Hey, there! Log in / Register
Boston keeps closing schools, but Councilor Yancey keeps pressing for a new high school in Mattapan
By adamg on Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:56am
The City Council's Ways and Means Committee holds a hearing on Tuesday on Charles Yancey's proposal to borrow $110 million to build a new high school in Mattapan.
The School Committee voted earlier this year to close several schools, including the former Hyde Park High School.
Yancey has pushed the idea of a Mattapan High School for years, arguing it's unfair that Mattapan doesn't have one (Ed. note: Neither does Roslindale).
At a City Council meeting in February, Yancey argued a new Mattapan High School would also reduce the number of students citywide now forced to go to schools without cafeterias, science labs and gyms, the sort of things that suburban high-school students take for granted. "I know that many of our high-school students are at a competitive disadvantage," he said.
Yancey continues to base his call on what is now a 15-year-old blue-ribbon report calling for construction of two new high schools in Boston. Since then, the school department has started plans to renovate the Quincy Upper School - housed in a former elementary school - and wants to move Boston Latin Academy to the old Hyde Park High to make room for two Fenway-based high schools at what is now the BLA campus.
The committee hearing on Yancey's proposal starts at 6 p.m. in the council's fifth-floor chambers at City Hall.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Would he let them bus in white kids from West Roxbury?
But in all seriousness I like the idea. Build a Newton North High in Mattapan with the same athletic facilities.
Don't need a new high school for that
Just do some work on Boston English or West Roxbury HS, both of which have space for renovations/expansion (at least, based on my completely untrained eye).
English yes, West Roxbury no.
They both might have space (except for my Forest Hills Casino plan), but there is no use for West Roxbury High if you are just going to bus kids from Mattapan there. You might as well put it in Mattapan. Find out where the majority of kids live that go to Boston High Schools (exam schools excluded) and build the nicest high school closest to that area. Now a majority of kids don't have to get up early to take a bus to the swamp in West Roxbury.
In fact, why not make West Roxbury the new Latin Academy and make Hyde Park High a normal high school and renovate that?
In fact, why not make West
Ask someone from East Boston, Charlestown or Brighton.
Funny how things work. The people of West Roxbury fought for their own high school for decades. Just as the city started building one, it was taken away from them, and kids from Mattapan were bused into it. Now Yancey wants a Mattapan high school. Of course, if West Roxbury were really able to have a West Roxbury high school, Charles Yancey would be out on the V.F.W. parkway with a bullhorn, demanding that Mattapan kids be bused there.
Move on
Yancey is a nice guy and has done some good things for his constituents. But it is time for him to move on from the City Council. Time for some new leadership and fresh ideas.
Why not MATTAPARK High School in former HPHS?
Yancey is living in a dream world. Where does he think ll0 million dollars is coming from? Higher property taxes?
BPS just used umpteen millions of state monies to renovate the former, and now EMPTY, HPHS. If wants Mattapan to have a high school, what about HP? Why not make everybody happy, and use it and call it MATTAPARK High School?
Economic times are tough for everyone. Use what we have already, when money is nill. And while we're at it, let's get back an elected school committee who can show some independence from City Hall and represent the residents of Boston. And let's see the At Large Councilors get cut from the budget. Why do we need them, when every district is already represented? They were add ons when money flowed freely in city coffers. Time to revisit the need.
Mattapark? Interesting but undoable. Ditch councilors? Silly.
Like the idea of finding a good use for HPHS. Doubt that the mayor's neighbors and friends would find your idea very appealing though. So let's be honest and admit it doesn't have a chance in hell.
Really? What's the name of Roslindale's City Councilor?
The amount of money spent by/for the City Council may be more than you (or I) would like, but it's a drop in the bucket of the city budget.
Also, you're for an elected school committee, believing it would be more 'independent' (I'm inclined to agree, although Boston's former history with the efficacy of an elected board is not very encouraging). Why then, would you not be for a more independent and powerful city council as well, to offset the current 'little big man' system which has allowed one individual and his (unelected!) associates to run the city for the last two decades? (and for a mere twelve men to do so for the entire last 100 years!)
And is a powerful word
How about a "blended" school committee - 3 appointed by the mayor, 3 by the city council and 3 elected. There will always be politics here but this way you need a coalition of at least two of those groups with various and competing interests - could even divide the city into 3 districts and elect one committee-member from each district.
As for the city council - getting rid of the at larges might be hard - but we could probably get away with 7 district and 2 at large - with some of what goes on over there it's pretty obvious they are looking for things to do - and while we are at the charter reform to accomplish this we could look at giving them a little more power to balance out the mayor. Strong mayor system is one thing, a strongman system like we have is another.
