OK, well maybe it’s not this year’s School Committee.
Here’s 2008 Superintendent Jeffrey Young making the case that 350-400 is the optimum size for elementary schools. Today’s Committee now says the optimum size is 450-500. It’s not clear what’s changed their thinking over the last 6 years.
I suspect the starting point of this discussion is not really the optimum school size but the desired number of schools. For whatever reason, I think School Committee is very definite that they don’t want to consider adding any new elementary schools. If that is the starting decision then the necessary school size flows from there.
It is interesting that the ideal school building size has shifted towards a bigger school. However, what I am really interested in is the proposed new apartments, and the shift not just for elementary schools, but middle and high school. I would love a discussion of this. . . .
Wells Avenue –
Court Street (near Cabots) –
Austin Street
Riverside
Rowe Street
Did I miss any?
Where are each of these potential developments going to send the kids? The developers ALWAYS UNDER estimate the amount of kids any way so we should be prepared as a city with a realistic number.
How has Avalon on Route 9 and Needham Street impacted the schools? How many projected students vs how many actual students (I thought Needham street would be 40 kids total, but I think there are 20 at Brown alone, and more than ten at Countryside and more than ten at Angier).
Also what about the development near Woodlawn station? How was that impacted the schools and what was the projected student population vs actual.
Thanks.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=avalon%20newton%20schools%20enrollment
Does the current School Committee say that the optimum school size is 450 – 500, or that the optimum school size is 450 – 500, given financial and logistical constraints? (I don’t know the answer to this question.)
The current SC says that 450-500 is better because it enables them to provide programmatic benefits they claim are only possible with the larger school. These have been posted previously here:
http://village14.com/newton-ma/2014/06/zervas-plans-and-discussion-are-underway/#comment-48132
They also say that they can build schools larger without sacrificing the small feel and social/emotional benefits of the smaller schools, presumably with layouts that tend to keep the kids together in smaller groups. Maybe someone can fill that part in.
Of course, this is all about solving a capacity and conditions issue, so one wonders if the educational benefits are really an afterthought. Listening to Jeff Young talking, it’s easy to get that impression.
Hi Jerry,
My response to your comment that “it’s not clear what’s changed their thinking over the last 6 years…” is this – nothing has changed. Different questions produce different answers.
The question Jeff was answering in this You Tube clip was something like “What school size did the principals I spoke with prefer?” For what it’s worth I was an advocate for a 16th elementary school at the time and I pressed the School Committee for more detail on this survey. The response I got back was that it was more a casual conversation between Jeff and a few of his principals rather than a formal study. Regardless this was the question that I was asking and it helped make my “case” for a 16th school.
At the time of these remarks by Jeff Young he was also the head of the Steering Committee which produced the NPS Long Range Facilities Plan. The question the plan was trying to address was something like “In the context of our land availability, budget, educational objectives, and programmatic and operational efficiencies, what school size should we build into the system going forward?” For this question we got a different answer:
The plan issued in the summer of 2007 suggested a school planning cap of 500 students and gave a ballpark price for a 22 classroom, 484 student elementary school. In late fall of 2007 a plan update outlined the rebuilding of Angier, Zervas and Cabot Schools with 22 classrooms and 441 students each. Nary a mention by Jeff or anyone else about a goal or even a wish to add sufficient new elementary school buildings around the city so we could achieve schools in the 350-400 student range.
In 2014, 8 of 15 Newton elementary schools have student enrollments ranging from 400-500 students. Is a design target of 450-500 students “optimal”? I cannot say this is universally so. But in Newton we have facts on the ground (refer to the question framed in paragraph 3) and we have learned how to run a pretty darn good school within this enrollment range. So for us, this has become optimal.
Steve, according to the November 2013 Enrollment Analysis Report authored by David Fleishman and Sandra Guryan, by FY 2019 there is only one more elementary school added to your number of 8 of 15 schools in the 400 – 500 optimal student range; Franklin becomes the 9th. In FY 2019 there are 3 schools over 450; again only one more than in FY2014.
The report also shows the average annual increase in the elementary schools to be 1.2% for the last 6 years; however the projected next 5 years shows only a 0.5% increase with an actual decrease in student headcount in FY2019. Why the decrease in the overall growth percentage projected for the next 5 years given all the major building projects being identified in various news reports and blogs?
BTW, this report that is only 8 months old has Zervas with 355 students in FY2019. It would help us understand the Zervas construction project better if you can explain what has happened in the last 8 months to now require a building for 490 students at Zervas. Or is the SC expecting there to be 135 empty seats in the school? At 23 students per classroom that means there will be 6 empty rooms; one per grade. What happens to the academically enhanced concept of having 4 rooms per grade? Or am I suppose to believe the entire city’s K-5 growth for the next 5 years, 142 students, will be moved to Zervas in September 2017?
I am married to an elementary school teacher. Based upon that admittedly small sample size, Superintendent Jeff Young was right.
Oh, and as a parent, I watched what happened when my children’s elementary school went from fewer than 275 to well over 400 students since 1996. Based on a 100% increase in the sample size, Superintendent Jeff Young was still right.
What happened? Group thinking in SC, and a vocal advocate in Steve.
How much ever I respect Steve and I have followed him over the years – his primary mission IS new Zervas building. And all the studies and reports will be aligned with it. Who else in their right mind would push forward Zervas building above others, and that too for 150 more seats.
We will chew through 150 seats v soon with all these developments and be back for expanding Williams and other small schools.
I don’t like in upper falls, but I think the sensible thing is for a new school in the yard.
BTW talking about questions – The question asked to the DPW yard was essentially directed to elicit a response “We do not have enough space for new school”.
I whole heartedly supported the override last year, and I will strongly oppose the override 6-8 years from now. Just saying…
Hi Ted,
Yes of course Superintendent Jeff Young is right – he participated in the creation of both answers!
Patrick,
NPS’s Annual Enrollment Report only projects students for projects that are in the pipeline. I’m not sure at what point in the pipeline — whether it’s when a project receives a building permit, or special permit, etc., but for example Rowe Street has just been introduced as a proposal and its impact has not been estimated by NPS. On the other hand Riverside students are in our enrollment projections, as Riverside is an approved project. The large proposal on Wells Avenue may not happen or if it does but succeeds in drawing the developer’s target demographic, it may not contribute many students to NPS.
We are creating modest overcapacity (6,400 elementary seats for a 5,900 student projection) right now of sufficient size to handle the other proposals you mention should they get approved. And every year we recheck our numbers and share them via the Enrollment Report, and consider how our capital plan will accommodate.
When considering the impact of large projects, be aware that the four largest residential communities in Newton, Avalon Highlands, Avalon Chestnut Hill, Arborpoint at Woodland, and Woodland Park, contributed a total 161 elementary students (2.7% of our elementary population) and 270 total students (2% of all students) to NPS for 2013-2014.
Newton was impacted by the post –WWII baby boom when it’s school enrollment swelled to 18,000. We believe our enrollment growth now is related to an echo of this boom – note that our school population has recently grown at a much steeper rate than the growth in Newton population and the growth in new housing units. This echo suggests that our student population is peaking soon; take a look at the graph on Page 1 of the Enrollment Trends section of the report which shows the elementary enrollment flattening followed by flattening at middle and high school levels. Will the area 40B and infill housing projects turn the curve upward again? We’ll keep watching, and adjusting our plan as we follow trends.
