NEWTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE
MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING, MAY 22, 2006
EDUCATION CENTER, FRAZIER ROOM, 7:00 P.M.
PRESENT: Chairperson Dori Zaleznik, Vice-Chairperson
Marc Laredo, Gail Glick, Anne Larner, Reenie Murphy, Claire Sokoloff,
Jonathan Yeo, Superintendent Jeffrey Young
ABSENT: Susan Heyman, Mayor David Cohen, student
representatives
CALL TO ORDER
Chairperson Dori Zaleznik called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m. She noted that Susie Heyman
is absent due to a family obligation.
She also mentioned that the reason they are beginning tonight’s meeting
early is so that Committee members can get to City Hall for a meeting between
the Programs & Services, Public
Facilities and Finance Committees to address the Mayor’s request for additional
design money for Newton North High School.
PUBLIC
COMMENT
Vivian Montgomery, Underwood Elementary School
parent, talked about the large class sizes for next year’s 4th grade
at their school. Her son experienced a
class of 25 in 2nd grade and the
physical space was not adequate, even though it was one of the largest
classrooms in the school. There was a
huge difference between his 1st and 3rd grade
experiences, in which the class sizes were small, vs. that of the 2nd
grade. In those years he received
individualized attention. She finds it
amazing that in such a privileged and wealth community they are accepting these
type of situations, as well as the numerous program cuts.
Lori Yarvis, Underwood
parent, stated that when they first moved to Newton four years ago for the
school system her daughter was in a small class size and the teacher was
differentiating instruction based on individual learning styles of
students. It is disheartening to see
this unwinding, where they are now confronted with large classes, stressed
teachers, and parents fighting to have their children’s need addressed. She
urged the School Committee to work with the State legislators to make sure that
Newton gets its fair share of State aid and that Underwood receive a third
teacher for next year’s 4th grade.
Jean Scarrow, Underwood
parent, has an older child who attended Underwood and now a 3rd-grader,
so she has had a long experience with watching the school grow and change over
the years. Differentiated instruction is
one of the very positive things that has been instituted and the staff have put
in a tremendous investment in accommodating the capabilities of all
children. However, she has seen the
difference in a teacher’s ability do that in a class of 21 vs. 26, both because
of the physical space and the sheer number of students. The cramped space makes for distractions and
takes away from academics. They do not
want to take resources from other schools within Newton but rather to work with
the State legislators for increased funding.
Andrew Budson, Underwood
parent, has been very pleased with the education his daughter has received in
the Newton Public Schools and his mother has been teaching in this system for a
number of years. He recently asked her
about the importance of class size and received a very detailed response. The first thing that is lost is the ability
to differentiate instruction. Teachers
often end up spending more time with students who are either having difficulty
with the curriculum or having behavior issues or, just the opposite where the
teacher is working with students needing extra attention or additional
challenges and they get left behind. The
chance of having more students with special needs increases in a larger
classroom. There is cohesiveness to a
group of approximately 20 students in terms of attention spans, room to break
into small groups, or be able to sit in a circle as a whole and concentrate
while a teacher reads a book.
Peter Mahoney, Mason-Rice Elementary School parent, addressed
the Committee regarding the lift project at their school. He thanked the Committee for their unanimous
support for this endeavor. He wanted to
mention the need for urgency and transparency.
Over the past year he has been involved in two accessible design
projects, so he understands the need to involve the community and especially
those who will be accessing the lift. They
need to keep diligent focus on the schedule so that this is in place before the
opening of school.
Dori Zaleznik
reiterated what she said at the last meeting about large classes. There are several
other schools that are facing similar circumstances as Underwood in terms of
large classes. There are two reserve
positions in the budget which they are holding onto until they have more
information as summer progresses and people move in and out of the
community. A commitment cannot be made
at this time without knowing where the worst situations exist. In addition, they are carefully watching what
happens at the State level in terms of additional funding. She asked if someone could update the
Committee on this issue of the Mason-Rice lift.
Michael Cronin, Chief of Operations, stated
that the day after the School Committee voted the Capital Improvement Program
the Building Commissioner appointed an on-call City architect, who then did a
walk-through at Mason-Rice and selected three possible locations for
placement. After a review of those, and
elimination of two for structural reasons, they have selected what appears to
be the best location. They are in the
process of completing the contract documents so that they can put out a Request
for Proposal (RFP). Everyone is aware of
the time sensitiveness of this issue and they are stream-lining the process
wherever possible. It is currently on
schedule to be finished before the opening of school. As soon as they have the final drawings they
will communicate that to the Principal who, in turn, can distribute the
information to the parent community for feedback.