Amen. Cmon council
Amen. Cmon council candidates. Put this on a palmcard and get some votes. Big anti Mumbles tide coming in District 3.
Hybrid School Committee better than l00% appointed
Rob Consalvo represents Roslindale on the City Council.
If you don't think the members of the City Council are the mayor's puppets, than you don't live in Boston. No one dares 'rock the boat.'
Hybrid school committee, part elected, part appointed, is better than all appointed. Hands down.
He does?
Strange that he's always listed as the representative for Hyde Park then.
And I guess you meant all of Roslindale except for the parts north and west of Fallon Field, or over by St. Michaels.
And I won't even get into what a farce it is to have one councilor repping both West Roxbury and JP!
Don't get me wrong - I actually like Ron, and have had several quality conversations with him. But anyone claiming that as currently mapped, a neighborhood-only City Council can adequately address the distinct concerns and issues of all Bostonians, is living in a dream world.
Roslindale: The amorphous blob of neighborhoods
Yes, we live in Roslindale and Consalvo is our city councilor. I'm betting he represents a lot more of the neighborhood than O'Malley (who used to live in Roslindale).
Yeah, the WR/JP pairing is kind of odd, but no more so (actually, less so) than South Boston and the South End/Chinatown.
Are you serious?
First, his name is Rob, not Ron.
Funny, by law, for over a couple hundred years, we've only had 2 senators representing the entire state of MA in Congress, and they seem able to represent the interests of the entire state. Whether you agree with them or not is an entirely separate matter.
I think District City Councilors could manage to address the 'distinct concerns and issues of all Bostonians.' They did before at large councilors ever existed.
Newton North....
...at half the price!
get Tom Finneran on the phone!
Wouldn't that eliminate the need
for busing? I thought it was all about school choice and diversity.
NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS NO WAY
If a white politician demanded a neighborhood school he would be labeled a racist.
You have to give Charles Yancey credit he got the T to spend millions of dollars on the Indigo Line. He got the Mattapan Library built and he shakes down the mayor better than your southie pols.
Yancey gets due credit for
Yancey gets due credit for the library — and for the B3 police station— but he had virtually nothing to do with the Fairmount $$. That's a state project and Mattapan and Dorchester can thank their state reps and the governor for that work — much tho Menino and Yancey might like to take credit.
Also, why would you propose a new
high school when the School Committee has not requested one?
Hyde Park buildings
Give him the recently-renovated Hyde Park school buildings that nobody else wants. Kill two birds with one stone.
Let the BRA modify the boundaries of Mattapan -- excuse me, the planning maps of Mattapan -- so that it includes the Hyde Park buildings.
Sorry, but the kids in
Sorry, but the kids in Mattapan need a new high school much more than the kids in Roslindale do. Mattapan has very little invested in it as a neighborhood. We could bus kids there from other parts of the city -- how about that? But making a maligned neighborhood the center of something beautiful, state-of-the-art, and exciting is a great idea. It doesn't feel so good to live in a place that is so run down. It would make students and teachers feel valued and important, in a part of the city that almost never feels valued and important.
Just to be clear ...
I'm not arguing that Roslindale needs a high school, but rather than Yancey's argument that Mattapan needs a high school just because it doesn't have one is kind of dumb.
And while, for a change, he didn't make that argument at a City Council meeting in February, I don't buy his other argument that Mattapan deserves a high school because of a report from 15 years ago. Enough has changed in Boston education in that time that it's probably no longer really relevant.
Sorry, but I have to
Sorry, but I have to challenge this notion that Mattapan doesn't get anything. In just the last five years we've seen (1) a new community center and middle school open on Mildred Ave. (2) a beautiful new library branch on Blue Hill Ave. (3) a new Mattapan Square T station (4) a new Fairmount Line station at Blue Hill Ave. coming in next 2 years.
Last month, they ground broke for a new state of the art Mattapan health center with a drug store and bank branch on first floor that'll open next year. The Mattahunt community center is getting a huge boost with Wheelock College stepping into run it- and the swimming pool there is open again thanks to them.
The city is about to spend $3 million to upgrade Almont Park. The state is getting ready to extend the Neponset Greenway into Mattapan Square - another $10 million.
These are all things that were a long time coming- but we've had excellent leadership in recent years from our civic groups, councilman Yancey and Rob Consalvo, Rep Linda Forry and the mayor. It hasn't hurt that the governor - who lives 5 minutes from Mattapan Square- has been involved in some of the projects too.
People who say Mattapan never gets anything beautiful or state-of-the-art probably havent been there lately.