Boston School Committee

The Boston School Committee approved unanimously the White Stadium renovation plan, shortly after a group of community members, Franklin Park neighbors and elected officials gathered at Franklin Park to protest the project.

Federal judge W. Arthur Garrity, hailed as a hero or denounced as a villain, had no choice but to order the desegregation of Boston’s public schools in 1974 and deploy yellow buses to remedy a wanton violation of the Constitution, legal analysts involved with the epic case say.

The Boston School Committee voted unanimously on April 10 to rename a Dorchester public high school in honor of storied civil rights activist and Girls’ Latin School alumna Ruth Batson, who challenged school segregation and launched the iconic METCO program.

On a frigid morning in 1964, students crowded into the assembly hall at St. Mark’s Social Center in Roxbury. Bundled in winter coats and boots, some students wore excited smiles while others stayed straight-faced, waiting. Outside, school buses carrying suburban students waited among piles of snow.

The city of Boston is approaching a 50-year milestone. We are about to observe  the anniversary of school desegregation.

The Boston School Committee is considering a new admissions policy for Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. The policy would require a statement describing why the student is interested in a vocational education program and wants to attend Madison Park.

Parents, students and teachers expressed a litany of concerns about a proposal by Mayor Michelle Wu and Superintendent Mary Skipper to relocate the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science to the West Roxbury Education Complex. 

With each superintendent and mayor comes the fabricated commitments of “transparency,” “community engagement” and “equity.” As we approach Superintendent Skipper’s eighth month on the job and only three short months from the end of the school year, BPS families have continued to wait for quality BPS leadership, visionary goals and transparency.

What happens to our public institutions when democracy fails? When elected officials ignore the will of the people, governing bodies lose their independence, and the fundamental right to local democratic control is stripped away?

By now you’ve heard that Mayor Michelle Wu vetoed the proposal to restore an elected school committee and reverse Boston’s position as an outlier with the only mayor-appointed school committee in the commonwealth.

Last Wednesday, Boston City Council members passed, albeit narrowly, a home rule petition that would have created an elected Boston school committee. Two days later, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu vetoed the measure, putting a decisive end to this round of political maneuvering, and leaving little ambiguity on where she stands on a return to a fully elected School Committee.

Boston Public Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper announced a $1.4 billion budget for the 2023-2024 school year — an increase of $65 million over the previous year.