Ep. 82, Last Night @ School Committee: 3/22 Meeting Recap

Last Night At School Committee

Last night, the School Committee spent the majority of its time discussing and voting on the Superintendent’s final budget recommendation for the next fiscal year. The School Committee was split on the budget: some members expressed hesitance about adding to the district’s hundreds of vacancies and creating a fiscal cliff in future years, while others applauded the investments in the budget and emphasized the necessity of approving it. This conversation ultimately turned to confusion, as the Chair, Vice Chair, Committee members, and even a BPS legal advisor each expressed a different understanding of what happens if this budget is not approved. Ultimately, with remaining uncertainty about their own budget process, the Chair proceeded with the vote and the budget was approved by a vote of 4-2. The budget now goes to the City Council for final approval in May.

The rest of the meeting touched on a few other topics. In her report, Superintendent Skipper provided an update on summer programming, announcing that registration is open and that the district is working to engage as many students and families as possible. The Superintendent also addressed the annual Health and Risk Survey provided to schools in light of a public controversy around the wording of certain questions.

Following the budget vote, the School Committee also voted to approve the new transportation management contract with Transdev, along with a proposal to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for a new building space for a merged Shaw and Taylor School. The remainder of the evening was spent on three reports. The first two reports were on new contract negotiations with the Lunch Monitor’s Association and Boston Police Superior Officers Federation. The last report of the evening was a presentation on chronic absenteeism. The report indicated that chronic absenteeism in the district has decreased by 8% compared to last year, although rates still indicate high absenteeism, particularly among high school students, multilingual learners, and students with IEPs. The Superintendent and Committee members reiterated their concern about this data and discussed their proactive strategies to improve communication with impacted students and families.

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