If all you saw of John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science was its back-to-school community potluck this September, you might think it was just like any other public high school.
At the front of the cafeteria, a parent council member stands to give a short speech welcoming attendees and gestures toward tables stacked with raffle tickets and desserts. After the announcement ends, conversation resumes. Parents raise their voices to make themselves heard over the complete discography of Michael Jackson pulsing from a large speaker.
But beneath the unremarkable surface hums a quiet intensity: The race to secure a seat at O’Bryant, one of Boston’s three public “exam high schools,” begins as early as the third grade. Boston, like several other urban public school districts in the country, boasts an elevated tier of highly coveted test-in high schools that many parents see as a direct path to a place like Harvard.