BPS Ensures Every Student, Family, and Staff Member Has Mental Health Care

New landmark partnership with Cartwheel, The Brookline Center for Community Mental Health (BCCMH), and Boston Public Schools ensures timely, multilingual mental health services for students, families, caregivers, and educators.

Boston Public Schools Ensures Every Student, Family, and Staff Member Has Mental Health Care

BOSTON, MA – December 10, 2025 – Boston Public Schools (BPS) today announced a transformative investment in student mental health through a partnership with Cartwheel, Massachusetts' leading school-based mental health provider, with implementation support from the MA School-Based Telebehavioral Health Pilot led by The Brookline Center, a partner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. This comprehensive initiative will bring immediate, multilingual mental health care to students, families, and staff at 82 schools across the district, in partnership with The Brookline Center for Community Mental Health (BCCMH).

“We want all our students to feel supported and inspired when they come to school every day as they work towards achieving their goals and aspirations," said BPS Chief of Students Cory McCarthy. “We recognize that for some students, this becomes more difficult when they are facing mental health challenges. Through this new partnership with Cartwheel, BPS is connecting our students and families to timely, high-quality, evidence-based support. This initiative aims to help remove barriers that prevent students from feeling ready to participate in school, which will help strengthen their attendance, enhance their well-being, and promote personal growth, giving every young person the opportunity to succeed beyond our classrooms.”

Boston Public Schools has long been a leader in student mental health, making exceptional investments in counseling services, crisis intervention, and partnerships with local mental health organizations. Despite these efforts and the district's commitment to supporting students' social-emotional wellbeing, the needs still vastly outweigh capacity. School leaders are seeing the direct impact on student attendance, classroom behaviors, and academic performance, driving the district's decision to make this bold, proactive investment to support more students and families.

"Boston Public Schools is setting the standard for what's possible when a district decides that student mental health is mission-critical," said Joe English, CEO of Cartwheel. "This isn't just about providing therapy—it's about creating a comprehensive ecosystem of support that helps students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. We're honored to partner with a district that shares our belief that every child deserves timely, best-in-class mental health care."

Cartwheel, with programmatic funding from The Brookline Center, brings the nation's most comprehensive school-based mental health care model to BPS. Cartwheel’s platform empowers school-based staff to identify students who may benefit from evidence-based therapy and psychiatry from a licensed Cartwheel clinician, track student progress as they receive services, and coordinate with families. The partnership also includes Cartwheel's specialty School Avoidance Program, which helps students tackle mental health related causes of chronic absenteeism.

With a track record serving 325+ school districts nationwide, including 70 districts here in Massachusetts, Cartwheel combines local expertise with national-scale impact.

"This changes everything for our students and families. When a child is struggling, they can be connected to a licensed clinician immediately and not in months,” said Jenna Parafinczuk, Director of Social Work, Division of Student Support, Boston Public Schools. “That kind of support can make the difference between a student falling behind or thriving in school and in life."

The partnership addresses an urgent crisis facing schools nationwide. According to the CDC, more than 40% of high school students report feeling persistently sad or hopeless, while 1 in 5 seriously considered suicide in the past year. In Massachusetts, families often face months-long waitlists for child and adolescent mental health services. This partnership eliminates those barriers entirely.

“The data also reflects the collective strength of the statewide SBTBH Pilot,” said Carla Gonçalves, Director of the Massachusetts School Based Telebehavioral Health Pilot at The Brookline Center for Community Mental Health. “As the state’s lead SBTBH implementation partner, The Brookline Center measures program effectiveness and ensures that districts and clinical providers, including Cartwheel, can deliver high quality, equitable care. Across the Commonwealth, we have supported more than 2,280 referrals, completed 1,266 intakes, and delivered nearly 19,000 telebehavioral health sessions to over 2,400 students, contributing to measurable reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms. As we welcome Boston Public Schools as a new pilot site, we are building a proven, data driven model. We are honored to partner with Boston and providers like Cartwheel to expand timely, multilingual, culturally responsive mental health care across the Commonwealth.”

At the school level, educators see Cartwheel’s program as transformative. Since its launch earlier this school year, over 350 Boston Public Schools students have been referred to Cartwheel and more than 450 teletherapy sessions have been completed. The program was made possible with implementation and capacity-building support and programmatic funding from The Massachusetts School Based Telebehavioral Health Pilot led by The Brookline Center for Community Mental Health, which has a long history of driving school-based mental health innovation across the commonwealth and nationally.

