Evan Allan explores rising enrollments, school building projects and Superintendent David Fleishman raises the prospects of the “R-word” in a Sunday Globe story.
Enrollment rose this year for the ninth straight year, reaching 12,438 by Oct. 1, according to preliminary numbers presented at a School Committee meeting Tuesday by Deputy Superintendent Sandra Guryan. This year’s kindergarten class of 960 is the largest in more than 40 years; across all grades the district added 268 students, a bump of 2.2 percent from last year, and the biggest single-year percentage increase in 20 years
There are ebbs and flows over decades in school enrollments. It doesn’t seem to me like Newton can open and close buildings as quickly as needed. The new Angier will be open in two years, and then the new Cabot two years from that. . . . by then these students will be approaching fifth grade, and on to middle school! This process is too slow.
Furthermore, the ability to oversee the construction of modulars and have them open in all locations this September was poor, at best. Burr is still waiting for one more modular. It is the end of October. The ability to monitor these projects is critical. The ability to have the construction companies be held responsible for delays is NOT there! There is the ability to have the city draft a construction contract with language that has monetary fines for construction not completed on time, but we have yet to do it. . . .
Lower Falls Community Center still is NOT completed. The construction was to be completed PRIOR to September 1, and the bathrooms and the kitchen are not complete. Was there any monetary fine for this delay? No. Who over sees these projects and why is it okay for the city to tolerate delays?
One of the methodologies I have used in evaluating the non-resident student programs in Newton Public Schools (EDCO, Staff Kids, Homeless students, Available-to-attend and METCO) is what would happen if we were to phase out these five programs and redistrict new enrollments on a space available basis (existing kids can choose to stay in their current school or go to another school that has more available space).
I don’t see why redistricting should be seen as “The R-Word”. In my professional opinion, Newton Public Schools would be going out of its way to not only ensure that redistricting is on a “prospective going-forward basis”, but to also communicate its intentions.
Before reading the story, I thought you were going to say the “R” word was Republican! 🙂
The problem is that Neither Yeo nor the Mayor have the vision to deal this issue. They should be looking at Aquinas ( which would be a good investment for the city )- that building would help alleviate many overcrowding issues.
They should look at Carr not as the swing space for the renovating schools but rather to possibly deal with Horace Mann and Lincoln Eliot issues and then maybe use Horace Mann as the swing space school for the new schools that are being built.
They should look at the 16th school.
They should look at the numbers for Metco, EDCO etc. If we are so overcrowded then why are we continuing to take more kids for these additional Program?
Maybe if our SC members had the vision we would not be in this position today. These are not new issues – they are just issues that they did not want to deal with until we have no place to put our kids.
Joshua, interesting ideas about non-resident kids but I disagree with a couple of your categories.
1. Staff kids is a great incentive to recruit and retain excellent teachers. The reality is that a good percentage of teachers can’t afford to purchase a home in Newton. I would take that one off the table.
2. Homeless students are RESIDENTS! They are vulnerable because they are homeless, but they are homeless in Newton, not homeless in Boston, or Watertown. These are our kids, and they are expected to get a public school education. I would take that one off the table too.
3. I don’t know what Available to Attend means. Please clarify.
4. METCO needs to be reviewed and analyzed. It is a successful program that began in the early 1960’s. It is important to take a look at it 50 years later.
Joanne, I agree with most of what you said. There is only one contested race for Ward 2 School Committee. I hope you vote for the candidate who has the best chance of shaking things up.
Janet, I’m surprised that Republicans in Newton would be considered as “The R-Word”.
I’m a little bewildered as to why there is such antipathy for Republicans in Newton. John McDermott and Tom Mountain have been running the Newton Republican City Committee since 1986 and I haven’t seen anything relating to political ideologies coming from that group under their leadership.
Republicans in this area have gone out of their way to participate and be respected in Newton community affairs. Tom Mountain tells his Republicans to sign everyone’s nomination papers regardless of the candidates’ political views.
I don’t see how Newton Republicans are perceived as anything but ordinary people who simply want to be liked and to live their lives with freedom and democracy?
Newton is a community that is a target for professionals moving to Greater Boston. Since Boston has experienced an economic boom during the past decade, homes are highly sought after. Enrollment growth will continue.
With the easy sale of homes and high taxes throughout the city /state many retirement homeowners are selling early and making space available for younger families.
