Superintendent Anna Nolin has laid out a plan to standardize course leveling and multilevel classrooms across the school district. But at Monday night’s school committee meeting, it came with opposition. 

“What we have learned is that there is no ‘it,’ there is no multilevel class composition,” said Nolin, during her superintendent update.

She claimed that multilevel models vary so much between schools, departments, and grade levels that the concept cannot be defined as one system that dictates how students are separated by course level.

Here’s the memo in its entirety: Superintendent Update and MOY Data Review Update roe 2-10-25

Nolin also shared a document with the school committee that laid out a potential timeline for addressing concerns from parents and educators around multilevel classrooms and clears up what she says are mischaracterizations of what multilevel classroom learning is.

“Using our gardening metaphor (thrive, grow, garden city) and the idea that as a school system, our Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) should, with coordinated district wide support, allow teachers across the system to cultivate thriving classes where all learners are ‘fed’ what they need
to thrive, our future leveling system needs to be designed differently and be executed consistently across all schools,” Nolin’s memo reads. “Currently, because of a lack of structure, definitions and resources, we have a field where a thousand wildflowers bloom….success blooming by accident or by those that are able to withstand the challenges of our current system.

She also explained that there is a lack of consensus between departments, educators, and schools on the difficulty of each level, and the placement process to determine the best-suited level for students.

Ryan Normandin, a math and physics teacher at Newton South and chair of its Faculty Council, disagreed with this assertion during the public comment section of the meeting.

“Each course team understands quite well what the differences are between our levels, [and] is required to use similar grading practices and common assessments to place our students.”

According to Nolin’s potential plan, determining definitions of each level would be a large part of addressing the multilevel learning situation.

“Most teachers have said ‘I’ve seen positive outcomes to both models, but I feel ineffective and incapable of sustaining what the kids really need given the range of needs that I see and our lack of training’,”

The number of teachers subscribing to this viewpoint was not shared by Nolin during this update.

“I have a petition containing signatures from nearly every STEM and world language teacher at South urging that multilevel be rolled back in those departments,” said Normandin.

Normandin said that he felt the memo itself was disrespectful to educators who, in his view, had shown that multilevel classrooms are not a viable model.

Ward 6 School committee member Paul Levy disagreed with this sentiment saying that he saw nothing in the memo that disrespected teachers.

Both sides alleged that misinformation was being spread by the other, while the future of students’ educational experience remains undetermined.

“It is not productive to examine or learn about programs by reading op-ed articles in papers or from chain emails or social media. That is where I learned that I am ignoring the crisis around multi-level classes and studying data about its effectiveness for a year,” Nolin wrote in her update to the school committee.