Boston School Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Good evening, and welcome to this meeting of the Boston School Committee. Hold on.

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the microphone? Our mic's turned on.

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Alright. Good evening, and welcome to this meeting of the Boston School Committee. I'm chair Jerry Robinson. We'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Boston School Committee. I'm chairperson Jerry Robinson. I want to welcome everyone who is joining us tonight in person on Boston City TV and on Zoom. I'm going to ask everyone here in the chamber to please turn off the volume on your laptops or other devices so that it does not interfere with the audio for tonight's meeting. Thank you for your cooperation.

Tonight's meeting documents are posted on the committee's web page bostonpublicschools.org/schoolcommittee under the December 17 meeting link. For those joining us in person, you can access the meeting document by scanning the QR code that's posted by the doors.

The meeting documents have been translated into all of

the major BPS languages. Any translations that are not ready prior the start of the meeting will be posted as soon as they are finalized. The meeting will be rebroadcast on Boston City TV and posted on the school committee's webpage and on YouTube. The committee is pleased to offer live simultaneous interpretation virtually in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Capverian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and American Sign Language. The Zoom interpretation feature has been activated.

Zoom participants should click the globe icon at the bottom of your screen to select your language preference. I'd like to remind everyone to speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters. Before we continue, I want to congratulate superintendent Mary Skipper. The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce's Women's Network has announced its 2026 Pinnacle Awards, one of the region's most prestigious honors recognizing exceptional women leaders. I'm proud to share that superintendent Skipper has been selected for the Achievement in Management and Governance Award.

Please join me in congratulating her on this well deserved recognition. I want to remind members that you received the school year twenty five-twenty six school enrollment trends update memo last week. This memo is available in your meeting folder and is has also been posted on the website under today's meeting materials. Members also received a memo providing update on cycle three recommendations for closures, mergers and grade reconfigurations. This memo is also available in your meeting folder and posted on the website under today's meeting materials.

Superintendent will offer remarks before the vote later in the meeting. We will begin this meeting with the approval of minutes. I will now entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the December 3 meeting. Is there a motion? So moved. Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Is there any objection to approving the the motion by unanimous consent? Hearing none, the minutes are approved. The report and vote on the Elliott Innovation School Plan will be deferred to a future meeting. We'll now move on to general public comment. Ms. Parvax?

Thank you, Chair. The public comment period is an opportunity for individuals to address the school committee on school related issues. Questions on school on specific school matters are referred to the superintendent. Questions on policy matters may be discussed by the committee later. The meeting will feature two public comment periods with the first comment period limited to one hour.

After one hour, anyone who hasn't testified will have the opportunity to do so at the end of the meeting. We have 30 speakers this evening. Each person will have two minutes to speak, and I will remind you when you have thirty seconds remaining. Please feel free to e mail your comments for distribution to the committee. Speakers may not reassign their time to others.

The time that an interpreter uses for English interpretation will not be deducted from a speaker's allotted time. Please direct your comments to the chair and refrain from addressing individual school committee members or district staff. Please note the comments of any public speaker do not represent the Boston Public Schools or the Boston School Committee. Please state your name, affiliation, and where you live before you begin. If you are on Zoom, please sign in using the name you registered with for public comment and be ready to unmute and turn on your camera when it's your turn to speak.

Please raise your virtual hand when I call your name. To support interpretation, please speak slowly and clearly. Our first speakers are Solomon MacDonald, Serafina Lambert, Jason Lambert, Lea Serrina, Eileen Carver and Travis Marshall. Solomon MacDonald?

My name is and I go to Lee Academy. What is what is my School committee. School committee. Please don't close Lee Academy. We really like a heel, so please don't close it. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Sarahfina Lambreit. I am a former student at the Lee Academy. These four schools that you are proposing to shut down include so much diversity. At the Lee Academy, I was able to go to a school where the majority of people looked like me, which has not been common in my experience at other Boston public schools.

Going to a school with that sense of belonging can be life changing for kids. It helps students see themselves positively and remind them that they have that they matter and have power. Decisions about school closures should not be based only on whether a school fits a certain vision, especially if that vision does not fully consider students' lived experiences. These four schools serve student populations that are over 40% black, African American, and over 40% Hispanic and Latinx. That tells me these schools are important spaces for communities of color.

These schools are places where students' needs are met and where students feel supported. Closing these risk closing them risk removing environments where students are succeeding emotionally and socially, which direct directly impacts learning. You are setting students up for failure by taking away these schools where their needs are met and are cared for. That is not doing the best for us. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Jason Lambreit.

Hello my name is Jason Lambreit. I have had three kids go to Lee Academy pilot school. That's where they started. Then they would go to Murphy school and then my eldest who you just heard she is at Boston Latin School right now. Without the start of Lee Academy pilot school I do question their ability to be able to grow and learn in a way that they felt free and able to just be willing to learn those different things.

At Lee Academy they not only learned ABCs and reading, but they learned emotional intelligence. They learned how to play with friends. They learned how to be able to talk and be willing to be empowered such as my oldest daughter. When you close these schools, don't just look at it as because again, they were not asked to be in many of these facilities. They were told they would be put in these facilities.

I want you to think more about the community that was built around them. People that were laughing, smiling, kids having a great job, people that are being empowered to make decisions. One thing for example is my youngest son. Without a smaller school I fear he wouldn't have been able to get noticed for some of the discrepancies disabilities that he does have. Without Lee Academy pilot school noticing some of the delays or things going on, I question if he would have just been kept moving along until later we'd realized there was a problem.

Schools like Lee Academy exist for a reason. It's not just because it's a specific boutique school. It's a school that is helpful for many kids and So I ask you again to really think before you vote close the school that didn't just help just a small group of kids but bigger kids that turned into adults. Thank you.

Leia Serena.

Good evening. My name is Leia Serena, and I am the vice president of the Boston Teachers Union, a former Boston Public Schools student, and a former Boston Public Schools educator. I began my teaching career at Lee Academy, one of the schools being voted on closure today. Lee Academy is a small Dorchester school with over a decade of experience in inclusive education. Its size is not a weakness, it's Small schools like Lee Academy create more opportunities for students to form deep relationships with their teachers, which is particularly crucial for the development of students with complex needs.

I am the proud godmother of two young women, now 15 and 17, who were once my first and second grade students at the Lee. They walked down the street to school every day, and our bond began with home visits, a unique characteristic to the Lee Academy. When they showed me their room and their toys, I learned that their father had passed away in a car accident and that mom had lots of fears about who their children bonded with. That fall, the mother told me she was too afraid to allow the girls to take the long bus ride to a school field trip. So I went back to the house to speak to them and told them that she could FaceTime me throughout the ride.

They have not stopped FaceTiming me since. This relationship established an emotional safety, which led to academic growth because mom not only trusted my professional opinion, but trusted me as a person and the school. And the trust was particularly possible because of the small school setting that allowed me to dedicate the time and attention to kids who needed it the most. Earning their trust and doing my part to make sure those kids develop into successful young adults is one of my greatest successes as a teacher. Closing schools like Lee Academy, Cash, CAC, and the grades of the Henderson Upper without a clear, full resource plan does not improve outcomes.

It creates harms. The communities do not feel like there's a clear plan for where students will go and how inclusion services will be perceived. Disruption without direction is not a strategy. Our students deserve stability, our families deserve trust, and our communities deserve better.

Thank you.

Eileen Carver. Eileen Carver.

Eileen Carver, retired BPS teacher, mother of two BPS grads. I speak tonight in solidarity with the students, families, and educators from Lee Academy, Cash, ACC, and Henderson. The last school I taught at was the PA Shaw. Our young students and their families, 98% of color, pleaded with you not to close or merge our school without a clear plan for how your actions would positively benefit our children. At that time, the Shaw was a beloved school, with strong student and family voice.

You made the decision to merge us without a plan to benefit the students, and today the Shaw is underenrolled and struggling. During the same time, you decided to merge two Rossendale schools with significant populations of white middle class students. In this case, you postponed the merger until these two schools could move into a wonderful renovated building. We are happy for these students and families, but the lack of racial equity remains stunning. Now today, the students and families at the above mentioned schools, all with large majority of students of color and all striving to be inclusive communities for students across abilities, are facing closure without a clear transition plan nor clarity on how students will benefit.

While it may make sense to reduce the number of buildings, it never was and never will be acceptable or just to do this on the backs of the black and brown students of Boston. In 2023, school committee member, Cardette Hernandez, stated how we move forward on these mergers will set the stage for the future. The future is now. I join with parents, students, and educators in calling for data on the impact of school closings, strong transition supports for affected students, a transparent and thoughtful process with real community input, and a facilities master plan showing long term investments in school buildings in every neighborhood. Until these conditions are in place, please postpone the vote

to close these schools.

Harvard. Thank you. Our

next speakers are Travis Marshall, Ross Cochman, Stephanie Wharf, Douglas Peters, Peters, and and Roger Roger Woods. Woods. Travis Travis Marshall? Marshall?

Good evening. My name is Travis Marshall. I live in Roslindale. I'm the proud parent of students at the English High School and the Bates Elementary School. I'm also a member of Quality Schools for Every Student, Quest, a grassroots BPS parent group.

I'm sure we all agree that students and staff deserve better than the dilapidated school buildings they've inherited after decades of disinvestment, but facilities neglect has not impacted all schools equally. We must be honest about which school communities enjoy the stability of regular maintenance for their buildings and which school communities bounced from building to building across the city. We must be mindful of which school communities were first in line for renovations and which were first in line for closure. I'd like this committee to consider why BPS spent 6 months soliciting public feedback on exam school admissions compared to the six weeks these school communities received from closure announcement to vote. Why communities which communities does BPS try to engage, and which communities does BPS expect to quietly fold?

I'd like this committee to consider what it means to vote to set aside exam school seats for exam for advantaged students in the name of predictability and forty two days later, to uproot and destabilize some of our most vulnerable students in the name of cost savings. In the BPS CAST system Thirty seconds. The price of rightsizing the district footprint is historically borne by students who are already intensely segregated by race and disability. We cannot close our way out of a system designed to concentrate privilege in some schools and concentrate need in others. Thank you.

Ross

Good evening. My name is Ross Kochman. I live in Jamaica Plain, and I'm a fifth grade teacher at the Henderson School where I've proudly taught for fifteen years. I'm also a BPS parent. My daughter is a third grader at the Mendel. So this district is deeply personal to me. I care about it, and I believe in its potential. I wanna speak tonight from a place of collaboration and shared responsibility when it comes to meaningfully inclusive secondary education in Boston. A meaningfully inclusive high school is not just a program preference. It is both a moral and legal imperative.

We must put the needs of our young people before the needs of adults and their desire to save money and ensure that this option continues to exist for the families of Boston. Our students need a meaningfully inclusive high school option. Inclusion is not being together only during lunch or gym. Meaningful inclusion means students with disabilities spend the majority of their school day learning alongside their peers, supported by co teaching, shared expectations, and a school culture built for everyone. The Henderson High School and Transition Program is that school.

Regardless of the outcome of tonight's vote, we must keep this model. We must because we have not been shown another high school in the city offering this level of meaningful inclusion. A similar model to the Henderson doesn't exist here in Boston. I wanna be clear. Families and educators are committed to creating, restarting, or continuing a meaningfully inclusive high school program in Boston. This is not about holding onto a building. It's about holding onto a promise we made to students and families. We believe this can be done together. The expertise exists. The staff exists.

The families are ready. We need a shared commitment. So I invite you to sit down with us. Sit down with parents, educators, and students, and join us in ensuring this meaningfully inclusive high school experience. Like doc like doctor Henderson himself recently said, it is a moral and legal imperative. Thank you.

Stephanie Stephanie War. So please do not move the mic. No. No. You can come. This is for the public. We're having an issue with the mic, so just you can speak and leave the mic there.

Okay. Yeah.

Hi. I'm Stephanie. I have a student at ACC. I live in JP. I have attended all the meetings about closing ACC.

I've been talked at, and I've heard the same talking points over and over again, but not once certainly did not feel the concern I saw for those who want to make Latin white again. Instead, I saw an equity analysis that didn't address the fact that the school is 50% black and has over 50% BIPOC educators and 40% students with IEPs. This uneven treatment feels very racialized and makes me question how you are conducting your equity analysis. When I pointed out that the high school closest to me disproportionately suspends black students, I was told that BPS has gotten better. While growth is good, to expect my black student to feel good about the inequity because it's not as bad as it was isn't reassuring.

I have heard some acknowledge that BPS uprooted ACC and moved it into an elementary school in Hyde Park that they did not want to move to without their input, yet nobody nobody has has taken taken responsibility responsibility or or spoken on how to mitigate the fact that you set up a community for destruction because you favored an advantaged green academy. That's not justice.

Thirty seconds.

It's not equity. It's not even equality. It's injustice. Supporting these proposals is being complicit in a system that has systematically advantaged a few at the expense majority. If you don't want to be complicit, you need to actively work against the system that is set up to advantage so few. The proposed closings seem to embody anti Thank

you, blackness tying this up.

By any equity metric, and that makes complicit an understatement.

Douglas, Douglas Peters.

Good evening. My name is Douglas Peters. I'm a sixth grade science and special education teacher at the Anderson Eppen School. And tonight, I want to speak for the near total lack transparency throughout this entire process so far. I can only speak for the Henderson although I would imagine that the members of the other school committees here tonight feel likewise.

From the moment we began this process a month ago a little more until now we have found more and more questions and no answers to any of them have been given and there is no accountability for that either. At the start of our planned meeting with BPS employees last Monday reporters in the audience were forced to identify themselves and then forced to leave the meeting despite the protest of parents and teachers alike. Public employees of a public government at a public school were expelled so that there was no accountability for the lack of information that was given at that meeting. They did not make any effort to check if any of the rest of us were there as members of the community. This was a movement for concealment and not a move to protect privacy.

Although we had many questions for parents, students, and teachers, and concerned community members that night the big question was essentially the same. Which schools in BPS are prepared to receive our ninth through twelfth inclusion students from the Henderson and will they receive the same inclusive services accommodations that we gave at the Henderson. After five rounds of vague questions, one BPS employee would dismissively tell us dismissively does not give us an answer and told one of our students it'll prepare you for the real world when you leave here. They have no answers. They have no plan.

They just told us one of the 20 high schools will do fine and then refused to answer any of our questions for the second half of that meeting. If you give a vote of yes tonight, you are giving them a blank check to bulldoze these buildings. And then whatever happens next, your name is on it.

Thank you. Your time

is up.

Roger Wood. Roger Wood. Roger Wood. No? Our next speakers are Joseph Birch, Christa Magnuson, Ricky Preston, Susan Assai and Megan Moscon. Joseph Birch?

Hello, how are you guys doing? I'm Joseph Birch. I'm a one to one para for the Azul program at Cash. I also live in Brighton. Sorry, what was this?

I'm currently finishing up my degree in psychology at UMass Boston right now, And I wouldn't be able to become a speech pathologist or understand that career without the Azul program and the cash community supporting me. And I truly don't know where I will be at without the cash community as a BPS alum. And that's really all I have to say. And I feel like you guys are doing a disservice of closing these amazing schools.