Regarding your last paragraph, the annual school projections do not presume to know the lines of future redistricting; they look at current catchment areas and project population growth within these areas. So the Enrollment Report indicates that the Zervas catchment area will feed 355 students to Zervas in 2019. Looking more closely you can see the same thing with Angier and Cabot. Their projections are for the current catchment and not for the higher capacity and redrawn district lines that will follow their reconstruction. This approach didn’t make sense to me when I first learned of it. But it is helpful for me to recognize that student enrollment growth and where it occurs is organic and constantly in flux. The method used by NPS is a snapshot in time and as a planning tool works well for NPS.
Steve, can you provide more detail about what changed in Jeff’s view? Did he retract what he said in this clip? Did he ever say that 450-500 was the optimal size from the principals’ viewpoint? Was he reluctantly going along with a larger size due in light of other factors?
Hi Sam S, I used to support a 16th elementary school in Upper Falls while keeping Zervas at 300 students. For many reasons that I’ve described over time I’ve come to support the current plan as the best-fit for Newton when considering trade-offs. This advocacy was a difficult place for me to get to personally as I’m like many of us – once sold on a position I find it hard to give sufficient weight to information that supports another position. But don’t be a stranger – I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts and being able to discuss the topics you have raised. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] and we can talk or meet for coffee.
Regards, Steve
Steve,
Perhaps I was too long winded and my point was lost – what I suggested is that nothing changed. Jeff Young posed two different questions (one in this audio clip and one as a leader of the LRFP) that resulted in two different answers. Think of doing this with your kids:
Q1: “Want ice cream before dinner?”
A1: “Yes!!”
Q2: “Want ice cream and no dinner?”
A2: “Hmmm, then I might still be hungry….”
I have no basis for parsing Jeff Young’s thinking. But he remains a Newton resident and perhaps you can track him down and speak with him yourself.
Excuse me if I fail to see the humor, Steve. When my eldest started at Horace Mann, there was a library, art and music rooms, and an after school program in the former auditorium. By the time the youngest of my kids left, the music room was jammed into the after school program space, the art room was in a windowless, airless room in the basement, the library was in a modular classroom that had been moved from another school, and there was no ADA access to second floor classrooms for the students who used a wheelchair or had other mobility disabilities.
The research on elementary school size really hasn’t changed much. Smaller is better, particularly for kids who are less privileged. Horace Mann has a high number of kids eligible for reduced or free lunch (1 in 8). I recognize the political and practical realities resulting from decisions to sell off some of the elementary schools a generation ago. And I know the budget for Zervas is already very tight. Knowing what we know, I just hate to see the city spend $40 million to design and build a brand new elementary school with 26 classrooms and a capacity of over 500 students.
Hi Ted,
The blog would seem to translate poorly each of our sentiments to the other. And I fully appreciate what you are saying about Horace Mann, while noting that even while it is unique there are analogous stories across the city from Burr, to Mason Rice, Bowen, Angier, Countryside, Cabot, and elsewhere. As you well know, Newton’s approach is to fix our school buildings across the city, upgrade them for current day educational approaches, and add capacity as we do. The Zervas project represents a single spot on a 20-year plan to address our elementary school facilities.
The research you refer to is clear about schools and in particular high schools in poor urban environments. Just look at some of the factors that are evaluated: drop-outs, criminal records, absenteeism, college-bound. The research is barely existent and contradictory for districts like Newton, with generally high demographics, high community support for schools, high expectations of our students, high quality teaching, high social-emotional supports, and dense networks of educational support for low-performing students.
I don’t dismiss your wife’s perspective that small schools are better. But it is one factor of many that you and I as city officials must weigh when sorting priorities and creating policy.
Regards, Steve
The SC has shifted from its original position which made sure that 450 was a hard operating limit to now letting that float up to 480 .. 490 as the design limit.
Typically the operating limit has exceeded the design limit. Countryside was designed for 350 but operated as high 500. That caused great stress on Countryside for years.
If the design limit now floats towards 500, expect the operating limit to push beyond that.
Maybe 550 is in the cards, especially as now money is being allocated to assistant principals.
The main point is that the SC moved beyond 450 as the hard operating limit, with no discussion. No debate. No input from principals.
Even though every one agrees we closed too many elementary schools, the folks running the show are dead set against addressing that mistake.
This is a historic shift from a school size model which has served Newton well for 40 years and in my view a model which has been a major reason for Newton school system success.
Unfortunately, all of the elected officials behind this unprecedented move away from a successful school model will no longer be serving when the full impact of this move becomes apparent.
The community and especially the children who will inhabit these mega elementary schools have been ignored as this mega school steam roller obliterates the framework of our past educational success.
It’s bad day for education and a bad day for municipal democracy when all of the basic common sense governing both is cast aside by interim officials.
I cannot for the life of me understand how Zervas, the outlier elementary school with the smallest play area per student appears to be increasing in size by 50% and not increasing the play area.
It’s also a very bad day for the prudent investment of tax payer money when we gain so little capacity at such cost.
And all of this on top of the traffic nightmare, the environmental pressure, …
The Zervas plan seems to be a very impressive case of government planning run amok.
Steve, with all due respect, Newton’s public schools are not nearly as good as they used to be or think they are. Now that my children have all graduated, I can freely say that while they served some of my kids’ educational needs well, they did what I would consider to be a mediocre job with special education. And it has declined in the past 17 years my kids were in school here. That is from the perspective of an attorney who has represented other people’s children with special needs in other cities and towns. While I understand that enlarging capacity is the direction NPS is going in, I do not agree that it is necessarily best. And it is cavalier to suggest that we don’t have some of the problems that other communities have in our schools. Not every child is headed toward a four year college. And one in ten children living at or below 130% of the poverty line, as we have at Horace Mann, is not an insignificant number of children. I am not exactly sure what “dessert” is in your analogy, but I fear that there are a lot of kids in our public schools who are not getting a sufficiently nutritious dinner.
Ted, please do not read into my posts ideas or attitudes that I have not expressed. I either agree or have insufficient knowledge to offer a different perspective than much of what you have written. I read almost nothing you’ve just posted as contradicting my own words, other than your tone. Call me!
Geoff, you may be happy to know that the 450-500 student school is not the rogue plan of a school committee acting behind closed doors, but was actually articulated in the June 2007 LRFP that predates your first election. Even then it was not a “historic shift” as we had two schools in the mid 400s in 2007, and five other schools over 400. The distress in these schools was due to too many kids in schools not appropriately designed or sized to handle them, and not the absolute student count. Now we are planning schools of proper proportion, something you have been speaking of for years.
I’ll offer you reassurance on two other concerns you’ve expressed – the early Zervas plans always called for an outdoor playspace increase, initially by 1/3 or more. By the time we incorporate the Beacon Street properties into the site, an idea I credit to you as you used to request this during school committee meetings, we will likely get more than a 50% increase. Good idea! And stay tuned.
And finally, the community has been justifiably concerned about traffic and safe transit to and from Zervas. This has grown into the main topic of our planning meetings and we take it very seriously. I consider this to be the most significant unresolved issue with the Zervas site and I am happy to report that we are listening to the public and making considerable progress. Again, stay tuned.
