChannel/videos/236882178088433/
I did not suggest the working group meet with individual members or have numerous meetings. I suggested that the group’s work would be incomplete without input from the people who work in the schools and happen to have a unique perspective that has not yet been included in the process at this point. I’m talking about a zoom meeting or two. No big deal.
NTA has had limited input in the reopening process. Its major focus was on establishing a surveillance testing program and ensuring that the upgrades to the ventilation systems were robust. If you see that as a power struggle, then so be it. I think it made for safer schools. As for the plans for the reopening of elementary and MS, we had no input and were blamed for the outcome.
Parents can and should do what they think is best for their children. If private school is the preferred solution, families should pursue that option. I teach part-time and have four grandsons, so I’m keenly aware of the serious impact this pandemic has had on families and children. However, that doesn’t mean ignoring the needs of the teachers and staff is acceptable or in the best interest of students.
☑️ Ventilation has been brought up to spec.
☑️ Weekly testing available starting next week.
☑️ Hy-flex started this week.
What are we arguing about? Onwards!
While I don’t disagree that ever parent should do what they believe is in the best interest of their child, I recognize that some families have the ability to consider alternatives to NPS but most do not. It is poor policy or attitude that we as a community would accept declining enrollment because some children are able to get an education that NPS is unable or unwilling to provide. We obsess over equity and then we seen to continually enact the most inequitable policies. We can safely increase in-person leaning this Spring and return to full in-person learning this Fall for any family that desires it if we start making decisions based in science and not in politics.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. We are now arguing about who gets to be in the group to argue about what to do about a problem that all the available science indicates isn’t a problem at all?
This is a very simple situation:
Newton schools are starting this fall as normal, fully, and in-person. Any teacher that doesn’t want to come in on September 8th should use the time between now and then to find a new career.
From various conversations I’ve had, I can tell you that private school applications are through the roof. If NPS is not open to full-time, in-person instruction in the fall, we are going to see a mass exodus from the system. Would be terrible on so many levels – equity, funding integrity of the public system, quality of the public system, eventual hit to property values, etc.
NPS needs to start by increasing in-person learning in the spring. “Exploring the implications” doesn’t cut it. Especially once teachers have gotten the vaccine, what’s the hold up? The planning needs to start now…
I’m all for more in person learning as soon as possible but I haven’t seen any lobbying from the mayor or superintendent to get teachers pushed up in vaccine priority like I’ve seen from other communities. I think this would go a long way for making teachers feel more comfortable.
Is ventilation really up to spec? My child was treated to an open-window classroom today, on a 15 degree day plus wind.
MMQC – email Josh Morse! I have heard this today and yesterday. There is no need for the kids to freeze. The windows are meant to be cracked and not open all the way. Josh was specific that if the windows were opened all the way, it would cause the system not to work as well.
Thank you – I will!
My comment about parental choice was my personal opinion and approach while in conversation with individual parents, and in no way an what I consider good policy.
You’ll not find a stronger advocate for public education, and under no circumstances would I have sent my sons to private school. However, over a long career, I’ve had heartfelt and often difficult conversations with individual parents about what’s in the best interest of their child. In those conversations, I respect the choice a parent makes for their kid(s).
I don’t exactly know what people are fighting about on this thread. We’re going back to school next year. Teachers who are medically able to are back in school now. I don’t know why anyone would think teachers wouldn’t return in the fall unless they intended to retire, change professions, or make some other life change.
If you want more in-school instruction this spring, please contact Governor Baker’s office at 617) 725-4005 and tell him to step up the vaccination program.
MMQC – curious, who is opening these windows all the way? Our kid is in hy-flex one so we won’t know until Monday, but chances are, it’s probably not cold students who are opening these windows.
In the best case, teacher are concerned with their safety and kept the windows wide open..understandable.
Worst case – there are 2 possible scenarios…
Facilities is not satisfied with Mr. Morse’s assessment and kept them open.
Or someone(s) kept up them open out of spite – of having to return to hy-flex.
Does anyone know why?
This is what’s been said about teachers on just this one thread:
1. There will be teachers who refuse to go back to the classroom, even when vaccinated.
2. Teachers may be keeping windows open out of spite.
This is my sense of what’s going on here and on other local social media sites:
I’m in my house looking out at a beautiful sunny day and a cloudless sky – and once again, I’ll stay in my house trying to find something productive to do. After 11 months, the well has run dry and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m going stir crazy. Today’s big thrill will be going for a walk in 25 degree weather. We’re all sick to death of this whole situation, of being told this is a great “opportunity” to learn a new language, bake bread, or (please God no) make a quilt. I just want to go for coffee with a friend, meander down an aisle in a supermarket, or go to work like I did in normal times.
I’m as frustrated and angry as everyone else, but I don’t post attacks or innuendos about individual people or groups of people on social media, for goodness sakes. Discuss issues all you want, but refrain from attacking people on blogs and Facebook pages, especially when the attack has no basis in reality. When I get to that point when I feel this level of anger rising up in me, I call my sister and we rant – sometimes we rant three times a day. We all need a ranting friend, but your buds on Village 14 shouldn’t be that person.
