Last week, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller announced an updated financial strategy to apply 70% of the City’s one-time overlay surplus funds (plus associated interest) as a supplement to the budget for the Newton Public Schools. Today, Newton’s Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Anna Nolin, announced that she will be recommending to the School Committee that, among several “most critical needs of the district” the Superintendent listed, this additional funding should be used in part to:

• Reduce high school class sizes in math and science

• Restore some high school electives, most critically in science and engineering (based on course request data from both high schools)

• Create additional planning time and dedicated math and literacy intervention blocks in the elementary schools where they are needed most

• Invest in math and STEM curricula which have not been reviewed or upgraded in well over a decade

The School Committee will here the Superintendent’s recommendations at its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, December 18.