Boston Schools Fund at 5 Years
A Year Like No Other
As schools approach their winter break — a much-needed pause for educators, school leaders, families, and students — this is typically the time of year when schools take stock of the first half of the year, catch their breath, and turn their plans to the second half of the school year that lies ahead.
But 2020 has been a year unlike any other in our lifetimes.
In the waning days of 2020, we feel compelled to reflect on this year and all its challenges, struggles, and uncomfortable, but necessary truths laid bare.
When Boston Schools Fund (BSF) was founded in 2015, we knew 2020 would be a pivotal, milestone year for our organization. But we never could have imagined the 2020 in which we now exist or its impact on educational equity — let alone the impossible choices faced and made by students and their families, their teachers and schools.
Looking Back
Five years ago, we asked ourselves: how do we provide opportunity and access to high-quality schools? How do we advance educational equity in Boston? Five years and 37 schools later, we take a moment to recognize what we’ve achieved.
As proud as we are of what our schools have done in five years, we likewise value growth beyond numbers. Just ask Ali Dutson, principal at Mission Grammar and a BSF grantee since 2017:
“Mission Grammar has grown in so many ways over the past five years thanks to a powerful vision for what is possible and true believers in that vision, like the Boston Schools Fund. They have been innovative thought partners, providing the tools to put our vision in action along with the challenge to grow and think even bigger.”
We invite you to read more of Ali’s experience — and more stories from our grantees — in our retrospective report, 5 Years of Boston Schools Fund.
Meeting This Moment
Last spring, we launched our COVID support fund, investing in 18 schools with their creation of school reopening plans for this school year.
Teachers at East Boston elementary schools prepare for reopening. Click the image to watch the video. (Video still: Be-Ann Productions)
Through intensive guided planning, targeted consulting, and individual coaching over the summer, our investment served 6,677 students — where nearly 80% attend schools in neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic, including Mattapan, East Boston, Hyde Park, and Dorchester.
“In a time where things seem to be crumbling around us and changing multiple times a day, this was a constant I could rely on and I knew each week I would leave with concrete next steps for PJK's reopening.” - Kristen Goncalves, Principal, Patrick J. Kennedy Elementary.
Even as the 2020-21 school year began filled with uncertainty, our grantees were ready.
East Boston public school students attend their remote learning pod at the East Boston Social Center. (Photo courtesy EBSC)
In October, BSF provided funding to support the East Boston Social Center (EBSC) in providing safe, accessible, and supportive remote learning spaces for East Boston public school students during pandemic-related school closures in the first half of this school year. EBSC organized quickly, creating 200 full-day remote learning center seats, serving students who are 98% students of color and majority English Learners across 16 remote learning pods of 13 students each, from the following eight schools:
Adams Elementary School
Bradley Elementary School
Donald McKay K-8 school
East Boston Early Education Center
Guild Elementary School
Mario Umana Academy
O'Donnell Elementary School
Otis Elementary School
Even as schools continue to navigate their reopenings, the work won’t stop once this school year ends and our support is critical to help schools — and families — plan for what comes next. Students still need to register for school, and Boston School Finder continues to provide families with a trusted source for enrollment information, updated to reflect changing registration protocols in light of COVID.
(Photo courtesy East Boston High School)
At East Boston High School, we are supporting Principal Phil Brangiforte and his team to design, plan, and launch a 7-8 grade program in their existing 9-12 school. Combined with our investment in a cohort of East Boston elementary schools, this latest investment creates a seamless, high-quality K-12 pathway for students in East Boston — something Eastie families have wanted for years in their community.
There is no doubt that school will go on — but we mustn't fool ourselves into thinking education will ever be the same after 2020.
A Vision for What Must Happen Next
We stand at an uncertain precipice, feeling that pull between all we’ve endured this year and everything that lies ahead. A vaccine that has arrived in record time brings hope — but we mustn't get complacent.
Hope, after all, is not a plan.
(Photo courtesy EBSC)
Our mission remains unchanged — and is more vital than ever. If anything, our work has become more necessary within education’s new pandemic paradigm.
We must invest in pandemic recovery that seeks to remediate its most immediate effects felt in our schools. We must continue to leverage comprehensive data to inform how schools and districts move forward. We must continue to engage and center those most affected by this pandemic in the policies that affect them.
Our work must endure for years to come, as we confront the pandemic’s lasting generational impacts on educational equity — while also dismantling inequitable systems intensified and compounded by the coronavirus. And we can’t do this work alone.
Our work is not merely an exercise in philanthropy: it is an obligation to which every child in Boston is owed. This belief remains at the core of everything we value and champion at BSF.
We hope you will continue to join us in supporting this work — in 2021 and beyond.
Have a safe and happy holiday season,
Will Austin,
Chief Executive Officer
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