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Wu: West Roxbury school to be rebuilt as 'state of the art' O'Bryant STEM school; Madison Park to expand into old O'Bryant building
By adamg on Tue, 06/06/2023 - 12:36pm
Mayor Wu and School Superintendent today announced a series of high-school moves they say will dramatically increase educational and career opportunities for students at the O'Bryant and Madison Park school and other high schools.
Wu hopes to start work in early 2025 on a reconstruction of the failed West Roxbury Education Complex off VFW Parkway into "state of the art STEM campus" for the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science that will be able to add 400 new students and programs in such advanced fields as biomedicine, engineering and computer sciences, next to already existing athletic facilities.
At the same time, she and Skipper said, workers will transform the O'Bryant building into a new wing of Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, which will enable the school to add seventh and eighth grade and its own new programs in such "green new deal" areas as electric-vehicle and solar panel maintenance and coastal resilience. She said that JetBlue has agreed to help set up an aviation curriculum for students at Logan - and that in the end, Madison Park will finally become the "nation-leading vocational technical school" it was originally meant to be. It will also see its enrollment grow from about 1,000 to 2,200.
Wu said the two existing schools simply had no room to expand in their current buildings to add new 21st-century programs or students.
Wu acknowledged the challenge of shifting a primarily Black and Brown student body at the O'Bryant in Roxbury to "a different community" in West Roxbury. However, she vowed that transportation - the West Roxbury athletic fields are now occasionally served by a single MBTA bus route out of Forest Hills - would not be an issue. She said school-transportation officials are already working on "a full transportation plan" that will include shuttle buses from across the city and "continuous shuttles" from certain key bus stations to ensure students have no problems getting to one of the more remote locations in Boston for classes, after-school programs and athletics.
In a statement, Wu said she has budgeted $18 million to begin the work to begin design and preliminary work on the new O'Bryant School, with additional funds to "gut renovate" the currently hulking building. Wu has also proposed a $45 million rehab of the current Madison Park and O'Bryant buildings to accommodate Madison Park's new programs and students.
In addition to the O'Bryant and Madison Park, Wu and Skipper announced other impending changes, as part of an effort to create a rigorous high-school curriculum aimed at ensuring students at all city schools can thrive and be equipped for life after school. All students at Charlestown High School will be able to "dual enroll" for a "Year 13" program at Bunker Hill Community College. And the Margarita Muñiz Academy in Jamaica Plain, the city's dual-language school, will be adding seventh and eighth grades.
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Comments
Interesting
"Wu acknowledged the challenge of shifting a primarily Black and Brown student body at the O'Bryant in Roxbury to "a different community" in West Roxbury."
That will certainly change. What will they do to ensure West Rox doesnt take advantage of this new state of the art school by enrolling their kids into it?
Exam school policy
The exam school policy was designed to balance representation from each Boston neighborhood. West Roxbury currently has more applicants for exam schools than other Boston neighborhoods, but the ten bonus point part of the policy helps minimize the impact.
You want to continue the practice….
Of WR/Roxie/JP whites to just ignore and not support the current system because they don’t have a stake in it? It’s time to do something because what they are doing hasn’t worked in 75 years.
Are you kidding?
Why shouldn't folks in the area enroll their kids in the school if possible? It's a lottery isn't it?
No, it isn't
It's an exam school, which means grades and your score on a specific standardized test are also involved.
How are kids going to get to school?
Say from anywhere east of Fenway? What a disastrous location for a citywide school.
East Boston
You may as well state in the exam school application that residents of East Boston are ineligible. Unless BPS is going to charter drones to haul the kids there. My kids have issues getting to BLS from JP due to T issues. Can't imagine starting in Orient Heights every morning.
Orient Heights to Forest Hills.....
I used to take a lot. 35 minutes to 50 minutes depending on the randomness of the trains. Add in one of the buses (51 or Dedham Mall bus) and you probably need to add in another 20-40 minutes each way?
7th grade is a bit too young
To be tracked into the lucrative field of solar panel maintenance, no?
probably what our parents were thinking
about woodworking and shop
Not really
Not really. Eventually all homes will have them. Its only a matter of time, no real reason not to have them, outside of cost. For most kids, they won't track into that field but will have an understanding of how all that works and how to fix it.