In my neighborhood some young families with children are moving back into their aging parents homes. This quickly adds to the student enrollment rise. As home purchases are more difficult for young families I see this trend to continue.
A few comments:
Newton Mom, where do you get your information about damage provisions in Newton projects? They are a part of our contracts for the modulars.
Joanne, you are correct –these are not new issues. We were acutely aware of the need to add capacity and were public about this in the Long Range Plan of 2007. But a year later an override request failed by a strong margin, and it was clear that there would not be financial support for new construction until people regained trust in our local government.
We are in a different place now. Over the past three years the city developed a long range capital plan, engaged the MSBA in partnership to build a new Angier, and passed an override that provided capital for three elementary school projects. We have reconstructed our building department and have significant project management capacity that we have not seen before. Coming hires will allow us to manage even more work in the pipeline.
Modulars, buffer zones, and redistricting are valuable if imperfect tools to place variable-count student populations into fixed-size buildings. As Newton Mom points out, the slow lead time to get new permanent classroom space online is why we take advantage of these imperfect tools. Our new school designs have flexibility to handle some variability and this is what we will attempt to do with all new construction.
Joshua, redistricting challenges families and students alike, as so many of us develop strong ties to our neighborhoods and to the schools our children attend. Imagine all the kids in the neighborhood going to Williams and the next year and thereafter they all go to Angier. Many find this very traumatizing and this is why redistricting has been contentious whenever suggested.
Steve – Most of us still dont trust the city government. Don’t fool yourself that the override passed and everything is wonderful.
The main issue is this – I shouldn’t have to put out my vision – you and your 7 friends on the SC should be doing that.
You know as well as me – that what I have proposed above is the best and Cheapest way for the city to get out of this Enrollment crunch at least in the short term. And it gives the School time to get the other schools built.
The issue is DO you have the Backbone to propose it to your SC colleagues including the Mayor??
Steve, funny you should mention Williams and Angier. Lower Falls is a little buffer zone in which kids go to Angier or Williams.
“Imagine all the kids in the neighborhood going to Williams and the next year and thereafter they all go to Angier.” Uh Steve, that isn’t what is being proposed.
According to School Committee member Jonathan Yeo, “When redistricting does occur, it will be a public process and would likely be done gradually by rerouting students about to enter school, not those already attending a facility. The process may also need to look at how students are lined up to enter the middle and high schools.”
All things being equal, I’d prefer to see Williams kids going to Newton North rather than South.
Joanne, I don’t see how your vision addresses the city’s enrollment issues. Last time I checked, the most severe crowding was on the south side, far from the properties you mention. A 16th school surely wouldn’t be ready in the short term.
There is a misconception that the override money for Zervas is bound to a rigid plan to totally replace the school. This is not what voters voted for.
Voters voted for a package in which Zervas was a component and what they hoped for was that a sound review of the needs of Zervas would be done, both to ensure that the facility is brought up to standard, including a cafeteria etc, and add capacity THAT WOULD HELP SOLVE OUR SYSTEM WIDE CAPACITY PROBLEMS.
In 2008 our 5 year projection for the elementary school population was published in the enrollment analysis on November 24, 2008. It was 5215 students for FY14. Our actual enrolment in FY14 is 5802. The original 5 year projection was under by about 600 students.
In 2009, the projection for FY15 was 5585. The current projection is 5935. So the 5 year projection was under by 350.
My point is that assuming that the current 5 year projection of an increase of 200 students is dead on is very risky. We don’t want to assume that this will be spot on, and build our plans on that. What is we are wrong by 400? We’ll be in real trouble, as we cannot respond quickly. It takes about a 4 year lead to build capacity of that scale and you need about $40 million.
We have to be low risk on this and that means we should really look at options which will provide that scale of capacity and we need to have a funding source.
In addition, the further big risk lies in our lack of capacity on the South side.
We have the Ed Center in reserve on the North side and that could be brought online in a year or two, just like Carr. We also have the possibility of using Aquinas.
We also have good expansion capability at Lincoln Eliot (100 added) etc. All on the north side.
That’s why it is very sound to look at a 16th school as a way to protect to school system from a south side population pressure threat.
If we barrel ahead and spend all of the operating override facility money on Zervas, we’ll have spend our $40 million and only added at most 100 seats to our capacity.