Reenie Murphy asked
if any of the users of the lift had been consulted to date.
Mike Cronin wanted to have at least a
preliminary set of drawings before presenting them to the public, so that they
will have some concrete data to review.
There will be room in the schedule to make adjustments and modifications
if necessary.
STUDENT
REPRESENTATIVES’ DISCUSSION
None
RECOGNITIONS
The following recognitions were
acknowledged:
Laura
Vanessa Gonzales, Newton North High School, and
Rebecca
Baumwoll, Newton South High School, for being
named recipients of the 2006 Newton Art Association
High
School Senior Student Achievement Award winners for
their
outstanding work in the visual arts based on their
senior portfolios.
The following students who were named Honorable
Mention
winners in the 2006 High School Photograph Contest
sponsored
by the Watertown Savings Bank, where their
photographs will
appear in next year’s calendar and be on exhibit at
the bank
through 7/31/06:
Newton North Newton
South
Dan Battat Mark
Giglio
Josh Oppenheimer Sam
Lilienfeld
Jonathan
Lopatin
APPROVAL
OF SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
A correction was noted to the minutes of the 3/6/06
meeting in that they were incorrectly dated 2005.
MOTION: It was moved to approve the special meeting
minutes
of 3/6/06, as amended, budget meeting
minutes of 3/706, and executive session meeting
minutes
of 3/13/06.
(Larner – Murphy)
7 – 0 – 2
Absent: Heyman, Mayor Cohen
REPORTS
None
DISCUSSION
ITEMS
DISCUSSION
RE: SCHOOL WELLNESS POLICY &
GUIDELINES
Jeff Young explained that the Wellness Policy grew
out of a federal initiative for school districts nationwide to develop a policy
with an integrated approach to wellness and he believes Newton has captured
that holistic approach in the document.
Dori Zaleznik
thanked the members of this subcommittee who did a lot of in-depth work in a
short period of time to develop this comprehensive document.
Judith Malone Neville, outgoing Assistant
Superintendent of Schools, explained that health and wellness is a movement in
the country which takes an integrated approach and concentrates on lifelong
learning of mind and body. Newton has
been moving down this road in advance of many other communities and the federal
requirement was actually more limited than the program they had in place. Part of the policy establishes a health and
wellness council, which will monitor and review the policy in subsequent
years.
Dori Zaleznik
suggested they focus on the policy rather than the guidelines, which is the
administrative procedure for addressing the overall policy.
Anne Larner mentioned that
it is sometimes difficult to determine what should be in the policy vs. the
guidelines. As the policy is written now
one does not get the sense of what the School Committee is directing. She suggested taking the introductory
paragraphs in the guidelines and moving those to the policy, which would then
provide the general guidance for the specifics.
She thinks everything is here that is required but that rearranging it
might make it clearer.
Marc Laredo agreed with Anne’s comments. While they do not want to be overly detailed
in the policy statement, it should be clear what the School Committee is
expecting. He noted that a number of the
guidelines dealing with the nutrition program seem to differ from the Life
Threatening Allergies (LTA) policy and guidelines. One example is the lack of differentiation
between the elementary, middle and high schools. He suggested they review all of these for
consistency purposes. He also mentioned
the guideline that addresses not withholding of physical activity as a
punishment. While he is not advocating
withholding physical activity as a punishment, he does wish to make sure
teachers have the flexibility to tell a child to sit down for a few minutes at
recess if they are misbehaving. They
might want to have further discussion around that point.
Jonathan Yeo stated that
overall the wellness program is excellent and has improved over the years.
Reenie Murphy noted that at some
future point they might want to expand the guidelines to show all the
offerings, such as tobacco prevention, sexual education, etc., because the
program is actually much more comprehensive than what is outlined in the
material.
Judy Malone Neville agreed and mentioned that there
are other issues they did not address, such as bus/pedestrian safety and other
topics that were raised by the subcommittee, but felt at this point they should
confine themselves to the requirements of the federal government.
Dori Zaleznik
suggested they mention some of these other programs in the narrative rather
than the policy itself so that people can see the direction in which they are
moving.
DISCUSSION
RE: INTERNET POLICY
Fran Zilonis, Director of
Information Technology, noted that there are several policies before the
Committee this evening under this topic.
The first is the Employee Confidentiality Policy, which makes people
aware of the importance of, and their responsibility for, keeping
student/teacher/parent information confidential, both in written and electronic
modes, as well as verbally.
