Schools boss plans closings, mergers

By Edward Mason
Thursday, October 7, 2010

Hub schools chief Carol R. Johnson is proposing shuttering six struggling schools, merging others, and launching new city-controlled charter schools, part of a sweeping program to improve the city’s struggling schools.

Johnson, who unveiled her plans last night before the School Committee, told the Herald that summer meetings with parents showed they’re as impatient as she is for change.

“Parents want their kids to be in successful schools right now,” Johnson said. “We don’t need to wait for the state to tell us which of our schools are underperforming.”

If School Committee votes Nov. 3 to approve the plan, the schools would close in June.

Among the schools slated for closure are three Hyde Park high schools - the Community Academy of Science and Health, the Engineering School and the Social Justice Academy.

Two elementary schools - the Ralph Waldo Emerson in Roxbury and Roger Clap in Dorchester - would close, and the East Zone Early Learning Center will be moved to the William Trotter in Roxbury and James Holland in Dorchester.



Also, South Boston’s Patrick F. Gavin Middle School would be converted into an in-district charter school called UP Academy, while the Lee Elementary and Lee Academy would merge.

Johnson also is proposing adding at least one in-district charter school beyond UP Academy and is asking for proposals for more.

The schools slated for closure or merger were picked because they were academic weaklings, Johnson said.

But Boston Teachers Union honcho Richard Stutman noted at least one of the schools, the Gavin, had better MCAS scores than other schools left untouched.

“It’s a perplexing development,” Stutman said. “But I think they’re determined to do it that way.”

Still, Johnson found support last night from Boston City Councilor John Connolly, who chairs the education committee.

“Nobody likes it when they’re school is closing, but I support the superintendent,” Connolly said. “She’s got to make tough choices to move the schools forward and give kids better opportunities to make investments in programs.”

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Facing the past

BOSTON
JUSTIN A. RICE

This was Horace Small’s response when he heard the results of a recent Northeastern University study that found Greater Boston to have some of the most racially segregated schools in the nation: “What ... else is new?”

Small believes Boston never truly reconciled the emotional residue left over from the 1970s busing crises in which a court order to bus black students to white neighborhoods and vice versa caused racial upheaval.

Case in point: The South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission Small is currently working on has gotten major push-back from folks who don’t see any point in rehashing the past.

“Thirty-six years later, we don’t ever talk about the elephant in the room,” said Small, who runs the Union of Minority Neighborhoods. “Busing continues to cloud people’s attention and feelings. In order to go forward, we need a new beginning. We need to come to terms with it so a real conversation can transpire about what needs to happen.”

Small, who won an $84,000 grant from New York-based nonprofit called the Andrus Family Fund, has already interviewed more than 100 people for a TV special expected to air on the Boston Neighborhood Network in November.

“Hopefully we’ll have a commission of volunteers willing to speak by the end of the year,” he said, “where all of this stuff can be looked at.”

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