Wellesley to revisit policies in light of perceived increase of homeschooled kids

October 6, 2020 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

At a Sept. 29 School Committee (SC) meeting, the agenda-item subject of homeschooling came up right away during the public comments part of the meeting. Homeschooling parent Robert Scott said that he took over the education of his son in 2019 because he felt the local elementary school was failing to meet his child’s needs. Scott noted that right now his family is in close contact with the school and that his child may attend specials with his peers (such as music, gym, art).

Scott’s concern is that Wellesley is considering updates to its homeschooling policies that will put in place mandates beyond what is legally required at the State level. According to Scott, the School Committee is seeking to “control, limit, and deter,” homeschooling, as well as limit access of public school educational resources access to home schoolers.

Policy in the making

The Wellesley Public Schools currently have two home schooling policies listed as under review. (Those policies may be accessed at this link. They are near the bottom of the page.) In Draft IHBG—Homeschooling, the one-page policy hews closely to what the Massachusetts General Law requires. For example, state law says families “must submit written notification of establishment of the home-based program to the appropriate administrator 14 days before the program is established and resubmit notification on an annual basis as long as the child or children are being educated in a home-based environment.”

Wellesley’s home schooling page includes a link to a two-page application for families who wish to homeschool their students.

In an email to The Swellesley Report from a parent who asked to remain anonymous, that parent estimated that the number of homeschooling families has gone from the dozen last year reported by Wellesley to the State to over 30 families this year.

He voiced concerns that “Because of the funding worries, a lot of towns are putting policies together that go FAR beyond the requirements for homeschooling laid out in case law. Some cities are downright threatening people and demanding interviews and home visits. A local homeschooling group is tracking overreach and providing supports. For those of us who plan to homeschool beyond this year, it’s a worry that unnecessary requirements will be put in place. Personally, I don’t mind sharing educational information with the town. I want them to have a vested interested in my son’s success. However, other families don’t want burdensome requirements for testing or limits on what type of curriculum they use.”

Homeschooling not the Wild West of education

Although case law has been clear that districts may not demand home visits, families who don’t want to run their choice of textbooks and other details of their educational plans by local public school officials may be out of luck. That’s because State policy also says that the Superintendent or SC has broad discretion to approve a homeschool program or not based on four guidelines: the proposed curriculum and the number of hours of instruction in each of the proposed subjects; the competency of the parents to teach the children; the textbooks, workbooks and other instructional aids to be used; and periodic standardized testing of the children to ensure educational progress and the attainment of minimum standards.

Beyond the Superintendent’s discretion in approving a homeschool program, what also causes some angst among families is the part of the policy that states, “A student being educated in a home-based program within the District may have access to public school activities of either a curricular or extracurricular nature upon approval of the Superintendent.”

We’ve heard some voice concerns that there is a movement afoot to limit the access to homeschooled kids to specials and sports. “The timing and optics are terrible for creating new and exclusionary policies, when the status quo has not proven to be a drain on resources, resources that are provided by all our taxes,” Scott said.

There’s always the matter of money

Wellesley reports data to the State at the end of October on where the town’s students are being schooled. That information will in turn be included in the State’s yearly “Numbers of School Attending Children Report”. Once the data is reported to the State, the Superintendent’s office will publicly present those numbers to the School Committee. The report will include information on how many students in Wellesley attend public schools including those who are homeschooled (12 in last year’s report), attend private or parochial schools (that was 1,185) or are placed in collaboratives; charter schools; out of district public schools; or vocational technical regional schools. The numbers will ultimately determine how much State funding towns get for next year.

The SC at the meeting chose to defer action on the Homeschooling policies. They will revisit the matter at the Oct. 7, 3:30pm Policy Subcommittee meeting.

Wellesley League of Women Voters to e-host international security expert

October 2, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Juliette Kayyem, Wellesley League of Women Voters speaker — Juliette Kayyem

The League of Women Voters of Wellesley invites the public to attend its fall Opening Meeting on October 8, 2020 at 7pm. The featured speaker will be international security expert, Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer and best-selling author, Juliette Kayyem.
Ms. Kayyem will speak on “COVID-19: Elections and the Road Ahead”.

