Parent Resources

School Site Councils (School-Based Management / Shared Decision-Making)

In 1989, the Boston Public School System began a bold project to change the way decisions were made about and in schools. Beginning with a small number of volunteer schools, the SBM/SDM Project pioneered the idea that the school site, not school headquarters, should be the place where decision-making about the school occurs. The strategy was to improve education by transferring decision-making authority from the central office to individual schools.

Interest in School-Based Management / Shared Decision-Making (SBM/SDM) steadily spread to other schools in the system. By school year 1992-1993, thirty-six schools had voluntarily adopted SBM/SDM. In a parallel development, the state legislature enacted the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of June, 1993. Essentially, this law mandates that every school in the Commonwealth establish school councils, composed of parents, teachers, and the principal, that are advisory to the principal.

SBM/SDM in Boston public schools also places schools councils at the center of change, but with a fundamental difference: SBM/SDM in Boston invests councils with actual authority and responsibility for their schools. The councils are decision-making committees, and their role is to manage the operation of their respective schools.

By far, the major force in this transformation has been the shared commitment of the Boston School Committee, the Boston Teachers union, and the Superintendent of Schools. In November 1993, and again in June of 1994, the Boston School Committee and the Boston Teachers Union, with the support of the Mayor of Boston, agreed by contract to accelerate the movement toward SBM/SDM. The valuable experience of the past four years provides a solid foundation for the next phase in the change process - the universal implementation of SBM/SDM in all Boston Public Schools.

The school year of 1994-1995 became the first full year for system-wide implementation of SBM/SDM.