Mary Byrne
For years, Belmont school officials have discussed the math curriculum, seeking ways to ensure all students’ needs are met while also offering opportunities for high-achieving students.
“This is not just a Belmont question; this has been tackled by several other districts,” said Superintendent Jill Geiser. “The movement has been toward really looking at our instruction across the board, how can we support all students … versus accelerating [students] more quickly through the curriculum.”
The discussion continued this month with a focus on the potential to add Algebra 1 to the middle school curriculum as an option for seventh-grade students.
Seventh-grade students have the option to take grade-level math, which covers all standards outlined in the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks, or Math 7 Compact, an accelerated course that covers all seventh-grade standards and five additional eighth-grade standards.
Challenger Geometry, meanwhile, is an optional after-school geometry course offered to eighth-grade students taking Algebra 1. It allows them to eventually bypass taking geometry at the high school, where they would be eligible to take Algebra 2 as ninth graders.
Recently, Geiser presented four potential scenarios for adding algebra as a seventh-grade course option to School Committee members. After a lengthy discussion, the committee voted to table the topic until April 9.
The four options presented included:
- Seventh-grade students taking Algebra 1 on the team with a seventh-grade teacher.
- Seventh-grade students taking Algebra 1 in a ninth-grade algebra class.
- Seventh-grade students taking Algebra 1 “off-team” with a Belmont math educator.
- Seventh-grade students taking Algebra 1 in 9th grade Algebra classes.
Though administrators are responsible for choosing and implementing the curriculum, the School Committee will ultimately approve the program of studies, according to Geiser. The curriculum change would impact sixth graders entering seventh grade this fall.
Emily Peterson, a district parent, advocated for ensuring advanced options remained available to students and for making Challenger Geometry an in-person offering.
“I firmly believe public school is the great equalizer and that when we de-level or take away advanced options for students that need that challenge, those with means will pursue outside options and those who don’t have means will not,” Peterson said.
Parents and former students at previous meetings also expressed support for advanced options in seventh grade. Natalia Palacios, a member of the Belmont Math Parents group – which formed about four years ago after the administration removed the math placement process allowing students to take algebra in seventh grade – said there are many students who would benefit from taking algebra earlier than eighth grade.
“The intellectual benefit is quite clear,” said Palacios. “There’s research that shows children learn best when they are … challenged adequately— not too much but not too little.”
Palacios said she took her two children out of the district, in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic but also because her family was disappointed in the loss of the advanced math options previously offered at the middle school level.
“We’re both professors, my husband and I, and we really value the STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] education, which is baked in math,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons we bought in Belmont because there was a real opportunity to focus on math more than in other districts at the middle school level.”
Factored into the discussion, however, was a conversation on budget staffing resources, class sizes, and the overall impact on student services, given resources will be shifted around to accommodate the change.
Chair Meghan Moriarty said she hoped the School Committee would push the district to consider challenging all students at the seventh-grade level rather than focusing too narrowly on a group of high-achieving students.
“It feels like we do have a bucket of kids who, because we are not offering algebra to all students in ninth grade, they’re put at a disadvantage,” she said, noting the math prerequisites for certain science classes as well. “How do we raise all our students so that when they enter high school…they have the skills to take advantage of all those opportunities?”
