Boston School Committee: 6·5·24 Meeting Recap

Last Night At School Committee

Last night’s meeting lasted about four and a half hours, and touched on numerous subjects. The meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report, where Superintendent Skipper spent most of the time discussing the negotiations with the Boston Teachers Union. The Superintendent noted that she hopes to have a deal by the end of the month, and that negotiations were going smoothly. However, numerous BTU members, including president Jessica Tang and vice president Erik Berg, testified asking the School Committee members to join negotiation and support the co-teaching model in every classroom in the district and adjust the pay for over 8,000 members of the BTU to be in line with inflation.

The School Committee heard three reports last night. The first report was on Interim Salary and Non-Personnel Payments on External Funds, which was a short presentation. The second report was a proposal to rename the Jeremiah E. Burke High School to the Dr. Albert D. Holland High School of Technology. Dr. Holland has been a revered school administrator and community leader for nearly 40 years, and the majority of public commenters came to support the renaming.

The third report of the evening was an update on equitable literacy. Equitable literacy has been a priority for the district for the past few years, and the School Committee has heard numerous updates from the Superintendent and her team about it. Last night’s report covered updates around implementation and a centralized strategy, but there was little to no data on student outcomes nor accountability measures being taken to ensure every student in Boston is reading at grade level.

The next School Committee meeting will be held in-person or on Zoom at 6 pm on Monday, June 17th.

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