In e-mail tonight, BPS told parents of prospective exam-school students that neither BPS nor an outside auditor initially caught the error at first in the way seventh-grade eligibility is calculated, but that they still expect to send out actual invitations in early May - still on schedule for BPS, but later than other area schools with selection policies. Read more.
Image of armed man distributed by police; turned out to be a student in a costume.
Mass Art and the neighboring Wentworth Institute of Technology went into lockdown, and Boston Latin School went into "safe" mode this afternoon after somebody reported a man with a gun walking around a Mass Art dorm. Read more.
Jason Gallagher, current principal at the Harvard-Kent Elementary School in Charlestown, will take over as new head of school at Boston Latin School, outgoing Superintendent Brenda Cassellius told the school community today. Read more.
Update: South Boston description posted.
An attempt to teach eighth graders at Boston Latin School how to deal with stereotypes ended today with school officials apologizing to students, parents and school staffers from two heavily White neighborhoods. Read more.
Jonathan Mulhern, associate head of school of Boston Latin School, is leaving to become a middle-school principal in Canton.
Read more.
Rachel Skerritt today announced her resignation at the end of the school year as Boston Latin School head of school.
In e-mail to BLS students, families and staff this afternoon, Skerritt wrote, first of the challenges of Covid-19 atop the challenges of life at the exam school, then continued: Read more.
The Patriot-Bridge in Charlestown, home to Charlestown High School, which Eliot School parents want to remake as an innovation school reports that parents are now upset because of a BPS plan to penalize their kids 10 points on their GPAs to try to level exam-school admissions across the entire BPS district. Read more.
Boston Latin School notified parents tonight of a recent spike in Covid-19 cases - 36 over the past week, with most of them being reported just today. Read more.
Yes, three Boston School Committee members got all racist. And, yes, city attorneys screwed up in trying to withhold evidence of racially-tinged texts by two of them from a parents group suing over the way kids got invited to the exam schools this year. But no, the plan used to invite students without exams was not racist, a federal judge ruled today - again. Read more.
School Committee members discussing the new plan.
The Boston School Committee today unanimously approved a new policy for admissions to the city's three exam schools that relies less on a test and more on grades - and on socioeconomic data that will benefit students in public housing, are homeless or attend schools with a high number of poor families. Read more.
A federal judge today withdrew his approval of the system BPS used to offer admission to the three exam schools, saying he was misled by a transcript of text messages by School Committee members that left out the "Westie whites" comments. Read more.
A School Committee lawyer argued today that leaving out the "Westie whites" exchange from text messages handed over to the Globe and a woman who turned out to be a secret member of the parents group suing over exam-school admissions was an innocent mistake, not part of some nefarious scheme to hide racial hatred by School Committee members. Read more.
The group representing mainly West Roxbury parents that sought to put the exam back in exam schools for the coming school year is asking a federal judge to reopen its case because of "clear racial motivation and anti-White racism" on the part of two School Committee members in text messages exchanged over the course of a nine-hour meeting on what to do about the Covid-19-forced cancellation of exams. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday sentenced Eric Tran Thai, 39, to 12 years in federal prison and 5 years of probation for his guilty plea to charges of two counts of possession of child pornography. Read more.
A federal appeals court today upheld a judge's decision to let Boston Public Schools use a combination of pre-Covid GPAs and Zip codes to determine who is offered admission to the city's three exam schools for the coming school year, saying the plan is fair and the parents who sued waited so long that a ruling in their favor would have caused "chaos" that would disrupt the lives of thousands of Boston families. Read more.
A group of White and Asian-American parents are appealing a judge's decision that the Boston School Committee did nothing wrong in the way it came up with a non-exam way to admit students to Boston's three exam schools for the coming school year. Read more.
A federal judge ruled today that the Boston School Committee can proceed with selecting students for the city's three exam schools via a formula based on grade point average and Zip codes, rather than using GPAs and the traditional entrance exams. Read more.
The parent group Quality Education for Every Student today released data and charts showing the differences between different BPS schools when it comes to private fundraising. One school obviously stands out.
Rachel Skerrit, head of school at Boston Latin School, explains why she feels Tom Keane doesn't know what he's talking about in calling for the elimination of the city's three exam schools.
In a message to BLS parents yesterday, Skerritt, herself a BLS graduate, writes: Read more.
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