Sharing My NTA Questionnaire

I greatly appreciate the invitation (see letter here) to solicit the NTA’s endorsement in this year’s school committee race. 

I believe it’s important that we maintain an arm’s length separation between the School Committee and the union in potential contract negotiations, so I respectfully am not seeking the union’s endorsement.

I am happy to share my thoughts on the issues that are top-of-mind for the NTA and NPS teachers ahead of the current election, and have included my full responses (click for PDF) to the questionnaire below:

• Q1. The Unit A Collective Bargaining Agreement requires that every kindergarten classroom with fourteen or more students have a full-time kindergarten aide. The current School Committee has not honored this provision. When an arbitrator ruled last year that the School Committee must restore full-time kindergarten aides in accordance with the contract, they appealed this. Would you support the immediate restoration of full-day kindergarten aides in accordance with the district's contractual obligations by advocating for the withdrawal of the district's appeals, and voting in favor of any such withdrawal?

  My Response:
  It’s important that everyone abide by the law including both contractual and statutory commitments that govern labor law.  Agreeing to, and playing by, a clear set of rules is critical in maintaining the good faith that builds trust.

  That said, NPS has limited funds to address a wide range of needs across our system and including explicit staffing ratios in the contract puts constraints on the school system’s ability to meet a complex budget environment and respond to changes on the ground.  It may well be in the NTA’s interests to contract for such specific staffing ratios, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right for the schools. This tension isn’t wrong, but it is real.

• Q2. The Superintendent, along with some members of the current School Committee, have suggested that, while MCAS is no longer a statewide graduation requirement, Newton might incorporate MCAS into its local graduation requirement. Do you believe Newton ought to do this?

  My Response:
  I believe our schools should have at least some consistent, objective measure of success.  The MCAS were far from perfect (I took them in their earliest form in high school at NNHS and as a dyslexic student who was bad at test taking, I hated them) but they were our only objective benchmark. 

  The recent release of the National Assessment of Education Progress highlights the need for objective, data driven assessments of student achievement.  The MCAS should not have been eliminated without a clear plan for a replacement benchmark and Newton voters agree.  56% of Newtonians voted to keep the MCAS graduation requirement.

• Q3. What is your understanding of what precipitated the January 2024 NTA strike, why it lasted as long as it did, and what the results were?

  My Response:
  It is customary for the School Committee and the NTA to start out in different places when it comes to contract goals around salary, benefits, and other workday details. It takes a while, sometimes months, but in the past the School Committee and the NTA have always come to an agreement in the end. In this case I believe we had a broad failure of leadership. The city’s reluctance to make consistent funding for the schools a priority hampered negotiating and contributed to a lack of trust. The MTA’s interference in Newton’s politics as part of a broader political agenda also made getting to an agreement harder and the process more protracted.

  Voters I’ve spoken to are very eager to turn the page here and I look forward to moving past the strike in the months to come with the partnership of a new School Committee, a new Mayor and the collaboration of the NTA.

• Q4. What actions do you plan to take to avoid another strike?

  My Response:
  The School Committee has a crucial role to play in communicating with parents and voters so that when we tell the city we need additional funding and support, voters understand the need, they have confidence in where the money is going and they are prepared to support the schools, teachers and students of NPS. We saw a start of this in the spring where the city as a whole came together to create the needed political pressure to find additional funding. I hope we can build on this momentum without the same level of discord over the next couple of years.

  I also think that increasing communication between the School Committee, the Superintendent and the teachers directly is critical to building trust and transparency which I know is greatly needed and a long running frustration for teachers and the NTA itself.

  Finally, I have heard promising feedback on the working groups created coming out of the strike to tackle the issues like Elementary School Day Structure, Mental Health, High School Joint Oversight and Unit C - issues the administration and the union expect to be complex in the next contract negotiation. I think that sort of collaboration, ahead of a formal negotiation is invaluable.

• Q5. What do you think are Superintendent Nolin’s strengths? Where do you think the Superintendent has room for improvement?

  My Response:
  I think Dr. Nolin has done a fantastic job of providing a vision for the Newton Schools that is positive, inclusive and grounded in student achievement. This vision is critical in giving all stakeholders including students, teachers and voters confidence in where the schools are going and the education their kids will receive.

  I believe there is an opportunity to pair the pace of curriculum change with more robust training and support for staff. This played out for me personally at curriculum night a couple years ago when the teaching staff wasn’t really prepared to explain the new EL curriculum to parents. It turned out the teachers had only been trained on it two days before, no wonder they were still getting up to speed. It’s a lot of change that is urgently needed, but we need to make sure our teachers have the resources and visibility needed to keep up.

• Q6. Historically, School Committee members have worked most closely with the Superintendent, and it is from the Superintendent that they receive most of their information regarding the operations of the school system, including its ongoing relations with the NTA. How do you think the School Committee could communicate and collaborate more directly with the NTA?

  My Response:
  I think listening to the team is a central tenet of leadership and it’s been at the core of how I’ve engaged with teams in my business career. I’m excited to engage with our 2,000 teachers and educators to better understand the issues they are facing every day and be a voice with parents and voters about what is needed in the schools to better support students and teachers alike.

• Q7. Health insurance costs have increased dramatically over the last year, burdening the NPS and the City of Newton budgets. Do you believe that some of these costs should be shifted onto Newton educators?

  My Response:
  The rising cost of healthcare is a national challenge that impacts nearly every American citizen, no matter their chosen profession. Newton should be the district of choice to build a career as an educator. Making that happen requires a balanced approach to budgeting that ensures salaries and benefits (including healthcare) are competitive, in-classroom working conditions provide the needed support and professional development opportunities are compelling.

• Q8. If there is anything else you consider pertinent to your candidacy that you would like to share, please feel free to do so.

  My Response:
  My family’s NPS experience has been great because the teachers in the classroom have been great. Thank you!