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BPS rejects parent proposal to shut Charlestown High School to make way for new school largely free of BPS oversight
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Brutal.
Parents wanted to invest time and money trying something new at a failing school. Politics got in the way. This is a real shame, and the 3600 kids aged 0-17 in Charlestown, along with the current students, are the losers in all of this.
Are you saying there are 0
Are you saying there are 0 challenges with this plan?
3,600 kids?
I would have taken the wayyyy under on that.
A lot of parents
Don’t currently send their kids to BPS for obvious reasons. This would have allowed them to.
Thank you
Great summary, thanks Adam.
I hope the petitioners come back with an improved plan, none of the three-member committee’s objections (or the parents’) are to the basic proposal of converting Charlestown to an innovation school.
Out of curiosity (and I’ll go look for myself in a second), how many tries did it take to get the Eliot innovation proposal accepted?
The Eliot innovation proposal
The Eliot innovation proposal came from within the school community so those proposals, while not always an easy path, typically do not have much resistance. As long as teachers are on board, innovation plans move forward.
The Charlestown proposal never had a chance. Why ANYBODY would think that this proposal had a chance is beyond me. Every aspect of the proposal was meant to gentrify Charlestown High.
Adam, you are wrong on the enrollment
The drafters said they were in favor of open enrollment to everyone in the city. The initial proposal discussed the possibility of preferences for Charlestown/north end elementary schools, but it was discarded.
I'm only reporting what school officials said
Sounds like there are some major communications issues between the two sides (also see the issue of whether or not the parents were allowed to talk to people at Charlestown High).
The BPS analysis even looked at how many kids would come from the three specific K-8 schools - and concluded there wouldn't be enough to fill all the available seats.
But again, I'm going off what BPS said at the meeting.
Surrender yourself to the possibility that BPS is lying.
What possible reason would the parents have for making up a story about BPS blocking access to teachers/enrolled student families? It made the parents’ job demonstrably more difficult. Casellius blocked access, directed the parents to engage with the BPS central administration instead, then the administration suggested the parents wait at least a year before releasing the proposal.
This was a targeted political move by Casellius. Why is that so hard to imagine?
But why SHOULD BPS grant
But why SHOULD BPS grant access to the school community? The proposal didn't come from anyone currently involved with the school, why would teachers, staff, students, families have to spend any time talking to people who just want to tell them their school is failing? If I were the parent of a Charlestown HS student, I would be very grateful that the district protected my kid from having to listen to these people.
then don’t lie about it
and use the lack of outreach as a basis to seny the proposal.
you are making a strawman thats not relevant.
Okay
So they have invented new branding for Segregation.
Interesting.
Wrong.
You don’t know anything about this topic, and you don’t live in Boston.
Here and we thought segregation
Was when white people moved to the suburbs
Judge Garrity, is that you,
Judge Garrity, is that you, coming to visit us from beyond the grave?
Interesting take
From a woman from a suburb about as diverse as Charlestown.
Oh, and let's not forget that it's a town that forbids outsiders from using its beach.
When did Medford
Get a beach?
I know the coasts are eroding, but (expletive), that was quick. Does that Thunberg kid know about this?
I assume it's Wright's Pond
https://medfordma.myrec.com/info/facilities/details.aspx?FacilityID=14717
That's the one
Swirly brought it up a while back as an example of how to handle parking at recreational facilities. I decided to look into it and was amazed that I would be turned away if I tried to walk into the facility.
I was going to claim that Charlestown was more diverse than Medford, but that would have been too much of a stretch for me. That said, close to 50% of the under 18 population of Charlestown is non-White. If I could track down the under 18 numbers for Medford, I would have made a comparison or just would have said nothing. And to be clear, the proposal, as it was made, was a bit fishy, but to say that it was a return to segregated education was clearly 1974 thinking in 2021.
That's gross
Where I come from, water access is for all. Borders are a cancer, especially small ones. How Napoleonic.
Will somebody stop the damn match?!
Enough is enough!
Another terrible school
Spend a few minutes on this page, why would anyone want to change this?
https://reportcards.doe.mass.edu/2020/00350515
This is the final grade
Hey now!
If you go by these 28 Lake Woebegone metrics, CHS is a pretty above-average school (sometimes even above-above-average!), thank you very much!
https://schoolyardnews.com/is-charlestown-high-a-failing-school-is-your-...
But yes, this school has dropped 33% of its attendees in the last decade with another 10 or 15% drop next year, can’t find a graduation metric to get them above 60-70% graduation rate, and is going to get put out of its misery soon.
Why not table and ask for an improved proposal?
Could the School Committee have tabled the proposal and asked the proponents to come back with a revised plan that included input from existing Charlestown High parents and the teachers with best practices from existing programs?
No doubt not talking to parents and suggesting all teachers resign and reapply to the new school was a real deal breaker. However, BPS administrators told the proponents *not* to speak with parents or the school directly, but to present their proposal to the powers-that-be at Bolling Building. Bit of a set-up.
With all the busing that is required of CHS students and the distance of the school from many of their working parents, it makes it very hard to engage families in making the school better.
BPS can't get out of its own way
Another weight on the balance for receivership
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/01/17/opinion/boston-public-schools-sho...
What a surprise, parents want
What a surprise, parents want to improve a school and BPS squashes the proposal. Kids are learning nothing in BPS school’s right now including the exam schools. There are no teachers showing up to work.