Krista Magnusson. Good evening. My name is Krista Magnuson. I live in Jamaica Plain, and I'm a parent to two BPS students. I'm also the statewide organizer for MAISIA, the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance. I'm here tonight to speak about these proposed school closures and mergers up for a vote this evening. I feel as if I could have repurposed a large portion of the testimony that I delivered just a few weeks ago when this body was voting on exam school admissions changes. I spoke then about the lack of community engagement and the speed at which that decision was made. This decision is no different. It's speedier.

There has been little to no engagement with the school communities affected and the timeline is lightning fast. It's been barely a month, more than a month since these closures and mergers were announced. As we all well know, the time of year is suspect at best. It is much more difficult for families to find time to engage in the holiday season. It's also more difficult for you as a body to engage given this time and this timing.

The only way this timing isn't also an imposition for you as a school committee is if there was never any chance of you as the school committee truly debating the proposal in the first place. I and many BPS families grow weary of the lack of consideration given to our communities and the consistent non acknowledgment of our stake and our expertise with regards to those communities. The ongoing lack of a context or framework within which to understand these closure decisions contributes both to that feeling of being devalued and to a lack of trust in BPS as a system. Both Mayor Wu and Superintendent Skipper have spoken about the need to build trust, but these decisions have the exact opposite effect. Major calls on BPS to create and release a long term facilities plan that can provide a framework for understanding these BPS decisions, and we stand in solidarity with the students and the families from the affected schools.

We urge you to listen to them and to their work in organizing and testifying before you. Thank you.

Wiki Preston.

Good evening. I want to start the same way I went with saying, god is good all the time. My name is Ricky Preston, and I work at Cash High School as a community field coordinator, serving as one of the dean of students. I'm a proud Boston Public Schools alum, born and raised in Boston. I attended the Amburger Middle School in West Roxbury, the John d O'Brien High School in Roxbury, and earned my undergraduate degree in Springfield College.

And I am currently pursuing my master's program in clinical mental health counseling at William James College. But enough about me, because today we're here to talk about cash. I started working at cash this past September. In just three and a half months, I can say without hesitation that Cash is not just a building, it's not just a school, it's a community. It's a place where students and staff feel protected, seen, uplifted, appreciated. Appreciated. It feels like home. There's a quote from the film, Remember the Titans, that I feel will help paint a better picture of Cash, and it says, attitude reflects leadership. A leader's mindset sets the tone for their entire community. At Cash, that leadership starts with principal Simpson and extends throughout every adult in the building.

The culture here is intentional. The relationships are real, and for many of our students, this is the first time school has felt like home. From meaningful professional development meetings that we've had that strengthen us as a team to greeting students each morning, sending them off at the end of the day, the message is clear, our students matter. For our students, seeing a principal who looks like them, who believes in them matters deeply. There is enough there isn't enough time for me to fully help you guys capture what cash means in two minutes, but I hope to leave you tonight with this on your heart. Cash is a family and families are worth fighting for. God is good all the time.

Who's set aside?

Good evening. My name is Susan Assai, and I'm a member of the NAACP Boston. I'm a retired educator, educator and I live in Malden. NAACP Boston opposes the four school closures in the superintendent's proposal to the Boston Public School Committee for the school year twenty twenty seven-twenty twenty eight. The school closings impact Boston's most vulnerable students, special education students and English language learners, and it disproportionately disadvantages low income black and Latino students.

Black students currently enrolled in the four schools range from 43 to 50% of the total student population. Latino students enrolled in the same schools comprise 40 to 47% of the student population. It is apparent that the city administration and BPS is deploying the same top down playbook that isn't working. Since BPS students today are mostly black or Latino, we need a more nuanced way to identify and emphasize harmful racial impacts. We understand that fewer students attend BPS than in the past.

Some creative resizing of the school building inventory seems inevitable. How this should be done seems to be where there is room for improvement within the proposal. Is there a distinction to be made between saving a school's culturesecret sauce versus saving the building? For more acceptable capital planning and greater transparency, we ask that a comprehensive long term master facilities plan needed to systematically improve schools as promised by the Commissioner Jeff Reilly and Mayor Wu in 2022 be crafted with parents Your

time is up.

And community input before finalizing and announcing future school closures and mergers. Thank you.

Thank you. Megan Moscon. Megan Moscon.

Hi. My daughter with autism is a student at CASH in the Azul Special Needs Program. I just want to take a moment to shine a bit of light on this amazing program. I can't say enough about how wonderful it's been for her. Of all four of the schools she's attended at BPS, this is the first school where she actually wakes up excited to go to school and comes home saying she had a great day.

When I drop her off there, everyone knows her name and says hello. She's always felt very included there and has really thrived. One of my favorite things about the Azul program at Cache is that students get to run something called the Cache Cafe. Running their own cafe gives students the opportunity to interact with the general ed population and also exposes them to real life vocational environment requiring use of real life skills. These include consistency, problem solving, serve safe protocols, excellent job place behavior, following instructions, communication, joint attention, food preparation and cooking, clean up including doing dishes, laundry and mopping, cash register skills, inventory and grocery shopping.

For this reason, the location of this program is pivotal because it gives the students the unique ability to walk to nearby grocery stores and Target to do the shopping for the cafe while also gaining the independence and applying money skills setting. It is my understanding that another school is being moved into our building, and I wish you would consider keeping the program in place there.

Second, sorry.

Thank you for your time.

The next speakers are Jovana Tovar, Witch She Prosper, Foster Allison, and Genesis Moreta. Jovana Tovar.

Go, Jovi.

Hello. My name is Jovana Tovar, but they call me miss Jovi. I over at the Lee Academy, I'm the family liaison and a proud parent I'm proud parent of two Lee Academy alumni. First, I'd like to acknowledge that I understand you did not make the plan to close our schools. I have been hearing a lot of public comments, and at times, it seems like a lot of it is being directed and personal to the members. Please do not take it personally. Our school communities are just passionate about their work. I had mentioned last meeting that the problem was systematic. All of these communities are unique and special in their own way, and I stand here in solidarity with all schools. ACC is one of the only schools of its kind with strong supports for students with emotional impairments.

CASH shows students with complex IEP needs. The Henderson is the only high school where most classrooms use a co teaching model. What is unique about my school is that we are a pilot school. We are a fully autonomous school, autonomy given to us by BPS. Pilot schools are a unique educational model distinguished by their greater autonomy compared to traditional public schools.

Originating from a response to the growing popularity of popularities of charter schools in the nineteen nineties, pilot schools operate under independent governing board and are exempt from many district regulations allowing them more freedom in curriculum, budget, and staffing decisions. Typically, smaller in size students population ranging from 200 to 300. These schools aim to foster a close knit community where educators can provide personalized instruction and support. It seems that specific social, legal, and

political pressures

caused the birth of the pilot schools. We were created to save our public school system. Now it's time for us to for you to save ours for you to save us. Sorry. And studies suggest that pilot schools have demonstrated a higher academic achievement and engagement levels compared to traditional schools. The capital planning team should have convened a meeting with our governing board prior to this decision as we are the governing body that makes decisions for our school community. Not convening a meeting and giving our governing board the opportunity to discuss, ask questions Thank and bring up solution and vote is like taking away our rights and our autonomy.

Richie Prosper. Richie Prosper. Richie Prosper. No? Foster Allison.

Good evening. My name is Allison Foster, parent of my son, Sage Foster, who attends the Lee Academy. I am here with a simple but urgent ask to please keep our school community together. I want to be clear. As a parent and on behalf of many, I'm sure, agree that our current building is subpar and in need of improvement. No one knows that better than the families, students, and educators who spend the days inside inside it. But a building, however imperfect, is not the heart of a school. People are. And the strength of this school lies in its community. Our school has built something rare and a powerful, a deep connected, inclusive community where students of all abilities learn together and thrive.

Our inclusion model is a abstract concept. It is lived every day through strong relationships, trust, collaboration among students, families, and staff. Disrupting or dismantling the community would risk losing what makes the school successful. We believe that this is a better path forward than closure. We are asking the district to work with us and not around us to find solutions that address the building's challenges without breaking apart a proven successful community.

We are ready to collaborate creatively and constructively on options that preserve our school's identity, culture, and inclusion model while meeting facility needs. Closing the school would not simply move students. It would fracture relationships, undo years of intentional inclusion work, and scatter a community that has taken time and care to build. Once lost, that cannot be easily rebuilt.

Thirty seconds.

Urge you to slow down, listen to the families and educators who know this school the best, and commit to the solution that honors both safety and community. Fix the building if needed. Do not dismantle the school. Please keep our community together. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Genesis Moreta. Genesis Moreta.

Good evening. My name is Genesis and I have two children in the Lee Academy, a third grader with autism and a K-zero with speech delay. I will start by saying there's a saying that says, you don't fix what's not broken, and I feel like this applies for our community at the Lee Academy. When my daughter started last year in second grade, she was a student that had gone through many schools, big beautiful buildings with great structure, but my daughter was not learning. She was not happy and it became traumatic for her and for me.

So much I was worried about her futures in future in schools. So much that when she began in the Lee Academy last year, I signed up for parent mentor program to be close to my child. I was able to do this for a few months, but in this time, I can say Lee Academy was the best choice I could have made. And I should have come across a school community like this long ago, but better late than never they say. Sorry. Better late than never, they say. Now my child is in third grade. She can interact in a classroom setting. She can tell me about her day. She can go on field trips without me.

She has friends and great teachers with amazing communications communication that help her thrive. And that's why I started my toddler in the league this year in hopes that this will be her school and her teachers. Thank you.

Next speakers are Keo MacLay, Tristan Granum, and Neil Beers. Keo MacLeigh?

Good evening. I am Chandra MacLeigh, the Executive Director of Beja, former student rep on the Boston School Committee as well as a BPS alum. Here we are once again because students, families, and educators are being asked to absorb the harm of another round of destabilizing school closures and mergers. We know that this decision is made for you all, but I'm also sure that decisions were made with limited community engagement, unclear data, and no meaningful transparent plan transition plan directly which directly contradicts the values of equity, transparency, and shared leadership that Boston Public School has promised and yet to deliver. For over a decade, Beja has worked to center the most impacted by education policies, black and Latino students, students with disabilities, English learners, immigrant families, and frontline educators.

Today, we are sounding the alarm that closures and merger processes threaten to deepen inequities, displace vulnerable students, and further erode the trust further erode the trust at a moment when BPS cannot afford to lose it. Boston facility challenges are real, but closures are not the solution. Community research, district audits, and state funding all point to chronic under investment as the root cause of failing buildings and instability. Yet instead of committing to long term infrastructure investments and strong school programming, BPS is choosing to close schools serving some of the district's highest need students. Call for immediate halt to all closures and until transparent community led process, publicly released data and impact analysis and co created facility plan and guaranteed transition supports including transportation, staffing stability, and mental health services.

We uplift the leadership of students and families from schools like CASH, the Henderson, ACC, and the Lee, and we and we salute them to organizing and fighting for their demands with dignity. Beja stands with them, and we know the saying that you don't know what you have until it's gone. But we know that our schools and our communities are being dismantled in the name of efficiency only to realize later what is lost. But our community knows exactly what we have, and we know the potential that comes from investment in our schools rather than This embracing is about more than buildings. It is about stability, trust, and the future of our kids.

Tristan Grenham. Tristan Grenham. Tristan Grenham.

Good evening. I'll start with a little story. In September 2001, I walked in the doors of another course of college. It was a change that I wanted and sought from English high school. And in my two years at ACC, because it was still a two year school at the time, I was exposed to what equity really was.

I sat in so many classrooms where the teachers looked at us, some from district schools, some from exam schools, and some from schools around the country, and said, you all can rise that standard. I've never forgotten that. And I've been honored to see ACC grow to accommodate so many more students in the years since. And about six weeks ago, I found out that ACC was slated for closure along with Cash, the Henderson nine twelve, and the Lee. And the difference between myself and those students was the fact that I chose to change, and it was still enormously disruptive and enormously painful, but at least I chose it.

And those students now do not have that choice.

Thirty seconds.

And I will say this, you've heard a lot of testimony from students, families, and the community on the impact that these schools have had them on their families, themselves, and the community. And I understand the decision that the school committee needs to make. What I will ask is that you listen to the voices in this room, and at the very least, take into consideration the impact that these decisions will have

Thank you.

And honor the and honor the time that they're asking for. Thank you.

Thank you. Our our last in in person speaker is Neil Beers.

Good evening. My name is Neil Beers. I live in Newton, I teach at the Henderson K-twelve School. And all these schools are great. I think students are really going to lose valuable services if they're closed. But tonight, I just want to speak about the unique Henderson experience. When I began teaching there, I was I taught sixth grade. Those sixth graders are now eighth graders. I currently teach in the high school. I look forward to seeing them next year.

If we eliminate the high school in eighteen months and cut ninth grade next year, I'm not gonna have that experience. And what's unique about the Henderson is I may not have been their favorite when I taught them the first time, but when they come up for specials now, they're like, oh, mister Neil, I got high fives and side hugs and everything. They really look forward to seeing me again. And that is only possible at a K-twelve school. And that's very common.

We teach siblings throughout the grades. I am familiar with a bunch of my student siblings because we have bus duty where we interact with the young ones. And our high school students, we see them with their siblings when they don't have to go across town to pick them up and take them home. They can walk downstairs, get their sibling, and walk them home. This is only possible in a K-twelve school.

Some of these students have been at the Henderson from grade two to 12. So, these students have a decade of trusted adults in the building that a lot of them still look for. We have a lot of kids with various needs, disabilities, crises, etcetera. Sometimes Thirty seconds. The middle school teacher they had is the best person they want to talk Or they bring kids up for specials and their middle school teacher or high schoolers see them in the hallway and these middle school teachers are able to connect with them again.

We are the model for the district of inclusive co teaching, and it makes no sense to tear down our model when our contract suggests that it is important. And in fact, contract suggests with a certain number with IEPs, there must be a co teacher So in the it makes much more sense to combine rather than collapse.

Thank you.

We will now transition into public testimony on Zoom. The next speakers are Brian Worrell, Cheryl Buckman, Han Lee, Robert Jenkins. We will start with Councillor Worrell, who is not in the meeting. So we will continue with Cheryl Buckman. Cheryl please accept the prompt.

Hi. You can start.

Good evening. My name is Sheryl Buckman. I'm a parent of a seventh grader at the Ruth Batson Academy, the parent leader at the Derritt and longtime residents of Boston. Every child deserves a high quality education and a school where they feel safe, known, and loved. I understand that school closures and mergers are very difficult, but what has happened here is something real and painful.

Children have been moved from schools that were working for them, and entire communities will be torn apart. I stood here before this committee nine months ago pleading with you not to close my child's school, a school that had also educated me when I was young. Families and educators before me warned you what would happen. The harm was crystal clear, yet the decision moved forward anyway. Now here we are again, asking you to stop.