Plus for many of these courses, its the soft skills the kids take away. Like I took 3 years of Marketing at a voc-ed magnet school attached to my high school. I do not work in Marketing now, but that class taught me skills like
Basic Business Concepts / How businesses work
Stock, Inventory, and Ordering practices
'credit' accounts and other basic accounting skills
Customer service skills
Basic advertising and product marketing skills
Plus gave me my first exposure to Microsoft Windows, spreadsheets, and word processing applications.
All of these skills I've used elsewhere in life, good skills to have.
Same can be said about any voc-ed style courses, yes many go into that field, but the soft skills you take away can be useful anywhere.
The MBTA should form a partnership with BPS
So BPS students could be hired as drivers, police officers, construction engineers, managers etc. The MBTA should also allow school buses to utilize MBTA busways to alleviate traffic and safety concerns.
It doesn't make sense to take
It doesn't make sense to take a school that draws a citywide population and is currently in a central location near the Orange Line, and move it to an outlying area not near a subway station.
Rebuilt...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/06/metro/bps-high-school-changes/
How are they going to rebuild a 25 yard basement pool into a 50 meter pool? Answer: they're not. They're going to say "oh, my bad, is that what that means?"
The plan doesn't call for a teardown, which is what would be needed to put in an actual Olympic-sized pool.
https://www.boston.com/news/schools/2023/05/11/city-plans-to-reopen-shut...
And back to transportation, that's another punt. Yeah, we'll devise a plan. Someday.
There is no way to get 2000 students out there first thing in the morning on one bus line. Cross-town shuttle buses? Terrible idea; half the kids will be late every day. The only reasonable option is to build a new commuter rail station there, right between the Home Depot and the school.
I predicted this…
I don’t think it’s as horrible as you do SP, and I’m playing a little devils advocate here but I could see more happening:
- I don’t think it’s impossible to put an additional train station there.
-the city wants to phase out BLS as the “top school”. This new O’Bryant will be an example of the new “suburban” style school, with division 1 sports, maybe different funding for coaches, and an attraction to those kids who just left the city to go to CM, Xaverian etc. Also maybe an obscene addition to the existing structure to make it a modern school. Seems like most of the state has updated high schools in the last 15 years except Boston.
-eventually O’Bryant won’t be the school for “black and brown kids” it will attempt to be more like the current BLS. Local kids will be encouraged to go there, and busing as a whole will be reevaluated.
-I think they misspoke when they said “Olympic” pool. They meant full size.
-I’m guessing the will build some new sections to the current structure. If they don’t know what the funding will be like, then it’s clear they have no plan (which appears to be what they said)
Ahh I see
Kick the Balck kids out of WREC, wait 6 years until that generation cycles out, and re-open it as a school to attract white kids. Nothing racist about that. /s
Yea the current system is amazing
Think outside the box dude. It’s time someone did. And no one is getting kicked out of anywhere. The extra 400 spots can be opened up to all sorts of different groups.
Fair enough
I don't think it's impossible either. I think it's a great location for an additional train station. I think it's highly unlikely, though. What's in it for the rest of the state? And how long would it take, a decade or two?
That's an interesting theory. BLS seems not to be susceptible to change, which means its function in the system changes as the century passes it by.
It would be entirely possible to make a high school in Boston that is competitive with Thomas Jefferson and Stuyvesant, but BLS will never be that school. Maybe the O'Bryant will be, some day. I doubt it - the pool of students in the city of Boston isn't big enough to support such a school. If they opened it as a regional magnet school, now, that could draw enough nerds to fill math classes past High School Calculus.
I find it unlikely that the BPS system can find enough land anywhere else to make enough new "suburban" style schools for that to be a trend. The other potential sites are likely even worse. Any nearby landfills left to cap? Junkyards, brownfields?
Why are you just making things up?
Where are the details of your conspiracy?
Re: Olympic Size
In real estate terms, 25 yards is usually referred to as "olympic size." Everyone knows it's not real olympic size, but its a pretty minor transgression, IMO.
