Boston schools are ready to open

On the morning before school opens in Boston, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, members of the Boston School Committee and Boston Public Schools Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant gathered at East Boston High School to announce that Boston's schools are ready to open. Schools open for the city's 63,500 students on Wednesday, September 6.

Today's event took place in the school's new library/media center, part of a just completed $26 million overhaul of the building. East Boston High School headmaster John Poto and math teacher and summer school coordinator Stephanie Sibley welcomed staff, parents and guests to showcase at their school several new initiatives of the Boston Public Schools, including the district's new math plan, expanded summer school, and high school "restructuring."

• New Math Plan

  Boston this month begins an aggressive $4 million districtwide focus on math to increase the rate of student achievement in math. The program, which will cover all grade levels, will engage math teachers, principals/headmasters and on-site "coaches" for math teachers in an intensive curriculum and instructional training.
  
  

• Expanded Summer School / Transition Services

  Through its expanded summer school program and school year "transition" services, Boston is providing a 12-month school year with $24 million in intensive reading and math supports for academically at-risk students.

  This summer, Boston nearly doubled the number of students served in its new summer school program. Now in its second year, the program provides intensive support in reading and math for students who have not met the district's new student promotion requirements. The $4 million program involved over 750 teachers and 98 of Boston's 130 school buildings. Over 7,200 students completed the program, of which 62% were promoted to the next grade level.

  This month, Boston begins the second year of its so-called "transitional services," a $20+ million initiative to provide extra support in reading and math for academically at-risk students. Targeting the critical grades 3, 6 and 9, the initiative includes extra teachers in reading and math classes to work with low-performing students, and double blocks of class time per day in reading and math for these students.
  
  

• Expanded High School Restructuring

  To provide more direct adult/student contact for Boston's high school students, all of the city's high schools are "restructuring," a process that involves breaking up the traditional large-school model of high school into small schools. Last year, the district intervened at three high schools where more rapid improvement was needed and established new leadership structures for this fall.
  
  

• New Textbooks

  This year, Boston classrooms will receive $2.3 million in new textbooks for a total investment of $11 million over the past 4 years for new texts in English, math, science, history/social science, and world languages.
  
  

• More Alternative Programs

  This year, Boston is adding over 220 additional seats in alternative programs to support disruptive or overage students outside the traditional classroom. Also beginning this year, no overage students (over 19 years old) will be in traditional classrooms without approval of headmasters.

  Last year, the Boston School Committee approved a policy the prohibited any student undergoing a so-called "safety transfer" to bounce from one high school to another and required that student to attend an alternative program. The district last year established an alternative middle school program and a school for overage students and partnered with the state to create transitional programs for court-involved students.

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