Tonight, you've heard directly from students, educators, parents who had organized, rallied, and found the courage to speak about their schools. Their voices matter. For many students, that separation has already happened. Trust trusted adults are gone. Friendships are broken. Stability is lost, and the emotional toll is very real. But it doesn't have to be the future for these schools you are considering to close now. When you vote to close a school, you just don't close a building. You take away the community. You take away their family.

Schools are cultural homes and lifelines for our children. The damage to past closures is already visible. If we know this caused harm, why repeat it? I ask you to listen to students, educators, and families, and please vote no on these closures. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Han Lee. Han Li. You can start.

Hi. My name is Han Li. I am the mother of two BPS students from Hunter Henderson. My oldest son is 19 years old. He is in his second year in the transition program at Hunter Henderson. He has been at Hunter Henderson since the fourth grade, and he has continued his middle school and high school career and right into his transition program. We I cannot tell you how important the Henderson has been in our life where from the support, the staff, the people. And today, I don't speak just for my son. I speak for his friends who don't have voices. I speak for the teachers.

I speak for the staff, and every single person who ever supported us throughout this whole career. My son was told that he was not gonna be able to move. He wasn't gonna be able to do all these things. But today, my son stands tall, and he speaks loudly. He rides a bike.

He cooks it clean. He navigate our community, and he skis. He even got the DESE award back in 2022. I urge that you guys please reconsider closing this program at the school because it'd be such a disservice to our community as a whole. And as a community, we want to come together and not break apart.

So people who came from up instead of from my son did not is beyond the school. They have came here and supported my son through many different places. And I believe that this model works, and my son is the success story of that. And I feel like every single person and every single student in care deserve that same rich life that he got from this program.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Jenkins. We can't hear you. No. No.

We can't hear you.

Hear me now?

Yes. We can hear you now. Mhmm.

Real quick. My name is Robert Jenkins, class of 1978, Madison Park, president of the Madison Park Alumni Association. Welcome, everyone. Listen. Madison Park, we got the BA funding for a school that's over 50 years old. Schools, when you look at the schools that are being closed, they are in you got high school students and middle schools and elementary schools. Enrollment is down. Alright? And there is a need. Sorry for the background.

I just stopped in because it's cold out, but, these closures were going to happen. Everybody knew. Change is different, and it's a shame. But one of the things that has to happen is that you have high again, high school students at the Henderson. Nine to twelve, they're on the 4th Floor. They're not getting the high school experience as I got being class of 1978 at Madison Park. And I'm on the school parents, school site council. Work with the district. This this not a surprise that schools are going to close. One of the other things I want to put to the school committee and the superintendent is program six seventeen.

It's a program that deals with kids at Madison Park with the office of student supports and athletics. You have close to over over a 100 families every Sunday at Madison Park getting, you know, athletic training and programs. Sorry for the background noise, but these school closures, I you know, you have to look at them. Change is different. Work with the district. They're not gonna leave the kids and the students out in the cold. Thank you very much.

Thank you, mister Jenkins. Our next speaker our next speakers are Edith Bazil, Mike Heischmann, Suleka So to, and Deidra Manning. Edith Bazil.

Thank you. BPS must interrogate school closures that reinforce systemic racial inequities. Highly resourced schools like the Elliott, 63% white, four times the district average, are structurally protected from closure through school assignment algorithms and unmitigated resources. The same assignment route algorithms cluster black and brown students into under resourced schools, then target these schools for closures based on the very conditions the district creates. Take the Henderson, the only nationally recognized inclusive high school, yet school assignment algorithms reflect sharp declines in white enrollment at the high school level, leaving a predominantly black and brown student body and predictably vulnerable to racialized closure.

ACC and CASH should be merged to preserve stability, reduce displacement, and the district should audit racial disparities in special education identification identification and placement, not use it as an excuse to close the schools. Lee Academy's highly qual high quality, developmentally responsive, inclusive programming with arts, wellness, and strong family partnerships should be expanded for young black and brown learners, not clothes. This is not about resisting change. It's about rejecting decisions made with evidence based educational data and innovative solutions. It is about racial equity over political expediency, stability over churn

second.

Exclusion over convenience, and also district accountability using using the racial equity planning tool and an authentic community voice to correct racialized assignment disparities that protect some students while leaving black and brown students out. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our

next speaker is Mike Heisman.

Mike Heischman, Doshester. Mr. O'Neill, thank you for your many years of service. Good luck with your new position. On a personal note, I want to thank you for your kindness.

This is the time of year the BPS has to deal with the painful decisions on which school communities it wants to destroy. Tonight, the committee will approve the superintendent's recommendations to close some schools, a weird way to wish school communities a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. In years past, the community was given sufficient time to make its case to stay open and its organized resistance by pressuring the mayor and this committee. Sometimes the resistance was successful and school communities were saved. However, the BPS is a learning organism.

In the past, there were more authentic family and community engagements. Under the current misleadership, little time is deliberately given for school communities to make its case and organize resistance. This is what family and community disengagement looks like. We need an elected school committee which would be accountable to the citizens of Boston.

Thank you.

Soleka So to. Our next speaker is Soleka So to. So Leica Sotto, please accept the prompt.

Okay.

Hi. Can you hear and see me okay?

We can hear you. Thank you.

Alright. One second. Good evening. My name is Leica Stone, and I am a Boston Black School's parent. I want to speak on what I've personally witnessed over years of come in for this committee.

I have watched family, students, educators, and committee members from schools who are being closed come to the microphone school after school, year after year, raise concerns and learning about harm. And I watched the same thing happen every single time. The testimony changes, the changes, outcome do not. For a long time, families ask why this keeps happening. After years of watching the street on the pete, it becomes very clear that it is not accidental.

The past produced a governance model this uses, cost student outcomes because governance. Under this model, outcomes is first. Engagement happen after the section is already decided. For example, 90 of schools a certain year, it only had happened every three years engagement. Community meetings happen.

People show up in good fit, but participant is not designed to change outcome. That's why school after school come there and leave so it doesn't result. Closures are described as data driven. Family, students, educators, and community member, name what it left out, disrupts students, stability for family, lost trust, and cum cumulative harm. Those reactions perceived as outside the scope of the decision.

The impact is not neutral. School courtroom boss consistently fall on black, brown, immigrant, multilingual, and low income communities. When the same outcome repeats across your neighborhoods, that is not a coincidence. That is an equity failure due spread the system. Your system, family students, educating community members, and asking for special treatment. And I'm calling to this commit a public how family student and dedicated women

Thank you.

Testimony will be

Thank you. Eve Romani is not in the meeting, so that concludes public comment share.

Thank you, Ms. Parvax. And thank you to those of you who spoke this evening and shared your perspectives. Your testimony is very important to us. Our first action item this evening is grants for approval totaling $592,990. Now I'd like to turn it over to superintendent for any final comments.

Great. Thank you, chair. So tonight, before the committee, there are six grants totaling nearly $593,000 for your approval. The largest of these is the $390,000 fair share earmarks grant from the state executive office of education, serving 3,000 students at the Adams and Giles Elementary Schools and Madison Park Vocational Tech High School and O'Brien School of Math and Science. The purpose of this grant is to reserve various earmarks for education projects to support students at every level of education from affordable childcare, learning to read, and building innovative high quality classrooms for the workforce.

The remaining approximately $202,990 includes a 69,990 continuing competitive MICAP planning and implementation grant serving 24,000 students district wide that provides supplementary support to school districts currently engaged in the implementation of MICAP or interested in entering the planning phase of MICAP. MICAP is a student driven process designed to ensure all students graduate from high school, college career and civic ready. The $67,500 Qatar Foundation International Arabic Language Expansion Grant will fund the expansion of the Arabic language program at Brighton High School. Serving 114 students, it will allow the program to expand from one to two FTE, allowing a greater number of students to enroll in Arabic language classes. There's a $37,500 fair share earmarks state budgeted funded grant from the Department of Early Education and Care serving three thirty students at the Harvard Kent Elementary School.

Similar to the grant I mentioned earlier, this funding will pay for playground enhancements at the Harvard Kent Elementary School. There's also a new competitive Mass Cultural Council creative experiences grant totaling $25,000 in the s in school year 2526. In addition to the 22 previously approved schools and the student advisory council, there are five schools, the O'Donnell, the Sarah Roberts, Josiah Quincy, Kilmer, and Tech Boston Academy that would benefit from this. This funding will support creative experiences for students district wide, such as woodworking courses, music classes with local choir performances, dance programs, and workshops. Lastly, there is a $3,000 influence 100 grant that will provide stipends for three district staff members who want to participate in a two year fellowship to prepare for the role of superintendent.

In kind donations, we're also asking the school committee to accept as in kind donations from AZW Law of various items to the Ellis and the MLK elementary schools and the Blackstone Innovation Schools. These are things like Legos, art supplies, printers and other materials. We have Chief Financial Officer here, to be able to answer any questions. We need to have them. We're asking for an affirmative vote.

Any questions? Okay.

FC0598,

the

form list and end date that precedes the start date. So maybe we can just confirm that the correct grant period and I don't know correct the grant after acceptance.

Apologies. That should be 06/30/2026.

Okay. Great.

Thank you.

Any anybody else? Anything else? Okay. Thank you. If there's no further discussion, I will now entertain a motion to approve the grants as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous consent?

Madam Chair, could we just make sure the minutes reflect that it's Change.

That the change that Mr. Cartag Hernandez called out, that it's as amended for the correct grant date.

As amended? You got that information? All right, thank you. Hearing none, the the grants are approved. Our second action item for tonight is the in kind donations that the superintendent just described with a total estimated value of 13,000, $110 I'll now open that up for questions or comments from the committee.

I have one. Are the decodable like the stuff that's being offered, including the decodable readers, are they have we checked to see if they're aligned to the district wide, literacy curriculum and the scope and sequence.

Yeah. I mean, generally, when we take in a donation, if it's technology or materials, we check with the department that would be overseeing that area. So, yeah, it's a good question. But, yes.

Okay. Alright. If there's nothing further, I'll now entertain a motion to approve the in kind donations as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Thank you. Is there second? Second. Is there any objection to approving the motion by unanimous comment consent? Hearing none, the in kind donations are approved.

Our next action items are two collective bargaining agreements between the Boston School Committee and the Boston Association of School Administrators and Supervisors or BASIS. You will recall that Jeremiah Hassan, director of office of labor relations, presented these agreements to the committee at our December 3 meeting along with a request for an FY '26 supplemental appropriation in the amount of 1,307,009 and $1 Now I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for any final comments.

Wonderful. Thank you, chair. So as the chair said at the last school committee meeting on December 3, director of labor relations, Jeremiah Hasson, provided an update on the tentative agreement with the Boston Association of School Administrators and Supervisors or basis for their twenty twenty four, twenty twenty seven collective bargaining agreement or what we call a CBA. Director Hasson's presentation followed an executive session with members of this committee. On Thursday, November 6, we reached a tentative agreement with the BASIS for their twenty twenty four, twenty twenty seven CBA, which became effective 09/01/2024, and extends through 08/31/2027.

On Tuesday, December 2, BASIS members ratified the agreement with an overwhelming majority. Tonight, we are presenting the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty seven contract for school committee approval. As with other contracts, this agreement includes a general wage increase for employees of 2% in fiscal years 2526 and '27. The CBA also adds a step nine to the salary scale to align it with other salary scales. The basis salary scale ends at step eight.

A wage increase of 2.5% has also been added in between steps eight and nine. It also adds a $3,000 differential for members with a JD degree. It also guarantees salary placement at the step closest to but above their base salary when transferring from a BTU or managerial position. The contract solidifies this practice. It also automatically applies the career awards.

Members no longer have to apply. And again, the contract solidifies this practice. Other changes requiring members to work with school leaders on a PDP learning plan, eighteen weeks of paid parental leave to align with the current management policy, and when possible notification by April 15 if there are any changes to a member's assignment or lack thereof for the following school or contractual year. We're also asking for approval of an f y twenty six supplemental appropriation request for $1,307,901 to support the CBA. Senior advisor Megan Costello is here as well as Chief Bloom is already seated at the table if the committee has any further questions.

Thank you. I'll now open it up to questions and comments from the committee. Alright. Alright. Thank you. We have two agreements, so we'll take two votes. If there are no further questions, I'll entertain a motion to approve the to approve the collective bargaining agreement between the Boston School Committee and BASIS effective 09/01/2024 and 08/31/2027 as presented. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Miss Provix, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, chair. Doctor. Alkins?

Yes.

Mister Hernandez?

Yes.

Miss Polanco Garcia? Yes. Miss Rachel Skerritt? Yes. Mister Tran?

Yes.

Mister O'Neill? O'Neill?

Yes.

Ms. Robinson?

Yes. The motion is approved. Thank you. Our second action item this evening is a fiscal year twenty twenty six supplemental appropriation request to support the collective bargaining agreements between the Boston School Committee and BASIS in the amount of $1,307,901. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the fiscal year twenty six supplemental appropriation requested as presented. Is there a motion?

So moved.

Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Miss Provix, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, chair. Doctor. Alkins? Yes. Miss Candidate Hernandez?

Yes.

Miss Polanco Garcia?

Yes.

Miss Garrett? Yes. Mister Tran?

Yes.

Mister O'Neill?

Yes.

Miss Robinson?

Yes. The motion is approved. Thank you. Our last action item tonight is the approval of the closure proposals for school year 2027 as recommended by the superintendent. Before that we take the vote, I wanna share some reflections. As I reflect on my time on the Boston School Committee and as a former BPS parent and student, I have seen so much change over these last seven decades. I've also seen how some things haven't changed or at least haven't progressed enough. Enough. We have closed and merged schools as our enrollment has declined. Tonight, we'll vote on another round of schools.

I've had a chance to hear from many impacted by closures, those we've moved forward in previous cycles as well as the schools impacted in this current cycle. I've been to community meetings and have walked the halls of the schools recommended to close. In each school, I witnessed talented students, special attributes, and dedicated educators. It's clear each school has built a community despite the buildings and physical spaces we have provided. It's also true that our students deserve the best.

They deserve the best physical spaces, which we are on a strong path towards, but also we know it will take time. Why I'm truly focused on that is our students also deserve the best education, a challenging and inspiring academic education that provides them with the opportunities and experiences that high performing schools can uniquely impart. I'm also focused on an education that results in strong student outcomes. That is why we're pushing for change. And as the governing body on the Boston Public Schools, that is our most important charge, strong student outcomes.

Closing schools is an important piece of a larger strategy to ensure we provide school district wide equipped to provide a challenging and inspiring educational, academic, and holistic experience for both the students in our care right now as well as for future generations. Closing schools is about improving our facilities, but more importantly, it's about ensuring we have stronger academic student outcomes. To accomplish this, it will require us to make bold decisions and demand more of the school system and demand more of ourselves. For those directly impacted by school closures, many of whom are in this room, this is particularly hard. I emphasize with losing something that feels is so very, very special.

I have heard so often how much we all care for our students. My challenge for each of us is to care enough, to love enough, to provide academic excellence so our students graduate from Boston Public Schools prepared with the knowledge and skills to not only succeed beyond our care, but to be the next generation of change makers. Now I'd like to turn it over to the superintendent for any final comments.

