Jan 18 2023 · Last Night @ School Committee Recap · Ep. 78
What happens at each Boston School Committee meeting has big implications for our students and our city. In “Last Night @ School Committee,” Jill Shah and Ross Wilson recap the highlights of each meeting, provide commentary and context, and shine a light on the decisions our leaders are making.
Last night’s meeting focused primarily on three policy areas. The first dealt with contractually-obligated back-pay for BPS staff. Despite agreeing to pay increases in the most recent union contract, BPS has yet to implement these increases, with Superintendent Skipper noting they hope to have the issue sorted by mid-February. BPS teachers and staff members, including the Boston Teachers Union president, spoke at public comment about their frustration with this issue and the lack of communication from BPS leaders.
The second focus area last night was school closures and mergers, which was a dominant topic in last week’s public comment period. In her report, Superintendent Skipper discussed the merger of the Sumner and Philbrick school communities, and School Committee members raised questions about how to develop a more robust community engagement process. Chair Jeri Robinson tabled that conversation until a future meeting.
The third and final focus area last night was school safety, headlined by a presentation on safety recommendations from the Council of the Great City Schools. While safety is a top concern among BPS parents, there was no data presented last night on safety incidents within BPS, and School Committee members questioned what specific issues this presentation was meant to address.
The next School Committee meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 1 at 5pm on Zoom.
We want to hear from you! If you have concerns about how BPS is serving your child or your family, please send us an email at podcast@shahfoundation.org.
Ways to Engage and Resources:
Continue to demand accountability from our school system by emailing the Mayor and School Committee members:
Mayor Michelle Wu: mayor@boston.gov
Chair Jeri Robinson: grobinson@bostonpublicschools.org
Vice Chair Michael O’Neill: moneill2@bostonpublicschools.org
Quoc Tran: qtran2@bostonpublicschools.org
Lorena Lopera: llopera@bostonpublicschools.org
Rafaela Polanco Garcia: rpolancogarcia@bostonpublicschools.org
Dr. Stephen Alkins: salkins@bostonpublicschools.org
Brandon Cardet-Hernandez: bcardethernandez@bostonpublicschools.org
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