NTA eBulletin: June 14, 2026

Question of the Week 

Last week's question: Do you agree with the following statement: I am looking forward to summer break.

This week's question: What was the highest temperature in your classroom this week?

1.  Below 70°F

2. 70-74°F

3. 75-79°F

4. 80-84°F

5. 85-89°F

6. Above 90°F

High Temperatures in Many Buildings

Ryan Normandin

As the weather’s gotten warmer, we’ve received concerning reports of rooms that are dangerously hot. In order for us to advocate for rooms that are safe for students and staff, we need to understand the scope of the problem.

Please use this form to report instances of high temperatures in your room. The form will ask for the date as well, so please do not lump multiple instances of high temperatures together - report each instance of a high temperature individually by completing the form again.

We encourage you to complete this form for days from the past couple of weeks as well. This form will remain open through the end of the year, so bookmark it and return to it frequently! Every time you and your students experience high temperatures, report it using this form.

General Membership Meeting

Ryan Normandin

On Tuesday, June 16 at 7pm, the NTA will hold its annual General Membership Meeting. This meeting requires registration; please check your inboxes for a registration link that was sent from ntaofficer@newteach.org. If you believe you did not receive an email with a registration reach, please email ntaofficer@newteach.org.

Note that registration must be completed no later than noon on Tuesday, June 16.  We will be unable to process registration after that time. You must sign onto the meeting from the link that will be sent to you following approval of your registration.

The agenda of the General Membership meeting shall include:

1. Bylaws Amendments

2. Negotiations Updates

3. Discussion of the Elementary Schedule MOA

Update: Negotiations on theElementary Day Schedule Now Complete

Mike Zilles

The Newton Teachers Association Elementary Negotiations Subcommittee and the Newton School Committee Negotiations Team have reached tentative agreement on an MOA governing the implementation of a new elementary schedule for the 2026-2027 school year. The MOA can be found here. NTA leadership will present this MOA on Tuesday, June 16th, at 7:00 pm., during the virtual General Membership Meeting. After the meeting, elementary Unit A members will have the opportunity to vote electronically on whether to ratify that agreement. 

The proposed schedule was the result of contributions from many players, but one in particular needs a shout out: Elizabeth Ross DelPorto. She stepped into the very large shoes of Chris Walsh as the co-chair of the Elementary Schedule Joint Labor Management Group and, along with Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education Ayesha Farag, collaboratively led the team in developing a schedule that increases elementary teachers weekly preparation time to 225 minutes per week--reaching a milestone (though not an endpoint)--that the NTA has pursued for decades.

These schedule changes come with compromises and challenges. The MOA contractually codifies the additional preparation time for elementary teachers, and, to the extent possible, supports and protects all educators through some difficult changes.

Artificial Intelligence Use in the Schools:

A Case Study

Mike Zilles

This spring, student reporters for the Newton North High School newspaper the Newtonite, published an article, "North Faces Confusion over Unclear AI Policy,"  

The confusion, as I understand it, stems from this:

On May 13, Newton North High School Principal Henry Turner sent a sternly worded email to the Newton North School Community making clear to students and families that Newton North will not tolerate cheating, including cheating through the use of AI.

"I want to be very clear about this. Cheating, plagiarism, using AI on any assignment without teacher direction, and tutors, parents, friends, or others producing student work are all violations of the Newton Public Schools Academic Honesty Policy."

Yet, this same spring, the Newtonite reports, "Superintendent [Nolin] submitted a community statement to be featured in The Newtonite’s annual graduation print special. GPTZero, the detector used by the majority of North’s teachers, indicated that her letter was written substantially by AI. While GPTZero is not always accurate, the detector’s results prompted inquiries." 

Good thing they asked. According to the Newtonite, "Nolin explained that she dictated her first statement into Apple CarPlay, where it was then automatically revised and plugged into Grammarly’s AI Writing Assistant tool. 'The statement came right from my mouth, but was created into a sentence structure by an AI backend scenario', she said." Nolin rewrote and resubmitted her statement. This second version passed the GPTZero test.

I will confess: I am a rank amateur user of AI. Not only do I not know how to use it all that effectively--under my prompts AI generates more than its fair share of hallucinations--I also am not very well versed in how to credit AI when I do use it effectively. That said, I have yet to dictate words into CarPlay, have it generate an essay through a "back end scenario" connection to Grammarly's AI Writing Assistant Tool, and then claim the words "came right from my mouth."

While I am not totally comfortable with the punitive tone of Turner's email, I find myself leaning in to his perspective. There is something truly disturbing about passing off the work of AI as one's own work.

