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BPS celebrates STEM Learning at Annual Region VI Boston STEM Fair

Linda Chen siting in front a class of children

Boston Public Schools celebrates National Reading Month

Boston Public Schools Celebrates Black History Month

Writes Children's Book as part of Youth Advisory Board Project

BPS Health and Wellness Youth Advisory Board Member hosts Read Aloud Event

Events

Mar 26

Boston School Committee Meeting(Virtual)

5:30 PM - 10:30 PM

Apr 16

Boston School Committee Meeting(Hybrid)

6:00 PM - 11:00 PM

Apr 18

Good Friday

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Apr 21

Patriot's Day

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News

BPS celebrates STEM Learning at Annual Region VI Boston STEM Fair

Boston Public Schools (BPS) celebrated the creativity, innovation, and passion of our students at the 79th annual Region VI STEM Fair!

Students presented projects that spoke to the social and scientific issues currently impacting them and their communities.

BPS celebrates STEM Learning at Annual Region VI Boston STEM Fair

Boston Public Schools (BPS) celebrated the creativity, innovation, and passion of our students at the 79th annual Region VI STEM Fair! The Region VI STEM Fair is a wonderful opportunity for students to develop skills, such as collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, developing and testing hypotheses, and data analysis, which all play an important role in our students’ overall success.

STEM is all around us in nearly every aspect of our lives. The City of Boston is home to pioneers in the fields of robotics, biotech, and medicine. Our young people should be immersed in all that our great city has to offer and the Region VI Boston STEM Fair allows our students to express their creativity and learning of key science concepts outside of the classroom.

Students presented projects that spoke to the social and scientific issues currently impacting them and their communities. Among the projects were Planetary Lunar Landing Devices, Wastewater Treatment, Color Choice & Identity, Fire Alarm Safety, Academic Stress & Mindfulness in Seniors, Light Pollution in East Boston, and Cuffless Blood Pressure Devices.

This year, the STEM Fair included:

190 Student Participants
12 Participating Schools
118 Projects submitted for Judging

BPS is grateful to all of our STEM educators who are working every day to foster critical STEM skills in our students and inspire them to apply those learned skills to classroom work and to real-world situations. The STEM Department is committed to continuing to provide programming opportunities for our K-12 students and families throughout the district.

The Region VI Boston STEM Fair Awards Ceremony took place on March 11 at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. The ceremony featured musical performances from students at the O’Bryant School of Math & Science along with a Presentation of Colors by the Community Academy of Science and Health (CASH) JROTC program.

Matolah Dankoff, a Grade 7 Student at Boston Latin School won the Christa McAuliffe Grand Prize for the Junior Division & Cabot Corporation Grand Prize for her project: An Introduction to Hand-Eye Coordination.

Shuting Zhu and Louis Chiu, Juniors at the John D. O’Bryant School of Math & Science won the Christa McAuliffe Grand Prize for the Senior Division, and Sanofi Specialty Care Grand Prize for their project: Cuffless Blood Pressure Measurement Monitor via Pulse Transit Time Analysis and Arduino. They will now represent BPS as the Nominees for the Massachusetts State Delegation for the International Science and Engineering Fair in Columbus Ohio in May.
BPS will also have 23 Middle School projects that will move on to compete at the Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair in May at Clark University, and 14 High School projects will move on to the Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair at Gillette Stadium in April.
The Boston STEM Fair team is grateful to the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center for hosting the 79th Region VI STEM Fair, to the Madison Park Community for hosting the STEM Fair Awards Ceremony, and to the Madison Park Culinary Arts and Hospitality programs, which helped to cater and set up the ceremony.

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Boston Public Schools celebrates National Reading Month

For “Read Across America Week,” Mayor Michelle Wu visited the Shaw-Taylor Elementary School for a Read Aloud Event with BPS students.

BPS Senior Deputy Superintendent of Academics Dr. Linda Chen joined the Trotter School Community to celebrate the importance of reading and literacy.

Boston Public Schools celebrates National Reading Month

As BPS celebrates National Reading Month, we celebrate Reading as a fundamental building block to a student’s academic success. This month and throughout the entire school year, BPS is committed to ensuring every child has access to the highest quality, equitable literacy instruction.

This week, which was “Read Across America Week,” Mayor Michelle Wu visited the Shaw-Taylor Elementary School for a Read Aloud Event with BPS students. Mayor Wu read the book “Before She Was Harriet” by Lesa Cline-Ransome.

BPS Senior Deputy Superintendent of Academics Dr. Linda Chen joined the Trotter School Community to celebrate the importance of reading and literacy. Dr. Chen read the book “I Promise” by Los Angeles Lakers Player Lebron James to a group of excited kindergarten students.

This week and every day, our educators strive to inspire our students to choose books that showcase the talents of people from different cultures, backgrounds, and religions, telling stories of struggle, success, tragedy, and triumph. In addition to being a critical life skill, research tells us that daily reading can contribute to expanding a child’s sense of imagination, creativity and perspective. Libraries are the important spaces for students to see themselves reflected in books and narratives.

This year, BPS Library Services and the Office of Teaching and Learning invested in thousands of digital e-books, audio-books, and digital magazines in multiple languages through SORA, a digital reading tool with the goal of supporting pleasure reading and academic curiosity. This collection was curated specifically for our students, and is available to all BPS students.