Marc Laredo suggested adding “or with the written
consent of the individual” after the section about not disclosing information
except as permitted by law. Some payroll
information may be public record, so they might want to differentiate that area
as well.
Fran Zilonis noted that the
next policy is the Acceptable Use Policy, which replaces the one that has been
in effect since 1994, as that one was quite outdated given the electronic
resources now available.
Dori Zaleznik
noted that the critical reminder in this material is the fact that anytime
someone is using a portable device that belongs to the school system they have
to follow the guidelines as though they were using the equipment at school.
Reenie Murphy asked about the
section that makes employees responsible for losses.
Fran Zilonis replied that
this is to try to place some responsibility on staff. They have been able to collect on people’s
insurance in some cases.
Marc Laredo suggested they redraft this section to
make it clearer that this is discretionary so that they are either enforcing
the policy or making it clear that they can be selective. He asked if this policy was obtained from
another source.
Fran Zilonis reviewed other
school system’s policies, as well as a book by the National School Board
Association (NSBA), and included legal counsel in the formation of the policy,
which was compared to the City’s policy for consistency.
Marc Laredo questioned the piece about prohibiting of
mass emails and how that might impact school secretaries who routinely send
notices to parents via email.
Fran Zilonis stated that
they are not restricting all mass emails, but need to be kept in the loop to be
certain that the email server is not shut down because of something that is too
large to handle.
Reenie Murphy suggested adding
something about how often this policy should be reviewed and updated given how
quickly technology changes.
Fran Zilonis agreed and
noted that every three years it would be wise to revisit the policy.
The third policy before the Committee this evening is
the Copyright Policy, which informs employees not to violate the copyright law
and outlines the guidelines for appropriate user under the law.
Anne Larner admitted that
she learned a great deal about copyright law from this information and the
specificity will be very important for everyone.
Fran Zilonis admitted to
being worried about liability around this issue and that being on record as
having approved and distributed a policy protects the district.
Clare Sokoloff was also
riveted by this very important and detailed information. She asked how they get teachers and students
to digest all of this and whether or not they might be planning some formal
presentation.
Fran Zilonis stated that
her recommendation would be for the librarians to conduct workshops with
teachers about the law as they are quite knowledgeable in this area. Children are exposed to the copyright law as
part of the curriculum, so they learn about citing sources and proper use of
materials.
Marc Laredo asked where the information for this
policy came from and if it is current.
Fran Zilonis stated that the
guiding materials came from the American Library Association two years ago.
Dori Zaleznik
suggested this be made available for access on the website.
Fran Zilonis replied that,
if this meets with Committee approval, it was their intent to post it on the
website.
The next policy is the Web Publishing Policy, which
articulates their expectations for the use of the website and is primarily for
the protection of students. It also
protects the way the school department portrays itself to the community and
gives people notice that there are expectations to be fulfilled.
Reenie Murphy asked if there are any
plans to expand policies for students in terms of the way they use the Internet
outside of school. There are currently
sites that children visit and enter a lot of personal information. While she knows it is not something they can
control, they might be able to provide some guidance.
Judy Malone Neville stated that while she shares
these concerns and they certainly talk about the dangers of this with students
at the secondary level, they cannot make rules for students outside of school,
as it is not in their purview.
Jeff Young mentioned that they can treat this as an
educational issue vs. a policy or rule.
DISCUSSION
RE: FIRST AMENDMENT GUIDELINES
Jeff Young thanked Jonathan Yeo
for forwarding this information. The first Amendment Center Project involved groups on
opposite sides of the political spectrum coming together to talk about ways to
create an environment for people to converse respectfully about issues related
to homosexuality without suggesting any desired outcome. Burr Elementary School has been involved in a
similar type of process for the past two years.
People have strongly held opinions that are unlikely to change, but the
purpose of this work is to find ways that people can converse civilly and
respectfully. He would like to have some
discussion tonight about the national guidelines and then let the
representatives from Burr come to a future meeting to discuss their process. The national guidelines were developed by
several groups very disparate in their opinions, who wrestled with talking
about what divides them and how to talk peacefully.
The guidelines do not express a preferred
outcome of the discussions, but rather encourage people to let the First
Amendment be an inspiration as they use the three R’s – rights,
responsibilities, and respect. A
statement in the material that he believes captures the essence of this process
is as follows: “Under the First
Amendment a school is both safe and free and students, parents, educators and all
members of the school community commit to addressing their religious and
political differences with civility and respect. A safe school is fee of bullying and
harassment and a free school is safe for student speech even about issues that
divide us.”