We need to look at options, and one we REALLY HAVE to look at is a smaller scale renovation for Zervas, which completely addresses its facility problems, which would be a renovation similar to Day, which cost $7.5 million, plus building a 16th school.
We have $1.3 million forever allocated to facilities in the operating override. We should use it wisely.
All of this focus on the details of replacing Zervas and using up all of the money for that means that if we get into trouble with population expanding on the South side, we’ll be up a creek without a paddle. We’ll be out of time and out of money.
The 16th school option needs to be seriously evaluated as it has the potential to provide us south side capacity reserves, which will take us through even the worst case population increases over the next 5 years.
If we don’t do this, we’ll be guessing yet again and repeating the tradition of Newton North and the co-location of our two side middle school.
Are we ever going to learn from our past mistakes?
south side middle schools!
Joshua, the last major redistricting in the city sent Williams students to Angier, and many of the Williams community were extremely distressed about it. To your question at the top of this thread, redistricting is the “R-Word” for many whose feelings are still raw from this last big change.
Redistricting seems like the most inexpensive solution to our problems and should be first line. If we need to keep special needs children put then so be it. Healthy normal children need to be shifted. I’m willing to bet that most of the angst is with overly concerned parents.
Ridiculous that the cheapest solution should be the last option.
Redistricting is necessary if you have spare capacity in places other than where the population pressure is. We are adding modulars because we don’t have spare capacity at the elementary level, and we are almost out of modular options.
So we really need to expand elementary capacity and if we do that right and build the capacity where the population pressure is, we won’t have a big redistricting problem.
Build capacity where the population pressure is highest, is that uniformly on the south side or mostly at Mason Rice? My understanding is that Angier is not adding additional capacity.
Hi Joanne,
Everything isn’t wonderful, but I take the override passage by a nearly 10% margin and the Mayor’s primary win by a 40% margin as a proxy for strong majority voter trust.
Geoff is right to be concerned about unexpected enrollment growth while at the same time it is relieving to note that two southside schools with high enrollments, Memorial Spaulding and Countryside, had significant enrollment drops this year and are below projections. Zervas too. We have to watch population carefully every year and respond as appropriate but the current plan articulated by the school department handles our five-year projection.
The vision you ask for from NPS and the SC is illustrated in the powerpoint linked below and available on the SC website. The complexity of solving facilities issues with a growing student population is more than obvious as one studies these pages:
http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/44/Long-Range%20Facilities%20Planning%20Powerpoint%20-%2010-15-13.pdf
METCO children and the children of our teachers represent 4% of our student population. Even if there is clear direction from the community to stop our participation in METCO (and there is not) and cease the teacher’s child benefit I consider the students already in our system to be members of our community and do not support their removal. This means that (even if our community opts for change) it would take 12 more years for this population to go to zero, so action here is not an answer to short term enrollment stress.
I am also confused about your comments on Carr, and swapping it for swing space with Horace Mann or Lincoln Eliot. How does this address short-term space need?
Thanks, Steve
Kim,
Living in a neighborhood is great and wonderful. Our kids go to elementary school together, and we can help each other out with rides and other things. If some kids go to one school and others go to another school due to redistricting, it can divide neighbors. We live in a time that we are all “very busy” and walking to school together or waiting at the bus stop together creates community. I know in Upper Falls one kid started kindy at Angier last year, even though his BFF does to Countryside, because they were “grandfathered” into Countryside due to an older sibling. So this “new” kindy student isn’t with the neighborhood kids he or she has grown up. Sure, doesn’t seem like a big deal to an adult. BIG deal for a kindergartner.
Going to school together helps foster relationships.
Growing up at a neighborhood school is wonderful and the community is great. . . . and yes, the “new” buffer school community is great, but then you feel left out when the majority of kids are speaking about their great school event, and your new kindy is not in the loop.
YES to neighborhood schools.
NO to redistricting.
Steve,
The drop at Countryside – does this relate to the new buffer zones?
We should consider buying back the Hyde School. It’s a building that was built to be a school, it has a gymnasium, a ball field, a playground, and it’s in a village that has no school. Kids that live within a couple of blocks of the Hyde are sent over to Mason-Rice and Zervas. It makes no sense.