As a resident who lives 2 blocks from Zervas, I’m not the least concerned with the type of traffic that this elementary school will generate. Twenty minutes of traffic in the AM and 20 minutes at the end of the school day is no big deal, and there are multiple routes to bypass the traffic. My hope is that the focus remains on the safety of the student who walk to school.
The discussion of the optimal size of an elementary school baffles me. If I may paraphrase a former President, it all comes down to arithmetic. Where do folks expect the students who move into the City to go to school? From one who teaches in the system, the whole thing appears to be a discussion of how many angels can sit on a pin – nice for all of you to discuss on a blog, but of no consequence in the real life of a school that does not have enough space to accommodate an increase in enrollment.
Best quote of the year…
“Newton’s public schools are not nearly as good as they used to be or think they are.”
Thank you Ted, I couldn’t have said it better myself!
And speaking only for myself, I’m not buying into anything this SC is selling. I’ve lost all confidence in every member of the SC, including those I mistakenly supported in the past. Glad my kids have all graduated, so I don’t have to pull any punches. I hope other parents come to realize how poorly their interests and the interests of their children are being represented.
Steve,
Your entire post is completely disingenuous.
Point by point.
1. When I was elected in 2007, it was clear, and everyone knew, that Countryside was in trouble. It was busting at the seams and under-resourced. The direction which evolved over the next year or so was that 500 student schools were trouble, that the 500 student limit in the 2007 Long Range Facilities Plan was too high and that 400-450 was a much sounder maximum size. The 2009 election had school size as a clear issue and maybe you remember that. By quoting the principal flaw in the 2007 LRFP plan and claiming that the 500 limit was up front and sound policy is flabbergasting!
2. Early in 2008, a number of SC members, including me, asked Jeff Young to check with elementary school principals on their best judgment of the optimal elementary school size, and they came back with 360-400. That’s the only unbiased information we have from the key leadership folks. And we should take notice. To ignore this critical input is folly.
3. Zervas has the smallest play area of all 15 elementary schools. If you increase the school size by 50% and the play area by 30%, things have actually gotten worse. If the play area increases by 50%, you have simply made no progress on the original problem. These kids are like sardines in a tiny can. How can we spent $40M and make no progress on a critical problem like that? A much smaller scale size increase to the principal-supported 400, with the adding of the 3 Beacon St house lots, could be done with a single story approach at much lower cost than $40M and actually increase the play area per child.
4. Take a look at this video of Zervas traffic and scale the density up by 50% and you’ll get a good idea of future Zervas traffic problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEWiNGg-3w8
Jane,
School size is a key educational parameter. It’s hardly angels on a pin.
And for those interested in data, if you take a look at class size, it has always tended to be largest at the largest schools. At 80 per grade in a mega school, you’ll find that budget considerations will favor 3 grades at 27, not 4 grades at 20. In a right-sized school at 60 kids per grade, you’ll get 3 classes of 20, not 2 of 30. Smaller schools are a great way to help keep class sizes small too.
Just ask Countryside and Bowen parents about their problems with class size as their schools got bigger and bigger.
The increase in enrollment and the lack of capacity is THE key issue in the elementary schools right now. You can argue back and forth about who said what to whom in 2008, but for those of us working in the trenches, the arithmetic is all that matters because the kids just keep on coming and that’s what we have to deal with.
Jane, if you are genuinely worried about the increase in student enrollment, you will want to consider the fact that Mayor Warren is a huge proponent of 40B housing and that his administration is championing the huge 40B residential developments at Rowe Street, Court Street, Austin Street & Wells Avenue, which will add more kids into the school system.
You may want to think about that before giving him another $500 maximum contribution this year, or next year, or in future years.
Other than Austin Street., I’ve seen no evidence that Mayor Warren is a “huge proponent” of any of these. In fact, his planning department has been rather critical of the project at 135 Wells Ave. If anyone can cite any examples to the contrary, I’d like to see them.
As a parent of kids at Countryside at one of its peak enrollment periods (499 students in 1999-2000), I can tell you what some of us were discussing. It was the deteriorating condition of the school, the size of its core spaces, and class sizes that bothered parents the most. During those years, even at that enrollment, Countryside still felt like a community. The problem was that it was built for many fewer kids, and even though modulars added classrooms, the gym, auditorium, and the library (among the smallest in the city at the time — maybe still?) were nowhere near large enough to accommodate that many kids.
My son’s grade had a large cohort of children and I don’t believe there were ever fewer than four classes. When he was in third grade, they added a fifth class. It was his best year, in large part because the class was so small (and he had a great teacher) but also because the principal — John Jordan — launched a full-grade literacy differentiated learning effort.
Question for Ted: My memory might be distorted or I might have been told inaccurate information at the time, but am I mistaken in thinking that the Board of Aldermen is not supposed to/allowed to consider the impact on schools when evaluating a 40B special permit?
I’m not “worried” about the increase in elementary enrollment. The enrollment numbers are what they are. I’m merely pointing it out that the increased population has been a problem in our elementary schools for at least 7 years. Given that reality, arguing about the optimal size school seems silly to those working in the trenches. It’s blog material for you – debating how many angels can sit on a pin. For teachers, it’s the reality we face every day.
For the record, I support efforts to create affordable housing in the city, and always have. I’m sure you’re aware that it doesn’t matter if anyone in City government supports 40B housing (BOA, SC, or Mayor). If a developer sets aside the appropriate percentage of units as affordable, then the project can bypass zoning regulations. When a developer decides to bypass zoning regulations by building a project with affordable housing, then the goal changes: how do we make the project the best it can be?
This marks a first and last experience for me – responding to a JN post. Boy, things are slow on the home front.
Geoff, we have shared so many perspectives over the years and I’ve learned a lot from you. But the narratives that you and I tell about the same history and same topic would seem to be coming from alternate universes. This is hard for me to understand but it’s clear that the stakes are high and I expect that is why we each care so much about getting this right. I believe in what I’m working towards and will continue pushing hard. For you and me, I hope we will sit and compare notes in five years about what has transpired.
Jane, the point I was trying to make was that the same people that were pushing overrides last year due to “increased enrollment” are the very same people that are now pushing enrollment levels higher with 40B housing projects. Unfortunately, the 40B proponents need to realize that 40B privatizes profits for rich, politically connected developers while socializing costs to taxpayers.
You say that “teachers deal with increased enrollment all the time”, I was explaining why you have to deal with increased enrollment as well as providing solutions to deal with the increased enrollment.
Step 1, refrain from donating to Mayor Warren until he realizes that Newton is a city, not a Monopoly Board for Scott Oran, Bob Engler & Geoff Engler to make huge profits off of gaudy monstrosities while sticking Newton taxpayers with millions of dollars in annual expenses for new school kids. No wonder why Geoff & Bob Engler gave $15,000 to protect their 40B cash cow in 2010.
http://ocpf.cloudapp.net/Reports/SearchItems?PageSize=10&CurrentIndex=1&SortField=&SortDirection=ASC&&SearchType=A&ContributorName=engler&FilerCpfId=95358
Step 2, recognize that 40B has been a failure at developing housing in general and affordable housing in particular, even though it allows developers to bulldoze their way through a community to put up whatever they want wherever they want.
Step 3, vote for community minded candidates for office who don’t support developer welfare schemes like 40B.
@Jane – Nobody is denying that enrollments are increasing, but the city is pursuing one particular strategy to solving the capacity crunch: they’re rebuilding existing schools to hold 500+ kids.
