Boston Public Schools

Leadership

The district is led by a superintendent, hired by the Boston School Committee, a seven-member school board appointed by the mayor after approval by a nominating committee of specified stakeholders. The School Committee sets policy for the district and approves the district's annual operating budget. This governing body replaced a 13-member elected committee after a public referendum vote in 1991. The superintendent serves as a member of the mayor's cabinet.

From October 1995 through June 2006, Dr. Thomas Payzant served as superintendent. A former undersecretary in the US Department of Education, Payzant was the first superintendent selected by the appointed School Committee. Upon Dr. Payzant's retirement, Chief Operating Officer Michael G. Contompasis, former headmaster of Boston Latin School, became Interim Superintendent, and was appointed superintendent in October 2006. Dr. Manuel J. Rivera, superintendent of the Rochester City School District, had agreed to become the next superintendent of the BPS, but instead accepted a post as deputy secretary for public education for New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. In June 2007, the Boston School Committee voted unanimously to appoint Dr. Carol R. Johnson as the next superintendent, beginning in August 2007. Dr. Johnson had served as superintendent of the Memphis City Schools since 2003. Dr. Johnson's tenure ended in summer 2013, and John McDonough served as interim superintendent until July 1, 2015. The superintendent was Dr. Tommy Chang until his resignation in 2018. Laura Perille served as interim superintendent until July 2019 when Brenda Cassellius began her tenure. Cassellius resigned effective June 2022, and was replaced on an interim basis by Dr. Drew Echelson. Drew Echelson has been named in a multimillion dollar lawsuit charging him and Boston Public Schools with racism and discrimination. He has also been accused of falsifying his educational background. Mary Skipper has served as superintendent since September 2022.

The mayor and Boston City Council have control over the overall appropriation for the Boston Public Schools, but the School Committee has control over how funding is allocated internally, and has control over policy.

List of superintendents

Nathan Bishop (1851–1856)

John Dudley Philbrick (1856–1878)

Samuel Eliot (1878–1880)

Edwin P. Seaver (1880–1904)

George H. Conley (1904–1905)

Walter S. Parker (1905–1906) Acting

Stratton D. Brooks (1906–1912)

Maurice P. White (1912–1912) Acting

Dr. Franklin B. Dyer (1912–1918)

Frank V. Thompson (1918–1921)

Jeremiah E. Burke (1921–1931)

Patrick T. Campbell (1931–1937)

Arthur L. Gould (1937–1948)

Dr. Dennis C. Haley (1948–1960)

Dr. Frederick Gillis (1960–1963)

Dr. William H. Ohrenberger (1963–1972)

William J. Leary (1972–1975)

Marion Fahey (1975–1978)

Robert Coldwell Wood (1978–1980)

Paul Kennedy (1980–1981) Acting

Joseph McDonough (1981) Acting

Robert R. Spillane (1981–1985)

Dr. Laval S. Wilson (1985–1991)

History

BPS is the oldest public school system in America, founded in 1647. It is also the home of the nation's first public school, Boston Latin School, founded in 1635. The Mather School opened in 1639 as the nation's first public elementary school, and English High School, the second public high school in the country, opened in 1821. In 1965, the state enacted the Racial Imbalance Law, requiring school districts to design and implement plans to effect racial balancing in schools that were more than 50% "non-white". After years of consistent failure by the Boston School Committee to comply with the law, the U.S District Court ruled in 1974 that the schools were unconstitutionally segregated, and implemented as a remedy the busing of many students from their neighborhood schools to other schools across the city.

In April 2016, after four BPS schools (including Boston Latin Academy) were found to have levels of lead above the state action level in fountain drinking water, the administration of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced that it would provide $2 million from the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust to fund a testing program operated by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to provide technical assistance to public school districts in assessing samples of water both from fountains and from taps used in food preparation. The next November, Baker provided an additional $750,000 to the program for further technical assistance with sampling and testing.

In November 2021, an analysis of primary and secondary school enrollment statistics conducted by The Boston Globe found that enrollment in the district's 122 schools and 6 in-district charter schools in the 2021–2022 academic year had declined by more than 2,000 students from the previous academic year to less than 50,000 students for the first time in decades after falling by approximately 8,000 students during the previous decade. The following month, the Boston School Committee voted to close the Washington Irving Middle School, the James P. Timilty Middle School, and the Jackson/Mann K-8 School at the end of the school year. After a series of audits conducted by KPMG for the city found that the district may have overstated its graduation rates in 5 of the 7 academic years since 2014, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner notified the Boston Public Schools in March 2022 that the state would conduct a second district review following a two-year memorandum of understanding between the state and the district in lieu of receivership from the previous district review in 2020.