Great. Thank you, chair Robinson. So tonight we are asking the committee to approve our latest recommendations as part of the district's long term facilities plan. As we presented on November 19, our recommendations for this cycle include the closure of three schools, the merger and reconfiguration of another school, and the grade reconfiguration of two schools. If approved, all of the recommendations will take effect 06/30/2027 with one exception, the Russell Elementary School, which gets is an additional sixth grade, which will begin at the start of the next school year.

As I said in previous meetings and in the past years, closing emerging schools is some of the most difficult work we do. No superintendent, no school committee member wants to lead through closures. We fully understand that closing a school is an emotional and often painful experience even when the recommendations are grounded in what is best for students and long term health of the system. We're in the situation we face today because for far too many decades, the district avoided or postponed making these difficult but necessary decisions. As a result, we now have as a reality far more seats than students, leaving many classrooms and buildings underutilized.

We have too many students enrolled in schools that want to offer a full high quality experience, but they simply don't have the enrollment, the building, and the resources to do it. And we have too few resources spread across too many schools, making it harder to deliver on the strong student outcomes the chair just referenced that this committee and our entire district want for our students and they deserve. In 2023, the district established the long term facilities plan and built a clear five year roadmap for how we would approach future school closures, mergers and reconfigurations. This framework was shaped through extensive community engagement with families, educators and stakeholders, define the criteria and metrics that guide our recommendations. At the same time, closure decisions must reflect broader district realities.

Alongside community informed criteria, we rely on enrollment data, long term projections that show enrollment declines and significant mismatches between buildings capacities and the number of students we serve, factors that directly affect educational quality, resource allocation and long term stability. The long term facilities plan was a critical step for VPS, one which we had never previously been able to do for the community or for the school committee. This plan is grounded in our projection of how many schools with high quality seats Boston will need by 2,030. It guides our decision making today and it will continue to guide us each year at this time, ensuring we can sustainably support students and reasonably deliver the capital project improvements required over the next five year cycle. I know how difficult school closures and mergers are.

I was a principal through multiple ones leading Tech Boston Academy. These are not recommendations we make lightly, knowing it impacts students, families, staff, communities who are deeply connected to their schools. Also know that closes and merges are an important and necessary part of the work that we must do to ensure that every current and future BPS student has access to schools that can fully support that high quality experience now and for generations to come. Since our presentation on November 19, we've met with school communities to share the data we use to make these decisions and to share important information about how we will support students and staff through different transitions. While we're not making any changes about the recommendations to close and reconfigure the schools, we do have a much better understanding in the case of these communities of how we can support students' families and staff through successful transitions.

For example, how are we going to support our specialized populations? How can students transition as a cohort? And if students can transfer sooner than the eighteen month timeline, what would that look like? These are really important things for us to hear. I'll share more details in a few minutes about how we're going to address what we heard.

From these recommendations, there's approximately 800 students who will be impacted by a closure and about 300 students who will be impacted by a reconfiguration. Just as a comparison, last year's recommendations, there were approximately 900 students who were impacted by a closure and about 400 students who were impacted by a merger. Our staff has been hard at work to ensure a successful transition for our students and families and job opportunities within the district for our staff. The majority of students impacted by a closure or merger from last year are either settled in their new school already or have a plan for when their school closes. Of the students who have transferred, ninety three percent of students got one of their top three choices.

Our commitment to making these transitions as smooth as possible for every individual student is real and grounded in action. The work we've done during recent closures highlights our deep commitment to students, to families, to staff, and we stand ready to bring that same level of care, coordination, learnings and support to the impacted schools tonight. As a reminder of what we proposed, we're proposing to close Lee Academy pilot school, K-zero to three, another course to college and Community Academy of Science and Health, CASH. We also recommended that we shift the Henderson K-twelve inclusion school into a pre K to eight by reconfiguring the Henderson upper, which currently houses grades two to 12, eliminating grades nine to 12 and the transition program. We would merge the Henderson lower and upper into one pre K to eight school community and shift grade one into the upper building to expand pre K capacity in the lower building.

This change would meet the growing need for K0, K1 and K2 in the Dorchester neighborhoods. In addition to the recommendations on which we're seeking a vote by school committee tonight, and in alignment with the school committee's 2019 configuration policy, We'll be reconfiguring two schools over the next two years. The Tobin K-eight school will be reconfigured as a pre K to six, closing seventh and eighth grades, effective the end of twenty six-twenty seven school year. And the Russell School, pre K to five, will be reconfigured as a pre K to six, adding grade six effective the start of the upcoming school year, twenty six-twenty seven. Boston International Newcomers Academy, or BINCA, would move into the Cleveland Building, which is where cash currently occupies half of the space, allowing it to expand as a multilingual hub in the Dorchester community.

The committee does not need to vote on reconfigurations or relocations, but with each of these steps, we wanna make sure that members are clear and the publics are clear of what we're proposing. One question we heard at the community meetings and from members alike is the question about why we're not considering merging rather than closing in this round of proposals. We considered that if any mergers were possible, and ultimately we determined this really couldn't work for a couple of reasons. First, mergers are not always feasible because receiving schools need to be in good physical condition. They need to have space to receive new students.

They programmatically need to be able to support those students. And this is very difficult for a system like ours because, as we know, there's so many of our buildings that are in poor condition. 40% are over 100 years old and require major capital improvement. And secondly, we have to be thoughtful when we merge schools that already have high percentages of students in specialized settings, such as special education and multilingual learners. When we merge two schools that have high concentrations of specialized programs, then what can happen is we can overwhelm a school community not able to be successful.

And we can actually almost ensure that we can't do inclusion because the percent of students in the specialized programs are so high and the number of gen ed students is so low. Ultimately, our recommendations have to prioritize student access to stronger options, schools in better physical condition, the appropriate academic, social emotional, special education supports. And they have to be sustainable given long term enrollment trends. When a merger cannot meet these criteria, as was the case in this round of proposals, then a closure paired with a thoughtful transition plan and placement becomes the more responsible student centered path forward. We also shifted the recommended proposal timeline based on community feedback from the last two cycles.

We wanted the school committee vote to take place before the twenty six-twenty seven school registration period, which begins in early January. And this was something that was raised in the community meetings. It was raised here again tonight. But it really was raised from families going through these transitions. This schedule allows families to be fully informed, knowing which schools are closing or merging as they make decisions during the school choice season that's now underway.

Another strong theme we heard in public comment and in community meetings is the need for the development of appropriate programming needed for students, especially students with disabilities from our closing or merged schools. We have the programming necessary at many of our schools. And once the school committee votes, and if it is affirmative, then we will further develop and refine programs at welcoming schools to ensure every impacted student has access. This is what we did in the last set of last two times. This work has to be student centered.

It will be, and it has to be coordinated directly with the receiving school leaders of those schools. Just a few examples of work that's in progress. The mission was gonna is gonna work closely with the district to welcome some of the ACC students. For students with emotional impairment, we're also working right now with multiple schools to ensure continuity of academic and social emotional support so that students who have emotional impairment have lots of opportunities and choice. CASH, which currently serves 39% multilingual learners, will provide students we will provide students the option to attend BENCA, where we'll actively expand programming to meet student needs.

Lee Academy students will have access to all the schools on their choice list, that and that includes the Henderson. And we'll be working with the Henderson on this, which is really on the majority of the family's preference list anyways. The Henderson nine to 12 and the transition program, students will have access to high schools such as Tech Boston, Quincy Upper, and the next program. And there's more to come with this. We have to do this carefully if the committee votes affirmatively tonight.

These examples represent just a portion of the high quality options that are available and that we will create. Families maintain full choice. That's really important. And our priority is to work directly with them to ensure every student is placed in the school that best fits their academic, social emotional and specialized program needs. The reason that all in we leave this eighteen months is that all impacted communities, it takes that time to create the transition planning before the closure actually goes into effect.

And it's during that time that we'll work to support every student in transitioning to a welcome welcoming school community that can offer them the experience that we talk about as high quality. For me, I'm a lifelong educator. I've spent most of my time here in the BPS. And that's true of the majority of our team who are involved with these plans. Many of us, we've seen closures and mergers throughout years.

We've seen where it's been done well. We've seen where it's not been done well. And we're really working to improve every time the process, but more importantly, the result of where students can actually finish their education. These are hard decisions. They never ever get easier.

But I'm here making these recommendations tonight because I know that these closures, that they are the right decision not just for the students today as they would go into their new settings, but for future generations of kids that are going to come behind. And I know that not everyone will see it that way. And I know that the impacted school communities, they will grieve and they have every right to do that because it is a loss in many ways of special communities. But we are committed as a team and as a district to walk with each of the communities, much like we've done in the process with Excel and with Lions High, with Endeavor, with our Merge School communities. And we will keep doing that until we are able to say that all of our students in the BPS are able to attend a school where they have that high quality experience the community laid out back in 2023.

So tonight, I ask the committee to vote in support of the recommendations with full acknowledgment that we will and we will complete a lot of work on behalf of the communities to have this be the right decision for kids. So thank you, madam chair. The team is here if there are questions on it. Del Sanislas, as well as several other central staff are here if there's questions. And I'm certainly happy to take questions from the

I want to begin by acknowledging the district's intention in bringing forward disclosure proposals. We understand that BPS is facing real challenges, declining enrollment, underutilized buildings and the responsibility to manage resources sustainably in order to ensure a strong public education system in the long term. I recognize the weight of these decisions and the district's effort to plan for the future of the system. At the same time, it is essential to give equal weight to what has been shared by the communities directly impacted, school staff, families, and most importantly, students. For them, these schools are not just buildings.

They are places of belonging, stability, and care where deep relationships and effective learning environments have been built. One concern that has been voiced very clearly is that this proposal focuses only on closing buildings without presenting any alternative options that could be considered to avoid closures. This concern is even more serious for students who have already experienced one or more transitions due to previous closures and who are now facing the possibility of another significant change. What has happened to these students who have moved from one school to another due to closures? What kind of follow-up have they received?

What kind of information do we have about these students? Did they continue their studies? Did they graduate? I also want to highlight the particular impact that these decisions may have on students with special needs. For many of these families, stability, trusted relationships with staff, and continuity of the services are essential.

Any poorly planned disruption can have serious consequences for students, academic and emotional development, and this reality must be considered with great care and sensitivity. For these reasons, I respectfully believe that any path forward must include a clear, humane and sustained commitment to ongoing follow-up with impacted families, students, and staff, not only during the transition, but beyond it. True support means listening, adjusting, and responding, especially when challenges arise that cannot always be anticipated in an initial plan. I want to deeply thank you to all the families and students. We've been listening to all your concerns and questions.

My vote will be a thoughtful and deliberate one, guided by institutional responsibility, by also but the deep respect and love I hold for our families and students, I firmly believe that the way they we make these difficult decisions must reflect not only efficiency, but also compassion, fairness, and care And a lot of love.

Thank you. The announcement of the proposed school closures and the subsequent processes since that announcement have been challenging, frustrating, and disappointing for the students, families, and staff members at the four school communities, as well as for the many individuals outside of those campuses who have deep connections to the affected schools, including alumni, community partners, and former staff members. As someone who counts myself as an extended member of one of the school communities, as I served as headmaster at another Corsta College, ACC, almost twenty years ago. I know firsthand the tight knit family environment that has been forged there by longtime staff members, some of whom I'm looking at in front of me right now. And over the past few weeks, I've also heard that same feeling of being seen, supported, and affirmed described so compellingly by community members at the Henderson, Cash, and Lee Academy.

I'm not sure that there is an engagement and communication strategy that will ever make a school culture announcement easy or well received. But that said, we've heard some clear themes from constituents at the virtual and in person meetings, at public comment here, and through individual conversations visits that we've had with members of these communities. First, we're framing what is necessary district restructuring and rightsizing as a facilities plan. Facilities do play a huge role in the ultimate vision for the BPS school portfolio and in the definition of a high quality student experience. But to emphasize facilities as the primary driver as much as the district has can be confusing, particularly for communities such as Cash where the building is in condition for continued use, and it's also confusing for families who will likely be enrolling at another school that is not yet modernized.

We also heard that the why for closure is not fully understood by school communities especially when our system wide reasons do not necessarily resonate for them specifically. We do have dramatically declining enrollment as a district though that decline isn't as sharply felt at Lee Academy. We emphasize high quality school options close to home as a goal for our restructuring, but ACC represents the only open access high school in four adjacent neighborhoods. We named the ongoing work to ensure inclusion models at every high school when the Henderson Upper was founded on this promise. We also heard from students and families served by specialized programs for students with disabilities who feel like the programs at these schools are working and we were also reminded that some of the factors that placed these specific schools on the recommendation list for closure were due to decision making by BPS leaders many years ago, whether it was abandoned plans for a merger for Lee Academy or promises to upgrade a facility that ACC was asked to move to after being relocated there at the district's request.

Those are all very difficult truths to hold even as we must face the truth about what the district is today, a reality that is being experienced by school districts across country. Just in the last month, Atlanta Public Schools and Cleveland Public Schools voted to close or merge dozens and dozens of schools as just two examples. Enrollment in Boston and in many cities nationally is not what it has been. And as I'm sure we'll hear in tonight's finance update, it is doubtful that enrollment will significantly rebound in the near future. Strong inclusion models are more successful with healthy and stable enrollment and enrichment offerings are more easily provided with a critical mass of students in order to bring more funding.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a large school per se because the district has very few large schools but a critical mass. BPS has provided an eighteen month runway for school closure, one where there is sufficient time to answer many of the questions that have not yet been clarified. The trust does not exist for families to feel satisfied with this runway. I am hopeful and more hopeful hearing your update tonight, superintendent, where you provided some more information that I think would have been helpful to share at the in person meetings around these communities, that through this process of ongoing communication, individual support, and a commitment to deeply seek and understand and preserve the values and strengths of these communities that we can in time repair some of the fractures that are being felt today. As a school committee, I feel we should feel an obligation to progress monitor the implementation and impact of our vote.

And I would suggest that we receive regular updates through superintendents reports as well as through a formal presentation this spring on the status of preparing for for closures of the schools that will close this June, updates on student and staff support for the four schools being recommended for closure in 2027, and regular updates from the Office of Specialized Services including more detail on the district's vision for special education at the high school level in particular, including school by school views on the programming and staffing models and structures at those schools. And in addition, as we prepare for budget updates and an eventual vote on the f y twenty seven budget, we should ensure that the impacted schools have the resources to remain at the level of programming that current families expect for those students who choose to remain at their schools through next school year. Going forward as we sadly have to face the prospect of future closures and mergers in years to come, it would also be helpful for BPS to be more transparent and situate the role of school performance outcomes in the district's decision making and to share the exact scenarios and capacity projections that lead the district to determine when relocating or merging a building whole cannot take place.

I'd like to conclude by expressing deep appreciation for the staff of the school communities who have centered students and families throughout their advocacy even as these proposed closures directly impact your lives as well. Thank you for your ongoing role in the culture of care and commitment that has been forged in all of the affected schools.

Or bounce. We're gonna bounce back.

Come on. I like to go after you, doctor Allgoods.

