Boston School Committee: 1·24·24 Meeting Recap

Last Night At School Committee

Last night’s meeting lasted about five hours with only one report and nearly 50 speakers testifying during public comment. The meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report, where Superintendent Skipper spent the majority of the time discussing the School Quality Framework (SQF). The district made changes to the SQF last month without a full presentation or discussion, and School Committee members have been seeking clarification since those changes were announced. Member Cardet Hernandez requested a formal presentation to look into these changes and discuss how every student has equal access to high quality schools.

The meeting then moved onto public comment. The majority of speakers testified against the proposal to move the O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science to the former West Roxbury Academy building The remainder of public commenters spoke on different topics, including ongoing issues at the Gardner Pilot Academy, the exam school admissions policy, and the potential impact of budget proposals on school communities.

The only report of the evening was a mid-year update, given by the Superintendent and her team. The report covered updates on transportation, health and safety, access to grade level learning, and other areas the district is focusing on. However, the contents of the report did not include any data on student outcomes or school performance, leaving School Committee members asking for more clarification and actual outcome data to help understand the impact of the work the district is doing. With no discussion on performance data or outcomes, the Committee was left with outstanding questions going into the budget process regarding which investments are impacting student outcomes.

The School Committee was originally supposed to have a discussion on task forces, but after discussing further with members, Chair Robinson announced that this discussion would be tabled to a future meeting.

The meeting ended with new business from Committee members asking to continue discussion on a few key topics, including concerns raised in public comment about the Gardner, further conversation about the SQF, and revisiting areas from the Superintendent’s evaluation.

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