Arlington Police report two children were attacked by a coyote yesterday afternoon in Arlington: A two-year-old girl on Epping Street was bitten in the back and then briefly dragged by a coyote, then ten minutes later, another two-year old girl on Summer Hill Circle, about a half mile away, was scratched by a coyote. Read more.
WBZ reports BPS is currently short a "significant" number of school-bus drivers for the school year that starts on Tuesday. Also, only about a quarter of parents have given their consent to have their children tested for Covid-19 each week.
CommonWealth Magazine reports what led to BPS putting the co-leaders of the Mission Hill K-8 School on leave recently: An outside lawyer's report that the school deliberately ignored multiple complaints, over several years, from the parents of a gender non-conforming child, about repeated bullying. Read more.
Update: The ages of the alleged attacker and the two girls has been added to the story.
Attorneys representing two parents whose daughters once attended the Mission Hill K-8 School in Jamaica Plain last month reached agreement with BPS attorneys on a $650,000 settlement of their lawsuit, which alleges that not only did the school's principal do nothing to stop one young student from sexually attacking other students, she fired a teacher who disobeyed her order not to file a report with the state Department of Children and Families. Read more.
The Herald reports the state education board gave Commissioner Jeff Riley the power to required indoor mask use at all Massachusetts schools - for both students and staff - through Oct. 1, after which schools would be able to lift the requirement if they can prove at least 80% of students and staff have gotten shots.
The vote came despite the presence of a small but noisy group of right-wing anti-vaxxers.
Jamaica Plain News reports on the BPS investigation into the Mission Hill K-8 School on Child Street.
A disgusted citizen files a 311 report about the morning conditions at the new playground at Langone Park: Read more.
Acting Mayor Kim Janey today announced she had appointed Rafaela Polanco Garcia and Lorena Lopera to the School Committee, replacing Alexandra Oliver-Dávila and Lorna Rivera, who resigned over the Westie-whites text messages last month. 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.
This afternoon, Dr. Mark Lindsay posted a couple of photos of what was left of the bug that climbed up his daughter's leg, then seemed to have bitten her before succumbing to death by smashing, and he wondered what exactly was - especially after she developed small wheals on her leg and hand and he started thinking it looked like one of the "kissing bugs" that spreads the potentially fatal Chagas disease. Read more.
Updated with O'Malley comments.
After reading what Alexandra Oliver-Dávila had to say about their constituents, state Rep. Ed Coppinger (D-West Roxbury) and City Councilor Matt O'Malley (West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain) are calling for her to resign. Read more.
BPS is considering setting up an online-only school for the coming school year, and is asking parents if they'd be interested in that. 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.
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