I had the opportunity to attend some of the virtual meetings as well as the in person meetings over the past week. And I left each meeting saying the same thing to myself, community's right. Everything that they pointed out in regard to, one, that the historic blunders per se that the district has made, which if you trace it all the way back does in fact address or lead to some of those systemic inequities that are rooted in racism. It is true that as a what I was hearing by the community was that the responses from the district were inadequate in the sense that families, anybody would want to know if you're taking me away from my current situation, you got to give me something on the other side of it to to hold on to. And I know that families did not feel that.

I saw students cry. I saw teachers, staff talk about the history of those communities, which is palpable. I saw a lot of folks who really also clung to what they know that they did best in serving their students. And it's hard to imagine when you're in such a tight knit community that anyone else can do that better than you because you know your students. And I don't want to understate the impact that we know environments have on the experience for any student.

The personalized sorry. The personalized attention that a student receives, the fact that I think at every school I heard heard directly from students who said a principal knew my name and that was the first time I had ever experienced that. The fact that particularly for I think ACC and CASH serving a number of students who have bounced around not just schools who have experienced transition, but also schools in our own district that either didn't serve them well or were ended up there because of district assignment. You know? So, all of the things that I was hearing, I left like this is completely accurate.

And, at the same time, I also heard the district's response of or lack of transparency as we cannot over promise things and under deliver. I think some of that, particularly when we talked about inclusion, is that we are in the midst of trying to revamp much of what inclusion is across the entire district. It doesn't mean that co teaching is not a valuable model. It absolutely is. But, it's not the only way that inclusion can be done.

And, we must not underestimate that we have a plethora of schools in our district that are wanting to welcome each student community with open arms and wanting to serve those students with the same level of fervor as every teacher does sitting here tonight and those who are not in this room. I think also what our district is trying to do is why you can't think about who gets served where in terms of inclusion plans is because we owe it a responsibility which is a commitment to equity to go back through IEPs, particularly thinking about our black and brown boys who are overly designated on IEPs. And so, in some cases, that's why you can't give a clear answer as to what's going to happen with this student when it goes there because you really need that 18 runway to reassess and reevaluate. And I think it's in the messaging there was something that that was lost there at at at many of the meetings. And I'm and I hear from from both sides like on this.

And I see both sides on this which makes it extremely tough to think about it. I agree with my fellow colleagues that we have a responsibility as a committee to think about the overall academic outcomes that we see as a district. And, the way that I interpret it is that our district is not necessarily looking at, dare I say, a bright financial future. There are not a lot of resources. We're stretched thin.

And anybody knows who's had to just do a monthly budget, how that works, where you take something away from someone else. And and I also hear the questions of why is it always these students that we have to take from? And I feel that. And I think the I think the reasoning, like I said, goes back to systemic inequity. And that means that also this our our most vulnerable students are going to be the ones that experience that disruption Because on the other side, what we're hoping for and what we're building toward is something that is better.

To some of the comments that I heard earlier this evening, I actually want to recognize a little bit that the district is doing when we talk about taking resources particularly away from our black and brown students and our multilingual learners. Our next upcoming renovation projects are at the Shaw Taylor, the Ruth Batson Academy, and Madison Park which we heard earlier about receiving a bid. Those are all school environments that serve majority black and brown students. And so, it's not a comforting statement, but it is true that the district is doing and making that hard work. And, we as a committee are trying to do our best to funnel those resources to ensure that those most vulnerable populations are seeing those investment dollars and are seeing the programming expansion and closing the opportunity and achievement gaps that are associated with that.

And that's also gonna start with literacy and that's where the funding is mostly invested. And, like I said, none of this makes me feel any more comfortable. I don't think it should make you all feel any more comfortable. In fact, I understand anyone who walks up and says, I still don't trust the district. I respect that.

But at the end of the day, there is still the issue of we cannot spread our most vulnerable students across the district and continue to sustain that long term. Yes, this community deserves community schools that serve a spectrum. It goes without saying. It also needs the funding to do so, to do it the right way. And it does not have that.

And I think that's just an unfortunate reality of where it is. And I think that weighs just heavily, like, on me. And so, I don't look forward to taking a vote on any school closure, but I do appreciate the time that each school took to welcome me in and just to let me listen and to let me just be a part and just commiserate with this. And I will end with this. Regardless of anything of any of the outcomes that's here, what I did learn was that there is an opportunity that we have as a district to go into these school communities a lot earlier and to work with the staff and to work with them to say this is what we're thinking.

Where are you all at? Let's brainstorm. Think of what we can do, not just alternatives, but everything. Transition plan so that I know that because we don't have that trust with everybody in this room, but I do know who does have that trust, your school leaders and your teachers. So, they should be the ones that are mostly delivering this news, this message, this transition updates, whatever it is.

And, I think that there is an opportunity that we have and an obligation that we have. That is also part of equity and I understand we gotta get the timeline right. But equity is not meant to be convenient. It is meant to inconvenience us, but in the face of doing something that we feel is right. So, if we are to move forward on continued closures which we have planned, then gotta get this engagement process right. And so I'll end there. You.

Thank you. I guess I just wanna begin by acknowledging difficult this decision is just and how much pain and fear it generates for students, for families, for staff. School closures, they're not abstract policies. They're personal. And the public comment over the last few weeks has made that very clear.

And I also just want to thank the school leaders and educators and community members who have engaged with me during this process and shared with me the things that made their community so special. I also agree with member Garrett. I'm not sure there's an engagement process that would satisfy in this moment. And at the same time, I know that less than a month is definitely not it. I also think BPS and this body, has a history of being incredibly reckless, from continuing to expand the budget despite all evidence that we are hitting a fiscal cliff, Avoiding the development of an actual master facilities plan and refusing to give families a clear vision for the future of the system.

One that many people I believe at our central offices have for their own family. And just years of general gaslighting around the state of our enrollment. It is good that we are being a bit more honest today and I appreciate that Superintendent But like many community members. Maybe even doctor alkins I am suspect given the history. We don't have a long term facilities plan.

I hate that we call it that. And part of me wants to continue to protest vote which I have in the past till we get one. But I also know that this body has waited too long to do anything to create accountability here. And so doing nothing in this moment also feels like a decision. One that I also think perpetuates inequalities, allows for underutilized buildings to continue to exist, and really at its core continues to operate a system that spreads resources far too thin to deliver consistently high quality education.

But also a yes vote comes with responsibility to ensure that closers actually lead to better outcomes not just operational savings. My greatest concern in this vote is students with disabilities. In our private conversations that has been all of the questions that I have generated. I am not confident based on the information that we have received that we really have capacity and seats and staffing and specialized programs, inclusive settings or even a transportation plan to fully serve every student impacted by the closures, particularly at ACC and the Henderson. And I've asked for data.

I felt much better in the conversation that you led tonight, superintendent, and the statements that you made around where we are building new system capacity. But intent is not enough when we're talking about students' legal rights and their daily access to services. So I'm holding a lot of concern and worry here. And then I think like everyone else, I have also held some deep concerns around the process. We're moving forward with closures after a very short engagement period for decisions of a large magnitude.

And it hit me tonight during public comment that we spent more time talking about exam schools than we did about this. And here we are talking about closing schools and re assigning students including some of our highest need students after only a few weeks. And the imbalance matters and it affects me. But I'm gonna end here. I understand the financial pressure the district is under.

I have never minimized it and the urgency does not absolve us of our responsibility to plan carefully and speed can't substitute our own readiness. Cost savings alone can't justify the decisions. Have, this could be my last meeting. So I have, I'm up. So like I have sat here long enough to hear at complicated votes where it's like, we're gonna follow-up and we're gonna stay engaged in the implementation and the rollout.

And I think it's been four years. I haven't ever seen that and that makes me nervous. I I will also say I really do trust you to do this differently than we've seen before. And I just hope whoever makes it onto this body there are three of us one of us who's definitely leaving, two of us who could be leaving. Whoever comes on this body, I hope we continue to try to hold that accountability.

Agendas. We don't know what's happening until we're told. I think we could really create a system here that if we we are moving forward with this, I would not I would be shocked if we weren't, as I think the whole room would be. But I think we can do something really different in actually following through on understanding what is happening to the most vulnerable kids, where they're placed, where we've built system capacity. And I think in the next tranche of school closures, we can do have the conversation that you led this evening, which is actually start with if this happens, because people know it's happening, like we can use all the semantics, but they know it's happening.

As this is happening, this is what we are doing to build system capacity elsewhere so that you can start to lower the anxiety. We're in this weird tension where we're doing the political theater of like we're gonna vote on this and all of the things will happen and there's a high probability we'll go through, anything's possible. But what we're missing is that like I'm telling you system wide where we are building new seats. I'm telling you for our EI students like we're gonna try to get 20 we've talked to this principal and there's gonna be 20 seats here. I know that's what you're doing behind the scenes.

I just and we heard that tonight. I just think it would make this entire experience different for kids, for families, for educators if we led with that at the announcement of a closure and that the engagement process was actually around that and not around am I saving my school or not. But like what is actually going to happen to our kids in the transition. That's all I have.

I'll make it short. I hear you. I hear you loud and clear. I've reviewed and read all the materials pertinent to the proposing closures of the schools. Pretty much like my colleague sitting right next to me here, the concern I have boils down to equity.

The way I look at equity is not equality. No. And, of course, we've been hearing racism. We've been hearing different categories of people being affected by these proposed closures, but the bottom line is still equity. My way of looking at equity is this.

The closures given the totality of everything, your concerns, that is actual situations happening around these three schools, taken altogether the totality of everything. The equity question is this, are these students, the likelihood of these students be successful educationally, to be better or to be worse? To be worsen? Those are the that is the bottom line of the questions for me. Thank you.

So thank you to everyone who has presented over the past several weeks, who have talked to us in public comment, who attended the virtual person meetings, who have sent us letters and emails, certainly have read everyone, I think we've all been receiving them. And I'm also very struck by the comments of my fellow members tonight, The issues you have brought up. I always think in in terms of school closings, which is as we've all said the hardest vote you take as a school committee member because of the direct impact it has on our students, on our staff, on our families, on our community. I think in terms of the why and the how. And Member Skerrick, I really appreciate how you pointed out, we as committee members think system wide, right?

We are charged with what's thinking in the best interest of the students, all of them in our care. We think of the fiscal responsibilities, we think of the equity issues, etcetera. And members Garik it was very thoughtful how you said that we may think of the system wide why, but it's very different to why at an individual school level. And that was was very thoughtful. I understand why the superintendent has made the recommendation.

Why she has made that recommendation. And I also think in terms of the how. If we approve it, how will the recommendation be carried out? And I very much appreciate and share the concerns my fellow members have raised today and the direct calling out of the lack of trust. The chair and I speak often about votes we have taken in the past that we felt the district made promises and for a variety of reasons, you know my wife always teaches me assume good intent and for a variety of reasons we're unable to carry them out.

And we think of one school closing in particular where it was talked about a program was moving to another school. And that it was said both the students and the teachers would move and then some teachers chose on their own as they have the right to do not move. And parents were very surprised when they moved to the new school And the teachers that they were expecting were not there. So I understand, how the superintendent has said, that this takes time. It's a longer process than we have, I appreciate last year and this year, it's a longer process.

It's a year and a half process. And I appreciate deeply the superintendent's deep commitment to figuring out how we have high quality student experiences for our students to move into and that your refusal to do it without. I second my fellow members' comments about the value of your comments tonight, superintendent. Makes a difference to me too, particularly when you talked about the how, how you would do this. I understand and and I I I wrote it down because it was so important to me.

I think it was doctor who said we can forgive me if it was another member who said we cannot over promise and under deliver because we have done that in the past. I appreciate the work that is being done now about schools that we voted on last year to close at the end of this year, Excel, etcetera. And hearing the superintendent, knowing of the one on one work, the meetings that have happened, and hearing from the superintendent about the amount of students that got their first, second, or third choice, particularly those who wanted to transfer early, intentional work has been done that is very different from what has been done in the past. And so the trust I believe is starting to build, but trust takes a long time to build and can be immediately taken away. And so I have to believe that you are doing this superintendent because you believe this is going to lead to stronger outcomes for our students as the chair has said, which you have laid out, chair, you believe it is job one for us to do that.

We have to continue to have sensitivity to the communities that we impact in every parts of the conversation, both initially how it's laid out and the work that is done with them. I want to really call out superintendent tonight not only what you said, but how you said it. And anyone who knows this superintendent and has worked with her in the past as a teacher or as a school leader or as an administrator or as a superintendent in another district and now we're lucky enough to have you back here, knows that you were speaking directly from the heart tonight. And how hard this recommendation is for you and how hard this is as a vote for us as members. I do believe in the why and the how as you have laid out and I will support your recommendation.

But we must continue to work with the communities impacted and continue to think future how this work is done. Thank you, madam chair.

I want to thank everyone that has spoken tonight. Thank you all to the members of the committee. I know this is hard, but I'm going to move forward because I think we've heard from everyone. So before we take the vote, I'll read the motion. It says, ordered that Boston School Committee hereby approves the following actions as recommended by the superintendent of schools.

Close another course to college on 06/30/2027. Close Community Academy of Science and Health on 06/30/2027. Merge the Henderson K to 12 Inclusion School lower and the Henderson K to 12 Inclusion School upper into one Pre K to eight school community on 06/30/2027. Close Lee Academy Pilot School on 06/30/2027. Another Costa College Community Academy of Science and Health in the Henderson Inclusion K to 12 upper school will not enroll grade nine students in the school year twenty six-twenty seven.

Lee Academy pilot school will not enroll new pre K students in the school year twenty six-twenty seven. The school will not be assigned to new students except in the case of siblings in grades k two to three. All students at another course to college, Lee Academy Pilot School and Community Academy of of to approve the

Directors

proposal as presented. Is there a motion? Of So moved. Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Is there any discussion or objection to the motion? Ms. Parvick, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, chair. Doctor. Alkins?

Yes.

Mister Cadet Hernandez?

Yes.

Miss Polanco Garcia? No. Miss Garrett? Yes. Mister Tran?

Yes.

Mister O'Neil?

Yes.

Miss Robinson?

Yes.

The the motion is approved with six yay and one no.

Thank you. Now we'll move on to our report, which is a finance update. I'd like to remind our presenters to please speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters. Interpreters. Let's aim to keep the presentation to twenty minutes.

The city has the money.

I'd like to remind our The city

has the money. The city has the The the money. The city city has the money.

I'd like to remind our presenter to please speak at a slower pace to assist our interpreters. Superintendent, I invite to give you

Thank you, Chair. Tonight, we are going to give our annual financial update. And shortly, you will hear from chief financial officer David Bloom and deputy chief financial officer Blair Dawkins, who will review our twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six spending and frame the district's projections for the upcoming f y twenty seven budget. In November, we began working with schools on their budgets starting with the release of enrollment projections. The schools have now received their FY twenty seven budgets and the planning work will continue through individualized cross functional meetings with school leaders and their central office liaisons.