More on Juliette Kayem

Juliette Kayyem is Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security at the Harvard Kennedy School and Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Over the last two decades she has managed complex policy initiatives and organized government responses to major crises in both state and federal government.

She is currently the faculty chair of the Kennedy School’s Homeland Security and Security and Global Health Projects and is a frequent on-air national security analyst for CNN. Previously, she served as President Obama’s assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, where she played a pivotal role in major operations responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and H1N1 pandemic, and she was the homeland security advisor to Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

Ms. Kayyem is the author of the best-selling book Security Mom, and a Pulitzer finalist for her opinion columns in the Boston Globe. She is the founder of Kayyem Solutions, Inc, which provides strategic advice in cybersecurity, resiliency planning, risk management, mega-event security, infrastructure protection, and cybersecurity.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been advising mayors through the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, as well as governors and CEOs, on crisis response and recovery efforts. Now a contributor for The Atlantic, she has a new book, Beyond 9/11: Homeland Security for the Twenty-First Century, that was released in August 2020.

How to register in advance for this webinar:

[Read more…]

Wellesley Education Buzz (sponsored by LINX): Welcome back to in-person learning

October 1, 2020 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

LINX, Wellesley Thanks to LINX for sponsoring our latest Wellesley, Mass., education news. In this unprecedented time LINX has built outdoor classrooms and is using Elm Bank Reservation fields so that children can continue to have the in-person learning experiences they need and want, while staying safe. True to its mission of providing the best classes experience for each member of every family, LINX has created new classes for remote school students, pandemic pods, micro-schools, and temporary home schools!

Phone: 781-235-3210
Web: www.linxclasses.com/pod
Location: 141 Linden Street, Wellesley, 02482

Welcome back to in-person learning, Wellesley. Today is the day when students, teachers, and staff will at last re-enter school buildings. It’s been a long time coming. Wellesley went to a remote-learning style of education back in mid-March, when schools were closed due to COVID-19 concerns.

It’s been seven months since the double doors clanged shut, but now that the hybrid model is kicking in, students in grades 2 – 12 will start in-school learning for two out of five days per week. Pre-K through grade 1 students will have four days of in-class learning. Wednesdays will be half-day remote learning for all. Approximately 500 students across the board have opted to enroll in Wellesley’s new Remote Learning School.

We’ve taken a different approach to marking the return of students to bricks-and-mortar education this year, since showing up at school drop-off points to take a few pics seemed like a bad idea. Instead, we met recently with Wellesley’s newest school principal, Grant Smith, to get an outdoor tour and find out how the head of Hardy School is settling in.

Grant Smith, Hardy School, Wellesley — Principal Grant Smith, stands at the entrance to Hardy School.

Smith comes to Wellesley by way of Winchester’s Vinson-Owen Elementary School, where he served as principal for nine years. Before that he worked for the Lexington school system, a post he took to be closer to family after teaching 3rd and 4th grade in Chicago for many years. Smith grew up in Swampscott and after graduation attended Calvin College (now Calvin University), a private Christian college in Michigan of about 4,000 undergraduates. He earned his master’s degree in school administration through Cambridge College in Boston.

When Smith accepted the Hardy job, he knew the town was in the middle of a big decision process about moving from seven elementary schools to six, and that Hardy might potentially close. He was undaunted by the prospect. “I knew a big decision was coming. But I also knew it would be a matter of years before the decision would have a direct effect on the Hardy building.” (As it turns out, on Sept. 4 the School Building Committee voted 7-6 to build a new elementary school at the Hardy site over Upham.)

Hardy School, Wellesley — A large tent will serve as place for students to eat lunch and engage in other activities.

Smith says he was more concerned about what the pandemic would mean for the school community. “All of us knew this would be a unique start to the school year,” he said, “but in spite of the chaos, it was possible for me to ease into my start in Wellesley.” Smith’s July 1st start date meant that he entered a work-in-progress when it came to figuring out how the recommendations and requirements of the State and the local Board of Health would be implemented as the academic year grew closer.

