Last year, Julian enrolled at Dorchester’s renowned Henderson School, where he has begun to excel while learning with other students.
The Henderson was once hailed as a model of inclusive education, drawing scholars from as far as Germany and Brazil to observe how students with and without disabilities learned side by side. But soon the kindergarten-through-12th-grade school will stop serving as a long-term destination for Boston’s most vulnerable students.
After next year, the city plans to eliminate Henderson’s high school grades amid declining enrollment and a budget crunch. A similar institution in Brighton, the Mary Lyon, is shutting its high school this year.
The closures come as Boston Public Schools is in the final stages of a once-in-a-generation transformation of special education. The plan includes a shift away from high schools like Henderson that specialize in teaching students with disabilities. Instead, city officials envision making all classrooms inclusive environments.
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“Now my son can write his name for the first time without guidance,” Whyte said.
“We feel really confident saying student services and supports will not be impacted by any staffing reductions,” Wright said.
The Roosevelt K-8 school in Hyde Park is set to lose four special education teachers and four classroom aides, according to Noah Patel, a sixth-grade math and science teacher. Staff have been told, Patel said, that next year they will group most children with disabilities from kindergarten to fourth grade in the same classroom.
“It feels like we are going backwards,” Patel said.
In Jamaica Plain, the Curley School used to have two teachers at all times in core classes such as English and math. With the cuts, third-grade teacher Kafunda Banks said three teachers will have to divide their time between two classrooms.
That sentiment was echoed at 15 schools surveyed by Megan Murray, a third-grade special education teacher at the Holmes School in Dorchester who is writing her dissertation about the overhaul of special education.
“Teachers felt like they are tasked with the impossible mission of providing instruction to all students without the resources they need to make it work,” said Murray, who is studying at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
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