What would it take to buy that building? Well there are two buildings – one is used by the Newton Housing Authority for public housing for only a handful of residents – about 14 or so small units out of the 300+ the NHA manages city-wide. Surely we could relocate that small number of families. The private condos are mostly small residences as well and could be purchased using eminent domain at market prices for a whole lot less than building a new school. I don’t know the details of these units, but I’m guessing at 3-400K apiece you’d be well under $10MM.
Difficult politically, I’m sure. But the city has bought back schools in the past that were sold in the 80s. The point is you would get a neighborhood school that all the kids in the Highlands could attend. You would get a revitalized neighborhood feel. You would relieve overcrowding at Mason-Rice.
I’m new to NPS issues, so someone tell me why this is a bad idea.
Steve
Newton Mom, a full class of 20 “eldest child” K students who were targeted to Countryside three years ago instead went to Angier in year 2011-2012 and this is now the home school for these students and their younger siblings. This shift resulted in an immediate drop in the Countryside population which had been projected to top 500. The further drop at Countryside this year is by “happenstance” as the buffer zone has not changed.
Steve S, I think Countryside also had an optional buffer zone to send K kids to Bowen that year. Bowen is now bursting at the seams at 505.
Steven F, it was a mistake closing Hyde, but even the newer building is about a century old, not unlike the Angier building about to be demolished. It’s probably not an optimal school by today’s standards. The city did have a tiny bit of foresight to lease some schools closed in the 80’s (e.g. Bigelow Jr High, Oak Hill Elementary) and later reopened them. I’m not aware of Newton selling and buying back any schools.
To Steve,
You comment:
“the current plan articulated by the school department handles our five-year projection”
assumes that the projections are dead on. The most recent check we have on that is the 5 year projection made in 2008 for 2013. That was wrong by 600. We have 600 more kids in elementary than we projected 5 years ago.
So we should be conservative and assume that there are big errors and not zero error.
We could easily be getting into real trouble here.
No one has explained why the south side numbers were low this year either. Why did 40 more kids than expected depart Memorial-Spaulding? Did they all get pulled out and put in private school due to the known academic performance problems at Memorial-Spaulding last year (which have since been addressed).
We are sorely lacking in the most basic analytics and are being really cavalier with the accuracy of our projections.
With the current capacity planning, we are taking a very risky course and if the population keeps on surging, we’ll have spent all of the capital we have, on adding just 100 seats at Zervas and the community will not be impressed if we ask for another override to add capacity when they just gave us ample money to do that.
So we could easily be stuck with elementary schools busting at the seams on the south side and no money to fix it and another failed override attempt.
It’s ironic, since the political power is most often viewed as strongest on the south side and yet those with the political power are taking a risky approach which couldvisit the worst effects in their own south side neighborhoods.
Adam, Newton bought back the Carr school in 2000. Other towns in the area have also bought back schools due to space crunches. Here is a Globe article about it from 2009:
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/newton/2009/05/newton_sold_off_city_schools_b.html
Yes, the old Hyde was originally built long ago but it was renovated – there was a fire in 1981 and I am not sure how much rebuilding was done after that, but today it actually looks pretty nice. There are private condos in there and judging from the outside and the entrance, I don’t get the sense that it’s in terrible shape. I’m not clear on the history of the building with the NHA units. The gymnasium was built in 1967.
I assume there would be need for some renovation. I have no idea how involved that would turn out to be, whether it’s actually a tear down. But people are living there. How bad is it? I would just like to know the facts and see a discussion about what would be involved, how much it would cost, and what other issues would come into play. If it were feasible and cheaper than building a new school, I think it should be considered. You wouldn’t need any more teachers or aides. You’d have 4-500 kids not having to go to M-R and Zervas.
Blog conversations with multiple parties can be difficult to have! The quote Geoff captured from my post was a response to Joanne who said there is no plan. Actually there is a pretty comprehensive plan as illustrated in the link I posted. For sure we must look critically at the plan’s features, and Geoff has already identified one area of concern – if our next five years of southside growth is comparable to our past five years (note that our enrollment projections do not anticipate this), our plan is not creating new capacity fast enough. This is why we must work hard to continue to improve our enrollment forecasting while monitoring our projections closely each year. But if our numbers are good, our plan uses our resources wisely by not building unneeded capacity.
Note that the objective of our long range plan is not just about adding new seats but is about fixing and/or replacing badly deteriorated and educationally marginal teaching and learning spaces. This is why the cost/new seat discussion doesn’t carry the day by itself. The 125 additional Zervas seats meet one of two important objectives associated with this project. But we are also fixing a broken school.