Chief Bloom, budget director Serena Larocque, and their teams are working hard to make sure every school in the district has the funding it needs to serve students its students. We'll con we'll return to the committee in early February to present the f y twenty seven spending plan, the official start of the budget season. As I've indicated at the last few school committee meetings, I'm, as always, gonna be honest and transparent, we're preparing for a difficult budget season. Our budget challenges are due to several factors, including significant cost increases related to historically high health care premium increases, collective bargaining agreements, rising transportation and special education costs, and of course, this year's enrollment decline of approximately seven hundred seventeen hundred students in next year's anticipated decrease of an additional 1,300 students. Tonight, the team will share fundamental information about the shift to the new funding formula, reimagining funding, that is replacing the weighted student formula or what we used to call WSF.

They will explain how we are using our new rules based formula that was developed during the reimagining student funding project, which started in 2022 with an eighteen month community engagement process. While it will take a few years to fully implement, we are paying close attention to ensure that no one school community is impacted more than others. As part of this process, central office departments were asked to use zero based budgeting and identified significant efficiencies totaling around $30,000,000. Just as a reminder, these savings will allow us to support schools through the enrollment reduction. And as a reminder, we took a $17,000,000 deduction in central office in FY 'twenty five and $5,000,000 in FY 'twenty six.

As

needed,

the team will continue to identify additional reductions from the central office that can be transferred to schools. As we move toward FY 2027, I want to assure you that my priorities and our commitment to our key investments have not changed. We will continue to implement the inclusion education plan in our schools. We will support the use of equitable literacy with a focus on academic rigor. We will provide dual language, bilingual, heritage, language pathways, and language access opportunities in every cluster and region across the district.

We will move forward with the implementation of our long term facilities planning, as you heard earlier tonight. We'll continue the implementation of MassCore in growing our early college and career connected pathways for our secondary students, and we will continue to make our operations as efficient as possible. These are all long term district priorities that are needed to get the positive student outcomes we collectively are looking to achieve. As I shared with I shared with school leaders, the budget process is iterative and it requires many conversations from the time enrollment projections happen to when that final budget is presented to you. There will be continuous adjustments, clarifications and updates.

This update is just one milestone of many in the process. At this time, I will turn the meeting over to Chief Blum and to Deputy Dawkins.

Thank you, superintendent, and thank you members of the committee for this opportunity to provide a financial update. This presentation gives a comprehensive look at where we've been in FY '25, where we are in FY '26, and where we're going for FY '27. Our financial strategy remains anchored in the BPS opportunity and achievement gap policy and the mandate for more inclusive education. Our budget must reflect the lived experiences and diverse needs of our students and prepare them for college, career, and life ensuring every child has the same opportunity for greatness. Overall, we're presenting sort of three main themes tonight.

In school year '25, we closed the year on budget but required temporary funding to offset some overruns. For FY '26, we are seeing continued cost overruns that are requiring more active management to ensure that we're finishing the year on budget. And then finally, we're going to discuss our FY '27 budget proposal in its initial form including some of the corrections we're making for those overruns. So I just mentioned in school year twenty four-twenty five we strive to match our budget to the approved budget as much as possible. As we discussed in the FY '25 approval process, we had some carryover funds left over from the end ESSER that we were using to help us sort of what we call it land the plane, right, of the cost reductions we needed to take with the end of ESSER.

Unfortunately costs were actually exceeded what we had originally expected for FY '25 for the use of those carry forward funds. In particular, we saw higher than expected health insurance and transportation costs. Special education costs were high, but that was more in line with expectation and planned use of temporary funding as were food service costs. Temporary funding came from the end of ESSER. We had about $20,000,000 of available carry forward that was used to offset FY '25 costs as part of our plan.

We also had available additional circuit breaker revenue that we had carried forward. This is revenue to support special education, and we expect that. We also had about $9,000,000 of areas of cost underspending that we can use to offset these increases. I'll now turn it over to Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Blair Dawkins to walk through our FY 2026 budget.

Thank you, David. Over the past few years we've had to use various. Mitigation strategies to manage our budget. In that regard this year is no different. But what is different is that we no longer have a safety net- by way of federal covert relief dollars.

Another difference is the significant and unexpected increase to health insurance costs. This increased health insurance is being experienced by not only our city but by districts and municipalities across the country. Other costs contributing to our projected deficit for FY '26 include yellow bus transportation, out of district special education costs, food services for students, and an increased fill rate for our positions. We are actively exploring strategies to manage costs both in the immediate and long term while still focusing on our student facing academic investments. These strategies are being crafted in close collaboration with district and city leadership.

Current efforts underway include a pause for central office spending, active cost management for the division of operations, IEP review for appropriate support systems for students, and the management of positions in under enrolled schools. Ultimate goal is to manage costs with as little disruption to the student experience as possible.

Thank you, Blair. So as we look forward into FY twenty seven as the superintendent mentioned, we're facing a difficult budget season. Our period of more stable enrollment has ended. We have a memo materials tonight that goes through the drivers of enrollment decline in more detail, but those reductions are primarily due to smaller cohort sizes moving through the system and impacts from federal immigration policies. Beyond declining enrollment, we face continuation of the cost increases that Blair mentioned in health insurance rates, rising transportation costs including bus monitors, and growing special education service costs.

As we think about how these major factors impact our schools and our school budgets, We are really at the intersection of three challenging topics we need to engage in our communities. First, enrollment decline is not evenly spread across the district versus supporting schools and understanding both what this means for the district and more broadly how it impacts their school community. Second, as we shift to our new funding formula, schools with a legacy of hold harmless or temporary funding have to make decisions for the future year that are tougher but more equitable. Third, this funding model is new and marks a significant shift in practice after years of not using a full funding model. To address this, we had to explain the rules of our new formula to our broader community.

Last Thursday we completed the school year training reviewing these topics and they're now beginning their engagement process for school for their school communities. I will say as a quick aside, I do wanna shout out the school leader at the Bates, Megan Harrington. I got texts last night from a former colleague who's a parent at the Bates who's like, oh my god, are you guys actually doing RSF this year? I see I'm at the school site council meeting and the school year is doing such a great job of explaining the new formula. It was so exciting to just hear that directly from the field.

So back on topic, sorry. So every year when we give out school budgets before we give out school budgets, excuse me, we do a review of central budgets with a focus on efficiency and effectiveness. This year we pushed especially hard knowing the challenges ahead and asked our teams to complete a detailed budget analysis for review by senior leadership. We the superintendents give us a clear vision of focus on student and family facing positions versus and preserving those with a focus on changing or reduction to more internal facing positions. So far, we've reduced about $16,500,000 in operational efficiencies in transportation, facilities and food services and an additional $12,500,000 in true reductions after a more detailed review of central budgets for alignment to our strategic objectives.

That represents about a 4% reduction overall. So that brings us to school budgets. As we've mentioned earlier, we're rolling out our new reimagined school funding system named pending this year. This work has been three years in the making as the superintendent mentioned in her remarks. As we headed into the pandemic, we knew that weighted student funding or WSF was no longer working for BPS.

And after some pandemic related delays in getting our project started, we engaged in a multi year community involved planning process to create a new system to more equitably fund our schools. We know that rolling out a new formula can be challenging and we are committed to providing transition supports to schools as needed over the next two years as we implement.

We'll be following up with a lot more

details with committee about the rules and the impacts on schools. But there are a couple of key We'll details I wanted to present tonight. Number one, the formula is rules based. Right. This is the same as weighted student funding.

You will still every member of the public will still be able to look at every single school's budget and go from zero to every dollar in the budget and understand exactly how those dollars get there or be able to ask very specific questions based on the information we've provided. Some things that are slightly different. Required staffing and non personnel are funded first, unlike weighted student funding that was based on a per pupil model. So instead of funding something like instructional staff per pupil, what we say is based on the number of students you're serving and their needs, how many staff are required either by contractual obligation, special education regulation, ESL service minutes, and so on. And then we fully fund those staff.

Then we're using per pupil funding very similar to weighted student funding to fund discretion. So there is differentiation in that flexible funding at a per pupil level and there is differentiation in the positions based on the needs of students. It's just that those positions are fully funded even if the class is not a percent full or 87.5% full, I should say. So to sort of zoom ahead to a little bit of what you'll see in February, you should expect to see a reduction in FTE both in schools and central office. But you should also expect to see a continued prioritization of inclusive education, bilingual program expansion, alternative education, and high school pathways.

There will also need to be budget revisions to account for the vote tonight on the long term facilities plan. We are going to work individually with each school community on what the impact of that vote is for their budget for next year to ensure that all the students in those schools have what they need. They will probably not be getting a formula funding and they will probably not have a full one pager. Instead they'll have a custom budget. I just wanted to give a little bit of data on FTE just to understand the context when I talk about FTE reduction, which is not something that has been a common theme in the last few years at BPS.

Just before the pandemic, we had just under $10,000 full time or 10,000 full time equivalent staff for 53,000 students. This fall, we have 10 just over 10,700 full time equivalent staff for 46,000 students. This reflects a significant increase in staffing to meet the needs of our students post pandemic even as enrollment has declined, as need has expanded. Even with a required FTE reduction based on the reduction in number of students, we still anticipate being significantly over these pre pandemic levels. I wanna leave you tonight with a reminder of timeline for you and for the community.

Right now we're getting a

lot of feedback from school budgets from communities through their school leaders and school site council process every day. Getting getting emails every day with feedback. We're reviewing that feedback giving schools updated information. In early January they send us a budget proposal. We review it with them collaboratively with the central office and we bring you back a full proposal on the February.

We'll begin our public engagement process on that day through March for a vote on the March 25 on the budget. Along the way we'll start our city council engagement process probably in March year and that will continue through the city's budget process in April May and June. Thank you for this opportunity to present this information tonight, and we'll welcome any questions from the committee.

Great. Thank you. I'll now open it up to questions and thoughts from our members.

Go ahead. Do you wanna go? Are

you sure?

Okay. Thank you. I did give him a hard time in our call this week, and I felt like just to the point

Please continue.

We really you delivered. So thank you. I do I appreciate the budget conversation, clarity about the fiscal pressures we're facing. And I have said this in the past, I'll just say it now. To support a budget, and I'm really holding this for this year, it has to be tied to goals, outcomes, and measurable progress for students.

And so I'm excited to see that come alive in I future am taking away what we're hearing tonight as a story of real constraints, declining enrollment, rising health insurance costs, transportation pressures, special education costs, collective bargaining agreements. And I appreciate that we're naming these drivers directly rather than attributing them to inflation. But naming the pressure is not the same as articulating our priorities. So what I'm really curious to hear is just what we're looking for as we move towards February is the clarity on targets. Who are we trying to serve better?

How will we make progress? And how this budget moves us closer to those goals? I'm particularly concerned just from the presentation and then I have some questions about how cost management strategies intersect with our commitments to inclusive education, equity, and service quality, particularly for students with disabilities and lingual learners. So my questions won't be about how we're balancing the spreadsheet. They'll be more about our value Of course. Strategy. But I appreciate this. First question is about transportation. Projected change? I'm actually going to skip that one.

We're seeing transportation overruns of $15,000,000 in 2025, dollars 8,000,000 in 2026, with $2,027,000,000 pressure driven by what we're told is door to door service and IEP mandated monitors. What's our total transportation spend? What share of that is actually special education? And then how are you thinking about bending this cost curve while maintaining IEP IEP compliance?

Yeah. So we'll pull up some of that. I'll pull up some of that data for you. What I would say is door to door transportation particularly particularly for for special special education education as as well well as as out of district transportation is I believe now a majority of our spend even though it is a significant minority of students enrolled. So that is sort of the single biggest driver.

I will double check the exact number or am I ask Blair to look it up for me of where we're at with the transportation number for next year. I believe it's around $150,000,000 altogether. And then in terms of the mitigation strategies, what I would say is they fall into a few main categories. The first are categories, something I would call sort of Zoom related efficiencies. Right?

So how do we provide the most efficient service to the kids who are actually riding the bus to get them to school on time? Right? And I think the thing we're seeing from that Zoom data is the ability to do better at that and find some savings there. I will also just say, right, improving on time performance was not free. Right?

And we have done work to maintain routes and shorten them to some extent in order to be able to improve on time performance and meet the targets we've seen this year. So there has been some intentional management of those costs. Right? I think we are now in a place where step one was to get on time performance up and to be servicing the students who are actually riding the bus. Step two now is to really look at the strategies to maintain that while driving efficiency.

So things like pairing nearby schools so that buses can serve two schools at the same time. This would be things like the Roosevelt Lower and Upper School managing their times and buses so that instead of a family needing to put students on two different buses to go to the lower and the upper, they can be serviced by one bus going to both schools. So that's sort of the zoom zoom related category. The second thing we're doing is just a really comprehensive review of those special education related costs, not to reduce services to students who need them, but to identify places in our large system where students may be getting services that they no longer require nor necessarily have they even asked for. Right?

But they may have door to door remaining on their IEP or in our IEP data when, in fact, they no longer require that service. And so we're checking back in on that data to ensure it's what the student actually needs, right, and moving them to a less restrictive environment if that's possible. And then the third group of strategies we're looking at, would call student assignment related. So when families move, are we making sure they understand their options close to home? Right?

So that instead of having to take a bus a long way across the city, right, they're being serviced in a in a school that's close to home. We think all of these things will actually bring our costs will actually be level if not slightly down from the FY26 final expense. That's what we're currently projecting. And we are then trying to be conservative so we're not in an overrun next year but then hopeful that going forward we'll be able to see some real reductions in future years.

It's helpful. It would be interesting, it's such an enormous part of

our budget, that it would be

interesting for us to spend more time with it.

Like Mhmm.

It's, I don't know, like, almost $3,000 a kid a year we spend on busing. Like, I'll take the cash. But the the it would be interesting to understand, like, how much of that is because of mandates? How much of, like Mhmm. What makes that

Yeah. Where do the

feel so bizarre? And Yeah.

I mean, I think it's it's deeply embedded in the long term work that we're doing, whether it's opening up inclusion in every building, which drove a lot of the transportation. You had to bus students an hour to get them to a program. It has to do with the improvement in the quality and the high quality student seats being more accessible and available to families in their own neighborhood and closer to where they live. So to cut down transportation, it is deeply embedded in the student assignment process. And so that is that is something that I think as a committee we will be looking at in the near future.

But it really we we have to sort of look at the the nucleus of it. And we just didn't have enough parts in place, to really get kids to go to to offer them seats closer to home that were of quality. We're starting to get to that. I think as David said you'll remember the ridership policy. You know, that that's another thing that we're looking at just in terms of the usage of students door to door.

Like, are they actually using the bus? And if they're not, there's, a wonderful opportunity to have a conversation with the family about it because there may be students on there that just don't want to use the bus and don't need to. We also it's a theme of least restrictive. Transportation is a goal on the IP. I think, unfortunately, in our system, we haven't revisited it annually as we should be and always encouraging students to become more independent with their transportation. So it's all along the theme of, paying better attention, working with families, and moving toward independence and least restrictive environment for students.

And superintendent, on that note, will say when I was at Thanksgiving at the next program, one of the things the students were most proud of that they had done in their first two months at the school was learning

how

ride the

T.

Right.

