BPS is proposing the closure of three schools and a grade reconfiguration of three more to go into effect in 2027, district officials announced Monday, building to the district’s long-term goal to drop down to 95 schools by 2030.
The school’s slated for closure under the proposal are Lee Academy Pilot School grades pre-K-3 in Dorchester, the Another Course to College grades 9-12 pilot school in Hyde Park, and Community Academy of Science and Health (CASH) grades 9-12 in Dorchester.
Under the recommendations, the Henderson K-12 Inclusion School would shift into one pre-K-8 school, the Tobin Elementary School would drop grades 7 and 8, and the William E. Russell School would add grade 6.
“This is the first time that we have been able, over the last three cycles, to actually create a long-term facilities capital plan that points to a time in the future of 2030 looking at enrollment trends to say, ‘How many schools do we need to have in the footprint of BPS in order to give a high-quality student experience to our kids?’” said BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper at a press briefing Monday. “And we are on track with this set of closure, merger recommendations and grade reconfiguration recommendations.”
All of the recommendations would go into effect in the 2027-28 school year, officials said, giving school communities and staff notice to prepare.
The news follows the BPS’s announcement last year of a long-term facilities plan to go from 112 schools to 95 schools by 2030, dropping 17 schools over five years in response to enrollment trends and facilities conditions.
Around the same time, BPS officials announced a proposal to close four schools — Excel High School in South Boston, Dever Elementary School in Dorchester, Community Academy in Jamaica Plain and the Mary Lyon Pilot High School in Allston/Brighton — and merge the Wintrop and Clap elementary schools by the 2026-27 school year, later approved by the School Committee.
For the 2027-28 school year, the current proposals would drop the district down to 100 schools, Skipper said.
Skipper said this “cycle three” round of proposals focuses on high schools due to trends in enrollment including “smaller cohorts of students coming up” and “nationally and statewide” the enrollment of the multilingual learner population dropping.
“Then we anticipate the following year to have it be more elementary than high schools,” said Skipper.
The superintendent outlined the reasoning behind the closure decisions, citing “churn” or lots of students switching schools as a reason in all. Lee Academy, she said, is in a “very old building” without capacity for A/C and can’t expand relative to grades or enrollment.
Another Course to College has had “lower enrollment year to year,” Skipper said, and is a “difficult size” to offer things like sports, extracurriculars, AP courses, and dual enrollment or early college.
In addition to having low choice data from students and a high multilingual learner population, CASH only uses half of one of the district’s larger buildings, which could be used more efficiently for a much larger population of high school students, Skipper said.
“One option we’re looking at is creating a true multilingual learner center, having BINcA, which is our Boston International School with Newcomers, move over there and be more of a center placement instead of scattering our multilingual learners,” said Skipper, highlighting the opportunity to create “much needed programming that currently doesn’t exist.
The high school closures will roll out over time, she said, first sealing off 9th grade next year to not add new students and allowing all 11th and 12th grade students to graduate from their current school.
The Henderson, which currently has a lower and upper campus, reconfiguration would be more complex than the others. The lower campus is in “great demand,” Skipper said, while the almost half the students leave the 8th grade and make the high school much smaller.
Under the proposal, the school would drop grades 9-12, and the lower and upper schools would merge. The small lower building would house K0, K1 and K2, and grades 1-8 would move to the upper building where the high school was.
The Tobin’s loss of grades 7 and 8 would also allow for some early childhood expansion, Skipper said.
Mayor Michelle Wu said officials have put “a lot of work” into presenting and implementing these changes over the last four years.
“Instead of having a situation that would create a rushed announcement with students and educators and school communities and scrambling to find their next placement and then often, frankly, being shuffled around into a new placement that wasn’t necessarily better serving their their needs or the student experience,” Wu said, “we wanted to make sure, big picture always, that we’re not just about trying to close or reduce seats to save dollars. This is truly about delivering the highest quality student experience for all of our students and having all of the resources aligned to do so.”
The superintendent stated the district will work with students and staff on placements as the proposals go forward.
“I just want to reiterate that we are needing and wanting to create high quality seats,” said Skipper. “But I just want to be clear that when it comes to closures, mergers and reconfigurations, these aren’t just seats. These are children. These are staff. These are families. These are communities. And we don’t think of it just as a seat.”
The closure and merger plans will be presented to the Boston School Committee for consideration at Wednesday night’s meeting.
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