Landmark Agreement to Create New Pathways for Madison Park Graduates into Union Apprenticeship Programs

Mayor Michelle Wu today signed a landmark agreement with the Greater Boston Building Trades Unions and the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters to create a new and expanded direct pathway for graduates of Madison Park Technical Vocational High School to good-paying, stable union jobs in the construction trades.

Mayor Michelle Wu, Building Trades Unions, And Carpenters Sign Landmark Agreement to Create New Pathways for Direct Entry for Madison Park Graduates into Union Apprenticeship Programs

Project Labor Agreement for Boston Public Schools will also ensure a consistent supply of skilled workers for the Long-Term Facilities Plan

BOSTON - Tuesday, May 13, 2025 - Mayor Michelle Wu today signed a landmark agreement with the Greater Boston Building

Trades Unions and the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters to create a new and expanded direct pathway for graduates of Madison Park Technical Vocational High School to good-paying, stable union jobs in the construction trades. This commitment is part of a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) for the Boston Public Schools (BPS) Long-Term Facilities Plan, ensuring a consistent supply of skilled, union labor for major BPS capital projects.

“It is a historic day for Boston Public Schools and Madison Park. This agreement is a statement on the City of Boston’s values, delivering three major wins, for our schools, our students and our partners in the trades,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “We are doing this because our students deserve every improvement, every opportunity, and expansion of resources now. They deserve spaces to build lifelong friendships and expand professional networks and develop the skills to serve at every step of their journey.”

"After graduating Madison Park, I didn’t have a clear plan. I didn’t have access to college or a roadmap to a sustainable career. That all changed when I discovered a pre-apprenticeship program called Building Pathways that prepared me for a career in the building trades unions. After graduating Building Pathways, I got the chance to start my career on a site covered by a Project Labor Agreement. Through a PLA negotiated by the unions, I didn’t just get a job, I built a career. When we commit to union labor through a PLA, we’re not just hiring workers, we're investing in families. We're putting real wages into the hands of parents who are raising the next generation. We’re investing in our neighborhoods, small businesses, and community centers. This PLA is an engine of economic growth. It ensures local hiring, so the people building these schools are the same people who walk these streets, ride the T, send their kids to these classrooms. It means more of our young people are getting into a lifetime career. The ripple effects of this PLA will be felt for decades creating stable pathways to home ownership, to save for the future, and building stronger, safer communities. This is how we fight inequality, not with words, but with work. With opportunity. With good union jobs,” said Chaton Green, Business Agent, Greater Boston Building Trades Unions.

Under Mayor Wu’s administration, the City of Boston has dedicated an increasing share of its capital budget to accelerate the pace of major school construction projects through the Long-Term Facilities Plan. This PLA ensures that all major BPS capital projects moving forward will have a consistent supply of skilled, union labor. These projects must be completed quickly and carefully sequenced to minimize disruptions to school communities. By signing this PLA, the City is creating greater efficiency and stability in large-scale, multi-step projects, while aligning with the City’s equitable procurement and supplier diversity standards to expand opportunities to women- and minority-owned businesses. Future school projects will be evaluated for potential inclusion in the PLA after a case-by-case review, as required by the Mass Leads Act, the economic development bill signed by Governor Maura Healey in November 2024.

"This landmark agreement creates real opportunities for students, especially young women and students of color, to thrive and build long lasting, fulfilling careers in the city they call home," said BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper. "Throughout the district, we are creating pathways to college and career in areas like health care, education, the arts, and the building trades. This agreement ensures that Boston will have a skilled, qualified workforce well into the future."

The PLA also specifies that graduates of Madison Park will have direct entry into the Building Pathways pre-apprenticeship program. Building Pathways is a non-profit organization founded by the Greater Boston Building Trades Unions dedicated to the recruitment, retention, and advancement of under-represented groups in the union building trades, particularly women, people of color, and young adults. Madison Park offers six Ch. 74-certified vocational programs aligned with the building trades: Carpentry; Electricity; Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC); Metal Fabrication; Plumbing; and Building and Property Maintenance. According to the terms of the PLA, the top-performing half of each graduating class from each of these six programs at Madison Park––up to 50 students per year––will have guaranteed admission into Building Pathways, followed by admission to a registered apprenticeship program. Madison Park will be the only technical vocational school in Massachusetts to offer its graduates direct entry into apprenticeship programs at this scale.

“Madison Park should and will be the best technical vocational high school in the country,” said Paul Neal, Head of School at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. “I’m grateful to have Mayor Wu’s partnership to give Madison the level of support that will uplift our students today and for their long term success, and I want to thank the Building Trades Unions for working with us to create these opportunities right in the heart of Roxbury.”

This expanded partnership with the building trade unions is a continuation of Mayor Wu’s and Superintendent Skipper’s commitment to immediate investment in Madison Park––including expanding co-op opportunities for students and modernizing curriculum and technology––even as the City continues its planning and design work for a re-designed Madison Park campus. In April 2025, the City and BPS submitted a Statement of Interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Core Program to seek state support for the project.

The PLA also commits to enhancing childcare opportunities for workers in the participating unions by exploring the creation of a trust fund to subsidize the cost of high-quality childcare, similar to the trusts that the unions currently administer for health insurance and pension benefits. This builds on the City’s ongoing efforts, in partnership with the Care That Works coalition, to create more options for high-quality childcare for workers with non-traditional schedules.

