No school again in Newton

And kind. And also good business, because those vacation camps they were planning aren't going to happen.

They are already some of the best paid in the state and the high school is brand new. It's famous as being one of the most expensive in Massachusetts.

The teachers have a right to negotiate but you can't say the town doesn't value their schools.

Have a lower median income than the median Newton teacher income already. Which is to say, believe it or not, teachers in Newton already make more than most people who live in Newton.

If it was only asking people who make more than teachers to vote teachers a raise, it would be one thing. But that's not what's going on. You're asking people to vote that teachers should get bigger raises than they get on income that's already more than they make. And they didn't.

Newton has exactly the same flat percentage tax as any other municipality in Massachusetts. That means there is simply no way to tax "the wealthy residents of Newton" without also nailing the people who really are living in the edge, possibly because they did everything to live in a district with good schools. And there are a lot of older people who have lived in their same modest Newton home their entire adult lives. They are the most vulnerable to tax increases.

I hate when wealthier people hide behind those less fortune in order to save a buck of their own. But there is simply no way to tax the wealthy and spare the vulnerable. (No, a residential deduction doesn't solve the problem, at least property values are so crazy.)

Then add on top Newton's small commercial tax base. And the fact that the entire city has been running on what is basically an austerity budget. We are finally fixing the pool that leaks enormous amounts of water every day, but we pave the roads out of the free cash left over at the end of the year.

We need to spend more money on schools. Lots more.money. But that's different than spending a one time surplus on an ongoing teachers contract. Get a fair contract done now.

Newton Public Schools have a higher teacher retention rate than the districts that the NTA uses as comparators. If the compensation package were as bad as the NTA is pretending, how would that be the case?

Also of note, the other elected officials in Newton, who have no reason to carry water for the Mayor's budget allocation, are saying that there is no more money to put toward the school budget. This includes the elected school committee and 23 out of the 24 city councilors. Only the NTA, with its magical powers, sees more money that the mayor is purportedly hiding.

Newton voters were presented with two override votes in the same election, both of which included money for schools. One passed, the other didn't.

It's overly simplistic to say Newton voted not to have money for schools. Increasing Newton taxes passed. Unfortunately, the override had to be broken into two separate ballot questions and some people were willing/able to increase their taxes once but not twice in one year.

Almost certainly not. There's a mandated number of instructional days per year that constitute a school year. It's much more likely that the year is simply extended however many weeks the strike goes on. Same deal as in years like 2015 where snow days wrecked the normal schedule for the year.

There are a couple of potentially conflicting obligations: minimum number of school days in a year (180) versus maximum number of potential school days.

We're weeks away from encountering that conflict. There are intermediate steps:

First, they extend school by using up optional snow days, to the maximum end date of June 30th. We are already past that, with ten days missed.

Next there is a group of options. I see this as the likely order:

A. Start taking away vacation days, beginning with April vacation and continuing back to February vacation. They could gain ten school days this way. I expect they have already begun to roll back April vacation.
B. Convert "professional development days" and holidays into school days (three possible days: Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneeteenth).
C. Start booking Saturdays as regular school days (22 available).
D. Start scheduling school days after June 30th.

Another possibility is that the school system could apply for a waiver for the school to fail to provide 180 days of school. I see that as unlikely.

https://www.doe.mass.edu/lawsregs/603cmr27.html?section=all

No matter how long this goes on from here, the kids have already lost.

Update: they took away February vacation first. April vacation probably comes next.

They can't cancel the rest of the school year, but tonight there is a meeting about whether or not to cancel April vacation week. And they've already "used" their snow days becuase of the strike. That's takes care of 10 days, which is where we are. Hopefully, they don't have to extend the school year too much further. But I guess we'll see....

The teachers are betting that the voters would rather pass another override and/or the town will make cuts elsewhere and leave the schools unscathed.

The town officials think a tax override isn't a sure thing and don't want to make cuts anywhere so they are trying to hold the line.

I don't think you can say Newton voters or officials hate teachers. The town and teachers both have good reasons to justify their stance.

… is that they absolutely had to build a new high school by about 1999 (and got around to it a decade later). They somehow built a building which lasted 33 years but had failed within 20. It was amazing as a student there the number of days we didn't have heat, or had water dripping from the ceilings. The 1970s architecture was not kind to … anyone. (There should be a documentary about the 1974 Newton North building.)

Watch out for all those hypodermic needles on the ground around the trash can fires when walking past $3M two family houses in the Lake.

Source?