The students were so excited that they had learned how to do it and they had really made it a part of their goal at the school was to get the students ready to ride the T.

Yeah. It's like such an incredible

They were so excited.

One more question here too, moving from transportation. Staffing's increased, we've seen, as enrollment has declined, particularly among support staff. I'm curious which roles are considered must hold to protect the sort of inclusion quality? What areas are under review for reduction? And then particularly around staffing reductions, do we have are we able to anticipate as the new funding system responds to enrollment decline where we'll see where we'll see cuts and how much?

Yeah. So I would say there are sort of two main types of positions we're really focused on preserving as we manage this enrollment decline and FTE decrease with inclusive education. The first are those direct service providers who aren't the homeroom teacher or core classroom teacher at the secondary level but who are providing either co teaching support or push in or pull out for students. We're trying to preserve those positions as much as possible if not expand them in some schools. The second is there are a number of those support staff positions that support creating an environment that is conducive to inclusive education whether it's social workers or strand specialist staff, folks who are working on helping students get ready for that inclusive environment.

What the main place we're expecting to see FTE reductions are going to be in teachers and paraprofessionals who are in those like homeroom or court direct roles as enrollments down and we just need fewer of those rooms. And then there will be some proportional reduction in some of the other roles related to school closures.

And have we do we have a projection on how much that is.

The thing I struggle with with that is is just that schools are often trying to preserve those roles as much as possible. I think across our schools if we were to include the closures that are happening for this upcoming year I would anticipate it's going to be at least three to 400 positions primarily teachers and paraprofessionals in schools but also some support staff especially those in schools that are schools that are closing just to meet the declining enrollment.

And then I do one more question. You're you've talked about this sort of phased approach with the formula communities who we've held harmless for longer. Yes. What guardrails are you putting in during that transition to like, I don't know, prevent a de stabilizing swing for a school? Like what's the threshold for change?

It's a great question and it's gonna unfortunately it's gonna really vary by school so I don't have a perfect answer today. What I would say is we're looking at the types of positions that are closing right and and why. So at a high school that maybe has been held harmless I was talking to a leader who was sort of like we've known we've had some extra teaching capacity for a number of years that we've been preserving because of the uncertainty around immigration and our need to serve youth. Like we know those staff are going to go. Right.

We're not going to be asking for temporary support for those staff. Right? But there are other schools where the reduction is a little bit less clear cut. And what we're asking them to really think about is it's the goal is not to just give you something so you can have it for one more year. It should be related to either work you're transitioning or a very particular goal.

Right. And so what our schools are thinking about is, you know, maybe there's something changing about our school community. Maybe our school community will be impacted by students who are coming into our school from schools that are closing. Maybe, like is there something that could be different a year from now. That means having this resource for one more year actually makes a difference. And so as I've been having individual conversations especially over the last week since we released budgets with school leaders we've been really focusing on how to identify those positions and provide like a clear rationale.

My last question. You share that you've identified 16,500,000 inefficiencies in transportation and food services, something else I can't remember, and like 12,000,000 did I make this up? $12,000,000

Nope, you're exactly right.

Efficiencies from central office. I'm curious, we hear about these. I'm just curious like what are the top five things that got you there? Like what is creating that savings? And is it a one time savings or one that you Yeah. Anticipate to be

I'll try and give you an example for each one. So for transportation the example I gave earlier is the best one of this sort of scheduling two schools to get serviced by the same bus allows us to reduce routes and saves us money. In facilities, we're really aggressively looking at contracted work and how much of that can we move to capital and how much of that can we just like slow down, to And be then for food services, we actually think the implementation of the new central kitchen, which is just opened, it's actually going be a win win. We're going to get better food at a cheaper price. And so we are, you know, I think one month away from having our first full month of projections of how that's going.

But everything we've seen so far is better. So this time last year I was saying it was a $3,000,000 deficit in food services, right, earlier. We're now at 1,700,000.0 projected for the current year. And the director there would be very uncomfortable with me saying this to you today, but he actually thinks if things go well, it will actually come better than that by the time we get to the end of the year. And that's really what's setting us up for success in food services.

In central office, I'm just gonna I'm gonna talk only about my department because I don't want to out other people before We did an expansion to one of our teams to meet a real issue we were having in performance in the district. Right. And we didn't fill one of the positions. And as we got into this budget season, we basically froze that position and we're now gonna instead of hiring for it, we're gonna cut it because we think with the restructuring we did, we did add another position, a different position instead. We think we can make it work with the position we have.

That position was going to do some cool stuff, I think, but we can manage it, right? And so in that case, it's a vacant role. I think there will be cases where the roles aren't vacant. We will in when we come back to you in late February early March we'll be able to give you some more specifics because we will have had conversations with individual employees who are impacted and so it won't be a surprise to them. But I will say these are like real reductions that we'll be able to give you specific backup on of where they're coming from.

Thank you.

Very naive question around thinking of how we are doing or changing reviews and how students are hopefully moving from substantially separate settings into more full inclusion settings. Is that also going to have associated savings like with that at any capacity or?

Think long term there is some potential for savings with a decrease in substantially separate. But I think short term we are not banking on savings for the implementation of inclusive ed. We're actually banking on spending a bit more money to make sure we get it right. I think we are cautiously optimistic long term that if as fewer kids require substantially separate placements it'll be able to bring costs down. But I think we're a little bit too early in adoption to know that for sure.

I was thinking about the addition of that to the investment that we're Yeah. Okay. And I had a second question. Last year we were able to also see what the net savings were potential for reinvestment from school mergers and closures. Yes. Do we anticipate that this year also?

Yes. What I will say is the our financial situation is putting us in a place where we have less ability to reinvest. Right. But there are we will when we come back to the committee in February, we'll give a full briefing on the savings related to the long term facilities plan for sure.

Thank you

for the presentation.

My question is regarding the formula that we're going to be using. So what would be the difference between the financing formula we will be using compared to the one we're using now? That would be my first question.

So for the last four years or so, we actually have not been using a full funding formula because we've been doing a lot of holding school harmless and giving schools soft landings for transition. And we've been doing sort of a modified formula. But the underpinning of our budget has been the weighted student funding. And that was primarily a per pupil funding formula that required schools to be a certain percent full in order to be able to fund their instruction. And then more than that percent full to be able to fund discretionary programming.

And what we saw was as our enrollment declined, schools were getting structurally underenrolled and unable to meet that required percent full to be able to fund their classrooms. And so schools a growing number of schools were stuck in a situation of a baseline budget, and those schools disproportionately serviced our most marginalized communities. And so as a result, sort of as we were going into the pandemic, we were grappling with the fact that way the student funding was broken and we needed to change. The pandemic obviously threw us all for a loop. We used a lot of our ESSER money at schools to provide temporary support and funded that in a very equitable way.

But I think as we are emerging from the pandemic, we needed to reground ourselves in this new formula that funds it funds positions first. I I don't wanna call it this, but I almost think of it like weighted classroom funding where you start by funding classrooms and instructional resources and required positions at their full cost for schools. And then you add in supplemental discretionary funding at a differentiated per pupil amount similar to what we the way we did it and waited student funding.

You were talking about a plan for school leaders, family liaisons regarding the training in this new formula. Could you elaborate a little bit more about that?

Yes. So the biggest resource we have in explaining what we're doing with our school funding is always our school based teams. And that usually comes down to the school leader and family liaison, as you know. I can tell from my daughter's school that's certainly true. Those are the two people I get the most communication from besides her teacher.

And the what we're trying to do is give them some of the key basic talking points explaining why things are different, how the funding is classroom based at the elementary school level, section based at the high school level, right how supplemental staff are allocated. And then there's differentiated per pupil funding so they can explain it to their communities. The other thing that we are working very hard to do both for the school communities and also for yourselves is to be able to provide a sort of transition narrative. What is specifically different about your school's budget as we head into this upcoming year? And is it related to the formula or is it just related to enrollment or is there something else going on?

Because we actually had I had an interesting job of trying to explain to school some school years why their budgets were going up in a way they didn't expect. Right? Which was that was a nice part of my job last week of explaining why their budget was projected to go up and how we'd be phasing that in over time. And so really we want to use the school site council and governing board process primarily but also any other structures that the school has set up to get the word out about how things are different and get feedback.

Thank you. Where'd it go? Sure.

Thanks so much for the presentation. Just a couple of questions about the continued academic priorities for investment at the same time that we're facing these sobering realities. Bilingual programs, I just encourage us as we go into future presentations and in more detail to frame what that program expansion in relation to what we've been hearing from the community related to requests for increased access, making other programs citywide. I think just being really clear about what this is in reference to, especially during that ongoing conversation would be really important.

So I look forward

to hearing more detail about that. And then is there anything you it wasn't a question but was there anything

important No, just I hear your voice ringing in my ears from your feedback the other day of sort of that in particular is related to the continued growth of programs at the Blackstone, Sarah Roberts and the Quincy and actually the last year of growth at the Mather. And then a new program at the Lower Frederick, the new Lower Frederick Elementary in Cape Cod, Aberdeen Creole.

Yeah. There's also TEP Austin and one other. So so is it this is a great question. We can find a way to easily give the information in conjunction with it. But there's the roll up of the programs that were already approved, and then we have to approve through DESE a year in advance. And so there's three programs that are slated and received approval from DESE for the following year. So that's what you'll see in the budget as some of the startup funds for that. We then survey the data to sort of look to say how many more do we put in? Where do we put them in? Which school leaders and school communities are wanting to add them?

We know like for instance at the secondary level, we don't have very we only have the one true dual language, bilingual and MMA. The rest are either heritage or modified. And so, that's going to be like an area we want to work on on the secondary level. But with our enrollment, in particular our multilingual learner enrollment coming down so much, we're going to have to take serious stock about how much more we would expand to make sure we can fill those programs.

Thank

you. And just it may be too early to think about this as well, but just thinking about the rules based budget and what is preserved funding specific roles first. I'm curious where like the role of arts education plays in the overall vision of of preservation and high quality student experience. And I might add world language to that as well because as we are a district with so many multilingual students, I think it could be a real aspiration for the district to have every graduate leave multilingual and build on that strength and have that be something that we Mhmm. That we name as a goal.

But that'll require programming as well as teachers. And I think the arts are just so compelling as a draw for folks to choose BPS. Just interested in those in relation to some of the standard allocations that'll be given to schools.

So through Edvestors, we received and have received over multiple years just a deep investment in arts expansion. And we've been able to pretty much continue that even with some of the more difficult budgets. So we see that as core and core work. At the high school level, it deeply is intertwined with mass core and, now part of the graduation requirements. So world language, phys ed, those are all things that the high schools have to have in order to be able to complete mass course.

So we don't see those as areas like when the schools will come to provoorg, we'll be giving them their rule sheets about what they can and can't kind of touch well ahead of time. And those will be areas that they really can't. I mean, some cases, they may have more than what they need to ensure that students get it. But for the most part, they we're gonna they're going to need to ensure that we maintain and actually increase from where we are, which is, I think, 75% of high school students are getting one year of arts. We need that to be a 100 because it is mass core.

And then potentially more than that through the connection to the CTE programming. So I think these are areas that in the past, PPS would have cut as you sat at the table and I sat at the table as a principal. But now they're just too much in the center of what we're doing.

So I can't let a budget presentation go by without asking a

couple of questions, Mr. Cohen. Oh, I wouldn't dream of it.

Especially since we're not going to have the pleasure of having our chats in January, February.

You can always come by for coffee.

Thank you. Two quick questions to you. I and you and I have discussed this a little bit, but I remain concerned about two different ways to look at buckets of our schools. So one is though a lot of our schools received ESSER funds and some schools bulked up personnel. That was their choice.

They decided it was the right thing to do for student achievement, catch up all the goals laid out at us. Others were very careful, didn't bulk up on SR funds, didn't bulk up on personnel, but instead did a lot of improvements for example to the building, to the supplies that they had, put in equipment, I think of the virtual driving machines in East Boston High was an example, right? And the pilot simulation machine that the school leader they bought with Esser funds instead of investing in personnel. As we move into this environment, how are we careful in effect not punishing schools that were careful in their spending. You see what I'm getting at?

Yeah. Versus those that maybe had put it more on FTEs and I know you've put a lot of this towards FTEs. How do you think of that?

It's a great question. And to be honest, I think ultimately the formula is going to be the great equalizer in that. And so I think the key thing in this cycle is being really clear and transparent with what any supplemental funding is specifically for and for one year. And I think, you know, I am sure there will be a small number of examples of schools that are benefiting from a poor decision that was made maybe even by a different leader three or four years ago with that ESSER funding. But I think ultimately this transition funding over two to three years is what we what we need to do to get the schools to where they need to be long term.

And I think the big thing the superintendent has said to me she said we need to do a two to three year transition and this can't be the sort of thing where you just get soft landings forever. Right. Right. And so the real we had a significant debate on do you do a do you give them the number upfront? Do you give them a formulaic you're getting 25% of your money back.

And ultimately, I think, I mean, superintendent not to speak for you, but I think our decision was you can't do that without it removes your ability to judge whether or not this is a real transition support you need to get you to where you're going or whether it's just a desire to have as much as you can for one more year. And I think our real goal is to work with impacted communities to say, you know, what is the impact of this change? What are the specific things you're looking for for transition and why? And then we're we are planning to bring that list to this body. Here are all the transition supports.

We're going to document them. Here's why the schools are getting them. Right. They're they're still going to show the reductions they're taking as well. And then we can, we certainly then have a review opportunity with the committee. I think our proposal is gonna be pretty great. But I'm sure we will get feedback along the way on adjustments we need to make.

It's interesting when you put in place when we the district put in place weighted student funding formula. It exposed a lot of inequity that had happened before, right? But schools would had political clout that type of thing end up getting more and it exposed a lot of inequities. And the district rightfully so put in places you called it the soft landings. I think the soft landings really changed the past couple of years.

Yes. So in COVID and then after to much more concerned about the small schools what they needed be able to sustain themselves. I've been out visiting a lot of schools recently as I wrap up and I've been talking to school leaders about the budgets that they have received. And I had an interesting comment yesterday from a school leader who said, what I liked about weighted student funding is I could sit down and figure out exactly what I was supposed to get. And I relayed to him our commitment that they're going to feel the exact same way about the rules based now.

That they're going to be able to look and see and the public will be able to look and see exactly what their funding should be. There's obviously a lot of uncertainty, particularly those that are facing some fairly big changes, understanding the differences now in the student population. Right. Right. And so appreciate your willingness to work through with those schools that are facing some of those particular challenges.

Yeah, and you know I was on the phone with a school leader the other night who had opened up their budget and was facing an 800,000 or $900,000 shortfall. Right? And they said to me, you know, I was expecting 300,000. Right? I sort of knew that was coming.

And so what we did was we sat down and we went through it together. He actually did a lot of the prep work and said, okay, how much of this can we explain with changes that you may or may not agree with but are represented in a formula. And so we actually went through every single line of the formula together and we found another $400,000 of differences between what he has now and what the formula says the school should have. And some of those things he understood and some of those things he's like I'm gonna write you with feedback about why I think the way your formula is calculating things are wrong and that will go into our feedback and will be one of the things we will either adjust or we won't. But what we're really trying to do is get to a place where every school year can really clearly understand the difference between what they have now and what the formula says they should have.