In our classrooms, BPS Reading and English Language Arts classes are designed to support students with building their reading skills and asking them to tackle difficult questions about themes, word choice, and making connections to real world events and situations.

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Boston Public Schools Celebrates Black History Month

As we recognize Black History Month in BPS, we reaffirm our commitment to continuously build trust with our families and community members to eradicate the legacy of racism from our school system and close opportunity gaps for our Black students who have been historically underserved. While we cannot change the past, we must learn from it in order to create the lasting change that future generations deserve. At BPS, we dedicate this month to renewing our promise of racial equity and social justice in our city and our schools.

“We must recommit to doing the hard work that is required to safeguard the well-being and success of our Black students and families, as well as the educators, staff, and caring adults that support our school communities,” said Superintendent Mary Skipper. “For me as a white leader, this is a time for reflection, fellowship, and thoughtful action. I feel lucky that I get to learn from the vibrant and diverse communities that make up our district.”

This begins by making and delivering on strong commitments as a district to our students, staff, and families. We are focused on cultivating and developing a skilled and diverse workforce to support our students; and, we uplift the district’s goal of providing all our students access to rigorous and culturally affirming learning and enrichment experiences.

We are so proud of our schools for their incredible work honoring the contributions of our diverse Black communities in Boston. On February 11th, Boston Arts Academy hosted a sensational Black Empowerment Assembly to celebrate this important month, which featured music and dance performances, student artwork, and research presentations. On February 26th, the Mary Lyon K-12 School held a powerful celebration featuring Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons as the keynote speaker, along with amazing student performances. Mayor Simmons held an interactive conversation with students grounded in the origin of February as a celebration of Black History Month, but also in the understanding that Black History is American History. In Central Office, the festivities also included student acts, guest speakers, and staff reflections on Black and African-American history.

As Black History Month comes to a close, we move forward every day with the core belief that every classroom in every school in BPS must be equipped for a high quality student experience and that the district must continuously work on fostering a culture that is inclusive of all and challenges historical biases.

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BPS Health and Wellness Youth Advisory Board Member hosts Read Aloud Event

Student writes Children's Book as part of Youth Advisory Board Project

BPS Health and Wellness Youth Advisory Board Member hosts Read Aloud Event

Boston Latin School 10th Grader Writes Children's Book as part of Youth Advisory Board Project

The BPS Office of Health and Wellness is deeply committed to helping students learn how to make healthy decisions. This includes empowering students to take action to help other students learn more about the importance of making healthy decisions.

Empowering Teens Through Health (ETTH) Youth Advisory Board (YAB)

The Office of Health and Wellness established the Empowering Teens Through Health Youth Advisory Board during the 2020-2021 school year as a way to increase student voice in health programming across BPS. The group meets weekly in person and the meetings before the winter recess focused on community building and building health knowledge and skills.

Public Health;
Health Equity;
Health Communication;
Health Advocacy; and
Health Data.

After the winter recess, YAB students identify a health initiative they would like to lead and work in small groups for their projects. YAB hosts a pitch panel where students pitch their ideas in January and YAB groups engage with internal and external partners to get feedback on their projects throughout the second part of the year. YAB members also have opportunities to hear presentations from departments and give feedback on the programming. Last year, YAB had the opportunity to present their work to the District Wellness Council.

This year's YAB project focus on the following topics:

Bike promotion and safety education;
Health Education for All Learners;
Mental Health promotion - instagram and podcast; and
Reducing food waste in schools.

Hennigan Read-Aloud with Jilliane Liranzo

Jilliane's project last year was to write a children's book focused on disability advocacy. She was passionate about bringing disability representation to storybooks to create a sense of belonging for people with disabilities.

Following the District Wellness Council YAB presentation in May 2024, Hennigan K-8 School Principal Tanya Woodard expressed interest in piloting Jilliane's book at her school.

Jilliane was excited to share her story with young students in BPS and we are hoping to organize another read aloud and identify ways to bring the book to all elementary schools in the district. She led a reading of the book she created, "We Are All Human,” a children’s book about understanding and accepting people with disabilities.

A two-year board member of the Empowering Teens Through Health Youth Advisory Board, Jilliane wrote her book last year and plans to host other read-alouds throughout the BPS community!

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Events

Feb 20

Spirit Day

all day

Feb 20 - Feb 21

February Recess

all day

Feb 21

February Recess

all day

Feb 22

Saturday Recreational Tennis

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Research

Researching Expanded Learning Time in BPS

The Office of Expanded Learning Time, in partnership with the American Institutes for Research, was awarded a grant by the Institute of Education Sciences to study the types of ELT practiced in BPS, with the goal of understanding the impact of ELT on student academic and behavioral outcomes. Looking at data from 2005-2016, we found that Expanded Learning Time has had positive academic outcomes for BPS students.

For full-year one and year two reports, please follow these links:

If you have questions about the findings, please contact Stephanie Marek (smarek@bostonpublicschools.org)

First page of the PDF file: school_handout_16Nov2017

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BPS celebrates STEM Learning at Annual Region VI Boston STEM Fair

Boston Public Schools celebrates National Reading Month

Boston Public Schools Celebrates Black History Month

BPS Health and Wellness Youth Advisory Board Member hosts Read Aloud Event

Boston Latin School 10th Grader Writes Children's Book as part of Youth Advisory Board Project

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Researching Expanded Learning Time in BPS