Oct 26 2022 · Last Night @ School Committee Recap · Ep. 72
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 was four hours long, with the School Committee hearing only one presentation after deciding to delay their report on hiring and diversity to next week’s meeting. The Superintendent began with her report with updates on enrollment, transportation, and test scores. Superintendent Skipper informed the Committee that, as of this month, there are 48,734 students enrolled in the district, representing a steep decline over the past decade. She then addressed ongoing transportation concerns, acknowledging that the district is not meeting its state mandate of 95% on-time arrival. Superintendent Skipper also noted that her team is working to address concerns and complaints that were filed by two advocacy groups on behalf of students with individualized educational plans (IEPs) who are not arriving to school on-time. She concluded her report by addressing the recent results of the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) in Boston, which showed steeper declines in performance than indicated by the recent MCAS data.
The only presentation of the night was an update on the BPS “Green New Deal.” Announced last year by Mayor Wu, the “Green New Deal” is a vision for improving BPS infrastructure and building modern, climate-resilient facilities. However, last night’s presentation did not go into detail beyond that vision and left many unanswered questions about the possibility of future school closures and mergers.
The next School Committee meeting will be held next Wednesday, November 2 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. And if you’d like to share a thought that we may use in a future episode, you can leave us a voicemail at 508-261-5904.
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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