Anne Larner
feels that this is a very important thing to be addressing. These feelings of polarization and not being
able to communicate have been going on for a long time in this community. She strongly supports the efforts to learn
from this and from the Burr experience.
Dori Zaleznik
would like to consider adopting these guidelines as an overarching structure
and would also be very interested in hearing from the people at Burr about
their experiences, as well as seeing these types of conversations occur in
other schools. She would like the policy
to be more broad and include topics other than sexuality, such as race,
ethnicity, religion, etc.
Jeff Young agreed.
This is what is so wonderful about this process in that it allows people
to try to find a common ground regarding how to communicate with one another
about a variety of issues. The seven
guidelines are: 1.) Create a common
ground task force consisting of representatives with a range of viewpoints, 2.)
Agree on civic ground rules and understand current laws, 3.) Include all
stakeholders, 4.) Think outside of the box of “us” vs. “them” politics, 5.)
Listen to all sides and be receptive, 6.) Work for agreements on civic
principles and safe schools, 7.) Provide educational opportunities for administrators,
teachers, parents, and students around the First Amendment principles of
rights, responsibilities, and respect.
Gail Glick commented that her favorite phrase from
the material is “It would serve us all to remember that the core mission of
public schools is to prepare young people for citizenship in a democratic
society.” She has some concern about
using the guise of the First Amendment as a protective cover, which not only
has protections but prohibitions as well.
While it is an intriguing approach, she would like to see them evolve
beyond that umbrella.
Clare Sokoloff stated that
perhaps using the vehicle of the First Amendment could be a starting point to
frame the work and protect people who do not feel safe in having dialogues
around controversial issues. The past
few years in Newton have been difficult ones to have civil conversations around
divergent lines. Forming a process where
the people themselves define how they will treat one another in civil discourse
is an excellent starting point. Doing
this at the adult level will inevitably trickle down to the children. It will be important that as they approach
this they do not make it appear that it is a partisan effort with a particular
point of view or agenda and that all opinions will be legitimate and safe to
share in an attempt to find common ground.
Marc Laredo agrees that creating a broader framework
makes sense. The guidelines seem to
cover large issues, such as how a system deals with the issue of sexual
orientation. However, a lot of this has
to do with the day-to-day concerns of having difficult conversations and they
are not going to convene a task force for this aspect. Therefore, in crafting the policy they might
want to think about doing it both on the macro and micro level.
Jeff Young stated that most people can agree on the
concept of a school needing to be safe.
While people may have different ideas around how to define safe, the definition
can be shaped as long as there is a shared vision.
Reenie Murphy cautioned that they
move slowly on this issue until they can clearly articulate where they are
headed. She does not want this to appear
as if they are pushing a politically correct way of thinking. Hearing from the people at Burr will be
helpful, but that is only one topic and she would like to hear from other
constituents and communities that have worked in a similar manner around other
issues not solely related to sexual orientation.
ACTION
ITEMS
CONTINUED
DISCUSSION/VOTE ON SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLANS
MOTION: It was moved to approve the Secondary School Improvement Plans
and Amendments (high schools),
as outlined in the 5/4/06 memorandum and presented
at the last meeting.
(Yeo – Larner)
7 – 0 – 2
Absent: Heyman, Mayor Cohen
Dori Zaleznik
suggested that due to the fact that they have two new high school principals
next year, it might be good to hear from them with some kind of interim report.
Jeff Young suggested they do that sometime next year
around this time, when they have had a year to get a sense of how they are
using the plans.
VOTE TO
ACCEPT RENOVATIONS TO BOWEN, WILLIAMS, AND MEMORIAL-SPAULDING ELEMENTARY
SCHOOLS
Dori Zaleznik
noted that this vote is required in order to accept reimbursement from the
State for these three completed tier 1 schools.
Anne Larner noted that some
current Committee members were not serving in their role during this process,
so she asked if the Superintendent would confirm that the renovations on the
schools meet the program requirements from the State prior to their vote.
Jeff Young affirmed that statement.
MOTION: It was moved that, in order to fulfill the obligation with the
State for reimbursement, to accept the renovations and additions to Bowen
Elementary School, Williams Elementary School and Memorial-Spaulding Elementary
School and attest that the renovations and additions meet the program
requirements of the school.
(Larner – Glick)
7 – 0 – 2
Absent: Heyman, Mayor Cohen
PUBLIC
COMMENT
There were no members of the public who wished to
address the Committee at this time.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 p.m.