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Madison Park students walk out of class - well, out of school, since they haven't been assigned classes yet

By adamg on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 4:01pm

If BPS officials are trying to convince the state to take Madison Park High School off their hands, they're doing an excellent job of it: Students walked out of school in a protest today because four days after the start of their school year, the school has yet to assign them to any classes.

The Dorchester Reporter interviewed the student who organized the protest.

Neighborhoods: 
Roxbury
Free tagging: 
Madison Park High School
Boston Public Schools


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Comments

By Hyde_Parker on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 4:31pm.

FOUR DAYS??? Really, BPS? What is the problem here? As much as I'm ready to put the blame for many of BPS's problems on disinterested parents and students, I think it falls squarely on BPS here.

This is the same school that recently had a (seemingly) high number of vacancies, right?

By adamg on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 4:38pm.

Also, should be noted that, at normally operating BPS secondary schools, classes are assigned well before the first day of school - which in our case was a good thing, because they'd made a mistake with one of our daughter's classes (they'd assigned her to Italian when she wanted Chinese), which she was able to fix by e-mailing the guidance counselor a few weeks ago.

By SwirlyGrrl on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 4:46pm.

Would you videotape the lawyer scrum to file the first lawsuit? For us?

By kvn on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:11pm.

Italian? Chinese ? No French or German ? No Greek ?

By adamg on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:14pm.

Interesting thing this year: More kids at her school signed up for first-year German than first-year French.

By Hyde_Parker on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:30pm.

Weltmeistereffekt? (World Cup effect?)

By kvn on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 7:56pm.

Sie mich verarschen ?

By adamg on Wed, 09/10/2014 - 2:11pm.

Nein.

By Deflecting is blaming parents!... on Wed, 09/10/2014 - 6:09am.

Come on folks. BPS has been run in the ground for decades. There are only a handful of thriving schools. And the "top" school has students registered as living in Boston, but actually reside well outside the city limits.

Mayor Walsh needs to make BPS intervention his top, top, top priority.

Parents and students are not the problem that has been lingering in BPS for decades. How many Mayors have we had since inception and what in the heck have they done to improve the quality of life in the city for the underserved communities????? Parents and students are a fraction of the stakeholders. The fix-up is gonna require full engagement from politicians, the Mayor especially.

You think this class registration is a mess????? Be a parent trying to register for school you will learn BPS didn't have their act together for that either. STUDENTS ARE STILL NOT PLACED IN SCHOOLS!!!!!

They need to get off their humps and get moving. They had all last year to prepare for the current year and the same dysfunction persists!

By Michael Kerpan on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 4:43pm.

Really quite unforgiveable!

By anon on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 4:55pm.

Even if they were assigned a class schedule, what difference would it make. Madison Park is rank as one of the lowest preforming HS in the state, and has held that title for some time know.

By Scratchie on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:14pm.

Yeah, fuckin' losers, amirite? Why even bother? You don't mind if we send them over to your neighborhood from 8 to 3 every day, do you?

By anon on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:32pm.

rossie high long before I was of HA age. But hey I'm sure they could play ball down Fallon.

By sunny on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:19pm.

I imagine you'd find this hard to believe but there are kids who go to this school to learn and actually want to go to class. I bet your head hurts at the thought.

By anon on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 6:32pm.

Who recently graduated from Madison. MP has become an ESL school without the proper staff. Part of fixing BPS, is they need a dedicated school for HS kids who have deficultly reading and writing English. Boston has a growing Hispanic population. I'm surprised their not demanding this. It would free up resources at other HS, while providing a much needed service to their community.

By Stop blaming and Fix the schoo... on Wed, 09/10/2014 - 1:22pm.

I mind, my tax dollars are wasted and I can't get a refund. Don't blame the students/parents...there's enough blame to spread around...

Just fix them mess!!!

By sunny on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:25pm.

It is outrageous that they would not have a schedule by the first day of school. BPS has basically given up on this school. I believe these actions (not enough teachers and no schedules) are deliberate and they should be embarrassed into doing better.

What are the city councilors on this issue?

By anon on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:30pm.

Pretty soon they won't have to walk to far to protest when the Ferdinand building opens up at Dudley square and the bosses at BPS have to move there. I hope for their sake there is a panic room in the building

By anon on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:37pm.

Adam, didn't you do a story about this weeks ago, and wasn't the implication that the school was intentionally mismanaged so that a charter school led by Bank of America would get their greedy little hands on it?

By adamg on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:47pm.

Here.

But Tito Jackson, who's involved in that issue, was a bit furious at BPS over its handling of Madison Park.

By PastaBatman on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 5:58pm.

I knew kids who chose that school and didn't even realize its was a vocational school. Fun fact Madison park is one of the relatively rare schools in the nation to host a Marine Corps JROTC unit.

By Keri on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 8:23pm.

It was amazing. My high school was a low-income neighborhood with lots of at-risk kids, and our JROTC was the saving grace for many of my friends.

I only recently realized that the program wasn't very common - turns out my county had the nation's largest JROTC program: http://www.aldist9fl.org/browardjrotc.shtml

Anyway, Madison Park may have its issues, but just ignoring it to death is deplorable on the part of BPS and screws the students even further. I wish it weren't happening.

By mmoc on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 8:54pm.

Lynn English, Beverly High, Salem High all have Marine Corps JROTC, too. Maybe it is more common than you think?

By PastaBatman on Wed, 09/10/2014 - 12:31am.

I stand corrected

By anon on Wed, 09/10/2014 - 8:24am.

there are 257 schools listed on the Marine Corps JROTC web site, which is ~1% of high schools in the US. Seems pretty rare.

By Roslindaler on Tue, 09/09/2014 - 7:53pm.

I find it impossible to believe that after the administration's failure to properly staff the school it is mere coincidence that they have also failed to issue schedules. The globe needs to investigate the inner workings of the BPS central office, starting with Its treatment of Madison Park, to help all of us understand exactly what is going on here. It is disgraceful that the students of this school - who want to get an education - must protest to be allowed to attend classes. As a tax paying Bostonian I want an explanation for this and it better be good. Marty - if you don't fix the BPS during your first term in office, there will not be a second. The buck stops with you.

By Anon on Wed, 09/10/2014 - 12:35am.

Globe is too busy demonizing BTU and pushing charters and testing to investigate gross incompetence at court street. Marty needs to clean house. And Maybe talk to brookline and find out what they're doing over there.

By Scratchie on Wed, 09/10/2014 - 8:54am.

Maybe talk to brookline and find out what they're doing over there.

Spending money?