Busing and racial equity

The segregated state of Boston's neighborhoods, and school districts, that prompted busing were the direct result of redlining, the denial of mortgages to racial minorities. In most other American cities, redlining had prompted large amounts of white flight to the suburbs. However, unlike those cities, at the time Boston's white population was still composed heavily of immigrant and first-generation families, the vast majority of which either lacked the means or desire to leave the city. As a result, redlining in Boston saw the creation of neighborhoods that were for the most part equally economically disadvantaged but racially imbalanced.

Subsequently, by the time of forced busing came to be in 1974 the majority of the white population were lower-middle and lower-class second-generation blue-collar nuclear families who were heavily reliant on public amenities and infrastructure. Neighborhood schools were part of the family-centered way of life for white families in Boston, a source of neighborhood pride and shared identity.

Equally economically disadvantaged, the African American communities were heavily reliant on Boston's public amenities and infrastructure as well. However, due to the racial bias and corrupt oversight, the infrastructure of Boston's African American neighborhoods paled in comparison to that offered in primarily white communities. This inequality was nowhere more appalling or evident than in the neighborhood schools. In many cases, the understaffed and poorly funded schools were forced to teach with small quantities of outdated reading material and textbooks, as well as carefully rationed school supplies such as pencils, collecting them at the end of the day to ensure they would have enough. This lack of funding and support for the African American neighborhood schools was a result of the lack of proper and equal allocation of funding between white and black school districts within the Boston public school system. This primarily resulted from the racially prejudice all-white Boston public schools committee that wouldn't end up integrating until 1977 with the election of John D. O'Bryant almost three full years after forced busing had begun.

As a direct result of this infrastructure imbalance when integration was instituted and forced busing began the two communities reacted almost conversely. The African American communities although somewhat upset about losing the convenience of the local neighborhood schools welcomed the change with open arms hoping that it would force the school committee to fund all the schools with greater equality than in the past and that it would allow their children to gain a better education in the meantime. Unfortunately, almost all of the white communities saw busing as an inconvenience and a threat to what little privilege they still had as lower-class whites rather than seeing it as an opportunity for greater equality. As a result, when school began, on September 12, 1974, many white families refused to send their kids to school and whole neighborhoods engaged in racially charged riots during which many enacted acts of violence such as throwing rocks, flipping police cars, and even attacking African Americans who happened to be driving or passing by at the time. The violence and rioting continued until October of the same year when the National Guard was brought in to quell the violence.

Busing delays

The district changed school bus route planning using paper and pencil to software called Versatrans in September, 2010, which underestimated the time needed to pick up students and caused widespread problems with late buses. The problems with contractor First Student continued in the 2011–2012 school year, attributed both to misplanned routes and drivers not showing up for work on time. BPS switched contractors from First Student to Veolia Transdev effective July 1, 2013. Bus drivers conducted a wildcat strike in October 2013 demanding removal of GPS tracking devices on school buses that let parents locate the bus, and the abandonment of Versatrans. Contract negotiation problems caused stranded charters school and special education students in August, 2014. A group of researchers from MIT won a BPS contest to overhaul bus routes, and a new software model was used in at the start of the 2017–2018 school year. The number of buses was reduced, and on-time performance declined compared to the previous year, both due to inaccurate planning and drivers not departing the bus yard on time. In 2018, the bus drivers' union threatened a strike over the summer, and in August some runs for charter and special education students were not performed due to a bus driver shortage. Aggressive hiring then caused bus driver shortages to cascade into suburban districts.

Problems with late buses worsened again in fall 2019, leading some parents to hire a ride hailing service to pick up students stranded for over three hours. The district hired consultant Michael Turza to attempt another fix. The COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts closed school buildings for much of 2021. At the beginning of the 2021–22 school year, school bus delays returned amid a nationwide labor shortage. Governor Charlie Baker called up the Massachusetts National Guard to supplement the available pool of drivers in Eastern Massachusetts, sending Guard members to drive smaller vehicles in the cities of Chelsea, Lawrence, Lowell and Lynn.

Potential state takeover

Discussions of a potential state takeover (receivership) of Boston Public Schools peaked in 2022 amid chronic low test scores, enrollment decline, and governance issues, prompting the state to impose a targeted improvement plan instead of full receivership.

