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Everything that's wrong with BPS wrapped up in one giant school construction project

Parent Imperfect considers the fate of the Dearborn STEM school, which the BPS is preparing to hand over as an "in district" charter school to a group that has built lots of housing but which has never overseen a $70-million school project.

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I dunno, even of they don't know anything about running a school, it sounds like they might know as much about running schools as the city does

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Boston loves bulldozing historic buildings and handing out sweet deals to connected developers. Why would a school project be any different?

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Huge sections of Boston are like a living museum. Boston has for example the largest historic Victorian era neighborhoods in America, where it's extremely difficult to architecturally alter. Glaring exceptions occurred during the so-called 'urban renewal' projects of the 50s and 60s era.

The education industry status quo of the past 40 years has been pretty disasterous. They just aren't getting the job done, no matter how much money is thrown at them, at least in most urban areas. My own opinion is small, charter-type schools are better than the typically large standard. But blame can't be placed entirely on the shoulders of teachers and the education industry. The culture of dysfunctional families and home life plays the major role.

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BPS has a long history of bulldozing or selling off beautiful schools to developers for condos and replacing them with overly expensive and shoddily built boxes which quickly turn into sick buildings.

If you a connected developer history means nothing when asking for a demolition permit. What happened to the Dainty Dot building and all too soon Shreve's is a perfect example.

If you aren't connected than the historic status will be used to block development.

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Rozie high and the Longfellow

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I thought the time they closed the Agassiz only to almost immediately reopen it while also blowing up the community of the well like Mission Hill K-8 was the perfect example.

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The old Mission Hill school building still sits empty, after BPS did renovations to it and realized it wouldn't be a good fit for the Fenway High school. Where is the master planning and long term goals of the district, as well as oversight?? Downright disgraceful.

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The Mission Hill school building is currently a full on construction site(12M+/- budget). The FHS will move to the building once construction is complete. I believe the target date for occupation is the fall of 2015.

Interior demolition is complete. Currently they are working on the foundation for a "cafetorium" off the rear of the building. The addition is complete with a stand alone kitchen. FHS wanted the ability to provide lunches for their students.( the neighbors assisted in this fight) The large addition space was also requested by FHS to have a space to gather all students in one place. The new addition will be 10-15' from the rear lot line and be roughly 2 stories tall, it will run 3/5ths of the lenght of the building. As it turns out, City buildings are exempt from zoning laws where article 59 calls for 20' setback.

This school's neighbors were treated with the same play book as the dearborn. The design was complete and developed before the first communtiy meeting was held. The input given to the design team by neighbors was slightly responded to but thier mind and design were made up already.
I don't blame FHS for the lack of input on the design.

i equate BPS and City of Boston Capitol Construction Division with a steam roller.

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That isn't mentioned much is how horrible BPSs athletic programs are. Sports can be an extremely positive outlet for kids. It's forces them to be engaged in the classroom, because you need a C+ to participate. And it also keeps them on school ground after 1:30, and many time that means less time in negative environments.

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When the school identity is always changing. One day a middle school, the next a k-8 then a 6-12. Plus, meaningful historic names are changed to Xyz innovation academy or empowerment school or some other such BS that is meant to distract from the fact that despite all the relabeling, BPS is failing our kids and moving deck chairs around instead of focusing inside there school, not on the constantly changing signs providing the school name or on the administration teams at court st.

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If you go to school at the "West Roxbury Educational Complex" you attend Westie, plain and simple. From an athletic point of view, there is no difference between, say, South Boston High School as an athletic unit and the four constituent schools that make it up. Back in the day, CRLS was a lot less unified (I'm not sure how it is now, but at one point the college prep kids and the vocational track kids were in different universes under the same roof) yet several of their sports teams kicked ass athletically (see Patrick Ewing and Rumeal Robinson.)

I thought the original comment was a bit of a troll, but it is 100% true. Admittedly, high school athletics are no longer a rallying point for the surrounding neighborhood like it was in pre busing times, but it could be a rallying point for the schools, increasing pride in where you go. Of course, sports benefit the student-athletes, giving them something to do, structure, goals, and so on, but as you were talking identity, my main point is that a good athletic program would help building the school brand more than whatever the name or location of the school might be.

If Tech had strong athletic programs, no one would have cared when it was renamed the O'Bryant. Just saying.

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My son is in a bps k-8 and there are all sorts of sports, volleyball, baseball, basketball, running club etc.... Not sure what other schools have but ours seems pretty good.

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FYI: DSNI has been running a charter school i believe for 2 yrs. now they have the school that once was the EMERSON on DUDLEY ST.

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