Feeder Pattern Bigelow/Day

To share feedback with district staff on the feeder pattern options, please email.

To share feedback with the School Committee, please email.

You can also attend the School Committee meeting on Monday, November 7, 2022 to share your feedback.

To speak at the meeting, please send an email to the School Committee with the Subject Line: "Public Comment - November 7th - Feeder Pattern." Please include your name and address in the body of the email. 

The table linked below displays the estimated percentages of subgroups at Bigelow and Day in three scenarios:

• No change
• Swap option
• Split option

Table: Feeder Pattern Impact on race, ethnicity, and other sub-groups within student population.*

*Please be sure to view both tabs in table document.

Concern about the social and emotional well-being is a key part of both proposed solutions. Maintaining right-sized middle schools will allow us to continue to provide the full range of full-time support educators at both Day and Bigelow, including school guidance counselors, psychologists, and social workers.

We are also ensuring the new change does not impact any students already enrolled in middle school by only applying either proposed change to students moving up to middle school. Furthermore, ensuring students will have the option to follow their siblings will also support the overall well-being of students and families. 

NPS is continuing to consult with our mental health professionals to assess the impact of each proposal relative to students' social and emotional health, and regardless of what is ultimately decided, great care is taken to ensure each student has the individualized support needed as they transition from elementary school to middle school. 

The district did preview this challenge with the School Committee in June 2022. We did forsee this issue, though it has been exacerbated by the pandemic. We were unable to act sooner given the complexities of the pandemic. 

This table provides the percentages of current Cabot students who would feed to Bigelow by current grade level. These percentages may shift as students move into and out of the Cabot district over the years, which did occur with the previous Cabot split. 

The table displays the following:

• Percentages of resident students who would feed to Bigelow (of students who live within the Cabot district)
• Total percentage of Cabot students who would feed to Bigelow (including out-of-assigned district students, students participating in the METCO program, and faculty/staff students).

These percentages have been adjusted to remove out-of-assigned district Cabot students who would likely attend Day because they are districted to Day based on their home address. These percentages have been used in the projections for the split option.

If the decision is delayed for one year, the incoming 6th grade class at Bigelow is projected at 110 students, which is 22 students fewer than the current 6th grade class. That cohort of students is also projected to remain at 110 students in grades 7 and 8 as they progress through their middle school years. 

This would make it very difficult to maintain the full middle school staffing and support structure that is currently in place for the entire Bigelow community.  In addition to academic teachers, positions such as school counselors, psychologists, and elective and arts teachers are allocated to schools based on their total enrollments, and further decreases would put these key roles at Bigelow in jeopardy in upcoming budget cycles. 

With the swap option, assuming that all Cabot students feed to Bigelow, slightly over half of the students at Bigelow will have attended Cabot (please note that this calculation does not take into account any siblings from Cabot who decide to follow a sibling to Day and does not include students who move in/enroll in Newton Public Schools during middle school). As the swap would phase in over 3 years, the percentages below only display data for the grades that are affected by the swap (grade 6 in 23-24, grades 6 and 7 in 24-25, and then all grades from 25-26 on). Please note percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

• 23-24 (grade 6 only): 55% Cabot, 21% Underwood, 23% Ward
• 24-25 (grades 6 and 7): 51% Cabot, 24% Underwood, 25% Ward
• 25-26 (all grades): 53% Cabot, 23% Underwood, 23% Ward
• 26-27 (all grades): 53% Cabot, 24% Underwood, 23% Ward
• 27-28 (all grades): 55% Cabot, 23% Underwood, 22% Ward

No, the size of the school does not impact class size or student:teacher ratio. Class size and student:teacher ratio for each grade or high school subject is managed by the staffing that is allocated to each school. Staffing allocation is designed to keep class sizes reasonable and optimal. Smaller schools, however, may have more variable class sizes, both large and small, as it is harder to manage sizes with fewer students and staff at each grade level.

The size of the school does impact access to extracurricular sports and activities, and maintaining moderate schools sizes is helpful to maintain a range of extracurricular options for all students.