The alternative is to build more neighborhood schools in the 350-450 range. The school dept/committee actually argues the case for larger schools, so it’s entirely relevant for the community to discuss these options and optimal school size is an integral part of the debate.
You would need widespread political support for such an expensive initiative as building more schools and I just don’t see it. Adding one small school makes one section of the city happy, but doesn’t address the real issue. If you have a citywide problem, then you need citywide solutions.
There are advantages and disadvantages to large and small schools and both can be defended on educational grounds, but no one can defend putting too many kids into too small a facility anywhere in the city.
@Jane– Just to set the record straight… As a real estate investor/developer with 40B experience myself, I’ve pointed out on other threads that Mayor Warren does have the authority and ability to stop or significantly impede the progress of large 40B projects. He just chooses not to. He also has the opportunity to extract “linkage” from those developers that could potentially add more programs and classroom space for NPS. Something I’d think you might be interested in, based on you comments. For example, I’ve suggested several times that the Mayor should be demanding developers of the proposed Wells Ave project provide the city with a $0, 5-10 year lease for a new school specifically focused on STEM. I also believe he should be asking the developer of the proposed Rowe Street project to fund an alternative high school program [similar to the former Murray Road School] for 5 years. These linkage proposals would add new programs and help mitigate some of the classroom overcrowding.
Greg, Mike makes a real good point about how Mayor Warren chooses not to fight 40B projects. When Setti Warren ran for mayor in 2009, he said the mayor needed to take the lead in selling neighborhoods on 40B housing developments.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/x1528795642/Newton-mayoral-candidates-talk-housing
@Josh: Choosing not to fight is not the same as being a “huge proponent.”
@Mike: How can you be so sure that the mayor isn’t trying to stop, or impede the process, or seek linkage from all or any of these projects? Just because he hasn’t publicly thrown a temper tantrum, doesn’t necessarily prove inaction. Please note that I’m not suggesting that he is or he isn’t doing something behind the scenes. But I am wondering how you can be so sure he isn’t?
Mike – While I respect your abilities as a businessman, I’m not sure your methods would work so well in Newton. We tend to have strong opinions about everything – including when the rain date for the July 4th fireworks will be! We even have an Alderman committed to working on the project.
As an example, I’d strongly object to both of your ideas for new school space. Enough with the high schools! The time to deal with the inadequate elementary school space problem is long overdue and all resources should go to providing appropriate space for all students throughout the city. It’s the way it is in the public sector. You say tomato, others say tomahto.
I tend to agree with Geoff E. The plan to spend $40 million with no financial help from the State is a very big fiscal mistake.
This plan is being rushed through and is poorly conceived. The site is truly inappropriate for a mega school and will create many unintended consequences which that community will have to deal with for the foreseeable future.
Just the fact that it will be built next to a wetland area is enough to limit the viability of the project. There are so many other factors which indicate the liabilities of the project I can not understand why more prudent judgements have failed to prevail.
Panic seems to be the prevailing emotion driving this project forward.
Setti has shown many miss steps in his governance of Newton. This Zervas project is the biggest mistake so far.
@Greg– I can’t be sure of anything having to do with private conversations that may or may not have taken place. But based on the progress of the Wells Ave and Rowe St proposals, and the fact that no linkage has been announced, I’m assuming the Mayor favors those proposals.
Ya know, every once in awhile I do still ask myself this question… “If I were the Mayor of Newton, how would I handle this?” And I can tell you that if I were to find myself in Mayor Warren’s position, my very first words to these two developers would have been… “Over my dead body!!!” That’s how you start a conversation about linkage.
Just one further note. Around 2010, the SC visited Countryside and reviewed the needs of the school with the principal. We asked specifically what her thoughts were on class size.
She said that at 425, the school was manageable. At 450, it was a real challenge and at 475 it was pretty much impossible. She favored 425.
That’s an opinion to take note of and it was one which reinforced the SC position at the time that 450 was a real hard limit on school size.
The current push to higher design limits certainly has no other basis than a dogged refusal to increase the number of elementary schools.
School size, not class size. My typo.
Not on the blogs for awhile, but this caught my eye. Like THM and Gail, I just need to chime in with opinions and gut feelings that are derived from my family’s own experience.
My oldest child started K at Zervas in 2002. The school was in disrepair, there was no auditorium/performance space, no cafeteria, and disgraceful make- shift divided rooms for the delivery of special education services that probably skirted acceptable privacy standards. The library was in a modular, the windows leaked and were inadequate and the heating was so bad that in the winter, you had to send your children to school in layers bc their classroom could either be freezing or boiling.While I, in 2002 was suffering buyer’s remorse over the price of my home vs. the disgraceful reality of the facilities in my local school, Zervas — the general NPS/Mike Cronin/Sandy Guryan administrative view of Zervas was that population was going DOWN and that we were in a temporary bubble. There was actually a TAB article in 2002 that said that Zervas’ enrollment was projected by the NPS’s official forecasts (headed by the same person that is still making them, Sandy Guryan) as declining so steeply that the school would probably, in the near future, be closed. The attitude that year was that since the school was projected to close, it was not worth investing in a new boiler or windows or that modulars that had gone way beyond their expiration date should be replaced (12 years later, those modulars are still there.) In fact, that argument probably led to Peirce getting the boiler and windows ahead of Zervas.
Fast forward to 2007-8 when the first long range plan was socialized to community members. In the years before, Zervas had been invested in because you simply couldn’t house kids with leaky windows and inadequate heat. Windows and boilers had been purchased. Modulars planned. An activist parent community had become a gadfly. With the help of very data-savvy parents, they had shown that Zervas had the lowest per-student square footage in all of Newton. This is how I remember it.
In January of 2008, I went to a community meeting with then-super Jeff Young and some woman named Lori from HMFH (?) Architects. They presented a number of plans, all with the Zervas school population dramatically increasing not just from the original enrollment planned for the original building (designed as k-5 in 1950). I don’t remember a 16th school being proposed or ever making it into any “official” long range scenarios. When I spoke up about just maintaining Zervas’ population at whatever it had been at in 2008, the architect gave me the hairy eyeball and dismissed me as outmoded, backward and at best, quixotic. That schools of 350-400 students “simply weren’t built anymore.” It was as though I had proposed that the school design incorporate stables for horse-drawn carriages. My takeaway at the time was that the architect’s plan had been influenced more by cost-focussed non-educators examining building trends in lesser systems than in a thoughtful pedagogically-driven vision about educational excellence.
Other anecdotal, totally personal observation: I drive from the commuter rail in Newtonville to Newton Highlands every weekday. Sometimes I go via Waban. Sometimes I go via Newton Center. On weekends I go South to shop on Needham St. or drop my kids at friends’.It all depends upon my errands. What I have seen, dramatically over the last few months in Newton are “for sale” signs, tear-downs, and multi-families replacing single families. More than I can ever recall during my 14-year residency. One would almost have to make Newton events their career to keep up with all of the developments. No doubt that’s what the developers want.
