Education
The School Committee is set to vote next month on the proposal, which would close two small high schools in Dorchester and Hyde Park.
The Boston School Committee will vote next month on a proposal to close three Boston schools, including two small high schools in Dorchester and Hyde Park.
At a School Committee meeting Wednesday night, educators at each school in question asked the committee to save their small schools, arguing their environments lend extra support to students of color and high needs students.
“We don’t know what to tell our students. Our students don’t know what is happening to them next, and these are decisions that are being made,” teacher Meghan Desmond told the committee Wednesday. “We’re finding out less than 48 hours later that we need to come and fight for our schools.”
As the district enters the next phase of the district’s ongoing plan to close nearly 20 schools by 2030, the School Committee discussed a proposal that was announced Monday to close or reconfigure six schools in the summer of 2027. The committee is set to vote on the plan on Dec. 17.
If approved, the Lee Academy Pilot School in Dorchester, the Another Course to College high school, or ACC, in Hyde Park, and the Community Academy of Sciences and Health, or CASH high school in Dorchester will close, effective June 30, 2027.
“These are not just seats that we’re talking about. We are talking about children and families, staff and school communities,” Superintendent Mary Skipper said. “The goal is to get our students into better experiences, ones that will fulfill our commitment to them. Not just the students that are in the seats today, the students who are to come up through the BPS.”
The plan calls to merge the Henderson Inclusion School from K-12 to a preK-8 school. The district would also eliminate grades 7 and 8 at the Tobin Elementary School, which would become a PreK-6 school. The William E. Russell School would add grade 6 to the preK-5 school, according to the proposal.
At the meeting, district leaders weighed budget constrictions against the demand for smaller programs and schools.
“Superintendent, you have laid out a goal that all students are in high quality building experiences, and that is a goal this committee has enthusiastically endorsed,” Vice Chair Michael O’Neill said. “It’s always great in theory, and then when you talk to parents, they’re often willing to sacrifice that for a small building experience, and yet, we’ve looked at, over the years, the budget implications of that.”
Why are the schools recommended for closure?
The district said it has seen a decrease in the student population, with 1,700 fewer students this October than last, with an increase in dual language students and students with disabilities.
Delavern Stanislaus, the district’s chief of capital planning, said the small high schools are operating without gyms, at low capacity rates, and with a high churn rate, meaning the student population is constantly changing.
“An underutilized school is an under-resourced school,” Stanislaus said about ACC, which has 253 students.
CASH, which has 379 students, currently occupies a building that could support more than 700 students, according to the district.
“Operating a large high school building with such a low student population makes it difficult to sustain rich academic offerings, elective, extracurricular activities, and specialized programming,” she continued about CASH.
Marika, a junior at CASH who moved to Boston from Jamaica last year, voiced concerns about moving to a bigger school.
“I am not a number, and there’s no price tag on me,” Marika said. “I’m a real person, and shutting down my school will hurt me and others. Doing this will take away my experience.”
Lee Academy, which has 195 students, does not have room to expand Grades 4-6. It also lacks teacher collaboration spaces, a dedicated gym or an auditorium, and needs major HVAC upgrades and isn’t ADA compliant, the district said.
“I remember when I wanted my children to come and attend Boston Public Schools, one of the things that I looked for was a small school, a small setting for my children to learn,” a woman who said she’s currently the crossing guard at Lee Academy, told the committee. “This school has that and to take that away is a disgrace to the community.”
Phyllis Leslie, a Henderson employee from Mattapan, voiced concern for the school’s internationally recognized inclusion model.
“Our school was often visited by educators from around the world. We had students who wanted to attend, and, when we had school events, really saw parent participation,” Leslie said. “How do we arrive at the point where we face the elimination of grades nine and above?”
What parents should know about next steps
If approved by the committee, students at the schools will have priority through the BPS assignment process to transfer to other schools. Current second and third graders at Lee would move up as planned, BPS said. Current juniors and seniors at CASH and ACC would graduate as planned.
At the meeting, Skipper and Stanislaus stressed that the closure of schools can be personal and emotional, including for Stanislaus herself.
“I had to look my mom in her face and tell her that the school that she’s working at will be recommended for closure at the School Committee, the first school that my son ever attended,” Stanislaus said, referring to Lee. “I will get a home visit from my son’s teachers all the time. That was something beautiful about that community.”
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