Priorities
Leadership and Overall Direction
- Superintendent: Support new superintendent's efforts to focus Ed Center on great teaching and learning in the classroom.
- Strategic Plan: Set 1-to-5 year priority action plans that are specific and measurable, which creates enhanced student preparation combining core academic knowledge with 21st Century skills.
- Public Involvement: Strengthen public involvement in schools and School Committee process, increase fundraising, and support volunteerism.
- Move Beyond Traditional School Boundaries: Expand NPS beyond the traditional school boundaries using technology, innovative structures/schedules and links to the larger community.
Improvements to Budgeting and Management
- Union Negotiations: Lead School Committee's Union Negotiations Team to reach fair and affordable long-term contract that helps Newton Public Schools for years to come.
- Sustainable Budgeting: Implement multi-year financial plan than maintains educational excellence and is sustainable for the city's budget.
- Use of Data to Improve Management and Student Achievement: Support efforts in NPS to analyze program effectiveness and develop "data teams" in each school to help principals and teachers develop and spread best practices for effective teaching.
- Energy Savings: Push forward the ESCO program that uses a contractor to finance and implement major energy savings in school buildings at no cost to taxpayers.
- Health Care Insurance Savings: Work with City Administration to achieve significant health care insurance savings for school system while ensuring excellent quality health care.
Curriculum and Classroom Strength
- Teaching Excellence: The most important component of our schools is our teachers. We must hire excellent candidates, give them targeted classroom-focused professional development, assess them, and find ways to retain them.
- Curriculum Review: Continue efforts with new superintendent's team to present detailed reviews of several curriculum areas to the School Committee to identify weaknesses, needed improvements, professional development, alignment with state frameworks, and ensure consistency across the system.
- STEM: Address STEM needs across the K-12 range - curriculum, materials and supplies, and extra-curricular opportunities. Promote differentiated instruction to cover range of learning styles, paces.
- Class Sizes & Program Breadth: Keep class sizes reasonable and a strong breadth of program at the high schools. Support extracurricular activities and athletics.
- Special Education: Support efforts to develop effective in-district programs that improve student opportunities and achievement, and work to improve parent-school relationships on IEP issues.
- Supporting the Arts: The visual and performing arts are vital components of K-12 education and must be strongly supported. We need to work closely with parents, supportive organizations, and Newton Community Ed to make sure there is broad access to these activities.
Improving School Facilities
- Building Renovations: Using city capital funds replace aging window systems, boilers, roofs, and wasteful plumbing. Move city to address larger building improvements to better school conditions and solve overcrowding problems. Maintain neighborhood school system.