Steve and Adam, the former Hyde School is owned by the Newton Housing Authority and measures 31,000 square feet. The former Hyde School gym is owned by the Newton Highlands Community Development Corporation and measures 6,000 square feet. Based on current educational standards this raw square footage, if most efficiently organized (something difficult to do in a historic masonry and timber building) would yield a school for around 225 students, much smaller than our current smallest school. A school this size would have a low operating efficiency and a different educational model than every other school in the system.
Steve – hopefully this explains what I meant
1. Horace Mann and Lincoln Eliot have space issues – move Horace Mann to Carr once the renovation is completed and you have solved HM problem. Then look at the buffer zones between HM and LE and move some of LE to the New HM at Carr building which should be able to accommodate more kids. Doing this should help alleviate the issues at LE.
2. Propose the City buys Aquinas- it was my understanding that the cost of that building was less than the renovation at Carr. I would think that the SC would have a vision for what Aquinas could be used for since school space is at a premium.
3. Use the HM building for Swing space while you are building Angier and Cabot – they will only be in that building for a year or so -HM already functions as a school – so it should be OK as the swing space you need while constructing the other schools.
Steve S, sorry to have generated crosstalk but thanks for the response – it’s good to have a structural engineer’s perspective! According to the Newton Historical Society, The Old Hyde had 321 students initially and grew to 461 with 16 teachers, so I guess class size was off the charts by today’s standards. Still, with 16 classrooms it would take a class size of 19 to get over 300 total for the school which is about what we have in Zervas which is overcrowded. The model of small neighborhood schools that are walking distance for most families is – or was – a great thing about Newton.
Good point about Carr. There must have been about a dozen others closed and sold, though.
Leading up to 1980, Hyde School encompassed the gym, the new Hyde (the NHA building, which must be about 100 years old now) as well as the old Hyde, the more impressive late 19th c. building next door, which was a burned-out shell when the city sold it. The two buildings were linked by an underground tunnel. Since the sale, a lot of private money must have gone into fixing up the old Hyde, and additional condos were constructed in the parking lot on Erie Street.
The decision to close Hyde is the negative part of Teddy Mann’s legacy and is at the center of much of the overcrowding on the south side. Many who opposed the closing were not surprised by the quickly rising enrollment.
The Carr school was never sold, it was leased with a time option which stipulated when the leaser could purchase the building. With two weeks to go, then Maor Concannon had the law department issue a letter to the tenant stating the school was not for sale and gave them notice.
According to this document http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/43537 the Carr school was sold to the League School in 1981, but with a repurchase option. So yes the city retained control over the ownership, but it was technically a sale and repurchase. The Carr building was sold for $350,000 and bought back for $2.1MM 19 years later. Not sure about school buildings, but residential real estate didn’t increase anything like that over those two decades. They would have been better off holding onto it and leasing the space.
I happened to park right in front of the Hyde this evening for an appointment, so I took a quick look at the panel of buzzers at the front doors. I counted 19 condo units for the Old Hyde and 14 NHA units for the new Hyde. The condo’s have a total assessed value of about $7.7 million, so I’m guessing fair market value would be a little above that. If you’re deciding between taking over these buildings vs building a new $35-$50 million project, seems to me you can have a cheaper, more predictable cost of going with the existing buildings that require much less risky work. But I’m a naive idealist I guess. At its peak, the Hyde School had 461 students and 16 teachers.
@Steven – you aren’t factoring in the cost of renovating condos into a functioning school. That would not be cheap.
@mgwa I did say earlier there would be renovation costs, but I have know idea what exactly would be involved – would love to see an estimate. If those properties could be turned back into a school, there would be huge benefits.
My guess is that the combination of buy-back plus renovation would be on a par with building a new school. Renovating a building to a new purpose can easily cost as much (if not more) as starting from scratch. You’d pretty much have to gut the buildings.
Perhaps, but keep in mind it was a school. So the question is how much de-schoolification was really done. Some of the new school projects are running 35-50 million and that’s the estimate. We all know the trajectory new school costs can take – I think there’s a recent example of that, but not sure. If the basic structure is sound and the modifications needed aren’t too drastic, it’s possible you’d be looking at a 50% savings versus building new. It’s all guessing of course, but my point is it should be considered.