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. 
 

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. 
 

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.

1. Public Health;
2. Health Equity;
3. Health Communication; 
4. Health Advocacy; and 
5. 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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ASPEN Challenge Kicks Off for Boston Public Schools

It was a meeting of brilliant minds at the 2025 ASPEN challenge, which kicked off in South Boston on February 13, 2025! The challenge brought together about 200 students and educators across 20 Boston Public Schools high schools, who will develop sustainable solutions to issues they identify in their communities.

The launch featured several local leaders who presented a series of topics including affordable housing, access to green spaces, and post-secondary education pathways. School teams will spend ten weeks developing, implementing, and reporting on their chosen challenge. Some examples of the challenges that the teams could choose from include:

• Reimagining an empty parking space, vacant lot, or unused asphalt as a vibrant park that reduces heat island effects, boosts biodiversity, and creates a safe, fun, and welcoming space to connect, play, and thrive.
• Producing a media campaign that will raise awareness on the gun violence epidemic and empower youth around the country to take action in creating safer schools and communities.
• Designing a solution that addresses homelessness among high school students and young adults in the community, and emphasizes the importance of stabilizing their access to education and academic performance

At the end of the ten weeks, the teams will reconvene on April 29 for the “Solution Showcase,” where they will present their work and impact to a panel of judges made up of community leaders, educators, experts, and activists.

Three teams will be chosen as the Grand Prize winners of Aspen Challenge: Boston and travel to Aspen, Colorado to present their community solution at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June.

Good Luck to our BPS teams who are participating in the 2025 ASPEN Challenge!

We cannot wait to see the incredible projects that our BPS school teams are working on!

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