Teachers spoke out against multilevel classrooms again at Monday night’s School Committee meeting, but the mounting pressure—which includes a petition signed by hundreds of Newton educators—has opened a dialogue on the issue.
One school’s chaos…
“What was once a rigorous course, has in some aspects become a diluted [and] abbreviated curriculum that leaves many students underserved,” said Chrysolite Fitzgerald, a math teacher at Newton South.
Fitzgerald said that more advanced students aren’t getting challenged in her classes, while students needing more support are now falling behind.
In 2021, the Newton Public Schools implemented the multilevel classrooms program—which puts advanced college prep students together with honors students instead of the standard system of separating by course difficulty—to foster educational equity, as more students of color were getting placed in base-level college prep tracks.
Recently, some Newton South educators have made it clear that they oppose this strategy, saying they hadn’t received proper professional development for multilevel teaching and that the result was even more disparity between students with differing skill levels.
Ryan Normandin, a math and physics teacher at Newton South and chair of its Faculty Council, presented a petition to the School Committee last month, urging the committee to shift away from multilevel classrooms in STEM and World Language for the 2025-2026 school year.
…Another school’s win?
But at Newton North, some educators have found success with the program.
According to Heather Hotchkiss, the department head of science, technology, and engineering, MCAS scores for math, science, and English increased dramatically among English language learners placed in multilevel classrooms over the past year.
David Bennett, a science teacher at Newton North, said that the multilevel system has allowed some of his students to advance their proficiency in science at an increased rate.
“Our two high schools operate totally differently right now, and part of the difficulty of this conversation is we’re not talking apples to apples in terms of our high school experiences,” said Superintendent Anna Nolin.
Although educators at Newton South have called for changes to be implemented next school year, Nolin said the district needs more time to go through the formal curriculum audit process with each subject.
“The central office, principals, staff and I intend to work collaboratively with our teachers with responses to student achievement data and survey data, rather than to do what we are doing now, which is a lot of dueling statements and newspaper articles.”