Ep. 28, Last Night @ School Committee: 3/24 Meeting Recap

Last Night At School Committee

In this episode of Last Night at School Committee, Jill and Ross recap the highlights of last night’s BPS School Committee meeting. The meeting began with the Superintendent's report on returning to school including the plan to return students in K-8 to 5 days a week of in person learning beginning April 26th. After a three month process of community listening sessions, meetings, and revisions, the School Committee voted unanimously to support the Superintendent’s FY22 budget. Additionally, there was an elaborate presentation on high schools including celebrating the highest graduation rate ever. The presentation also featured a resurfaced proposal to implement MassCore as the district graduation standard.

We are left with the following questions in reflecting on this meeting...

• How will support 2020 graduates as well as graduates from this school year, who ended their high school careers in less than optimal circumstances?
• How will we use the federal funding to help both them and current families who also suffered greatly these past two years?
• What will 5 days a week in person or fully remote look like across all grades? Will students have different teachers, will students be able to switch classes in person at the upper grade levels? What happens if a family wants to switch from in-person to remote learning?
• With the school choice season coming to a close, when will families find out next year's assignments? What are the enrollment numbers for next year?
• Who is taking advantage of the 22,000 summer opportunities that were presented at last week’s school committee meeting? How will the district ensure that every student has a plan? And, how will they track this?
• How will BPS ensure safety in their programs this summer? Will they include Covid-19 testing? What are the other expected protocols?

How to Engage and Resources

• Boston’s City Council approves the school department’s budget that was voted on last night. It is the biggest part of the city budget. Make sure that they know what you think about the budget and where you have questions or would like to see changes. Advocate for a clear strategy on how the influx of recovery money will be spent for long term positive change for BPS.
• Email Your City Councilor:

Matt O’Malley (City Council President, District 6) [e-mail]

Annissa Essaibi-George (At-Large) [e-mail]

Julia Meija (At-Large) [e-mail]

Michelle Wu (At-Large) [e-mail]

Michael Flaherty (At-Large) [e-mail]

Lydia Edwards (District 1) [e-mail]

Ed.Flynn (District 2) [e-mail]

Frank Baker (District 3) [e-mail]

Andrea Campbell (District 4) [e-mail]

Ricardo Arroyo (District 5) [e-mail]

Kim Janey (Mayor of Boston, City Councilor for District 7) [e-mail]

Kenzie Bok (District 8) [e-mail]

Liz Breadon (District 9) [e-mail]

• Attend an exam school task force committee meeting
• Email us your ideas on how to support this year’s and last year's graduates of BPS: [e-mail]
• Dorchester Reporter article on City of Boston Finances
• Superintendent's Final FY22 Budget Recommendation Letter
• College, Career, and Life Readiness PowerPoint
• BPS Graduation Rate (2019) by high school

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