"When students walk through our doors each day, they bring with them their aspirations, hopes and their vision for the future. Students also bring with them the many challenges they face every day, and the emotions that accompany them,” said Principal Andrew Bott, Brighton High School. “Having direct access to mental health care through this partnership means our students don’t have to face those challenges alone. It allows them to focus on learning, connecting with their peers, and seeing themselves as capable of achieving their goals. Providing this service to our school community is about showing every student that their well-being should always be a top priority, and we're all here to ensure they have the supports needed to succeed.”

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Lilla G. Frederick Elementary School (Clap-Winthrop Merger)

Merger of the Roger Clap Elementary School & John Winthrop Elementary School into the Lilla G. Frederick Elementary School

The Boston School Committee voted to approve the merger of the Roger Clap Elementary School & John Winthrop Elementary School into the Lilla G. Frederick PreK-6 Elementary School beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.

The Frederick School is located at 270 Columbia Road.

Office of Specialized Services Contacts:

Region 2 (Clap): Petrina Johnson, pjohnson@bostonpublicschools.org, (617) 256-4917
Region 3 (Winthrop): John Florence, jflorence@bostonpublicschools.org, (857) 200-4698

General Information

The district is merging the Roger Clap Elementary and John Winthrop Elementary into the new Lilla G. Frederick PreK-6 Elementary School beginning the 2026-2027 school year. This merger will honor the commitments made to the Grove Hall community to maintain the Lilla G. Frederick name and ensure the new PreK-6 is a Community Hub school.

The Winthrop Elementary and Clap Elementary will become one unified school, effective June 30, 2026. Current Winthrop and Clap 6th graders will graduate as expected from their respective schools. In the fall of 2026, the school communities will come together in the new Lilla G. Frederick Elementary School, currently the site of the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School, which will close at the end of SY24-25.

The school was assigned a Senior Project Manager from the Capital Planning Team to help respond to the day-to-day needs of the school community in anticipation of this change. Stipended school-based Transition Support Coordinator were hired to assist with the transition process.

Over the course of the 2025-26 school year, BPS is making minor upgrades to the Frederick building to prepare it to become a PreK-6 school.

The district is working hand in hand with Clap and Winthrop leadership to provide support for seamless transition for the school community. Every impacted student will receive individual counseling to develop a transition plan to set students up for success.

Data

Appendix D: Additional Information on Closure Proposals

Enrollment (SY 2024-2025)

CLAP ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Total: 142

K1	K2	Grade 1	Grade 2
10	19	19	20
Grade 3	Grade 4	Grade 5	Grade 6
19	20	16	19

Students with disabilities: 28.9%
Multilingual learners: 31.0%

Asian	Black	Hispanic	Other	White
7.0%	34.5%	43.0%	4.2%	11.3%

WINTHROP ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Total: 234

K0	K1	K2	Grade 1	Grade 2
1	17	30	41	40
Grade 3	Grade 4	Grade 5	Grade 6
33	28	22	22

Students with disabilities: 12%
Multilingual learners: 32.9%

Asian	Black	Hispanic	Other	White
2.6%	50.4%	38.5%	5.1%	3.4%

Administratively Assigned

CLAP: 3%
WINTHROP: 7%

Concentration of specialized programs for students with high needs

CLAP

0% of students

0% substantially separate
0% SLIFE

WINTHROP

3.4% of students

3.4% substantially separate
0% SLIFE

Students living near the school

CLAP: 51.4% of students live within 1 mile of the school
WINTHROP: 77.4% of students live within 1 mile of the school

Special Ed and ML Programs

CLAP: N/A
WINTHROP: Applied Behavioral Analysis K0/K1 only

Building Capacity

CLAP: 187
WINTHROP: 206

Facilities Condition Score

CLAP: 24 out of 100
WINTHROP: 18 out of 100

Materials

Roger Clap Elementary School Community Meeting (January 15, 2025)
- Slidedeck (English)
- Zoom Link
John Winthrop Elementary School Community Meeting (January 16, 2025)
- Slidedeck (English)
- Zoom Link
John Winthrop Elementary School In-Person Community Meeting (March 4, 2025)
- Slidedeck (English)
Roger Clap Elementary School In-Person Community Meeting (March 6, 2025)
- Slidedeck (English)

City of Boston

CONTACT

Capital Planning Department

capitalplanning@bostonpublicschools.org

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