So, to me, based on my personal experience and observation of NPS-generated”projections” about school populations, basing a 20-year plan on the historically inaccurate forecasting of the very same people who were projecting 12 years ago in 2002 that Zervas would be closed for declining enrollment ( vs. the current certainty that it will house one of the largest populations in Newton) is not in the least bit sensible. To observe the dramatic shift in opinion over the past 6 years does not give credence to the credibly of anything long range based on a research-based or otherwise educational ly driven vision. To hear Steve Siegel say that we can’t project in real time the impact of dozens of visible developments (that any resident who takes a drive around Newton can see have already broken ground ) until the big projects are “approved” sounds both bureaucratic and reckless. We are in what seems to be a time of exuberant, unrestricted development that needs to be factored into long range plans that are not frequently updated. Josh Norman’s connection to campaign contributions disturbs me. So does the news that Rodney Barker and Bill Roesner, staunch advocates of the common good and quality of life in Newton (even if it meant challenging and locking horns with exploitative, developers) on the Newton Historical Commission have not be re-appointed by Mayor Warren. Maybe we need Alderman Sangiolo’s moratorium just so we can take a much needed pause to hire an outside firm to do a more credible forecast than one put forth by Sandy Guryan, who has had a really, really inaccurate track record to date. If she was a financial analyst or a horse handicapper, I wouldn’t bet real money on her projections. So, to stick to an old model that doesn’t take into account the REAL impact of the development going on now just means that we will continue a 20 year trend of operating our school buildings beyond their designed capacity.
The 500 proposed for Zervas will in reality become 600. And while this land rush in development is going on, Newton will not grab up or reserve land that could be used for future schools. To me, that’s the logic behind a 16th school in a time of rapid development whose real impact is on time delay. Instead of spreading our bets and population over more sites, we seem to be disproportionately focusing them on Zervas — the “slab on a swamp” with little land and nothing more than central location to thrust it forward to such a lynch-pin role in our systemwide plan.
Oh, and gotta say… every time Gail Spector waxes about her children’s experiences in crowded, under-resourced Countryside, I’m reminded of relatives in my husband’s family who raised six kids in a 3 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with one bedroom. All of the kids went to grad school and beyond at prestigious schools and own homes that are worth 20 times more than their parents’ modest apartment. Can character and perseverance overcome hardship? No doubt. But do people in Newton buy homes to experience the kind of facilities shortcomings that you, me and THM experienced? Good for your son. All very noble. But hardly in the ideal of one of the most affluent, educated and education-supporting communities in the country.Also, I have to say, folks didn’t vote for the override so that Newton’s children could muddle through in crowded under resourced schools. We want the best.
Great Post KarenN!
It is exactly the group thinking among SC, among BoA and also among these news outlets that prevents progress in Newton. No doubt, most of these people who let NN go ahead unchecked are still in their roles.
While we are obsessed with increasing the elementary school capacity by 150 or so at cost of $40M, the quality of Newton schools is going down (agree w Mike S and THM). I can read USNews, Boston Globe, MCAS and see Newton is not high up there. All this time the SC is giving an A+ to Flieschman (sorry for typo).
Go figure! Keep on patting your own backs.
The real losers where will be the other schools on Facilities Plan who will not get funding, because Newton will be exhausted by then (just like NN).
PS – I think Zervas kids deserve better than sitting in cold old rooms, and a reno would be a better option than the current one.
PPS – I wish I had the same courage as you to use my real name.
Most of us think it worthwhile to plan ahead, and Newton’s long-term school building plan is inarguably the outcome of a huge amount of work from hundreds and hundreds of people over the past 4 years and longer. Whether this plan has resulted from sound consensus-building or hypnotic group-think may depend upon what one thinks of the result. I happen to believe in this plan, not because it solves every problem (it doesn’t), not because it is completely internally consistent (it isn’t) and not because it is definitive (I expect it will continuously change in response to changes in our enrollment, economy, and other factors).
Rather, I think the long range plan is a best-fit to the competing interests and trade offs that we must make as a city. Not everyone shares this perspective and I accept this. My guess is that we will look back in 10 and 20 years and recognize that we nailed some aspects and missed on others. Regardless, my approach is to share as much as I can about how we have arrived at this point, with the hope that with information our discussions can be more productive. A few months ago I wrote a long piece on another V14 thread about the thinking behind how we got to this moment and the link is below. I’m happy to engage in a discussion about anything it sparks.
http://village14.com/newton-ma/2014/03/should-newton-schools-reflect-newton-villages/#comment-45340
Regards, Steve
Sure planning is great, as long as it’s a good plan. If it isn’t, it really doesn’t matter how much work was put into it by how many people. It becomes a sunk cost and the best thing to do is overhaul the plan. If Napoleon had modified his plan to invade Russia, he wouldn’t be on the list of the all time worst military decisions. Same with W and the Iraq War. Same with all those huge minicomputer companies that planned to compete with IBM on PCs rather than be IBM-compatible. Same with me when I decided not to buy Google in the 90s.
The hallmark of a good plan is that it can be modified when new information or insights come into play. For example, there is new information that most people don’t want a 500-kid Zervas to be built and most people want a 16th elementary school. And most people don’t want to spend $40 million to add 170 seats when they could add 400-450 for the same amount of money, creating more city-wide walkability with one well-placed building project.
And now that we are actually trying to design the Zervas site, we see that 500 kids don’t actually fit there, even with purchasing private property. The site is still severely constrained so much that we have no traffic solution, not enough play space and we’re forced into more busing, with the traffic in the morning still likely to be impossible. We’ll come up with some ad hoc ideas, but they will be inadequate. The situation is begging for us to step back and look at the bigger picture – to be fearless in re-evaluating the whole plan to see if perhaps we shouldn’t be attempting to do what are doing for this school.
So, planning is important. But the key is to *keep* planning, as in don’t just take an old plan and blindly implement it without regard to new information on the ground. It’s not about The Plan. It’s about the planning process.
“I’m sure people will be second guessing my decision to invade for many years. However, a lot of thought was put into this plan by many experienced, successful military experts, and we made the best decision we could with the information we had at the time. ” – Napoleon Bonaparte, late 1812
Steven:
This is not my issue as much as it is yours, I know the Zervas school site well due to occasionally being there with my kids for soccer games. But it does seem to me that Zervas folks want have their cake and eat it too. They want a new school or a rehabbed school, fixing all of the problems with the old school. That will cost how much? 15 million? 20 million? But they don’t want to increase capacity, and instead keep the small neighborhood feel, and build a 16th school elsewere. Folks seem to be double-counting. If it takes 40 million to build a new school, where does the money come from to rehab Zervas?
I can understand an argument about school size. Maybe 450 to 500 IS too big. But with the enrollment challenges I don’t see how we devote major dollars to any school site and not expand capacity. We should be looking at a 16th school. But considering the length of time to do that and our overcapacity issues, maybe expanding Zervas now and looking at the 16th school later is the way to go.
If Cabat and Angier and others had to expand with a rehab, what makes Zervas so special? I think the site isn’t perfect. But what site is in Newton? Buying the 3 homes helps a lot.
A finally a question to all who post on this issue: Do you care because you like on the same road as Zervas? The folks who get punished the most with this new Zervas on the residents of its street. They need to put up with additional capacity with limited use of new improvements. As someone who lives near Newton North, I feel your pain. I really, really do. But it is always helpful to have the perspective when evaluating your viewpoints. In other words, do you care because of the school and the overall community (the best way to deal with our overcrowding issues is to build a new school or Zervas that is bigger is worse for kids) or is that just your best argument to prevent a project going forward that will impact your home and street. I know with Newton North I sometimes had trouble separating my policy views from my personal ones.
