Building New Schools

By Thomas M. Keane Jr.

Boston City Councilor

Published in the Back Bay Courant, June 9, 1998

Boston has 127 public schools. Eleven of them are pilot schools. The brightest lights in the city's educational firmament, pilot schools have captured the imagination of teachers, parents and most importantly, students. But pilot schools are in trouble for a seemingly odd reason: they can't find space.

Most city schools are governed centrally, with common curricula, funding and ways of doing things. Pilot schools are decentralized. They are governed by local boards composed of teachers, parents and community organizers. They set their own curricula, hours and standards.

Pilot schools should be the wave of the future. But that wave is crashing against some high rocks and there is much concern that the pilot school movement may be slowing down.

Most, if not all, of Boston's pilot schools face space problems. A quick rundown:

• Boston Arts Academy: Patterned after the New York high school featured in the movie Fame!, it had its opening delayed two years because it couldn't find space. Space has been found, and the school should open this September at the old Latin Academy building on Ipswich Street.

• Fenway Middle College High School. This school is now in temporary space at the Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown. This school will share space with the Arts Academy.

• Mission Hill School. Founded by famed New York educator Deborah Meier, this elementary school leases space in the old Mission High building on Mission Hill. The lease is up this fall.

• Multicultural High School. Located above the Mission Hill School, the high school faces the same issue: it no longer has a lease come the fall.

• Young Achievers in Math and Science. In the old Mission Grammar School, it has negotiated one more year on its lease.

• The Josiah Quincy Upper School. An elementary school, it has voted to become a K-12 pilot school. Quincy bid on the Don Bosco site in Bay Village, but has not yet won the bid. The opening of the school is delayed.

• The Harbor School. A middle school at Harbor Point in Dorchester, it needs more space, but does not know where to find it.

• The Lyndon School. An elementary school in West Roxbury, it was a source of controversy which held up the Capital Plan last year. Its fate is still not resolved.

• Boston Evening Academy. The Academy is a joint program with the Franklin Institute. It is looking for its own space, but has not yet agreed with the city on a plan.

• Health Careers Academy. Now located in Boston High and Dorchester High, the school needs a single site. It hopes to end up either at Dorchester High or in space now owned by Northeastern University.

• Greater Egleston Community High School. This high school was originally established as a demonstration program of the US Department of Labor to decrease the dropout rate. It is in Egleston Square and is overcrowded.

Beyond these imminent problems, the school system faces an even larger issue: new pilot schools are essentially on hold because space can't be found.

How did this mess occur? When pilot schools were first devised, it was thought that existing schools in established buildings should become pilot schools. With the exceptions of the Josiah Quincy School and the Lyndon Elementary that has not occurred. The city did not expect to see new schools being created and never planned on the need to create new buildings.

The solution? Part of the answer is to devote more resources to building or acquiring new school buildings. But the real solution is to begin to insist that existing schools themselves become pilot schools. Accomplishing this will be a tough task: it may mean targeting schools for shut down so that new pilot schools can be created.

It's a politically treacherous course. But meaningful educational reform in Boston means taking risks. Spend some time in a pilot school. You'll quickly find that these are schools worthy of taking such a risk.