Each team at the middle school level refers to a grouping of English, math, science and social studies teachers who work with the same group of students. Student enrollment at each school dictates the number of teams at each middle school. Shifting the feeder patterns will allow the district to maintain 2 teams/grade at Bigelow and 3 or 3.5 teams/grade at Day over time.

Both Day and Bigelow offer an identical academic program, with core courses that utilize the same curricula and fine and applied arts and language electives in the same subjects. Even with declining enrollments, these options have not been impacted, and would continue to be offered at both schools in either option. 

Special education services will not change. Student will be transitioned to their assigned middle school with the supports identified in their IEPs and 504s.

Students from Boston who attend Newton schools through the METCO school integration program are generally assigned to schools where seats are available.  This practice would continue. In the split option, Cabot students participating in the METCO program would feed to Bigelow. In the swap option, all students attending Cabot would feed to Bigelow.

Newton’s collaborative program for students who are deaf or hard of hearing is run through the CAPS Collaborative and enrolls students from Newton and other districts in the local area. The program was relocated from Day to Bigelow this past year, and there are currently no plans to move the program in the immediate future. 

Both Bigelow and Day have late bus options that run to within their Newton district and to Boston, and students are able to participate in the full range of enrichment and athletic programs afterschool and still take transportation to their home neighborhood.

This table shows the projected enrollment by school and grade level over the next five years for each option. The table also shows enrollment if no change is made.

This table shows the projected enrollment by school over the next five years for each option. The table also shows enrollment if no change is made.

Projected Enrollment Table by School

The Cabot split was removed because Day Middle School had an addition that expanded its capacity and allowed the entire Cabot school to feed to the same middle school.  There was also increasing enrollment for middle schools at that time, so assigning all Cabot students to Day middle school kept Bigelow from becoming too large.

If the “Cabot Split” option is implemented, the area of the Cabot district that is North of the Mass Turnpike and Washington Street would either be assigned to Bigelow or to Day, based on the revised map of the district split line that will be presented on November 17th. 

The proposed options provide a phased approach to addressing declining enrollment at Bigelow and the enrollment size at Day. There is a change each year that builds toward the end goal of optimal enrollment at each school.  Delaying the change does nothing to address the challenges faced at each school. If we do nothing, Bigelow enrollment will continue to decline and Day enrollment will continue to rise.

The new feeder pattern selected will be in place for the foreseeable future. However, the district is undertaking a larger, district wide study of enrollment and feeder patterns in the coming year through its Student Assignment Working Group (SAWG.) The work of this group and the proposed recommendation may impact future feeder patterns at all levels. However, the district will guarantee that siblings will follow the pattern established for Bigelow and Day for the 2023-24 school year so that a family will not be impacted a second time.

The map of a potential middle school split of the Cabot district will be shared in the November 17, 2022 memo to School Committee.

Students who live in an elementary buffer zone follow the feeder pattern for their assigned elementary school. Middle school buffer zones apply only to new students coming into the district in middle school grades, not students who are continuing on from elementary school in NPS.

The district is comfortable with the phased approach presented by the two options. With the phased approach, we avoid disruption to students already enrolled in the middle schools. Implementing one of the options next year allows us to begin the process of reaching optimal enrollment and will result in improvements to both school communities. 

Title 1 school eligibility is reviewed annually based on low-income data available each spring and is therefore subject to change year to year. In 2022-2023, the following schools are Title 1: Bigelow, Burr, Horace Mann, and Lincoln-Eliot. This means that in the swap option in 2023-2024 (next school year), 3 Title 1 schools would feed to Day (Burr, Horace Mann, and Lincoln-Eliot) and 0 Title 1 schools would feed to Bigelow. In the split option in 2023-2024 (next school year), 2 Title 1 schools would feed to Day (Burr and Horace Mann) and 1 Title 1 school would feed to Bigelow (Lincoln-Eliot).

It is the intention of the Newton Public Schools that no student be denied participation in school-sponsored activities and bus transportation due to inability to pay. Families may apply for a financial waiver prior to registering for bus transportation. The waiver is found in Aspen and families receive a response to their application within 1-2 business days. More information is found here: NPS Financial Waiver Information