boston public schools

Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius has released a $1.26 billion fiscal year 2021 budget that would increase school spending by $80 million, a 6.3 percent increase in the budget.

Brenda Cassellius, the superintendent of Boston Public Schools, released a strategic plan to the Boston School Committee on Jan. 15.

In his State of the City speech last week, Mayor Martin Walsh pledged $100 million in additional funding to Boston Public Schools, funds that he said would be above regular yearly cost increases and would be channeled directly to classrooms.

The Boston Public Schools needs a new way of budgeting. Boston needs to guarantee a baseline quality of education at every one of its 127 schools with foundational school budgets, in addition to equity-based weighted student funding.

The process of replacing Tommy Chang as Boston Public Schools superintendent is ending the way it began: hurriedly, secretively, and with little apparent consideration of either the desires of the BPS community or for the requirements of this job. The superintendent will directly impact the lives of tens of thousands of Boston’s next generation.

Boston School Committee members and community members posed questions to school superintendent candidate Marie Izquierdo Monday. The Miami-Dade County School District Chief Academic Officer was the first of the three finalists for the job to go through nine hours of interviews scheduled this week.

When three finalists contending for the Boston Public Schools superintendent post were announced last week, a process that thus far has been conducted out of public view suddenly entered the spotlight.

City councilors in Boston are working to put a full-time nurse and full-time social and emotional support professional in every public school in the city. At a hearing Monday evening, councilors heard testimony from members of the Boston Public Schools administration and the public in support of their effort.

Boston Public Schools parents and students marched from the Blackstone School in the South End to the School Committee chamber in the Bruce Bolling Municipal Building last Wednesday, where they occupied the seats and tables reserved for the body and the district’s interim superintendent.

At a Boston Public Schools budget hearing last week, during which district officials outlined the Walsh administration’s proposed school budget of $1.139 billion for FY20, students and teachers from the Blackstone Innovation School staged a demonstration demanding an additional $20 million to be added to the budget to improve quality of education.

Boston Public Schools officials last week announced a $1.39 billion budget and highlighted targeted investments in science instruction, supports for schools facing budget reductions and in-class administration of the ISEE exam the district uses for admission to its three exam high schools.

This term, the Boston Latin School theater department tackled “Da Kink in My Hair,” a 2001 play by Trey Anthony about black womanhood. Student directors Samantha Lee and Azhani Duncan-Reese say the show was part of an ongoing effort to perform plays that tackle social justice issues. The play will be performed at the Massachusetts Thespian Festival at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School on Feb. 9.