Madison Park High School and the O'Bryant School, which are next to each other on Malcolm X Boulevard in Roxbury, went into "safe" mode Friday afternoon because of what school officials say was a swatting: Somebody called Boston Police to report somebody was on the grounds of one of the schools with a gun, only when police arrived, they determined it was a hoax. Read more.
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. Read more.
The Dorchester Reporter gets the details on the theft last Friday of the guns and only the guns.
Michelle Wu today unwrapped her housing agenda, which focuses on making Boston more affordable for the middle class, and which includes a return of rent stabilization, a commitment to use $200 million of incoming federal relief aid on affordable-housing construction and eliminating parking requirements for new all affordable buildings. She would also use municipal funds for mortgage support and savings matching to help people who are not in the market for a condo at One Dalton. Read more.
Big-canvas artist Nate Swain shows us the creation story of the new forest mural he just installed on a side of Madison Park Vocational High School on Malcolm X Boulevard in Roxbury - which started seven years ago when he began the mural at the giant art studio that briefly lived at the old Bartlett bus depot in Roxbury. Read more.
The Globe reports and discusses other leadership changes at BPS high schools.
WBZ Newsradio reports, adds the school itself is out of session until Monday.
WFXT reports on the situation at English High School in Jamaica Plain and the O'Bryant School and Madison Park, next to each other in Roxbury. The schools were put in "safe" mode," in which students and teachers try to go on with their days normally even as all external doors are locked to keep people out; the schools are now back to regular mode.
Not one to feed students, but one in which culinary-arts students will feed hungry Bostonians this summer, the Dorchester Reporter reports. "There’s no curriculum for food trucks anywhere in the state, so I was like, all right, we’re gonna create our own," the teacher running the program says.
The Boston City Council today agreed to hold at least one hearing to try to figure out how to make Madison Park the sort of vocational school that educators from other cities would want to visit to learn how it does things. Read more.
BPS officials reported today that state education officials have dropped Madison Park High School to the second-worst "accountability" results for 2015, which means the state considers it "underperforming."
But BPS officials says there's a glimmer of hope in the new Level 4 designation for the city's only vocational school: Read more.
The School Committee could vote to require students to meet certain standards to get into the city's only vocational high school.
At a meeting tonight, the school's executive director, Kevin McCaskill, submitted a proposal that students be required to submit a recommendation from a guidance counselor or teacher and be ranked on their middle-school academic and disciplinary records. Read more.
The Dig provides comments from students.
A couple weeks ago, the Bay State Banner painted a rosier picture of where the school is today, although it didn't provide any comments from students.
Diane Ross Gary, Madison Park headmaster, submitted her resignation Friday after a week of turmoil at the school over a major class-schedule mess - and after interim Superintendent John McDonough learned she had never submitted the paperwork to be certified as a headmaster in Massachusetts, to which she had moved from Connecticut to lead Madison Park in 2013.
Interim School Superintendent John McDonough said the scheduling screwup that left Madison Park High School students without any classes for four days is fixed for now but is only "the tip of the iceberg" of problems at the city's only vocational school.
After hearing School Committee members calling the problem inexcusable - member Meg Campbell said it never would have happened at Boston Latin School - McDonough expressed frustration with unspecified forces he said are blocking him at every turn from implementing a plan developed this past spring to bootstrap the school.
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.
The Bay State Banner reports on a staffing issue at Madison Park High School.
School officials traveled to Madison Park High School in Roxbury today to put teachers, administrators and students that this time they're serious about turning the school around - through an emergency "intervention team" to be assembled to figure out why an earlier "innovation plan" has failed.
Also see: He lunches with the Kennedys and is cheered at a mass rally.
Mandela's speech at Harvard in 1998:
RIP, Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013.
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