A group of white and Asian-American parents - and their California-based law firm - this week asked the US Supreme Court to overturn rulings by federal courts in Boston that the School Committee did nothing wrong when it changed the way students are accepted to the three exam schools by including Zip codes in addition to grades as a criterion. Read more.
The Boston City Council this week formally accepted a $500,000 grant from the state Department of Education to develop a lesson plan for teaching students how to use open data sources - with a focus on the city's own Analyze Boston collection of public data sets on everything from crime reports and restaurant inspections to listings of city streetlights and data on where people are using parking meters. Read more.
Randolph Abraham, athletic director at Brighton High School is asking for some help in rebuilding the school baseball program:
We are rebuilding the program stronger than ever and have some incredible young men who are in need of cleats and gloves. If anyone wants to donate gloves and cleats you no longer use, please bring them to the high school and ask for Coach Abraham. Size 9, 9 1/2, 10. Or anything.
Boston Parents Schoolyard News reports students and teachers at BLA are petitioning BPS to keep Rajeeve Martyn, who heads the departments of history and world languages, and Jane Victor, science department leader - now scheduled to be laid off as part of an effort to cut costs.
Students and teachers say their losses in particular would be devastating for the exam school.
The bus driver suffered leg and hip pain in the crash at Wentworth Street and Claridge Terrace off Norfolk Street around 4:40 p.m. One child was also transported to the hospital for observation. Police summoned ISD to check the house's structural integrity.
WBZ reports on the incident involving a special-needs child who was first put in restraints, which were then duct-taped to a chair at the Condon School in South Boston. The teacher and other staffers have been put on administrative leave as BPS investigates.
WBUR reports Mayor Wu and Boston Public Schools have "indefinitely" put on hold plans to rebuild the crumbling former West Roxbury High School into a new state-of-the-art home for the John D. O'Bryant School, after parents, students and teachers raised objections to a school on the side of a swamp about as far away from the rest of the city as one could get.
Mayor Wu has declared a snow emergency for Tuesday, which means BPS schools and municipal buildings will be shut. Read more.
A foundation started by the former mayor of New York today announced a $37.8 million grant to double the size of the Edward M. Kennedy Academy of Health Careers and create a new series of college-level classes and internships aimed at getting graduates careers in the Mass General Brigham system. Read more.
Screen captures from one parent's phone of the message parents got.
Police ordered Boston Latin Academy into "safe" mode early this afternoon after a parent reported her daughter had just called her to tell her another student was inside the school with a gun. Read more.
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.
WBUR reports on a Boston Public Schools document released yesterday that could many of the city's smaller public schools closed as BPS builds out a new system of larger, more modern schools all with the space and equipment needed for a "high-quality student experience." The proposal does not name specific schools; it's meant as a starting point for more detailed discussions this spring with parents and staff.
A federal appeals court yesterday rejected, again, a bid to block Boston Public Schools from changing its previous grades-and-test-score criteria for admissions to Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the O'Bryant School. Read more.
A crash involving a school bus and several vehicles outside the Henry Grew School, 40 Gordon Ave. in Hyde Park this morning injured a parent standing on the sidewalk as students were arriving for the day. Read more.
Boston Latin School Head of School Jason Gallagher alerted parents today that a student discovered "a small swastika" etched into a gym door - even as the school was planning to launch programs "related to antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Arab discrimination." Read more.
Flynn before realizing why Mohamed (l) and Blackmon were getting the congratulations he'd signed.
The Boston City Council yesterday officially congratulated two New Mission High School students for their activism without realizing that that involved organizing a walkout at the Hyde Park school last week to call for an end to Israeli warfare in Gaza and freedom for Palestine. Read more.
Boston city councilors today condemned what they call an abuse by the state-owned Reggie Lewis Center at Roxbury Crossing: Boston student athletes have to clear out by 3:30 p.m. so busloads of students from well-off suburbs can use its state-of-the-art facilities for training and not get home too late. Read more.
The Boston City Council voted 10-2-1 today to formally oppose BPS's plans to move the O'Bryant School from its current location on Malcolm X Boulevard in Roxbury to a rebuilt West Roxbury Education Complex on VFW Parkway, saying that location, almost in Dedham, is just too far way for many students and that BPS has failed to really take into account the concerns of O'Bryant students, parents and teachers, let alone possible alternatives. Read more.
A Sumner School staff member suffered minor injuries this afternoon while helping students cross Cummins Highway in Roslindale Square near the former Washington Irving Middle School that is now the Sumner's upper school, according to e-mail sent to parents by school Principal Meghan Welch. Read more.
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