Sue Flicop

From the Mayor: Regarding the federal stimulus money, no one knows the amounts or restrictions that will be placed on the money yet. There will be some money given to the states for them to decide.

At the state level, there will be some clarity when the House budget is released sometime in April. There are three changes being discussed: a change in the meals tax (either a statewide tax or an option for local governments to tax); a tax on telecommunications that haven’t been previously taxed; and an easing of the requirements for communities to join the GIC (Group Insurance Commission) that could reduce healthcare costs for local governments.

Here in Newton, the Mayor hopes to return to the School Committee for FY10 money that they turned back to the city in FY08. This would be a one-time increase based on prior savings in healthcare and other cuts in the budget, and is still not certain enough to include in the budget. The City could still see some cuts in the FY09 budget—the State is facing a $1 billion shortfall and could still cut more local aid to cities and towns.

High Schools (continued from last week): The Superintendent recommended that the cap in the number of blocks students could take (to go from 28 to 26 blocks) be removed for FY10. While the budget would still include a decrease of 2 FTEs, the decrease would be done at the discretion of the principal.

Regarding the minimum number of students to hold a class, the recommendation is to use the following guidelines:

• Honors and Curriculum I: minimum of 20 students
• Curriculum II: minimum of 16 students
• Electives: minimum of 20 students

NOTE: These are intended to be guidelines, not policy. This would allow the principals to be flexible, especially with certain music classes, SPED classes, and those that are very close to the limit).

PE/Wellness Changes: The PE/Wellness staff will be meeting with the Superintendent this week to discuss ideas of how to still cut $156,000 from PE/Wellness, but in a different way than reducing the number of required semesters of study.

Overall, there will still be 13.9 FTEs cut from the high schools, but they might be arrived at differently than has been discussed. This would result from increased flexibility given to the principals.

The cut of a full-time (1 FTE) guidance counselor was done in error. The projected decrease in enrollment at the high schools means a loss of .5FTE instead. This will be corrected in the budget proposal.

Regarding the equity of the cuts across the school system, when the enrollment numbers are taken into account, the cuts at the elementary level amount to .2%; the middle schools to .4%; and the high schools to .4% as well. More analysis of these numbers will be done to include the past 3 to 4 years. The main concern regarding the high schools is that NSHS enrollment has been fairly consistently underprojected, and has therefore experienced a greater percentage of the high school cuts. Over both schools, the cap on the number of students in English classes and the restrictions based on equipment in some disciplines means that the increases in class size are confined to the other subject areas. Looking at the average class size at the high schools doesn’t tell the whole story.

Math Coaches: The support for the math program takes a two-pronged approach: first there are the instructional materials and systemwide professional development from the curriculum coordinator. Second, there are the math coaches who help put the materials and new ideas into practice and help support their implementation in the classroom on a daily basis. The results at Countryside Elementary were discussed.

The ability/need to build assessments into new programs was also discussed, with a reference to how federal grants programs are assessed. The Superintendent explained that there are three parts to these grants: implementation; monitoring (which focuses on whether the school system is doing what it said it would); and evaluation. The evaluations are not expected within a year, as proper analysis takes longer. Additionally, there are often funds in federal grants to hire people for the assessment process, which can be very time consuming—especially with young children.

Straw Vote: Each School Committee member explained their areas of concern and support regarding the FY10 budget. Many expressed approval at the creative ideas and programs that were being proposed. There was a fair amount of discussion among most of the members regarding several issues:

• Cuts at the high school
• Use of 2- or 3-person teams at the middle schools
• Elementary classes that have experienced large sizes for several years in a row
• Consideration of adding fees to offset cuts

Some specific concerns/ideas expressed include:

• Teacher burnout due to consistently large class sizes over the past few years (Claire)
• Need to add a COO/CFO/Chief of Administration Services to find efficiencies and save money (Kurt)
• Concern about the effectiveness of Northeastern University co-op students (Geoff)
• Concern about cuts to PE/Wellness being driven by budgetary pressure, not by educational need (Marc)
• Concern that the increased bus fee has not been discussed with any context (Marc)