The last comment should be asked of those folks who oppose Austin Street as well. Motivation does matter, at least in my view, and it helps to know where folks are coming from in any debate. Doesn’t mean they can’t hold complex views on a particular subject (hate the project for their own personal reasons AND the community at large).
@Fig: As you say, we need to devote major dollars to address the enrollment challenges that you mentioned. Capital is scarce, and we have way more renovation work to do on our elementary schools than we have capital available. So I think it makes a lot of sense to use most of those dollars for new capacity (building a new school), rather than replacing existing capacity and only incrementally increasing an existing school. The classrooms of the existing Zervas are sound and reasonably sized. In recent years, we’ve invested in new boilers, new windows, and $500K for a sprinkler system. Why bulldoze that infrastructure?
A substantial side benefit of building an additional school is that it would service students where they are and provide the benefits of a walkable school to yet another neighborhood of Newton.
If it costs more than $40M to build a new school while rehabbing Zervas, then perhaps the additional capacity of that approach (something like +450 or so seats across both schools, instead of +170) could obviate the need for the next one or two over-expansions of existing schools, saving a lot of future capital. (I say “perhaps” because there’s been no detailed analysis of such an alternative. I wish that NPS and the City would take a serious look at such an approach. That sort of 16th-school plan was not considered in the 2007 Long Range Facilities Plan and has not been considered since.)
I live a few blocks from Zervas, in a neighborhood off Beethoven, which is one of only two streets in or out of our neighborhood. Sure, I think that the current project plans would create horrible traffic jams that I would not like to see. (If, as I would guess, one-third of students currently arrive by car, then an additional 170 students coming from further away could multiply current petro-vehicle traffic by 2 to 2.5 times. That’s just my guess. I haven’t seen any traffic studies. I would really like to.)
But my advocacy for a 16th school goes way back before these current Zervas plans, and it’s not based on mere traffic. I’ve advocated specifically for a new school for Upper Falls since 2007, when the first version of the LRFP was released. Having been closely involved in the Zervas community, I have valued the benefits that its size offers to the students and community. To the extent possible, I think other (all) neighborhoods in Newton should have similarly sized schools. My concern is for walkable schools for as much of Newton as can be managed.
Fignewtonville, for me, the motivation is I don’t want Newton looking like a strip mall with the accompanying traffic. I’ve lived in walkable communities and car-centric communities. The difference is planning and design.
Fig – Just like Bruce, my motivation comes from the proper use of capital. I have no vested interest in the particular outcome (i.e.. Don’t live in Zervas OR Upper Falls), except for don’t want to get hit by an over-ride again in few years. OR have my children’s school busting off the seams because we added only 170 capacity.
I also feel jibbed by the decision making process – It smells rigged from the onset. I am sure the process was followed and all documents created, but the most logical question of a 16th school was never asked (esp since you are talking about capacity building). For instance, In the evaluation matrix, Elliot St was never given proper consideration. A huge part of that lot can be used for school, just requires creative thinking or starting with open minds.
Sam S:
http://village14.com/newton-ma/2014/03/should-newton-schools-reflect-newton-villages/#comment-45340
Everything Fig said. The Zervas parents do themselves no favors by insisting on a low capacity school as well as a comprehensive renovation. Where do we find the funds for this major renovation that will give the Zervas population everything it wants and a 16th school in the southside of the city – at the expense of the students in the entire northside of the city? Do you think we’ll get an override for THAT? You think northside folks will not be voting Yes so that the Wabanites can have everything they want, the rest of the city be damned? I doubt it.
Bruce- “To the extent possible…other (all) neighborhoods in Newton should have similarly sized schools”. Sorry, but the statement comes across as a bit disingenuous since we’re all very aware that it can’t happen. Not only do we not have the funds, we don’t have the space for new elementary schools. As for the traffic, I live very close to Zervas (a block and a half away) and I’m not at all concerned about it. It’s busy for 20 minutes at drop off, 20 minutes at pick-up and there’s only an occasional evening event – and none of those cute little kids smokes dope! Far from complaining, I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. You should trade houses with Fig for a week. It’d be quite an eye opener for you.
As for the Eliot St. lot, I can’t imagine a less safe place to put an elementary school – narrow sidewalks, on a curvy street that leads to a major intersection on Rte 9. The nearby side streets are impossibly narrow. It would be a terrible accident waiting to happen. For the life of me, I’ve never understood the logic behind that idea.
Should have said, “would be voting Yes”.
@fig and Jane: According to the MSBA, Zervas’ condition is in the same category as most other Newton elementary schools, e.g. Bowen, Burr, Horace-Mann, Countryside. Zervas’ classrooms are appropriately sized and it’s handicap accessible, says the School Committee’s LRFP. Zervas needs to have its systems updated (electrical, plumbing, mechanical). It needs some new interiors.
But that’s the type of work we are planning for most of our elementary schools, running in the low millions for each. Zervas doesn’t have a cafeteria, but neither do Ward, Bowen, Countryside, Mason-Rice, Memorial Spaulding, and Peirce. Its auditorium/stage was converted into classrooms when enrollment there went up.
So yes, Zervas is overcrowded, but the solution could be to build a 16th school and reduce the Zervas population. It was built for 250, not 320. So put 70 kids in a new UF school and convert the classrooms back to an auditorium.
Where would you put a 16th school? How about Bobby Braceland playground? Plenty of room there, we just would need to get state approval – not a big deal if there were support for it.
How would we pay for all this? Bonding – the same way we’re paying for most of the work planned for buildings across the municipality – fire, police, libraries, schools, senior center, utilities buildings, city hall itself. We have many millions in spending planned. $4.6 million for Ward, 2 million for Lincoln Eliot, 2 million for Horace-Mann, etc etc.
As far as the insinuations about self-interest, I don’t live in Upper Falls or Waban. I live in Newton Highlands which doesn’t have a school in any of these scenarios. I do have to drive down Beethoven Ave every morning and hope I get there in time. Other than that, it would be nice to have a brand new state of the art school. But frankly, I don’t think about that very much. I think about how important it is for every kid in Newton to be able to walk or bike to school. I feel that is an ideal that we should strive for when planning capacity.
By the way, the Zervas project doesn’t exist because of anything Zervas parents “insist” on. The city and the state undertook needs assessments on all of our schools, with the result being the Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP), the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and the MSBA’s Needs Survey. These analyses and plans were not created by chatting with parents, they were created by examining the actual buildings, enrollments, etc. So I’m not sure why you are pointing a finger at the Zervas “population trying to get everything it wants”.
Steve – I read your post before I even posted on this blog. Besides looking at 2006/7 data, I also looked at most recent projections from 2013. The Nov 2013 school enrollment report projects 164 increase in students by year 2017 (the year new Zervas would open) with additional 170 student capacity.
So Net, we will have increased capacity for only 6 more students. And this does not factor in the growth from projects in the pipeline. Hence my claim, the $40M investment will not solve the city wide problem even 4 years out, and we will be at sq 1 asking for money again.
Pl. correct if I am interpreting the recent data incorrectly.
http://www3.newton.k12.ma.us/sites/default/files/users/44/enrollment%20analysis%20report%20-%2011-25-13_0.pdf page ii
Oops, yeah, Horace Mann didn’t hyphenate his first and last names, and neither does the school named after him. Sorry for the mistake.
