Mayor Wu said today a decision will come "soon" on whether to require BPS students and staffers to don mask for the first couple of weeks of school in January. Read more.
BPS
We delivered the following testimony at School Committee last night, along with the 44 responses we have received so far from our survey. Change is in the air – can you feel it? Join us!#BosEdEquity #bospoli pic.twitter.com/x2tPe5OEMT
Boston city councilors agreed today to focus some attention on problems ensuring BPS secondary students can get to schools - and after-school activities and jobs - in a far-flung city with an unreliable public-transit system, and will schedule a formal hearing on the matter. Read more.
Prior Years
In FY15 and FY16, although the mayor's budget increased funding in Boston Schools by approximately $38m each year, the two budgets actually cut spending by $65m and $40m respectively.
Principals had to make choices and staff was cut. (Regrettably, there is no composite list kept by the administration that we can reference to see the impact. That would be a good thing to do.)
~75 local parents, teachers, communities members and many of their children showed up at the steps of the State House this afternoon to protest the proposed 2014/2015 BPS budget cuts and to ask the state to consider holding the lifting the charter cap until the state finds away to make sure both school systems are fully funded.
Several parent and student organizers spoke to a lively crowd, with some excellent chants led by public and charter high school students.
The Bay State Banner reports. BPS has had problems finding a permanent headmaster for the exam school since Rodney Peterson resigned last year after news got out about his domestic-violence issue.
Story corrected to reflect fact BPS is changing the design of the cards, not the actual ID numbers, well, except for the CharlieCard part of the card.
BPS officials were forced to scramble over the weekend when they learned the company about to print up 21,000 student IDs lost a flash drive with basic student ID information.
The loss means BPS will come up with new OneCard ID cards for the students, to be printed by the vendor, Plastic Card Systems of Northboro:
State law requires 180 days of education for Massachusetts students, but most BPS high-school kids really only get 175. At my daughter's school, finals were last week, so the kids are spending this week watching movies in classes (she reports she saw parts of "Gattaca" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" yesterday).
Of course, this is nothing unique to this year - it's been going on forever. But it is especially stupid and even cruel this year, when kids who can't simply skip the entire week (because they were out sick earlier in the year and are bumping up against their limits for absences) have to try to survive extreme heat and humidity in buildings with no air conditioning that were locked tight over a hot weekend.
BPS reports Matthew Johnson, husband of Superintendent Carol Johnson, passed away late yesterday in Memphis:
Matthew Johnson, her husband of nearly 40 years, was also an educator. Together they have three children. Their family shares a powerful sense of civic responsibility, educational equity and a commitment toward creating better opportunities for all.
The Superintendent has asked Chief Financial Officer John McDonough to serve as Acting Superintendent while she is away.
The Globe reports a teacher at the Joyce Kilmer School is under investigation by police and school and state child-protection officials for "inappropriate contact with students" and that the school's principal has been removed from his position.
In a recent post, The Mayor's new budget -- which raises our real estate tax the maximum amount -- I asked the question: "Do residents get good value?"
Today's Globe Editorial criticizes the city's handling of fiscal issues, in particular, school renovations:
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