Back to School
Boston Public Schools is back in session tomorrow!
Tomorrow our family will officially have two “big kids,” according to my 6 year-old.
He declared this at the school uniform store in Uphams Corner yesterday—very matter-of-factly, but not looking quite so big as he disappeared under the huge racks of blue and white shirts to keep playing hide-and-seek with his brother.
Boston Public Schools has two First Days of School: 1st through 12th graders start the Thursday after Labor Day, followed by Kindergarteners & Pre-K the next Monday. My little guys can’t wait to both start together for the first time tomorrow, entering 1st grade and 3rd grade!
Among some of the many preparations, this morning I joined Superintendent Mary Skipper, the BPS Reengagement Center team, and a few dozen volunteers for our annual Back to School engagement efforts, knocking on doors to check in with students and families before the first day. Our focus was on speaking with families and students who have faced challenges with absenteeism over the last school year—offering direct connection to personalized supports, and learning how BPS and the City can do better or help meet some of the other needs that are affecting attendance.
In doorway after doorway, we heard about issues like health or housing stability, and made a plan to connect the right services and contacts. This direct engagement, family by family, is part of our larger focus on student supports, family advancement, and community engagement. As most major urban districts saw an increase in absenteeism last school year coming out of the pandemic, Boston had a 5% decrease.
Following through on this approach of individualized supports, community engagement, and excellent services requires investing first in our workforce. Headed into this school year, we’re fully staffed up in the departments that had struggled most with vacancies: bus drivers and bus monitors (200 more bus monitors ready to go compared to a year ago!), food service staff, safety services team, and community connection coordinators. Much improved compared to recent years, our teaching positions are 97% filled, with coverage for every classroom as we continue to hire. And with the lowest turnover among school leaders in more than a decade, we have steady leadership in our schools, supported by a robust infrastructure for academic, socioemotional, operational, and professional development supports across nine regions within the district.
Even as we plan all year to boost hiring and improve systems, there are always unexpected challenges. This time last year, the entire Orange Line was shut down, and we organized extraordinary measures to provide additional yellow bus service for any impacted student. This year, school districts across the state face high temperatures, as summers in the Northeast become hotter and hotter, for longer stretches. Air conditioning units have been installed in most schools and fans deployed in all the rest, but these are band-aids that remind us of how old our school buildings are (more than two-thirds built before WWII), and how long these foundational but less flashy issues have been left on the backburner.
As a BPS mom, my days start and end with thinking about my two little/big guys and all our young people in the city. Every week we delay taking action for our schools and families adds up quickly to decades of deferred maintenance and deepening disparity. But on the other hand, every doorway we reach, every urgent investment and systemic barrier we choose to tackle—sets the course for generational impact that benefits all of us. I’m grateful and excited to keep building.
Have a wonderful first day of school!
Please just take the job at Harvard. It will be better for your young family and, more importantly, better for the taxpayers and residents of our once-great city.