Sam S: Short answer right now, but within this timeframe Cabot will also be adding 60 seats, Angier 45.
Steven:
Some interesting points in your post. Again, I think you have a have your cake and eat it too issue. If you remove 70 kids from Zervas to reuse your auditorium, you’ve effectively taken away 20% of the new school capacity.
I do agree with you on bonding. The city has been far to reluctant to bond over some of these building issues, too focused on maintaining a AAA rating (which wouldn’t change I bet with 50 million of debt).
Thank you for the response on your personal interest in this matter. Like I said, always good to know where folks are coming from.
Finally, if you think Zervas parents weren’t pushing for a rehabbed school, I think you are just mistaken. I’ve got lots of parental friends in that school system, they care about the school, the timing of the rehab, etc. They are a bit shell-shocked regarding the increase in size, I’ll give you that. I think most of them thought they’d get to dictate the size and shape of the rehab. But this is something folks in that community have been pushing for. Just like the Cabot community wants a new Cabot. We’ll have to swallow some bad items with that new building as well, I’m sure. If we ever get it built, apparently Zervas gets to go first. (I know, I know, Steve Spiegel. It was all above board and had nothing to do with pressure from parents, despite the pressure on Setti being quite involved from what I hear. Nothing to see here…)
I guess my consistent theme is this: You can’t always get what you want. I’d love those walkable schools at 300 kids per school. I’d love better roads. I’d love a redone village center. I’d love better city services. But since the rest of Newton has been living with larger schools for quite some time, to say that you think Zervas should stay small (and you would want all these other schools to be reduced in size) ignores the realities on the ground. I’d want that to in a perfect world. Now tell me how to do that and be fair about the other schools. Capacity has grown, and in my view everyone needs to take a fair share.
And Jane, happily I don’t get too many smokers from NNHS. I live within the smoking ban signs, but I’m up a hill, and smokers apparently don’t like to walk up hills. Go figure! I have noticed a bunch of them at the senior center, which is a real bummer.
One final thing, and I’m sorry for my ignorance.
What happens to the Carr school once all the swing space isn’t needed? Wouldn’t that make a good 16th elementary school? Too close to others?
@fig – “If you remove 70 kids from Zervas to reuse your auditorium, you’ve effectively taken away 20% of the new school capacity.”
Think of it this way. Those 70 kids (or whatever the real number is) in Zervas are causing the space utilization to be overly maxed out. To bring the school back into balance you would have to a) expand the building or b) remove students. So think of Zervas’ available capacity as -70. You have to put them somewhere, either in a new Zervas School or Braceland School.
Hopefully the Carr school will be used to Transition the Horace Mann School – now they have Deplorable conditions. many modules – the last one being placed in the front as they have run out of space to put them and overcrowding issues too.
The new Angier and the new Zervas are 0.8 miles apart, and from what I’ve read here, the grand total of new seats will be 230.
Any of the students who live near those schools can walk to school. I HOPE they walk, and that the carbon footprint won’t be increased by parents driving their kids such a short distance to the Beethoven/Beacon St. area.
The cost, both in busing and in community, will be for all the students who don’t live in Angier or Zervas zones, but will be sent there.
I think that it’s critical to understand that the Zervas proposal is not subject to MSBA approval. I believe that the developers and the school committee are using MSBA guidelines because they are sound and proven.
The override, imho, did not convey in lay language, that we were voting on financing a new Zervas for $40 million over a period of 20 years. I have read the question so many times, and I still can’t figure out how voting to approve $1 million, (which was $800,000 before being upped) to do a FEASABILITY study ended up with a long term tax for a brand new school.
@Jo-Lousie: The financing for Zervas is over 30 years, not 20. Since NNHS, we’ve moved from 20-year financing to 30-year financing, in order to make the numbers work. If I recall correctly, the share of the override that’s earmarked for Zervas debt service started at 1.3M in 2013. That share is expected to cover the $40M over 30 years only because 1) the override revenue started being collected a few years before the borrowing will kick in and 2) the override funds for Zervas will grow at 2.5% per year. (They’ll be double, at $2.6M a year, by year 25.) After the project is done and paid for, those funds will continue to grow and may be used for any purpose. (Technically speaking, they could be used for any purpose starting the year after the override.) I think that Zervas should be funded by a debt exclusion, but that’s one train that really, truly has left the station.
I’m not saying that the override was very clear about what would be done. I’m just saying how I understand it now. Back then, I would not have guessed that anyone today would be saying “the voters have spoken” in support of this particular plan.
@Jane: People living west of Zervas on Beacon don’t feel the brunt of current (or future) Zervas traffic because ALL Zervas-bound traffic must travel north on Beethoven (not from any other direction) to reach the school, since Beethoven is one-way at drop-off and pick-up times and the school entrance is on that street. All the traffic backup is on Beethoven and will continue to be so. Any extra traffic you see on Beacon, going east or west, is just leaving the scene after the crunch.
Bruce – You’re quibbling over details. At the elementary school level, traffic gums things up for 20 minutes at drop off time and 20 minutes at pick-up time an that’s about it. It’s just not that big a deal and to make it into something it’s not doesn’t make sense. It’s what most people who live within a third of a mile of every elementary school live with. This is where Wabanites run into trouble with the rest of the city – it frankly comes across as a bit entitled, that we should
In fact, traffic happens everywhere in a city. It happens during rush hour, during school drop off/pick up times, when there’s a special event going on in the city. If you want to avoid all traffic, then you have to live in a town where there’s none in the first place. Personally, I’d rather figure out a way around the traffic or live with it, and enjoy the amenities of a more urban environment.
As for the override, when you’re one of the people who explained each of the questions literally hundreds of times to hundreds of people, I’m quite frustrated. What happened to the voter’s responsibility? In March 2013, I walked over to the polls to vote and found out we were voting on the Waban Area Council candidates and they had blurbs on a website. I walked back home (my whole block and a half!) to read what each candidate had written before voting. Being an informed voter is a civic responsibility and what we should be teaching our kids to do. I have way more patience for the folks who voted No on the override who are complaining than for those who never bothered to find out what they voting for and now want to change what things to suit their personal concerns.
And Sally, we had a bit of a pie fight on the blog a few weeks back, but I think you’re doing a great job on the Waban Area Council and I did in fact vote for you after reading your statement.
Jane, you’re taking the traffic issue far too lightly. Much of our city’s traffic is precisely because people feel entitled to drive their kids to school, right to the front door. It wasn’t always this way, and it can’t all be blamed on school closings. Even in smaller districts, the majority of parents are driving their kids to school. Traffic makes the start and end of the school day chaotic, distracts school staff when they should be working with our kids, and creates dangerous situations with flaring tempers and flagrant violations of traffic laws. It’s horrible for our kids, who have less independence and less exercise, and negatively impacts our neighborhoods, especially when you find your way around a traffic jam. Making Beethoven one-way (actually, only a turn restriction) is terrible policy. It only serves to reinforce these patterns.
This conversation is reminding me of a policy that drove me crazy when my kids were in elementary school. My daughter was told that she wasn’t allowed to ride her bike to school without an adult until she took the bike safety class, which I don’t think they offered until spring of fifth grade. We live about 1/4 from the school and are able to take back roads the whole way. I never understood why physical fitness would be discouraged when her parents thought she was responsible enough to stay safe. I don’t remember why I didn’t fight it. I do remember that we just ignored it and got away with it.
