Exam-school crisis: Uproar at the O'Bryant over possible move to West Roxbury, uproar at BLA over leadership

Parents, teachers and alumni at the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science tonight urged the School Committee to keep the school in Roxbury rather than moving it to distant West Roxbury, while people affiliated with Boston Latin Academy mostly urged the committee to find a new head of school who won't belittle and ignore teachers and students - although some praised and supported current Head of School Gavin Smith.

O'Bryant School

Opponents of a recently announced plan to move the O'Bryant from Malcolm X Boulevard to a larger and gut-renovated West Roxbury Education Complex told the committee the plan would mean moving a diverse, centrally located school with unique educational opportunities at nearby colleges and hospitals to an isolated location in one of the city's least diverse neighborhoods, with such long commutes many students would likely have to forego extracurricular or sports activities.

"West Roxbury is not an accessible neighborhood," and the extensive shuttle-bus service Mayor Wu and Superintendent Mary Skipper are promising could easily be taken away to save money in future budgets, said Liza Cagua-Koo, a Roslindale resident with a child at the school. "How can the Home Depot, Savers and even the VA hospital compare" to the colleges and hospitals near the current location, she asked, predicting that a West Roxbury location would "only be used by Boston's most privileged families."

Eugenia Corbo, who lives in East Boston, said she wouldn't send her kid to school in Needham or Dedham and West Roxbury isn't much better. Even turning Maverick station into an O'Bryant shuttle hub wouldn't help much because traffic in East Boston is so bad that kids who don't live right in Maverick would face a lengthy commute just to get there, before they even get to West Roxbury.

Chanel Shearer of Dorchester and mother of an O'Bryant honor student, called the proposed move "highly problematic." She said she chose the O'Bryant because it's near public transit and because it has the most diverse student population of the three exam schools. Move the school to VFW Parkway and that would "most definitely alter that diversity," she said.

Shearer - and others - agreed the O'Bryant needs a new building, but said the city should be looking at how and where to build one in Roxbury. Move opponents cited several possible sites, including the P-3 parcel between the current school and Tremont Street, on which developers recently won preliminary BPDA approval for a planned life-sciences and residential complex or city owned land near Melnea Cass Boulevard.

Boston Latin Academy

Boston Latin Academy, meanwhile, isn't going anywhere, but parents and teachers there called for the ouster of current Head of School Gavin Smith following a recent vote in which most teachers at the school voted they had no confidence in him.

Teachers at the school accused Smith of giving them a choice of "my way or the highway" and of refusing to listen to them at all on how to educate students or to work with them to fix problems.

Tristen Grannum, an English teacher, said many students and teachers came to school the first day last fall without complete schedules. He said Smith has refused to develop specific protocols for how teachers and staff should deal with incidents of violence and student behavioral issues and that he uses "fear and retaliation" to get what he wants. He added that hiring practices at the school now "do not always prioritize most qualified candidates."

Mary Dibinga, another English teacher - and mother of a BLA student - expressed "deep sadness" she had to address the committee, but said the no-confidence vote only came about because Smith refuses to listen to complaints and suggestions made through the normal "proper channels." She said Smith has taken to making teachers air their grievances in sessions with him and other teachers - with no guarantees against retaliation.

Lok-tin Yao, a health teacher and volleyball instructor, gave a specific example: Members of the girls volleyball team had to wait two months to get time in the gym for practices - despite more than 30 e-mails and phone calls. And when some of the team leaders finally got a "permit" to use the gym one day, they were turned away, because even though they were there at the right time, the wrong time was listed on their "permit."

Libbah Israel, a BLA student from Roxbury, though, disagreed, saying that while Smith is "direct," he is not rude, and that she appreciates that he wants "your best effort every day."

Manuela Medina, in her first year as a family liaison at BLA, also supported Smith, calling him a valuable mentor who is willing to both praise her and show her how to fix her mistakes. In contrast, she said, she's been "shunned by teachers" and "put into the 'do not associate' box" at the school, at least one of whom had the nerve to call her "sassy" at a meeting, which she said is "one of the more harmful or hurtful things you can say" to a Latina woman in a professional setting.

Ann Chinchilla DeGeorge of Roxbury, who has a child at BLA, though, said Medina has publicly attacked her and is nothing but "a mouthpiece for the leadership."

Smith did not speak during the Zoom meeting. As is their practice, neither School Committee members nor Skipper spoke or addressed any of the speakers during the public-comment period.