This is not the first time students have caught a Newton Superintendent plagiarizing. In June 2014, student reporters for the Newton South High School newspaper The Lion's Roar published an expose revealing that then Superintendent David Fleishman had lifted sections of his graduation speech verbatim from Governor Patrick Deval's graduation speech to the Boston University senior class that same year. 

Fleishman never admitted he had plagiarized. Instead, he attributed his gaff to his photographic memory: he had heard the quoted words on NPR while driving, he said, and when he used them in his own speech, he claimed he did not remember that they were not his own words. 

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that in 2014, the issue was regarded with the appropriate gravity--it was in the news across the state, and school committee members, Mayor Warren, and city councilors were all deeply concerned. As it they should have been: The Chief Academic Officer of one of the flagship public education districts in the state had been accused of plagiarism, the cardinal sin, as it were, of the academic world. Many in the Newton community were surprised that Fleishman kept his job.

Nolin sort of does a Fleishman--she attributes her gaff to something that happened while she was driving, through a cognitive process of which she was not totally aware. Nowadays, I guess we speak into CarPlay rather than listen to NPR. 

The "confusion" in the title of the Newtonite article, its author's state, stems from the fact that the current Academic Honesty Policy offers little guidance other than to say “students should be aware that the use of artificial intelligence technologies in completing academic work should only be done with teacher approval and consultation.” But, as they see it, that leaves open the possibility that different teachers--or different administrators--have different policies.

I see the dilemma: as a student, you don't want to be punished for having used a technology where the guidelines are contingent upon the interpretation of individual teachers. Yet I think we all know that passing off the work of another--even if that other is a machine--is plagiarism. That's not rocket science.

Personally, I think the "confusion" in question arises from more than a lack of clarity in the Academic Honesty Policy. Whereas Turner is direct and forthright--passing off the work of AI as your own is cheating, no different in kind, say, from passing off the work of another person as one's own--, Nolin doubles down on the need to integrate AI into the fabric of our educational community, insisting that AI is evolving and declaring that she is “shocked to see how little our teachers have done with AI.”

I'm shocked by something else: Why hasn't the passing off the work of AI in producing an essay for the Newtonite generated the same kind of scrutiny, disquiet and gravity that David Fleishman's passing off of Deval Patrick's words as his own generated in 2014? 

My short answer to this question is: AI is throwing our moral compasses off altogether by subjecting us to a hallucination.

Maybe I'm hallucinating too, but my moral compass tells me this: the Academic Honesty Policy does not say--each teacher decides for him or herself what the correct policy is, and students are left to figure out which one is right. It says: before you use AI, ask for your teacher's guidance. Your teacher can lead you to the appropriate use of AI in their discipline and for their class, for the project you are undertaking.

This is a very clear policy, and it is reasonable. It may only be the placeholder we use as we work together to build a different policy. But it is our policy now.

And right now, teachers are skeptical of most uses of AI in the classroom because far too many student users are passing off the work of AI as their own. So, when asked, or as a class policy, they are instructing their students to be cautious when using AI so that they avoid the temptation of cheating using AI.

Let's call the behavior that Principal Turner is referring to as "not asking." He is warning against deliberate attempts to pass of the work of AI as one's own behind the backs of teachers.

Anna Nolin is "shocked to see how little our teachers have done with AI." 

The NPS Academic Honesty Policy says "Ask your teacher." I'm shocked Dr. Nolin's is not asking her teachers what we think the appropriate use of AI should be in the schools. And I'm shocked that she isn't aware that any discussion of appropriate use must be paired with a discussion of how we enforce that appropriate use when it is so tempting to cheat using AI.

If Nolin had asked, I think any of us could have warned her about the risks of the "back end scenario" to which she attributes her own passing off of AI's work as her own.

AI Committee: Google Form

Ryan Normandin

We’ve heard loud and clear from educators about the need to seriously tackle the issue of AI use in classrooms. What we’ve heard have not been expressions of fear or a reluctance of Newton’s ever-adaptable educators to change, but thoughtful concerns around the lack of clear guidelines on the use and incorporation of AI by students and staff. As educators, we understand the nuances of both the challenges and potential of AI because we’ve had to deal with them every day.

If you are interested in working on this issue and driving forward the discussion of AI’s role in the Newton Public Schools, let us know by completing this Google Form. The NTA is forming a Committee on AI, and will reach out to you soon. 

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In solidarity,

Mike Zilles, President

NewtonTeachers Association