elected school committee

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.

No one old enough to have been in Boston during the school discrimination of the 1970s would be likely to support the return of the elected school committee. Back then, the school committee functioned as a bigoted bloc to prevent the mayor from complying with the laws that opposed racial discrimination in education.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu doubled down on her reluctance to shift to an elected school committee Tuesday, setting up potential political friction between her administration and the nearly 80% of voters who expressed a clear desire to do away with a school board appointed by the mayor.

Members of the City Council are preparing to vote to reestablish an elected school committee in Boston for the first time in more than 30 years, since the elected committee model was abolished and replaced by a mayor-appointed committee in 1991, and more than a year after Boston residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of an elected committee in a non-binding ballot referendum

When Boston Public School teacher Neema Avashia watched the school committee give away the open green space beside her John W. McCormack Middle School in Dorchester for development despite the pleas of students, teachers and neighbors who used it for recreation, she suspected the days of the mayor-appointed school board might be drawing to a close.

Boston City Councilors Ricardo Arroyo and Julia Mejia announced Monday a proposed home rule petition for an elected Boston School Committee.

Of the six lead candidates running for mayor, none backs a fully elected school committee, only one supports rent control.