Summary

A year of discussion with stakeholders is a long time to concentrate on a single subject, unless the subject is planning the future of the Newton School District for the next 10 years. The goal of this comprehensive plan is to focus on educational pedagogy, physical assets and how they align with the strategic plan of the District.

Over 90 Newton community patrons, staff and students came together at one time or another through 23 meetings and crafted these recommendations for the Board of Education to consider.

Within this website is all the information shared with the groups and their feedback. The feedback includes strategic planning by the Board of Education to establish their goals and vision, as well as how the District patrons, staff and students responded.

You will see the tools used to evaluate the physical assets of the District along with how these physical attributes affect educational delivery. Many of the conversations regarding how education is delivered at each school revolves around the way teachers are achieving the present vision and mission of the District, with budgetary and physical limitations.

The findings and recommendations synthesize the Community conversation. In this summary, we have created a phased approach to achieve the recommendations, with milestones, for your consideration. These phases can occur simultaneously, unless a milestone is to be completed before the next phase or activity.

Phase I

  1. A. Create a communication plan to share the District’s policies, procedures and ongoing BoE information to the community. Make it active, visible and interactive with patrons, staff and students. Make this Comprehensive Plan one of the primary reasons to share information with the Community.
  2. B. If the policies, initiatives or District information from these findings does not exist, address each one individually, create and share within the communication plan.

Phase II

  1. A. Incorporate the findings of this comprehensive plan into the programs at all grade levels that promotes the pedagogy reflecting the Community’s desire for project-based learning, critical thinking skills and global awareness.
  2. B. Review the charter of Walton Elementary School. Determine the validity and effectiveness of the school, its location, the student outcomes, the condition of facility and the long term commitment to this program in this location. (Milestone before moving forward)
  3. C. Engage a demographer to define where students reside in the district and how the boundaries of the elementary schools can be modified to create capacity equity. (Milestone before moving forward)

Phase III

  1. A. Begin the process of acquiring property to place new elementary school on. Size will be determined by the demographic information and disposition of Walton Elementary. (No work on design unless demographics show the consistent capacities at 90 % for elem. for next 5 yrs.)
  2. B. Create a District design team consisting of 12 to 20 patrons, staff, administration, BoE members and students.
  3. C. Begin preliminary design and planning for High School, Santa Fe and Chisholm renovations and additions based on pedagogy created in the strategic plan and ratified by the Community.
  4. D. Define costs associated with work in preliminary planning and share impact on Community with the District design team.

Phase IV

  1. A. Present scope of work and cost to Community for consideration.
  2. B. Consider the impacts of the costs of work at District facilities on the Community and how this work might be accomplished financially.
  3. C. Ask the Community what they are willing to support. (Milestone before moving forward)

Phase V

  1. A. Implement the Community directive.