“It’s been done with the support of the larger administration team, the PTO, the teachers,” he said. “It’s definitely been the busiest summer. The logistical elements of a return have been challenging, and we’re continually revising and updating what we do.”

The big issues that Smith says he and the team have grappled with are how they can make school feel as normal as possible; how they can meet the needs of the kids when they are engaged in in-person learning at Hardy; and how they can meet the needs of kids when they are out of the school building.

For now, this son of an elementary classroom teacher is focused on creating a school year that moves to a new rhythm of learning. He’s been getting to know kids and families by sharing his love of children’s literature. As students engaged in remote learning, Smith dropped into each classroom via Zoom to introduce himself and do read-alouds of his favorite books. “This is providing a great way for me to start to get to know the Hardy students and providing the chance for students to get to know me as a caring adult in the community.”

Welcome to Wellesley, Principal Grant.

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Wellesley Historical Society to present virtual lecture on Belvedere neighborhood

September 28, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

The Wellesley Historical Society will host a free virtual lecture about Wellesley’s Belvedere neighborhood on Wed., Sept. 30, 7pm. Keith N. Morgan, professor emeritus of the History of Art & Architecture and of American & New England studies at Boston University, where he taught from 1980 – 2016, will discuss the area and how it matters in the broader context of suburban development in the U.S.

Wellesley Historical Society

Professor Morgan’s lecture, titled The national and regional context for the Belvedere neighborhood: Wellesley’s premier example of suburban planning, will focus on:

Why suburbs matter as a cultural form in the United States
What characteristics make the Belvedere neighborhood distinctive
How the neighborhood part of an evolutionary suburban environment for its time

Professor Morgan will discuss the national background for the Belvedere development and how the neighborhood relates to comparable suburban subdivisions in the Metropolitan Boston area. He will examine the role of two families in the creation and control of what was the largest real estate development in Wellesley when it was first built, and what defines the area as a place of significance.

Advance registration is required. Please email Amanda Fisher, Executive Director of the Wellesley Historical Society, at [email protected]

More on the presenter:

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It’s testing time for Wellesley Public Schools

September 25, 2020 by Bob Brown 4 Comments

The Wellesley Public School system’s year is just underway, and much of the talk is already about testing. In this case, we’re talking viral testing to help staff and students stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Members of the school community already know the drill, but for the rest of the community, we figure you might want to stay in the loop as well.

For those taking part in in-person learning and/or fall athletics, they’re required (staff) or strongly encouraged (students) to get tested so that the school system has a baseline from which to work. Students will be tested over the weekend and on Monday at Wellesley High School (note the change in location from the MLP garage). Because it’s a public school system, students cannot be mandated to get tested.

Ongoing surveillance, or assurance, testing of staff will take place in the weeks to come. This is designed to help limit the silent spread of the virus through asymptomatic individuals. Testing of symptomatic individuals will be handled outside of the school system’s viral testing program, as Supt. David Lussier outlined last week at a School Committee meeting.

A webinar on the testing pilot made available via Wellesley Media dives into all of this more deeply. It includes explanations of the types of tests being administered, what will happen if you test positive, and information on the organizations that the school system has aligned with for the testing (Boston Heart Diagnostics of Framingham and Rapid Reliable Testing, whose testing business grew out of an ambulance firm’s own testing efforts). Note that the webinar was recorded before the testing location change was announced.

The big message from Wellesley’s Jesse Boehm, a member of the testing pilot’s scientific advisory team and the parent of two school-age children, is that the more people who get tested, the more effective this program can be in stopping the spread of COVID-19. Ninety percent is a good goal to shoot for, he said, though 95% would essentially assure a safe environment, while also displaying a strong community effort that could inspire other cities and towns.

The testing/screening program is part of a broader set of precautions including social distancing, mask wearing, ventilation, cleaning, etc. The importance of testing is “to provide reassurance, both emotional reassurance and public health reassurance, that there really are as few cases in our schools as possible,” Boehm said.

