Weak ‘Build BPS’ plan rollout angers parents
The long-awaited Build BPS plan — a 10-year, $1 billion master plan to rebuild and reorganize Boston’s schools — is being issued today without any of the promised hard recommendations, and instead relaunches a new community input process during a mayoral election year.
The plan, which was originally slated to be released last fall and implemented in January, reports on school building conditions, maintenance and repair needs, but falls short of any concrete recommendations for actual construction projects or reorganization.
City officials are now billing Build BPS as a “ground-up” process in which final decisions on whether schools will undergo renovations or be completely overhauled will await new input from parents and neighbors. Community input already had been sought over the past year.
Community members told the Herald yesterday they are disappointed with the lack of real solutions and answers for the future of the district’s aging schools — 66 percent of which were built before World War II.
“We were expecting concrete information,” said Peggy Wiesenberg of Quality Education for Every Student, a parent activist group. “It was supposed to be last summer, then they pushed it to October. ... It’s a problem this was delayed. Now it looks as if the timing of substantive recommendations are aligned with the upcoming election campaign, and that’s a shame.” City Councilor Tito Jackson, who is challenging Mayor Martin J. Walsh in this year’s election and has staked out the schools as a major issue, lambasted the plan as “underwhelming” and a “disappointment.” “It again means young people, neighborhoods and communities have had to wait,” Jackson said. “This has to be marked late homework from BPS.”
The Build BPS plan had been heralded by Walsh since 2015 as a desperately needed overhaul that could mean closing some schools and redesigning and rebuilding others.
Today, the Walsh administration will instead unveil a “dashboard” for analyzing school building conditions, with a new school building office in the city’s Public Facilities Department, “work-shop style” public input, and $13 million for new technology.
Rahn Dorsey, the mayor’s chief of education, said, “We’re building a muscle here. This engagement process will have to be an annual process — we’ll engage, set some priorities that will guide our capital budget development. Hit the repeat button.”
Adding to the ire of some, the plan will be formally rolled out this morning at the Boston Municipal Research Bureau’s annual breakfast with a $200 per person cover charge.
“I wish the announcement of the plan was happening in a more democratic place that is more welcoming to families and BPS constituents,” said parent Megan Wolf. “I think it sends a certain message when your live audience is from a more privileged group.”