The Rubber Meets the Road

Tonight at 7:30PM, the School Committee is holding a special meeting to evaluate Superintendent Nicholson.  http://waltham.patch.com/groups/schools/p/waltham-school-chief-to-be-evaluated-soon

If you were on the School Committee, how would your rate Dr. Nicholson?  How has she performed in managing a budget of nearly $70 million?  (you can review the budget here:http://www.walthampublicschools.org/Budget/FY14%20Operating%20Budget.pdf) How have the changes she has implemented resonated through the district and at the schools your children attend?  How has she performed relative to her plan (which you can read here: http://www.walthampublicschools.org/SC/DIP%202012.pdf)?

At the meeting that Dr. Nicholson held recently with parents from the Fitzgerald, she told us that, when she was hired, she was awarded a three year contract and had originally asked for five years, with an additional two-year extension, for a total of seven years.  She told us this in response to a question regarding her own longevity, given the recent history of the Superintendent position in Waltham.  If Dr. Nicholson was being forthright, it appears that she wants to stay for an additional 2-4 years, which would certainly give some stability to the district.  Is Nicholson's direction the way in which we want to go, or in which we should be going?

When I read through the Planhttp://http//www.walthampublicschools.org/SC/DIP%202012.pdf, I am most concerned by failures at the Infrastructure level, likely because of the inability to adequately address the space issues at the Elementary School level in a creative and solutions-oriented manner.  I am thinking specifically of the School Committee meetings of this spring, when SC members seemed surprised to hear of overcrowding at our elementary schools and too willing to adopt the lowest common denominator of removing classroom space from specialists in order to pack more classrooms into already overcrowded schools.  All of this would be easier to swallow if there weren't other creative options, including moving the Central Office from the High School to some office space; using the available space at the Fitch; reconfiguring the two middle schools to each accommodate two grades (5-6 and 7-8) and then making the elementary schools each house grades K-4, plus the existing pre-school programs offered at the Stanley and the Northeast schools.

I am certain that there were reasons not to follow through on each of those possibilities.  However, as I look towards fall at the Fitzgerald and an ELL class in a former supply room and Drama and Science teachers teaching from carts instead of classrooms, I have to wonder if the path taken was the easiest path instead of the best student-focused solution.http://http//www.walthampublicschools.org/Budget/FY14%20Operating%20Budget.pdf

What do you think?