Write with the person you’re attacking in mind. Write, reread, use the delete button when it’s appropriate. Do it for your community, because we have to live together and be able to work through serious problems together in the future.
Jane, I believe your last comment above was well intentioned, and agree we are a community. Please understand that when many parents read your post above about the difficulties of home isolation, they compare it to the challenges of managing distanced education for their children. The lost year of academics, the child meltdowns, the teenage depression. Trying to get an 8 year old not to spend a 30 minute independent learning block scribbling something on seesaw for 5 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of watching Youtube. All while struggling to manage their own full-time jobs during school hours. Listen to City Councilor Brenda Noel describe it during the Jan 6 city council HHS discussion.
I genuinely hope you get to go for coffee and to the supermarket soon, in good health. However, to write that these hardships make you “as frustrated and angry as everyone else” strikes the wrong note for someone who holds your position in Community Relations. That’s not an attack, that’s feedback about the issue at hand.
In your position, please think about the 99% of Newton parents who have demonstrated tremendous support for educators, and lobbied the City hard to make necessary HVAC and testing changes, rather than inflating the occasional social media random remark into a false parents vs. teachers narrative. Just about every conversation (real or virtual) among parents – even if highly critical of Newton’s institutions like the SC, Mayor’s Office, and NTA – contain thanks and appreciation for the individual NPS educators, deservedly so in this challenging year.
Adam B – I know your response is well intended, but I left out a whole lot of the story of my last year that you should know.
From March 12 -July 5, my husband and I formed pods with two of my sons who both had 3 and 1 year olds at the time. He is 74 and I’m 72. One day he’d go to one house and I’d go to the other to take care of the grandkids so my kids could work, then we’d switch houses the next day.
This wasn’t Grammy time – this was full-time childcare and all that it entails – carrying around a 30 pound baby, changing diapers, making meals, trying to keep the kids quiet so their parents could work, tantrums, meltdowns, pretending that I was a tiger in a cage (that meant sitting under a rhododendron bush. I spent a lot of time under that rhododendron) or “hibernating” under a coffee table with 10 stuffed animals – all because my grandsons didn’t have children to play with.
During this time, the playgrounds were closed, as were other places where we might have entertained them. As a result, I know every blade of grass in their lawns, where the best sewers are for dropping rocks into so they go plink, and how to play baseball with a different set of rules every day. There were no lunch breaks or time away because their parents didn’t have lunch breaks. It was relentless, exhausting, yet essential in order to keep all four parents employed.
One family decided to send their kids back to daycare when it reopened and the other family decided it wasn’t safe (thus my belief that it’s important to respect parental decisions). While the other family was committed to finding other childcare arrangements, it’s been nothing short of a nightmare. By September, I was back teaching in the mornings, so my husband would take care of the kids in the morning and when I finished my classes, I’d jump in the car and drive to Holbrook to cover the afternoons. The nannies can’t maintain a pod, have childcare issues of their own, or don’t show up. We’re on week 3 of a new childcare person and have our fingers crossed that this situation works out. When it falls apart, we’ll be back taking care of the kids. Needless to say, I’m frantic about the vaccine rollout because it’s the only way to end this situation.
I’m sorry that you thought I was sitting around pining for coffee with friends because I didn’t explain the reality of my situation in the past year. Trust me, it’s been a nightmare for me too. I wouldn’t change a thing that we’ve done in the last year, but please be aware that I know how difficult this situation has been for parents and in my own way, have lived it too.
Jane, I and presumably many other readers appreciate your writing such a personal note. You sound like a wonderful mother and grandmother. Yes, I believe you have empathy for what others are going through. We had my parents – also in their 70’s – visit their grandchildren in September before school started, and they haven’t seen them since because like every NPS hybrid family we are practicing maximum conservatism on outside activites; never wanting to be the family that causes a school shutdown.
I’ll leave you with this request: while 3 and 1 year olds certainly have their own special childcare challenges, think about the working parents of 5-12 year olds that may not have outside family or financial support, and on top of all the difficult you accurately wrote about are seeing their children incur what may be permanent academic and social deficits. Please think about the fear and dread those parents are feeling. I would not normally respond this much to an average V14 poster, but you are one of the people with influence on the outcome of this situation. Thanks and stay safe.
Will be forever grateful to the first responders, grocery workers, delivery persons who continued working throughout the pandemic..
If they had taken the stance of refusing to work until all customers were vaccinated the country would have literally collapsed
I’ll leave it at that…
Adam B – My students are middle schoolers and I see the pain they’re experiencing every day. I worry about them every day. Food insecurity for many of our students and is a huge issue that all teachers are concerned about. We are bound by confidentiality regulations so it’s impossible for me to tell you specifics about how teachers and staff are doing everything they can to alleviate dire situations, but I do hope you believe that that’s the case.
As for your last sentence, I have absolutely no influence on this situation. None whatsoever. I wish I did. I wish someone would listen – to anyone.
Bugek – Teachers are working many, many more hours under the current conditions than ever before. If you don’t know that at this point in the year, then I give up. I’ll just add your (adjectives deleted) comment to my list above – the one where teachers are keeping windows open out of spite and teachers aren’t going back in September.