FYI from BSF, 03.18.22
Infrastructure Week
In a long week for educators, families, and students of the PA Shaw, the school’s facility plan went from limbo to a brief respite. The controversy was familiar: a school community demanding a facility solution that they believed they had been promised.
Like the Blackstone.
Or Edward M. Kennedy Health Careers Academy.
Or the Sumner, Mendell, and the Blackstone (again).
Or the Horace Mann.
Or the Muniz.
Or the Manning.
Or the Harvard-Kent.
Or the McCormack.
We are approaching seven years since BuildBPS was formally announced.
Yet, we still have no plan. Rather, we have free-for-alls. Like clockwork, with fall enrollment projections or winter/spring capital planning, individual schools and the district engage in a sort of brinksmanship over buildings, disrupting the lives of children, families, educators, and the district.
With no plan, how can you blame a school community for asking and organizing for what they want? With so many priorities, how can you blame a district for trying to say no?
If you’re underwhelmed by how you have seen facilities problems addressed (see BuildBPS and its questionable progress), the district agrees. At Wednesday’s Boston School Committee hearing, outgoing Superintendent Cassellius shared that the current piecemeal and opaque approach to school buildings is not working.
Next week, Boston School Committee will vote on a $1.3B budget. Fewer than 2% of the operating budget is committed to facilities work (ventilation, maintenance) and facilities planning (page 26). There are some repairs we now know will be in the capital budget. Across the 120+ school buildings, BPS plans to replace 4 boilers, 3 roofs, and one set of windows.
With the City capital budget still to come, we ask: where is the big, bold plan and the money to overhaul Boston’s school buildings?
Other cities have demonstrated what this would look like. After decades of neglect, New York City and Washington, D.C. prioritized school facilities and created the city-level infrastructure necessary to achieve actual results for students, families, and communities. New York City created a quasi-governmental agency — NYC School Construction Authority — to lead annual capital planning and major facilities projects, updating 1,400 school buildingsand adding early learning facilities citywide since its inception.
Frustrated with the pace of change in DC, the city passed legislation to codify a recurring school facilities capital planning process and empowered the Mayor to deliver with the creation of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization. In just over 15 years, all of DC’s 110 school buildings will be fully modernized and sustainable, and a new long-term plan was developed with community input.
Within her first 100 days, Mayor Wu showed her willingness to concentrate her support and resource critical city-wide issues (see new offices here and here), with eyes toward city planning on the horizon. It is certainly true that the City will need to make a big financial investment (BuildBPS outlined $3 billion in renovation costs), but first our leaders need to approach this as the massive public infrastructure project it is.
Fixing some roofs and filling potholes won’t do it.
We need a fresh start. Instead of allowing the district to spend $8M in federal stimulus dollars to do yet another facilities review and hire even more people and consultants, those dollars should remain at City Hall, which already controls the citywide capital plan anyways. With the funds the Mayor can launch an Office of School Facilities Revitalization to realize her campaign vision of “integrating BPS with City planning” and give this issue the staff and prioritization necessary to develop and execute a comprehensive school facilities plan for the city.
Centralizing what is now a fragmented and ineffective process, a dedicated City Hall team could:
Develop a community and data driven 5-year Master Facilities Plan for schools with clear priorities, projects, and timelines
Identify and implement major projects (e.g., new builds and renovations) and priority upgrades (e.g., high school science labs, HVAC, windows)
Engage and coordinate key community stakeholders and partners to participate in facility planning, design, and school launch
Source and align public and private funding to increase the pool of available dollars to revitalize facilities and surrounding infrastructure (e.g., playgrounds, athletic and arts spaces)
By shifting resources for long-term school capital planning and management to the City, Boston’s next Superintendent can focus on what’s happening walls-in: teaching, learning, well-being, and student outcomes.
For a more comprehensive look at how it can be done, check out our School Buildings policy recommendation in our report, Every Neighborhood, Every Child: Policy Pathways to Deliver High-Quality Education in Boston.
Reopening Boston, MA, and Beyond
School reported cases ticked up this past week across Massachusetts in Boston. Vaccination of Boston’s young school children appears to have peaked.
There continue to be questions about funding for response and recovery. Massachusetts still has $2B to spend, as states and districts around the country struggle to deploy the funds. Inflation may mean this year’s state education funding won’t go as far as intended. A state commission may have eyes on a large early education investment.
Other Matters
The search for Boston’s new superintendent presses on, with this week featuring the first ever Spanish-only listening session for the position. At the School Committee meeting on Wednesday, members broached the topic of contingency planning if a candidate is not identified by June.
It was a traumatic week for the TechBoston community, with a shooting outside of the school and a staff member arrested for a separate incident.
As the exam school admission process commences, the headmaster of Boston Latin School plans to step down. What has this year been like in selective schools that changed their admissions practices? The New Yorker visits the classrooms of Lowell in San Francisco.
If you are as interested as we are in building clear, transparent data systems to track Boston’s children and their progress, tune into a City Council hearing on the topic. Monday at 2:00 PM.