"In Real Estate Terms"
Is that a new euphemism of which I was unaware?
In Real Estate Terms, the WREC has a football stadium too.
In Real Estate Terms, the WREC is ready for occupancy now.
In Real Estate Terms, I have a bridge to sell you.
Its common parlance
What do you want me to say?
Being an ex-competitive swimmer myself, it used to be bug when I saw it in health club and apartment complex marketing when they really meant 25 yards.
If I were you, I'd worry about the other stuff.
Not just "Real Estate Terms"
It does have a football stadium, and a pretty nice one at that.
How about returning the O'Byrant to Townsend St.
Back in 1987, then Boston Technical High School was temporarily relocated to 55 New Dudley St while their building was updated on Townsend St. It is time for the John D.O'Bryant School of Mathematics & Science to stay in Roxbury and return- as promised- to their long term home.
Let BLA be moved to West Roxbury.
Although the questions of equity, access and populations greatly negatively impacted by such moves should be in the forefront of this generational discussion.
Actually, the Townsend St.
Actually, the Townsend St. building was renovated while Tech was still there. It was only after the overhaul was completed that the to eviction to Madison Park complex happened.
PreK-6 grade pathway
Students from WR and Roslindale should be guaranteed seats at the new school just as students from JP and Roxbury are guaranteed seats at Dearborn STEM academy.
At an exam school?
Selective schools can’t be neighborhood schools.
Perfect opportunity
To build a new Orange Line terminus at Millennium Park with an OL extension down the Needham Line.
Pool is not the issue
The pool reno doesn’t matter. My kid is a swimmer, and nearly every school with a pool has a 25y one. Am assuming that comment was a mistake.
As many others have said, the much bigger issue is taking a school reachable for many BIPoC kids and putting it into a near-suburban location without subway access.
Part of the problem illustrated here
When they do nothing, people complain. When they come up with a plan, people complain.
Only time will tell what comes of all this, but I welcome the actual ideas and plans to move on them.
Say what you want...
The WR campus is a very good location for a top-notch school. It's not in a crowded, busy (dangerous?) area of the city, it's off on its own next to a park--it's not really even WR, borders on Brookline, Chestnut Hill, etc. It has a very nice outdoor track and fields. The Bryant kids are amazing--they work their tails off and are motivated smart kids. They deserve a top-notch campus. Anyone who wants to talk about improving the city, giving inner city kids opportunities, this is it. Time to put our money where out mouth is. Get over the zip code and bus time. Kids will thrive there.
Not saying you're right or
Not saying you're right or wrong about relocating School.
Just saying that that campus does not border Brookline or Chestnut Hill.
Building a STEM campus
Which is intended to draw kids from the entire city on a site that is closer to Rt 128 than Roslindale Sq is just nuts. For athletic fields? A long commute to school takes away time that kids in STEM programs need for studying and homework; typically these classes have heavy workloads.
And the idea for shuttle buses from transit hubs is dumb given how unreliable the T is.
Who said anything about
Who said anything about studying?
Which area are you from?
Have you spent any/much time down where O'Bryant/Madison Park is located? Do you think that is a good location for a school for our city's best and brightest students? https://www.universalhub.com/crime/20230601/gunfire-malcolm-x-boulevard-...
Finally
Finally some actual leadership and big picture decision making. Do it!
These proposals reveal a
These proposals reveal a willingness on the part of Mayor Wu and a historical knowledge of the city of Superintendent Skipper to improve educational outcomes for our city's young people.
The school buildings of the 70's had a thirty year shelf life when built, so they're 20 years past expiration now. They were put up hastily and cheaply, then re-purposed over time and the wear shows. Both the Madison/O'Bryant complex and the West Roxbury site are built on landfills. Health concerns for students and staff would seem to require some environmental review in the process of overhauling them.