Wellesley committee narrowly votes to rebuild at Hardy school site

September 24, 2020 by Deborah Brown 2 Comments

The Wellesley School Building Committee (SBC) in a three-hour meeting voted 7-6 to build a new elementary school at the Hardy site over Upham.

The recommended design plan, option 7b for Hardy Elementary School, would allow students to remain in the existing school during the construction phase. One benefit of this design is that it centers the building in between play spaces, connecting everything together, said Wellesley Public Schools Supt. David Lussier.

SBC members before they voted discussed issues of traffic, neighborhood concerns, ledge blasting, removal of trees, equity issues, and more. Much of this was discussed at the recent Hardy/Upham public forum as well.

The SBC recommendation now goes to the Board of Selectmen and School Committee for approval. They will meet with the SBC on Oct. 1 to review the recommendation, with votes to be taken at subsequent meetings.

Town Meeting members will be given an update on Oct. 6 at 7 p.m., and will have a chance to ask questions and provide feedback.

The recommendation to build at the Hardy School site must be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by Oct. 27. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2023.

Sept. 24 School Building Committee meeting recording (Courtesy of Wellesley Media)

My giant Wellesley regret: Never picnicking high above Paintshop Pond

September 24, 2020 by Bob Brown 7 Comments

I’ve run by the spot dozens, maybe hundreds, of times over the years along the Boston Marathon course in Wellesley and have often thought to myself: I really should picnic there some time.

Not that I picnic often. But when I do, I like it to be a little different.

And different this would have been, overlooking the once notoriously contaminated Paintshop Pond, which sits between Lake Waban and Morses Pond just south of Rte. 135.

Someone plopped a picnic table atop the dam some years ago that would put you at a safe distance from any lingering junk swirling around the pond. An excellent story map about the pond from Jessica Ostfeld, Wellesley College ’20, refers to “a lovely picnic spot up at the northern end of the Pond” that I assume refers to this most distinct and carefree piece of patio furniture. A few years back we included the table in a roundup of top Wellesley picnic spots, alongside those at Town Hall and various other Wellesley public spaces.

But alas, the Paintshop Pond table is no longer there. New wooden stairs are, along with a shiny new “No trespassing” sign that warns all to steer clear.

As if losing another Rte. 135 running route landmark, “Coney” the sidewalk Catalpa tree, wasn’t a big enough blow.

wellesley paintshop pond picnic table — Picnic table overlooking Paintshop Pond near Wellesley College campus (photo from 2015).

Getting to the bottom of this

I’ll confess that my first thought when I saw the picnic table was gone was that Wellesley College’s fun police had confiscated it and put up the sign.

But apologies to that crew. It turns out this is actually Wellesley Department of Public Works/Water Department land.

“The Park & Tree Division recently installed those steps to make access to the dam a bit safer for our folks that need to get down there for inspections,” says Wellesley DPW Director Dave Cohen.

The Wellesley DPW, however, isn’t taking credit for the picnic table’s demise.

Origin story

Legend has it, according to Cohen (who can’t confirm this), is that “the table was seen floating by and was plucked out of the water and enjoyed a nice stay on the ledge.”

Such a dramatic rescue story only adds to the mystique of this secluded spot.

Being the romantic fool that I am, I assumed the table would stay there forever. It’s not like the area was never used. I’d seen others who had discovered the somewhat secret waterfront location. How I now regret that I’d never put into action my dream of one day breaking out my special picnic backpack—a weirdly brilliant giveaway from a former employer—that I’d been holding on to for just the right moment.

And now, like so many dreamers before me, I must face the bitter disappointment that my picnic has been rained on.

As it turns out, the water giveth and the water taketh away.

According to Cohen, someone apparently pushed the table back into the drink recently, “probably out of COVID boredom.”

His team first removed it from the water, and then banished the table from the area rather than have to deal with future vandalism or safety issues on the ledge.

Meanwhile, I eagerly await the possible reopening of the Wellesley DPW Recycling & Disposal Facility give-and-take area. Might the picnic table turn up there?

Probably not. But I think my picnic backpack just might.

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