She said her team has “launched inclusion planning teams” at over 20 schools and worked with the union and school leaders to develop a plan for implementation at every school with a focus on kindergarten, grade 7 and grade 9, starting in the 2024-25 school year. In her comments last week to the Boston school committee, Skipper - who inherited the improvement plan after stepping into the superintendent role last fall - suggested that an inclusion plan is forthcoming. The hope is that those changes will, eventually, improve the experience of the district’s 46,000-plus students, especially its English learners and students with disabilities.īut according to Riley, the district still hasn’t filled key leadership roles, like “coordinator of problem resolution” - who would focus on school safety and parent concerns - as well as a senior staffer focused on special education.īPS drafted a plan to better serve English learners, Riley said, but he faulted the district for missing a November 2022 deadline to submit a separate plan to more fully include students with disabilities in general education classrooms. It requires BPS’s central office to grow in both size and focus, stepping up its formal planning and building up its internal systems. Most of the systemic improvement plan is concerned - not with bathrooms or buses - but with administrative change. Here’s a closer look at the state of play one year into the agreement: Unmade plans, missing staff In a statement provided to WBUR Tuesday, BPS spokesman Max Baker said that district leaders have pursued “immediate progress on some of our most urgent issues.”īaker added that the district meets monthly with the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to discuss progress, but that officials “cannot do this work overnight or alone if we truly want to create the lasting change that our students, families, and staff deserve.” Russell Johnston, a senior associate commissioner at DESE, said this year's funds were spent on audits that were either required under the plan or key staff who can “jumpstart” the work. Some board members questioned how that money is being spent. I'm not sure BPS, at this time, has upheld all of theirs,” Riley said to the state’s board of elementary and secondary education. "I believe we upheld our end of the bargain. DESE committed specialized training, technical assistance and a grant of $10 million over three years to facilitate rapid improvement. The state did seek to help the district comply with the agreement. But during that time, district staff are expected to present “regular reports” on their progress to the public - and to meet with DESE officials starting on a monthly, then a bimonthly basis. The agreement has a fixed end date of June 30, 2025. Cassellius was succeeded in the role by Mary Skipper last fall. The June 2022 improvement plan was signed by Riley Jeri Robinson, the chair of the Boston School Committee Mayor Michelle Wu and the district’s then-superintendent Brenda Cassellius. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science during an announcement earlier this month. Mayor Michelle Wu and School Superintendent Mary Skipper announce plans to relocate the John D.
He added that he expects the district to make further progress this summer before he can offer the board “a, comprehensive dive” into Boston’s progress in September. Riley reserved his harshest words for the city’s rollout of big changes like the planned relocation of a city exam school, saying it caught the state off guard. Reading from prepared remarks at a meeting, Riley noted that key leadership positions remain unfilled and that planned, school-level training in the resolution of parent complaints, for example, was never scheduled. “At best, we can say their grade would be ‘incomplete,’” Jeff Riley, commissioner of the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said Tuesday. One year in, the state’s top K-12 education official expressed frustration with the city’s progress to date. Tuesday marks exactly one year since Boston city and school leaders signed a consequential agreement with state education officials.īy accepting the so-called “ systemic improvement plan,” Boston Public Schools avoided formal state receivership, which some had feared.īut it committed the state’s largest school district to rapid change in a number of areas, including more reliable bus transportation, more inclusive special education, more robust school safety measures, more data transparency and better-kept facilities - for the most part with clear deadlines attached. Facebook Email Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley.
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