Last Night at School Committee: May 22nd, 2024 Meeting Recap

Last night’s meeting was long anticipated as the meeting where BPS would begin to actualize the actions of their long term facilities plan by announcing a comprehensive list of school closures, mergers and consolidations, but this was not the case. 

The meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report, where she discussed a recent update she gave to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on the district’s systemic improvement plan, where BESE did not raise any concern or alarm.

The School Committee took action on three votes, with unanimous approval of grants and a renewed charter memorandum of understanding for UP Academy Boston and Dorchester. The third vote of the evening was on opting out of the state’s school choice program. Typically a routine decision to opt out of the state’s school choice program, the vote sparked a lively discussion. Committee members debated the benefits of participating in the program, which could potentially boost enrollment in under-enrolled schools and help retain students impacted by rising housing costs forced to move out of the city. Despite these arguments and pleas to have these conversations earlier in the year, the Committee voted to opt out of the program, with one member voting to opt in and another abstaining.

The only report of the evening was a report on thelong-term facilities plan, where the Superintendent insisted that this is the most action taken in the last 40 years combined. Contrary to expectations of numerous school mergers and closures, the Superintendent announced only one school closure which had already been disclosed earlier this year, and a merger of two schools that share the same building. The report focused on programmatic and design changes, emphasizing the challenges of implementing a long-term plan due to secondary programming issues. Committee members pushed for a comprehensive master plan and raised concerns about budgetary implications without long-term projections.