The School Committee has postponed a vote to move ahead with a math overhaul years in the making, to give the public a chance for input.

The committee spent more than three hours listening to curriculum recommendations for English, social studies and math, and there would be a potential vote on math on Monday. There was even a motion offered. But just before 11 p.m., a new motion was made to postpone the vote until the committee’s May 18 meeting. It was late, there was a lot of information to digest, and the public might have something to say.

The vote will only be for elementary and middle school curriculum. Plans for the high schools are on a brief pause while a customized program takes shape.

The soft rollout

For elementary and middle schools, the district will adopt Amplify Desmos Math programming. Currently, the elementary schools are using Investigations, but when the district requested an updated version, they were told Investigations was “being put out to pasture” in favor of the company’s other product, Experience Math, NPS Mathematics Director Jennifer Shore said.

So, the district piloted two programs—Experience Math and Amplify Desmos—and teachers overwhelmingly favored Amplify Desmos.

The district is planning a “soft rollout” of the new programming in elementary schools, allowing teachers to opt in early. And interest was greater than expected: 70 elementary school teachers signed up.

“And I think part of it is that some of them are the pilot teachers who want to keep going, and others are saying, ‘Investigations has run its course, so they’re ready for something different,’” Shore said. “And then there are teams that said, ‘We have a new teacher coming on. We don’t want to ask that teacher to learn investigations for one year and then shift.’ So, 70 was surprising to me. We had to have conversations about whether we could support that, but we also don’t want to dampen the energy level.’”

DIY approach

More work is needed to reach consensus on high school programming, Shore said. Two programs—CPM and Carnegie Learning—were tested, and there were good and bad factors with both, but neither had a lot of support from teachers.

Then, the review committee got an idea: NPS can create its own programming. Several Newton teachers, while at a conference in New Orleans, spoke with a publisher who does that kind of work.

“It would have common assessments and all the pieces that we need,” Shore said. It would also be very time consuming.

Another option would be to take either CPM or Carnegie and see if the vendor can make changes within their programming that suit the district. But, Shore said, that could be very expensive.

“Because, if you think about it, you’re buying the curriculum, and then you’re buying the consulting service to modify it to what it could be,” she said. “You could potentially double, maybe even triple, the price.”

It’s a high school math problem with no easy answer. But however the district moves toward integrating the two high schools with shared math curricula, Shore said, teachers are ready.

“Through the conversation about integrated vs. the traditional pathways, through all of the discussions related to the pilots, it’s been really clear to us, and it’s elevated each time we’ve had this conversation,” she said. “They want a common scope of sequence. They want a common vision. They’re seeking it out. So we feel like we’re right there.”

The details for that, and the vote on high school math curriculum, will have to wait.

The price tag

A vote of approval by the committee would allow the district to negotiate what will likely be a three-year contract with Amplify Desmos.

The cost of that three-year contract is likely to be $1.2 million. There’s $2 million set for the entire district-wide math overhaul, and Superintendent Anna Nolin said they would stay within that allocation.

“I haven’t even gotten in to beat them up yet, to get them down in price,” Nolin quipped.

Working with a vendor to create a special program for the high schools would likely cost $850,000 for two classes, and the district would own the curriculum, so changes could be made as needed. But the central administration is working to get that price down.

Mayor Marc Laredo said he wants to anticipate future costs for the programming.

“I would not expect this to be a free-cash supplemental grant going forward,” Laredo said. “So I think we ought to bake all this into our budget.”

“A hundred percent,” Nolin replied.

The committee also postponed discussion about, and a potential vote on, School Choice until its May 18 meeting.