March 19, 2024

City succeeds in improving safety; School calendar raises questions

Thumbs Up: For about four years, the City of Newton has made a concentrated effort to address uncontrolled intersections throughout the community. Through the Traffic Safety Committee, 165 of the 180 uncontrolled intersections in Newton have been addressed, with the final 15 to be approved by city council at an upcoming meeting.

Whether a stop sign or yield sign has been placed at an intersection, citizens can feel safe knowing when they come to a four-way intersection or “T” intersection, one, if not both, traffic lanes will at least come to a pause before proceeding through.

Citing citizen concerns and pedestrian and vehicle safety, intersections throughout the city were studied by the Traffic Safety Committee on daily usage, parking regulations, site distances and adjacent signage to determine the appropriate action for the intersections. Surveys were distributed to adjoining residents to gain feedback from regular users of the roadways and their opinions on where signage would best serve the neighborhoods.

The recent updates also address new portions of the city along with areas that are growing or changing and seeing an increase traffic count from previous years.

With the addition of the signage, vehicles and pedestrians traveling in areas near schools, parks and busy thoroughfares can now feel a sense of safety knowing traffic is better regulated at all intersections in Newton. All citizens and visitors to the community can now have a clear understanding of the flow of traffic in Newton, keeping all commuters, whether on foot or in vehicles, safer while traveling.

Thumbs Down: On Monday evening the Newton Community School District made a difficult decision on the 2017-2018 school calendar.

The approved calendar reduces teacher-student contact time by nearly 10 hours over the course of the school year. Instruction time was decreased to make time for professional learning communities. But in order to accommodate teacher collaboration during these times, students will be dismissed 90 minutes early every Monday next school year.

The calendar recommendation was developed by the School Improvement Advisory Committee and district leadership team and was the subject of a work session before the school board approved it this week.

While we agree with the spirit of this recommendation — these professional learning communities will foster a more cohesive learning strategy across our school and provide for teaching sharing their knowledge with each other — it puts a burden on many district families.

Parents will be scrambling to figure out where their children will spend an unexpected hour and a half after school while they work full-time jobs. While just a matter of convenience and expense for some families, some of our most vulnerable children could be spending time without supervision. Moreover, a few years ago when Wednesday early outs were utilized for professional development they were deemed unproductive.

Teacher leadership is adamant the positive impact on teaching will outweigh the negatives with the new school calendar. We challenge the school district to assure these professional learning communities are paying dividends for our school children — and paying them handsomely.