Boston School Committee: 12·6·23 Meeting Recap

Last Night At School Committee

Last night’s meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report, where Superintendent Skipper discussed two memos released earlier that day. The first memo addressed long-term facility planning, a comprehensive plan for which is due to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) by the end of the year. The memo noted that just 71 out of 119 schools meet standards for optimal school size, and just 18% of school buildings provide most or all of the elements defined by BPS as necessary for a “high-quality student experience.” The memo also outlined a timeline for school closures and mergers, noting that decisions will be announced this upcoming spring and planning will take place during the 2024-25 school year, with mergers and closures beginning in the fall of 2025. Notably, these decisions will be announced after both this year’s budget process and the school choice season, meaning students will be choosing schools without knowing if they might be closed after next year.

The second memo discussed during the Superintendent’s report was an update to the school quality framework scores - the first update since 2019. Each school is given a composite score out of 100 based on 75% student performance and 25% survey responses from students, faculty, and families, and schools are then ranked from tier 1 to tier 4, with the highest quality schools in tier 1. The memo did not provide individual school scores nor any underlying data for the calculations, and the data included in the memo was surprising. For example, the Sarah Greenwood School has a 7% accountability score from DESE and is tier 1. The Blackstone School has a 6% accountability score and is tier 2. English High School has a 3% accountability score and is in tier 2, while Boston Latin School, which has a 96% accountability score, is also in tier 2, having moved down from tier 1 in this new ranking. While annual updates to the school quality framework are typically presented as a standalone report to the School Committee, last night it was only mentioned during the Superintendent’s remarks, and no questions were asked about this data by members of the School Committee.

The Superintendent ended her remarks by announcing that she will propose changes to the exam school policy at next week’s School Committee meeting.

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