The BPS Long-Term Facilities Plan commits to dramatically overhauling the district's physical footprint, with multiple complex projects underway simultaneously. Since 2022, the City has completed the Boston Arts Academy, the Josiah Quincy Upper School, and the new Horace Mann School (in the former Edwards building); and has broken ground on the new Carter School (on track to open in September 2025), a gut renovation of the Irving building for the new Sarah Roberts Elementary (on track to open in September 2025), and a major renovation and expansion of the PJ Kennedy Elementary School (on track to be complete in September 2025). The City has successfully secured state support from the Massachusetts School Building Authority for the Shaw-Taylor Elementary School and the Ruth Batson Academy with several more schools, including Madison Park. This is more major capital projects underway at once than has been completed in the last 40 years combined.

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Haitian Creole-English Two-Way Immersion

Mattapan Early Elementary School/Haitian Creole Dual Language Program

Haitian Creole Dual Language Mattapan Early Elementary

Haitian Creole Program

Mattahunt Elementary School

In September 2017, Boston Public Schools launched the Toussaint L’Ouverture Academy at the Mattahunt Elementary School, the first Two-Way Immersion Haitian Creole Dual-Language Preschool Program in the country. The Toussaint L’Ouverture Academy is a Haitian Creole Dual Language program that serves students in grades K1-6. We provide an opportunity for students to achieve high levels of bilingual and biliterate proficiency and sociocultural competency through rigorous Haitian Creole and English dual-language instruction. The team at the Toussaint L'Ouverture Academy believes in the potential of every student and fosters a love of learning and a sense of responsibility in students to position them to realize their immense potential. We do this by providing rigorous and meaningful learning experiences - experiences that are grounded in students’ interests, contexts, and cultures and in the environment and community that surrounds and girds the school.
Learn more about the Mattahunt Elementary School.

Curriculum

The Mattapan Early Elementary School (MEES) will be offering what is likely the first Two Way Immersion Haitian Creole Dual Language Preschool Program in the country beginning in SY17-18. Instruction is provided in two languages (Haitian Creole and English) across subjects. The goals of a dual language program are biliteracy and biculturalism. At the Mattapan Early Elementary School, the Haitian Creole Language Arts curriculum is aligned with the ‘Focus on K1’ Language Arts curriculum which is currently utilized in most preschool classrooms across the district. This centers-based curriculum promotes inquiry in the classroom supported by rich text.

Research

In a study by Virginia Collier and Wayne Thomas of over 37 districts, covering six states, (compared with students in English-only classrooms) they found that dual language students have higher test scores and also seem to be happier in school. Attendance is better, behavioral problems are fewer and parent involvement is higher. ^[1] Because bilingual children have to follow social cues in order to determine which language to use within their settings, children as young as three have demonstrated strong skills in perspective-taking and theory of mind.^[2] In a four year study of Portland Public Schools (Oregon), lead by Dr. Jennifer Steele, students in dual language programs outperformed their peers in English-reading skills by a full year’s worth of learning by the end of middle school.^[3] In addition, brain research, such as that of Dr. Gigi Luk at Harvard, found that bilinguals demonstrate better executive control; a set of cognitive skills based upon limited resources for such functions such as inhibition, switching attention and working memory. ^[4]

^[1]http://cmmr.usc.edu//CollierThomasComplete.pdf

^[2] http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/JP/JP-01-0-000-10-Web/JP-01-1-000-10-PDF/JP-01-1-039-10-010-Farhadian-M/JP-01-1-039-10-010-Farhadian-M-Tt.pdf

^[3] https://ies.ed.gov/funding/grantsearch/details.asp?ID=1294

^[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3322418/

Community

The Haitian Parents Association have been instrumental in supporting with parent communications and community involvement. With supports from Pastor Fleurissant, the Office of English Language Learners has had an opportunity to engage with parents and community stakeholders at events, town hall meetings and various media outlets. In collaboration with the Office of Engagement, OIIT and Communications, OELL has distributed content on the benefits of dual language programs, held meetings with Community Based Organizations and posted content on the BPS website inviting families to register for the Haitian Creole Dual Language Program at Welcome Centers.

Professional Development

The Office of English Language Learners has also partnered with Dr. Michel DeGraff, Professor of Linguistics, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in order to provide a five cohort session on Kreyòl Studies to BPS teachers in support of this endeavor. Dr. DeGraff has agreed to partner on this project and will be providing support to the MEES for the effective implementation of this program. In addition, this project will receive professional development from the Center for Applied Linguistics, the Massachusetts Association for Bilingual Education and Dual Language New Mexico to support with the implementation of this program. Professional Development on aligned Focus on K1 curriculum will be developed and provided in collaboration with the Office of Early Childhood and the Office of English Language Learners.

Dr. Michel DeGraff, MIT-Haiti Initiative

Dr. DeGraff is Professor of Linguistics at MIT and director of the MIT-Haiti Initiative (http://haiti.mit.edu) funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. He’s also a founding member of Haiti’s Haitian Creole Academy. Prof. DeGraff’s research has deepened our understanding of the history and structures of Creole languages, especially his native Haitian Creole (“Kreyòl”). These languages have often been, mistakenly, described as “exceptional,” “lesser” or “deficient,” and they have been, by and large, excluded from the education of Creole speakers—to the detriment of these disenfranchised communities, in Haiti and beyond. DeGraff’s linguistic analyses and his projects on Kreyòl-based STEM education have now shown that Creole languages, such as Kreyòl, are fundamentally on a par with non-Creole languages in terms of historical development, grammatical structures and expressive capacity. Michel DeGraff’s research projects bear on social justice as well, on a global scale. In Prof. DeGraff’s vision, Creole languages and other so-called “local” languages constitute a necessary ingredient for universally accessible quality education, sustainable development, equal opportunity and dignified citizenship for their speakers.