The O'Bryant (then Boston Tech) was evicted from its home on Townsend St. to give a home to BLA, whose forerunner, Girls' Latin, lost its Codman Sq. location. Tech was sent to serve as an "anchor" when the HHH/ORC became a disaster. In its accreditation review of 2004, the city was reprimanded for the physical plant at the O'Bryant, while staff, curriculum and students were lauded. It's taken 20 years and 3 mayors to pay attention. One might wonder if student demographics has played a role.
The involvement of JetBlue at Madison recalls that the Umana in Eastie (which was merged with the O'Bryant in the 90's) was initially partnered with MassPort. This and the involvement of the trades and unions signals a carefully thought out plan to reinvigorate our schools, guided by an investment in equity both for voke ed and the much neglected "third" exam school.
Will Wu and Skipper be successful? Look to see who undermines them.
More creative initiative than
More creative initiative than Walsh or Menino ever showed. Bravo!
IDK, I would have a hard time
IDK, I would have a hard time sending my 12 yr old on a wild goose chase to get to school every morning for 7:25am. From Dorchester, this has got to be at least an 1.5 hour commute each way via public transportation and at least 30 min just by car. And they announced it AFTER families made school choices for their child's next 6 years of school. This location is stupid for a city-wide school. I thought the city wanted to cut down on traffic and carbon emissions. Be prepared for enrollment at the O'Bryant to dwindle leading up to the move.
The city really hates families.
It's already a school campus
It was a Boston public school for....decades. Why is transportation suddenly a concern? It's not. It's people thinking WR is white and O'Bryant is black. And they're not. Either. Nor does it matter. TheyGet over it. It's a great facility. GIve good kids that work hard what they need. Quiet campus and good facilities.
At least
The land and the structure will be out to use. WR will complain but the alternative would be thousands of units. I personally thought that building should be turned into a lock down mental health facility. That in and of itself would clear up Mass and Cass.
I think people are missing something
Is the City finally going to get serious about vocational education and put some resources into Madison?
It amazes me that the controversy in the other 350 municipalities of the Commonwealth is that voc schools are becoming STEM schools, moving away from what they are meant for, while in Boston, Madison has been languishing for decades.
Again, the talk of swamps makes me think of….
“When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England.”
I’m just killing myself with this!
Mayor Wu and Superintendent Skipper need to rethink this.
Boston Parents whose children aren’t exam school bound, and the Boston community at large should be outraged! I know I am. When West Roxbury Education Complex (WREC) was closed it was with the agreement that if it were to open again, it would be a Traditional Open Enrollment School! Not a selective pilot school with an application, and certainly not an exam school! In 2015, the first time BPS tried to close WREC to “right size” the district, it was rumored that WREC was going to be closed so O’Bryant could move in! BPS adamantly denied it and denied it again in 2018!
If the O’Bryant Exam School is allowed to move into WREC, there will be no traditional high school in the whole south west part of the city (Roslindale, Hyde Park, and Jamaica Plain High Schools all closed in the last 40 years)! Also, West Roxbury is 77% white, you might as well change the name to the Kevin White Exam School!
West Roxbury Ed Complex is a real school building that has a near olympic size pool, gym, spacious library with a deck and media rooms. Classroom windows fully open so there is fresh air, natural light, views of grassy sports fields, hills, a pond and some classrooms even have decks! It has adjacent $18.5M sports fields, football, baseball, soccer and tennis courts. Students from all around the city attended school there before it was closed and, instead of letting students phase out in place, BPS allowed pilot schools to cherry pick students throughout the year and salted remaining students around to under-enrolled Turnaround schools to shore up the MCAS scores!
The WREC building was never condemned. In the summer of 2018, before WREC was closed, BPS spent $296,202. dollars on repairs which included replacing ceiling tiles $48,682. and the library floor with tile $36,777! The month WREC closed, the Boston Police replaced and installed thousands of dollars in new communications equipment that had to be lifted by crane on to the roof! Why do that if the building were about to implode?
Boston Public Schools is a portfolio district of “haves and have nots,” to award an exam school the WREC facility is offensive and would deprive the majority of regular ed students and special ed students from all around the city, whose parents are also Boston Taxpayers, a chance to be educated there forever!
English High School
Isn't this located in Jamaica Plain? Why is not a "traditional" high school?