Right. And then give us feedback if they think the formula is wrong. Right. And we can make corrections if they're right and then make a plan for how to get from here to there. And so I think there's still a lot of work for us to do on making sure the way we've because we the way that student funding had the benefit of all of these years of improving our documentation to make those numbers clear, right?

So a lot of the feedback we're actually getting now is I got feedback, just an example, where's my social worker for my SLEIFE program? I don't see it. And we had built it into their social worker line, but there wasn't a clear marker that said, here's how the calculation was differentiated from your traditional social worker to your SLEIF, and so they didn't realize it was in that line. So we're just redoing the documentation. We're going to reissue it on Friday and that was going be made more clear, right?

So some of it is actual formula changes that we need to make and some of it is about updating the documentation so that I can fulfill my promise, right, that everyone's going be able to calculate it and then they can give me the very specific feedback, right. We think the way you're allocating social workers is incorrect because here's the condition of my school that you're not taking into account because then I can take that and say, okay, superintendent, here's the feedback we got. Here's the seven schools that are in a similar situation. Do we want to make this adjustment? Right.

And that then we'll have, you know, maybe 12 different of those things that we'll have to look at across the system and say, okay, here are the ones we believe in and that we can afford to do, right? And so our hope is by the time we get to you in February, we will have done two or three passes of that work so that we're resolving all the low hanging fruit there. And what we're really then focused on is how we're getting from where we are now to where we need to be.

Thank you. And my last question and comment. And I appreciate how you work into individual things like your conversation with Member Cardet Hernandez about transportation and doing, I think it's called in one of the regions click, we would line up two schools. And it seems small, it may be a couple of million savings, but this all adds up and it makes it easier and more better for our parents. It's a win win.

Let's talk about a win win. I'm intrigued about healthcare because it is increasingly becoming a very heavy burden to everybody. Yes. What's happening on a national level, in our jobs, everything. Healthcare is becoming what used to be a fairly small line item to a substantial part of a benefits package.

Yeah.

How do we get better at communication around that? So you don't think of an FTE of what the salary is, but it's really salary plus benefits and how do we get people to understand the value that they're getting by the benefits and how do we take a fresh approach to it. And I know, I assume it's tied in with the city, so it's not like we can go off and do our own thing on it. How do we get smarter and more transparent around health I wish I had

a great answer. I will tell you it's something the superintendent has also pushed me on this fall which is great and was something we're working on is That's

a compliment telling me I brought

it It's to a compliment. It's very much meant as a compliment. Right? So we always talk about sort of average teacher salary or average paraprofessional salary. We very rarely talk about the cost of those things with benefits. Our health insurance costs are getting close to $16,000 per FTE in the system, just health insurance, not the rest of our benefits.

And that's the portion that we pay?

That's the portion that we pay, the employees also pay a portion. And their portion is also my portion is also rising alongside. Get this their same rate increase gets passed through on the proportion.

The dollar amount is increasing but not your percentage that you pay.

Not my percentage.

Okay, thank you.

So I think there are two ways I think we need to improve communication there that we're thinking about. One is to sort of employees and the public about the value of your benefits and the value of the benefits we provide. Right. We are likely to be spending $175,000,000 on health insurance next year. The district is. The district for our employees. It makes it puts it just about in line with transportation as the biggest single cost we have in the district.

And yet we talk so often about transportation. Right.

And there is that like both employee and community conversation. And then the second is for our schools and departments when they're thinking about their budgets and what they're planning. How do we make sure they're understanding if we add an FTE, it's not just the salary, it's also that health insurance. So superintendent, I've heard your feedback. I'm working on it. We'll have

a better plan in place very soon. Thank you. That's kind of eye opening that we're spending effectively the same on healthcare as we are on transportation. And yet we focus so often on the dollar spent on transportation. And it's this is a nationwide problem.

It is. Obviously. Yeah. Mean we we over the course of basically three years we will have gone from spending a 125 to a $175,000,000 on health insurance.

Thank you Mr. Blum. Thank you and your entire team for the work that you do. And I know there's been a lot of work to put in place this new method. So I look forward to seeing it in implementation. Of course. You.

I don't have any questions. I just have a request. I hope that I did not mishear from you, but during your presentation, if I'm not mistaken, the expected reduction in force would amount to about 300 positions,

is that right? 300. 400. Yeah,

I said that's what I was talking about for school, potentially school based reductions.

I see. Is there any way that, I know that we're doing everything in accordance with the requirement of civil rights, but I still like to have a breakdown on the staff or the employees that are RIFT in relation to DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, in another word. In relation to all categories protected under civil rights. I like to have that.

We'll be able to provide that sort of information after we've gone through our planning process.

Yeah. Be we'll be going through an extensive plan with human capital to look at any of the employees who are impacted, who they are, what we know about them. We have a certain amount of churn every year in the BPS. And so we're looking to think that between vacancies and churn, many of those folks will be able to find something else within the system.

I understand seniority. I understand.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. But

we still wanna look at it. I think the other thing driving that number that I know chief Bloom and deputy Dawkins would say is we are eliminating, based on enrollment, a great deal of classrooms this year because there are just no children. And so that is actually what's driving that number. Because when you eliminate a classroom, you're eliminating an educator, potentially a paraprofessional, potentially other services connected to that classroom. So it is some of that projection of the 300 or whatever it would it would be are going to be directly related to just there's no kids.

And then there's others that would come from the school as the school is thinking about how to manage having less money, what they would prioritize Yeah. According to that school's goals, what they're trying to accomplish. But compliance, we will always will drive, and in fact drives reimagining compliance, which is was your underlying question as well. Right? Like, we're always gonna be looking at that.

I will say, you know, we had a 100 in our approved budget for this year, we had a 160 positions at the Denver, Excel and the Lion, right? It's three schools that will be closed for next year. So that's obviously a significant portion of the reduction.

I was going to say my one question that I want to add tonight piggybacks on that. Yeah. Because I'm also looking at with those coming in, then what happens with the bumping or other kinds of things that can happen if my position is related but I'm still here? And what kind of destabilization can that cause as a ripple effect across the district as we're trying to look at quality educators sitting before kids? How do we preserve that piece with So all of

it is a little early for us to know until we get school budgets back, like what categories of teachers and so forth. But the way it would work is we have an enormous amount of provisional teachers that we carry in the system or teachers on waivers or working toward this CERT but not yet certified. All of that happens before we ever get to teachers with seniority. And so, you know, we'll look at high impact subject areas and then really work thoughtfully when, like, instance, the school's closing. We go.

We Frances Canty and her staff are already looking at how to help teachers with certifications, get into other kinds of certification programs. And then we make available the list of what positions are available. We will likely work very heavily using the regional model this coming year because that's why it's there. It's to disseminate information. So we'll probably heavily use that so that leaders can make recommendations. I'm losing because I cut a classroom. I'm losing this particular educator. Excellent educator. Wanna get that educator into a classroom. They'll make those kinds of levels of referral.

We will systemize it as much as possible. So we'll have more of that once we start to get those school based budgets back. But your questions are all on point. The information we need to be protective of. You know, we've made a tremendous effort to ensure that our workforce in in race and in language and in experience reflects and represents our kids. And we don't we wanna be able to preserve those that we've recruited. Right? So it's everyone's interest for that. So we'll just we'll be working through that as part of the human capital project.

Okay. Thank you. We'll now return to public comment, and we'll thank you. And I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of you in the New Year. Thank you. Okay. Well, we will now move on to business. And at this time, I would now like to invite my fellow members along with the superintendent to join me in celebrating a dedicated member of our BPS community. Today, we recognize Michael O'Neil for his many years of outstanding service and leadership on the Boston School Committee. Throughout his tenure, Michael consistently emphasized the importance of monitoring our own progress and holding ourselves accountable.

He often drew on his deep institutional knowledge to remind us of where we've been, what has worked, and what we must continue to uphold as a committee. His guidance helped ensure that our decisions were responsible, transparent and made with an eye toward long term sustainability particularly when overseeing the budget. The committee has benefited greatly from Michael's business experience, his forward thinking approach, and his integrity. As a graduate of this district and a proud Bostonian, he consistently demonstrated a deep love for Boston and the Boston Public Schools. In addition, his work with his council of the Great City Schools strengthened this committee and helped bring a valuable national perspective back to Boston, always grounded in what was best for our students.

What has always driven Michael is his belief in the quality of education and his commitment to ensuring students are college and life ready, prepared to move forward with confidence. He has spoken often about his pride in our students and his hope that they will one day return to Boston and give back in the same way he has. Michael, your voice will be missed. Thank you, mister O'Neil, for your leadership, your dedication, and your lasting impact on our students and on the Boston student school committee. Committee.

I will now read the proclamation, which says, the Boston School Committee extends its deepest appreciation to Michael D. O'Neill, whereas Michael O'Neil has served the students and families of the Boston Public Schools with exceptional dedication since his appointment to the Boston School Committee on 07/15/2008. And whereas, mister O'Neil has provided steadfast leadership throughout his tenure, including his service as chair and most recently as vice chair, guiding the committee through pivotal decisions and periods of transition and whereas his integrity, institutional knowledge and thoughtful guidance have had a lasting and positive impact on the district and will be greatly missed. Therefore, let it be resolved that the chair and the members of the school committee of the city of Boston join with the superintendent of schools in expressing their heartfelt appreciation to Michael O'Neil for his many years of distinguished service and extend their warmest wishes for continued health, happiness, and success in all future and We're the

to

Congratulations. Michael superintendent, would you like to say a few words?

Sure. Seventeen years is a good run. But, you know, you represent so many different facets being a student yourself of the BPS and a graduate, your work with the business community and always bringing that voice into every discussion, to just your leadership as chair of school committee and then your ongoing membership. But also at the national level, the work you've done with Council of Great City Schools representing Boston always so well, and serving, for them as as chair as well of the executive committee. You know, you really exemplify in so many different ways what leadership is about.

You have had your share of difficult votes in your time, tonight being one of them. And you always do it with dignity and empathy and respect for the people that you're impacting, always with keeping kids at the center. And so I'm this is bittersweet in many ways for me because you are leaving one body, but I know I will get to work with you. And the students of Boston will benefit from your work at PIC as the new executive director. And I know that that Boston students will be centered in that work and cared for in that work.

So while I lose you here, I will we will gain you over there. But you you truthfully have even for me personally, as a school leader, you're always somebody that showed up to my school, asked questions, came to graduation, was invested. And I always felt you were somebody that was approachable and I could go to as a as a school leader. And certainly in school committee and in my journey as superintendent, you've been pivotal along that way as well, just always being a mentor and a friend. So I just wanna thank you so much, and I I wish you all the best.

And I know this energy will come to this next step. We do have a couple of things for you. These are going away presents. So the first is in case you ever lose your way in Charlestown. There it is. The Michael O'Neil way. Or if you're in an argument, you can say, it's the Michael O'Neil way. But either way

how much my wife and children will go for that.

But this one is, I think, extra special and probably a very big surprise. But it is known that your father received a Revere Bowl. And this is a for those that don't know it, it's a very prestigious bowl that was said to be carved by Paul Revere, and this is obviously in that memory and replica. But the idea of it is to it's only given to the people who, over a long period of time, have consistently showed civic leadership and impacted in an incredible way. And so this was you will actually see that the inscription that was on your dad's bowl is the same inscription that's on yours.

Wow. And so I I don't think there's any higher honor that we can give you, but very, very well deserved.

This is if it's so my father received one from their Collins after his years of service with the with the city. And it sits on my wife's and I dining room table. So it's filled with flowers every. Thanksgiving.

You can read the description. Presented Michael O'Neill, School Committee Member 02/2025. In grateful appreciation of his seventeen years of dedication and service in the city of Boston, December 2025. And mayor Wu's insignatures on the other side.

Thank you.

Are you wearing contact lenses?

That was tough, the If

I could just make a quick couple of comments.

Back to the reps of the members. I'm sorry. I'd like to give members an opportunity first to make comments.

I do remember, the conversations we had before, mister O'Neill, because you have, voted before to elect some of the, or many superintendents in the past. I do remember very well those conversations we had. I'd like to say that your vast experience and the way you communicated with me, it was a great learning experience to me. I did learn from you, Mr. O'Neill, that there are difficult decisions we have to make, but we have to make decisions.

I did learn as well that there are some gentlemen left in this world still. You're kind, you're respectful, you're a gentleman, and those are qualities that I do appreciate very much. Wherever you go, you will be I know you will be very well. And there is nothing they can take away from you, which is your kindness, which is being a gentleman, which is everything you represent. They cannot take that away from you.

Wherever you go, mister O'Neill. My best wishes for you, mister Lim, for all your services, for all the years of services, for the many hours allocated, Thinking about how to better the lives of the students and that is something truly I do appreciate for all your dedication throughout the years.

Thank you so much.

Very Thank much.

You were the first person, I think, that reached out to me when I started on the committee. I remember just how welcoming you were eager to work with whoever was willing to step up and to volunteer and I always appreciate that. You were also someone who made me actually think there were thirty hours in one day particularly because not only were you someone that I identified with that was working a full time like job, it was you were also at every school event ribbon cutting. You were leading at the time the superintendent's evaluation. You were doing all of these other aspects that really was a full time job.

And so I was just like, you just either don't sleep or you're a vampire, which whichever. So I think that was inspiration for me to really look at at my own structure of time and to say, alright, if you truly wanna be a dedicated member on this, these are the things that you should probably be involved with. Students Community needs to see you. Partners need to see you. And so I've I've taken that on as, like, something that I've learned from you, and I'm deeply appreciative of being able to work alongside you.

And even the times when, you know, you've you've pulled me to the side to say, you know, think about every decision, but I think also because of seventeen years you've had the perspective. And so for you to tell you the stories of the people where you made a decision years ago and to hear from them ten, twelve, whatever years later, how they've reflected on that and you get to the perspective to think whether or not you should have gone a different way or or you feel like you made the right decision. So I think in that sense, it's, you know, that that sort of helped me try to keep things in perspective for the long term. So I'm deeply grateful for just these moments that I've been able to share alongside you. Thank you.

Oh, okay. The thing I remember about you was the first impression when I almost eight years ago when I was first appointed by mayor Walsh. And in my swearing in, you know who show up? You. The only member of this school committee back then that show up.

And I remember, I I I I say to myself, maybe this is the guy that I should go out and have a drink with, real trick trick. But I we didn't have a chance. I came on with a lot of how would I say it? I was pretty let let let's put it this way. I I I was pretty pissed

Mhmm.

At the way the the the school committee is working back then and the kind of school issues that that we are facing. And I brought that to the to mayor Walsh, and he he put me on. And I came with that kind of anger. You mellow me. You teach me how to be mellow.

You impart your your knowledge, your skills, your experience, and you taught me how to approach issues looking at all angles, not only from a liberal way that I was brought up to to view things. So I do appreciate that. And I hope that our our friendship gonna I hope so. Last until Okay. Good.