6/19/2023 0 Comments Big train sketch list![]() ![]() ![]() “It’s a wonderful opportunity for the school to not only provide a quality education but also be able to do it for more students,” said O’Bryant. Richard O'Bryant spoke for the O'Bryant family. She said the proposal has four key points: creating challenging coursework and programs for students in every high school forging outside partnerships expanding career pathways and opportunities for certification in skills-based jobs and renovating facilities. Skipper expressed optimism the proposed high school overhaul would yield big results because of the breadth of the work. Some aspects of the proposal build upon ongoing efforts in BPS, which has long been trying to create more college-level courses and career pathways, and more partnerships to provide students with social services and mentoring to get into and through college. In recent years, previous administrations have added seventh and eighth grades to several high schools, raised high school graduation standards to align with college admission standards, and revamped exam school admission standards to give more disadvantaged students a chance to get in. Violence in and around Boston’s high schools has also been an increasing concern. Many of the approximately three dozen high schools score among the worst in the state on standardized tests and suffer from declining enrollment. Wu and Skipper are the latest city leaders to tackle the long-struggling high schools. Paul O'Bryant, right, listened as Superintendent Mary Skipper spoke. So far Wu has designated $18 million in the city’s 2024 capital budget for design and demolition work at the West Roxbury complex, with a goal of beginning construction in 2025, and has set aside another $45 million to start designing the Madison Park campus. Wu and Skipper said they won’t seek funding reimbursements through the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which can take years to develop and fund projects. The city has no overall cost estimate for the proposal, which will require School Committee approval. Other parts of the proposal call for a new partnership between Charlestown High School and Bunker Hill Community College so all students can take college courses adding grades 7 and 8 to the Margarita Muñiz Academy, a dual-language high school in Jamaica Plain and forging partnerships with health centers and other community-based organizations to provide high school students with more social services. Related : Boston School Committee approves budget, school building, bus contract at contentious meeting That could create commuting hardships for students who live in that area, as well as Dorchester, Mattapan, and East Boston, while making the new location more appealing to students who live nearby in mostly middle-class households. The West Roxbury location has downsides: It’s 8 miles away from the O’Bryant’s current home in Roxbury, the heart of the city’s Black community, and it’s not easily accessible by public transit. The O’Bryant, one of the highest-performing schools in the district, would move to a rebuilt facility at the now-shuttered West Roxbury high school complex on the VFW Parkway, allowing it to expand by 400 students to 2,000, with new spaces for biomedical science, robotics, engineering, and a swimming pool. Adults would have the chance to take an assortment of night classes. Long-struggling Madison Park would take over the entire campus and be extensively renovated, enabling enrollment to double to 2,200 students, and creating space for new vocational programs, including a new partnership with JetBlue to train students in aviation technology. A cornerstone of the effort is splitting up the O’Bryant School of Math and Science and Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, which have shared a multi-building campus on Malcolm X Boulevard in Roxbury for decades. ![]()
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