Excellent article
This sums it up
?
We spend 23 thousand dollars per student and our schools are still an embarrassment.
Officials use a lot of buzzwords like inequity in education, yet they are the ones running the schools so if there is inequity maybe they should look in the mirror.
Every year enrollment numbers decline because parents pull their kids out,
then officials use that fact to cry inequity.
Our youngest attends the O'Bryant which isn't awful and our oldest is in private school ( thanks to a 2nd mortgage) so I'm very familiar with the whole system
How would people with no
How would people with no experience setting up a school be able to successfully set up a school?
How have the people with lots
How have the people with lots of experience in setting up a school done?
I think any school or distict
I think any school or distict that you would deem successful is being run by well-trained people with lots of experience.
The phrase "you don't know what you don't know" is important here.
If they're willing to hire
If they're willing to hire good teachers and a successful administrator and then commit to getting out of those peoples' way while they do the work they all have trained to do, it absolutely will be a more successfully run school than any of the ones currently having to deal with BPS Central interference.
BPS has plenty of experience
And is failing miserably.
It’s a change in direction which BPS desperately needs.
Well...
Well, many of us BPS Parents have multiple years of experience learning how NOT to set up and run a school.
Exactly
I'll give you an example, our youngest attended the Condon in Southie and the principal thought his politics were
important enough to send fliers home with kids about police only protecting one race of people, and removing the american flag from the auditorium and replacing it wit a BLM flag etc. , guess what the State's school report card says.
If the school was successful I think most parents would overlook the other stuff but it pisses you off when they are wasting time and effort on things which have no impact on improving education in their school.
There have been plenty of complaints but they are ignored as usual, and he is still in charge.
I commend the parents that spearheaded this proposal
I commend the parents that spearheaded this proposal while recognizing that the ability to even propose it is a privilege. The counter-arguments quoted from the committee and existing CHS parents seem incredibly weak when held up to any sort of light.
For example:
Doesn't the proposal include inclusive classes?
I realize that BPS is beholden to certain equality standards, but arguing against _any_ improvements because we’re currently unsure how implement them elsewhere is a guarantee that nothing will ever improve.
:-|
AKA
"There are some things that, in my knee-jerk assessment, could be improved, so we need to reject exploring it further"
I hope that the committee will consider a modified prospectus that accounts for the few legitimate concerns and possible improvements that were raised. We must move forward with change.
I really wish that the people
I really wish that the people talking about "failing" schools and "successful" ones would take five minutes to educate themselves on the relationship between income levels and test scores.
And if you already are educated on this then you know that "failing" and "successful" are coded language.
What do income levels have to with test scores?
We spend on average 23k per student in the BPS, no one is denied an education if they come from a poor family.
It's just an excuse used by the education bureaucracy. My oldests grades improved when he got to high school and left the BPS system.
It had nothing to do with how much we earn.
Breathtaking Hubris, indeed
Did white parents really think theyd be able to back door an entire new majority-white high school into the BPS overnight?! Right at the time were trying to diversify the best options in the city?!
HAHAHAHA that's HILARIOUS.
A Charlestown/North End only HIgh school (the whitest residential neighborhoods in Boston)? a school that go from 25% white to 62% white like they did the Eliot K-8?
How dumb do you think the rest of us are???? It's amazing the hubris.
A couple of questions:
For AdamG:
Where does the prospectus indicate that it "would limit enrollment to students from elementary schools in Charlestown and the North End"?
From the prospectus:
For the committee:
"the plan as written completely excluded existing Charlestown High School students"
What is this claim based on?
Again, from the prospectus:
They can’t answer those questions.
The opposition to this was based on feelings, not hard data. And it was support by blatant dissembling regarding the proposal.
Text version of the prospectus
Text version of the prospectus.
Teachers unions
Am I really the only one to have read this article and immediately think "the reason BPS can't support this proposal is because it cuts teacher unions out?"
I am lucky enough to be able to send my child to private school. For those of you who would immediately hate hate on me - yes I KNOW that is a privilege, but I hope the constant, daily anxiety over me or my spouse losing a job or getting into a car accident and potentially having to wreck my kid's entire future as a result counts as appropriate self-flagellation.
That being said ... whenever someone asks me why we made that choice, my first response is always "the problem with BPS is not the students, it's the teachers union." It prioritizes older teachers who may or may not have lost their passion - and does nothing to support incoming candidates who have passion and new ideas, but not connections.
I have no doubt being a teacher in a city environment is hard - but is it really "we need a union hard"? They're not working in a meat packing plant, or running into burning buildings, or chasing down bank robbers, or saving lives on a 24/7 hospital schedule. They're also not cleaning dirty hotel rooms or serving food to ungrateful college students. Unions are wonderful things meant to protect the vulnerable who have no other recourse. But if 7:30 - 2 with a 183 day work year and 18 hours of (paid) professional development are considered unfair work conditions, I really, really need to speak to my own boss.
Huh?
Hate? I glowingly and fawningly praise you for having a child while ensuring that you had the capital to take care of them yourself without begging a terrible, complacent community to help you.
As for your question about teaching being "We need a union" hard, that's a faulty question. Teachers don't have a union because their job is hard (which I can't answer), they have a union because they can.
Anyone who thinks that public school teachers get too much money are welcome to stop impregnating women. That remains a voluntary act, and then teachers would get $0.