Ahead of the start of the new school year, the Newton School Committee met virtually Thursday night to discuss a grant for a genocide education program, an application for a new private school in the city and the union bargaining committee for the upcoming contract year.
Jason Bhardwaj and Linda Swain were absent due to being on vacation. There was no public comment.
The meeting began with a discussion of a recent grant awarded to the district that will cover the curriculum development costs of a new genocide education program.
Ben Schlesinger of Ward 5 said he wanted to make sure that the new content funded by the grant would not displace the district’s existing curriculum on the Holocaust for grades 8-11.
Superintendent Anna Nolin confirmed that the new content would only enhance what is already taught to Newton students.
“This grant is meant to be additive to what is already in the curriculum,” she said. “The idea is not to retract anything we currently have but to realign and reorganize, and add new things and different time periods.”
The committee approved the program grant unanimously.
School committee members also discussed an application from the Newton High Peak School, a new private school that hopes to open in Newton this fall. Under state law, Newton’s school committee must determine whether private schools looking to operate in the city are comparable to Newton’s public school offerings.
Nolin clarified that the school committee and the NPS district are not responsible for overseeing whether private schools follow through on providing an adequate education. This role belongs to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in Massachusetts.
The Peak School submitted an application in May. In late August, NPS administrators conducted a walk through of the building located at 160 Herrick Road and provided school committee members with a rubric grading the quality of the proposed school in comparison to NPS. The school received conditional approval for one year after receiving 19 out of 33 total possible points.
Jonathan Greene of Ward 6 said he found the whole process to be strange.
“I find it extremely bizarre that we are, as a school system and a school committee, responsible for both the process and the cost of validating these things on behalf of DESE, and then DESE is somehow responsible for seeing to it that children who aren’t from Newton but happen to go to school in a building that falls within our city limits end up with the education that the state says they need to have,” he said. “This is a very odd thing to opine on. But if that is the way that this works, so be it.”
The motion passed without opposition, allowing the Peak School to open in time for the start of the academic year.
Chair Alicia Piedalue also introduced this year’s union contract bargaining committee. The upcoming school year is the final one of the current Newton Teachers Association contract, which means bargaining will take place throughout the year, beginning in the next few weeks.
The bargaining committee will include the following members:
- Anna Nolin, Superintendent
- Joany Santa, Assistant Superintendent for HR
- Ayesha Farag, Assistant Superintendent, Elementary Education
- Gene Roundtree, Assistant Superintendent, Secondary Education
- Jill Murray Grady, General Counsel to NPS
- Jackie Mann, Principal, Day Middle School
- Orla Higgins, Principal, Angier Elementary School
- Tony Byers, Principal, Williams Elementary School
- Mark Nardelli, Principal, Horace Mann Elementary School
- Alicia Piedalue, School Committee
- Jason Bhardwaj, School Committee
- Ben Schlesinger, School Committee
- Andy Waugh, Outside Counsel to School Committee
There will not be a high school principal on the committee this year because both Newton North High School and Newton South High School currently have interim principals. However, Piedalue said that outgoing principals Henry Turner and Tamara Stras offered their insights prior to departing their roles.
The biggest change proposed so far by the committee is to livestream bargaining sessions for increased transparency. This has become more common in other school districts, including Brookline.
Victor Lee of Ward 8 said he supports the idea of making bargaining meetings public but hopes that the transition does not make reaching a consensus harder for committee members who would face an added pressure to please their respective supporters.
“My hope and aspiration is that the nature of it being public and transparent doesn’t force us or other folks, NTA or otherwise, any participant in this process, to feel like we can’t reach points of compromise as a result of having to play to particular constituencies … I’m just thinking through why historically some things were done behind proverbial closed doors, and some of that I think was the act of political posturing.”
The first regular school committee meeting of the upcoming academic year will be on Sept. 14 from 7 to 10 p.m. The public can attend virtually or in person at 100 Walnut Street.