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Boston Public Schools

By adamg - 9/16/15 - 12:37 pm

City Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury) today called for a return of recess at schools that have dropped it due to the pressures of standardized testing.

Jackson said the decline in recess time has coincided with rising childhood obesity and poor behavior. Read more.

By adamg - 9/9/15 - 9:39 pm

The School Committee could vote to require students to meet certain standards to get into the city's only vocational high school.

At a meeting tonight, the school's executive director, Kevin McCaskill, submitted a proposal that students be required to submit a recommendation from a guidance counselor or teacher and be ranked on their middle-school academic and disciplinary records. Read more.

By adamg - 9/9/15 - 7:29 pm

Moving more seventh graders from school buses to the T has general worked very well, but Assistant Superintendent Kim Rice told the School Committee that she's heard from a number of girls that they're not feeling all that safe on the T, in particular because of issues such as catcalling.

Rice said she and other officials plan to spend time figuring out what to do about that.

By adamg - 9/9/15 - 6:24 pm

BPS yesterday rolled out 86 new school buses that run on propane instead of diesel fuel.

Kim Rice, assistant superintendent of operations, told the School Committee tonight that BPS concentrated on replacing older and smaller buses that serve students in wheelchairs. Read more.

By adamg - 9/8/15 - 8:35 am

Across the city this morning, scores of black men lined the entrances to Boston public schools to welcome kids on their first day of school this year, in a program thought up by former state Rep. Carlos Henriquez - after reading about it being done in other cities. Here, kids enter the Dearborn STEM School in Roxbury: Read more.

By Shelagh Dolan - 8/13/15 - 9:14 am

City Councilor Michelle Wu (at large) wants BPS to look at providing vouchers to low-income parents so they can get to parent-teacher conferences and open houses they might otherwise miss due to transportation costs. Read more.

By Shelagh Dolan - 8/12/15 - 5:07 pm
McCarthy

City Councilor Tim McCarthy (Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale) thinks local schools need to educate students on what to do if they find syringes, needles and similar implements in public spaces.

McCarthy's district includes Readville, where a 7-year-old girl was pricked by a discarded needle at Iacono Playground last month. Read more.

By adamg - 7/14/15 - 11:29 am

CommonWealth interviews Tommy Chang, who officially became Boston school superintendent on July 1 on his goals for devolving power and money from Court Street the Bolling Building to individual schools and their principals. Also of note: His children will stay in Los Angeles for school this year.

Chang is scheduled to outline his "100-day plan" at a School Committee meeting tomorrow night at the Bolling Building.

By Shelagh Dolan - 6/10/15 - 3:42 pm
West Roxbury Raiders with city councilors

The City Council started its meeting today by celebrating the West Roxbury Raiders, 2015 Boston City League baseball champions. Read more.

By adamg - 5/29/15 - 7:19 am

WBUR reports Erin Dukeshire, a sixth-grade science teacher at the Orchard Gardens School won one of four Fishman Prizes for Superlative Classroom Practice.

She’s part of a team that helped transform the school from one of the lowest performing in the state to one of its fastest-improving.

By adamg - 5/26/15 - 1:43 pm
Sumner Soap

Instead of bake sales, families at the Sumner School on Basile Street are making and selling "biodegradable, Borax-free, aromatherapeutic laundry soap handmade from all natural ingredients."

Lauren Cooperstein Corduck, whose daughter Esther is a first grader at the school, got the idea while folding her laundry - laundry she'd cleaned with the homemade soap she'd made herself:

By adamg - 5/11/15 - 3:09 pm

DonorsChoose.org is a Web site that lets teachers seek donations for classroom or project supplies. The site made news last week when Stephen Colbert announced he would help fund all 1,000 requests from his native South Carolina - about $800,000 in all.

Boston teachers currently have 103 requests in the system. Read more.

By adamg - 4/19/15 - 12:02 pm

Incoming School Superintendent Tommy Chang this morning released names of a 35-member transition team that will "imagine what the future holds for the Boston Public Schools."

By adamg - 4/14/15 - 11:16 pm

The Dig takes a look at a school system increasingly balkanized among a bevy of private concerns - from the plan to hand over a brand-new $70-million science school in Roxbury to a charter group to the way it may have helped Shaun Harrison fly under the radar for so long.

By tmrozzie - 4/14/15 - 6:39 pm

So all anyone in Boston with a young, school-age child is going to talk about in the next 36 hours is the lottery placements that are going out for BPS.

I know each school is different, but is there any rule of thumb on how much a wait list tends to move in terms of spots? I feel like anything under 10 should be decent, but if a given K1 only has 17 seats I suppose that still isn't likely.

By adamg - 4/7/15 - 6:52 pm

Authors of a study of the achievement gap between black and Latino boys and the rest of BPS say good educational practices and increased parental involvement at four specific schools helped raise the students' test scores but that even more work was needed to close the gap between them and other BPS students.

By adamg - 4/2/15 - 8:50 am

The City Council yesterday approved proposals by Mayor Walsh, that, if they actually go through this time, could lead to major renovations to the Boston Arts Academy, now housed in an old, formerly condemned post-office warehouse in the Fenway and the Josiah Quincy Upper School, housed in a 19th-century former elementary school.

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