Just wondering whether this is a district-wide policy.
Beethoven being one way during school pick up and drop off is NOT bad policy. Parents would just pull up “for a moment” and have their kids jump in the car. I’ve seen it happen on the one way roads surrounding Cabot dozens of times. Beethoven is too narrow for that type of stuff in both directions.
I will say that folks drive on Beethoven WAY too fast. It is clearly a cut through road, but it is a bit turn filled and lots of kids and cars in the road. On Saturdays it is a madhouse with the neighborhood soccer and still some folks drive like it is Walnut street.
As for the driving issue Adam, I walk my kids to school some days, and drive them other days. I’m 0.8 miles away from Cabot. In the wintertime, that is too far for my kids, especially with the unplowed sidewalks.
Adam – I totally agree with you. Back in the day, my kids walked to and from school in rain or shine and all through the winter, and it was very good for them in many ways. We lived about a half a mile from the school. When they went to MS and we were .9 miles from the school (too far to walk for the 8:00 start of school), we carpooled with 3 other families and dropped the kids off 3 blocks from the school and never hit a traffic jam, then they got themselves home.
There are about 6 side streets within 3 blocks of Zervas and a crossing guard. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect students to walk some distance to school.
fig, Beethoven has a blue zone on one side of the street. “That type of stuff” in both directions implies traffic violations, like those who discharge passengers on the wrong side of the street or don’t stop just “for a moment”, so we cave and change our traffic flow to meet the scofflaws. And timed turn restrictions, in general, are bad traffic policy. City staff rightfully fought this one. Once we start, it’s a slippery slope.
Gail, I’ve heard this discussed at the Safe Routes Task Force, perhaps regarding your local elementary. I’m reasonably certain what you experienced was school-specific, not city-wide policy. That said, it’s also worth noting that bike safety is not part of the curriculum. It’s done on an ad-hoc basis, not regularly as it was a generation ago.
I can’t recall any bike safety programs when I attended Hyde and Weeks during the late 40’s and early 50’s. I walked to both Hyde and Weeks, but used bicycle or bus to get to the old (3 building) Newton High School during the mid-50’s. I don’t think it ever dawned on my very caring parents that they should be responsible for driving me to school.
The question that might naturally arise is—why did kids and even adults feel so safe riding bicycles back in the 50’s where there is almost a panic about them doing so today? As an oldster here I might be expected to say that people are just more selfish, self-centered and self-absorbed now than they were then, but I don’t think that’s the root cause. I remember a lot of the old Yankee Republicans here telling me that my generation was doomed because of FDR and the New Deal. I think a far more compelling reason is that adult drivers were sensitive to the fact that there were a lot of kids and some other people riding bicycles on both sidewalks and streets because that was the driving environment they had grown up in. And it was often their kids and neighbors kids who were riding those bicycles. There’s been a long stretch when that didn’t occur as regularly, so drivers have not been conditioned to look out for those on bicycles because they are far more likely to be adults than kids. There’s a natural tendency for today’s drivers to tense up when they see an adult riding a bicycle, particularly on busier roadways, because they aren’t used to seeing it and it’s more than likely that either the driver of the auto or the bicyclists (and maybe even both) won’t fully know the rules of the road.
@Bob – Also .. my guess is that there’s at least double the amount of vehicular traffic on Newton’s streets now than there was in the 50’s
And that increased vehicular traffic, without an increase in population, reflects reduced walking /biking. A just released Stanford research report: “Lack of exercise, not diet, linked to rise in obesity.” Our average caloric intake hasn’t changed much over the past 22 years, but our levels of exercise have.
http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/07/lack-of-exercise–not-diet–linked-to-rise-in-obesity–stanford-.html
You are right about that, Jerry. And people drive much faster on our streets than they did then. You never, but never, would drive more than 20-25 on Lincoln Street. But I still think the ability to identify with the person riding the bike is important. I don’t think most drivers would be that impatient if it was their kid riding on a bike beside them. I should also add that Mayor Howard Whitmore asked Officer Charlie Feeley to be the City’s Bicycle Officer in the late 50’s after I had stopped riding a bicycle. Charlie was a much loved institution in Newton and he set out with a vigorous program to correct all the bone headed ways my generation tooled around on our bikes. Today’s parents would be shocked out of their senses if their kids did some of the things we did on and off bicycles.
Acceptable walking distance for elementary school children is less than for middle and high school. According to the EPA’s school siting guidelines, 1/2 mile is an acceptable radius around an elementary school for walking. See pg 40-41:
http://www.epa.gov/schools/siting/downloads/School_Siting_Guidelines.pdf
“If walking routes for a location are unsatisfactory, the school district should consider another location or work with the city or county to have safe walking routes installed before opening the school”.
Carpooling will reduce traffic, but it’s not a good replacement for walking since the kids get no exercise, and don’t have the experience of navigating themselves to school – which is thought to be beneficial for their development. By contrast, zoning out or goofing in the back seat of a car does nothing for brain development.
A pedestrian connection with the Cold Spring Park Lifecourse Trail could help mitigate traffic.
Additionally, consideration of upgraded bicycle and pedestrian facilities should be a required element in the overall design planning (which would have the co-benefit of promoting physical activity as noted above).
Another option is to drop the kids off beyond the area where the traffic builds up. Any of the streets within 3 or 4 blocks of the school are safe walking routes.
This is going to get really stressful when the snow hits the streets. I don’t know about Zervas but streets around Mason-Rice aren’t easily walkable – – you’re forced *into* the street if you’ve got a stroller, or need to hold a small hand, even on the city shoveled side of Tyler Terrace. And that’s only if you can make it through the city sidewalk on Centre. The pathway just isn’t shoveled wide enough for single strollers and the tree branches aren’t trimmed so even a shorty like me can’t walk without ducking AND still getting smacked in the face. The neighbourhood’s major cut through via the newton centre playground isn’t shoveled at all past the entry fence. This causes additional traffic as parents who drop off at the big preschool on centre end up driving from there to Mason Rice, which is just batty. Neighbours have filed 411 reports; I’ve brought up the sidewalks to Superintendent Fleischman, who says take it up with the city, Bob Derubeis who I normally think does a great job but says “we’ll see what we can do”, about the park etc etc. Everyone MEANS well but nothing walkable actually improves. Additionally, the blue zones become a joke because the snow banks are so high kids can’t actually exit on the curbside. I hear it’s similiar at other schools. So whatever the Zervas traffic plans are, I hope it includes a freaking snow section.
@Joyce – which are the streets where low branches are a problem? I can’t do anything about the snow, but if the branches are low enough to be a pedestrian clearance problem, they are low enough for Newton Citizen Pruners to take care of. We can do that this summer. FYI, for anyone who hasn’t seen me post about Citizen Pruners before, we are trained by Marc Welch, we work on city trees from the ground, we’ll be working on Comm Ave near Manet Road Saturday morning July 26, if you want to see what we do, and if you’re interested in taking the next training classes, email Marc Welch at [email protected], and/or me at [email protected] and we’ll make sure you get notified.
Thanks! It’s the city side of Tyler Terrace. Theres a stretch off centre street thats problematic, though I haven’t walked down that side since the snow melted and the park was passable. Thanks again!