On June 17th two BTU members submitted a letter to the editor in response to an article on school closures in BPS. You can read the full letter below.
“We write as educators who have been directly affected by past announcements of school closures and mergers (“Like her predecessors, Wu decides to go slow on consolidating schools,” Page A1, June 12). We believe that those most affected — parents, students, and educators — should be at the center of conversations about the future of our public schools, yet we’ve noticed that in the Globe’s reporting on school closures, our voices are often missing.
On Wednesday, after months of gathering input from those most affected, our union, the Boston Teachers Union, passed a resolution on Boston Public Schools school facilities planning. The resolution acknowledges the past harms of lacking community participation and historic disinvestment in our school buildings. Through this resolution we call on the City of Boston to prioritize new construction and school renovation independent of proposals to merge or close schools. We call on the city to commit to at least three new or fully renovated school buildings annually until all schools are up-to-date.
We also call on the Globe to center the voices of those most affected. Look at the research about the racist and harmful effects of school closures, such as on Chicago’s South Side. Stop talking about rightsizing and start talking about investing right in our students.
Haven Jones
Boston
Ilene Carver
Dorchester
Jones is an educator at the Ruth Batson Academy (formerly the Boston Community Leadership Academy/McCormack 7-12 School). Carver is a retired educator from the Pauline A. Shaw Elementary School.