The state decided against takeover in favor of a partnership agreement with the city, which ended in 2025 with mixed results and no extension, despite ongoing concerns about academic performance.

Holland Elementary exited state receivership July 1, 2026.

Incidents of violence

Boston Public Schools has been accused of mismanagement related to incidents of violence. These incidents include brawls and disruptions at schools like James F. Condon K-8 in South Boston (with fights spilling off-campus and a bullet found in a bathroom), staff assaults such as an attack on a Henderson School staff member breaking up a fight and a teacher at a Roxbury school punched repeatedly in the face leading to PTSD leave, and the stabbing of a 17-year-old student in a hallway at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Roxbury.

Broader concerns have involved bullying, sexual assaults, and safety debates, prompting calls for more police presence and reforms, amid a national rise in school-related violence.

In 2015, English High School academic dean Shaun Harrison, a secret Latin Kings gang member who recruited students into drug dealing, shot a 17-year-old student in the back of the head. He was convicted and received lengthy state and federal sentences and ordered to pay $10+ million to the victim.

In November 2021, Henderson Inclusion School Principal Patricia Lampron was beaten unconscious by a 16-year-old student during dismissal, suffering a traumatic brain injury with lasting effects on her speech and mobility. The attacker, Laurette Lerouge, later pleaded guilty.

Operations

Budget

The one hundred largest school districts in the nation (by enrollment) spend an average of $14,000 per pupil every year. However, census data from 2017 shows that the BPS easily placed second, by spending $22,292. Only the New York City Department of Education exceeded this figure.

Student assignment policy

Boston Public Schools (BPS) operates schools throughout the city of Boston. BPS assigns students based on preferences of the applicants and priorities of students in various zones.

Since 1989, the city has broken the district into three zones for elementary- and middle-school students. High schoolers can choose any school throughout the city, since they can ride public transportation. Due to the geography of East Boston, for all grade levels each child in East Boston is guaranteed a seat at a school in East Boston.

In 2013, the Boston School Committee voted to begin a new school choice system for the 2014–15 school year and beyond. The new plan, called "Home-Based," measures schools through a combination of MCAS scores and growth, which are grouped in four tiers. Every family has at least two schools within the top tier, four in the top half of performance, and six in the top 75%. Families also are able to list any school within one mile of their home. The plan was first approved by an External Advisory Committee made up of parents, academic experts and community leaders. It was developed by an academic team from Harvard and MIT, which volunteered for the project after hearing about the community process in 2012. The District launched a website, to help the community follow the process and contribute.

Geography

In 2017 the district's schools switched from the Mercator map projection (which accurately shows directions, but inflates areas in high latitudes) to the Gall–Peters projection (which distorts directions, but is one of many equal-area projections).

Schools

Early childhood education

These schools offer programs starting at either age 3 (K0) or age 4 (K1) and ending in either the first or third grade.

Baldwin Early Learning Center (Pilot)

East Boston Early Education Center

Ellison/Parks Early Education School

Haynes Early Education Center

West Zone Early Learning Center

Public Montessori Education

Alighieri Dante Montessori School

Middle schools

Frederick Middle School (Pilot)

UP Academy Charter School of Boston

6-12 schools

Dearborn STEM Academy

Henderson Upper School

Josiah Quincy Upper School (Pilot)

TechBoston Academy

K-12 schools

Carter Development Center

Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Dr. William W. Henderson K-12 Inclusion School

Exam schools

The following schools serve students in grades 7–12 and admit students based on their grades and the Independent School Entrance Examination.

John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics & Science

Boston Latin School

Boston Latin Academy

Former Boston public schools

Aaron Davis School

Abby W. May School

Abraham Lincoln School (now Josiah Quincy School)

Alexander Hamilton Elementary School (closed in 2010, now Baiis Yaakov of Boston High School)

Boston Technical High School

Boston Trade High School

Clarence R. Edwards Middle School (closed in 2021, seventh and eighth grade departments moved to Charlestown High School)

Copley Square High School

David Farragut School (K-5, established in 1904 and closed in 2011)

Dorchester High School

High School of Commerce

Hyde Park High School

Jackson/Mann K-8 School (closed in 2022)

Jamaica Plain High School

James P. Timilty Middle School (closed in 2022)

John W. McCormack Middle School (merged with Boston Community Leadership Academy in 2021)

Louis Agassiz Elementary School (closed in 2011)

McKinley Elementary (renamed Melvin H. King South End Academy in 2023)

Mechanics Arts High School