Education Justice

The over 54,000 students in Boston Public Schools – my own daughter among them - deserve quality school choices at all levels and in all neighborhoods. When we fail to support our schools, we fail to build our future. As a BPS parent myself, ensuring the availability of high-performing academic communities isn’t just policymaking – it’s personal.

Education isn’t just policymaking to David — it’s personal. As a Boston Public Schools parent, David wants to ensure that every child gets a world-class education in Boston, no matter what zip code they’re from. Click the play button above to watch David’s education justice platform video.

As City Councilor, I will:

Implement an educational recovery & advancement plan

The only way to truly recover from the pandemic is by providing the necessary supports so our students are put on paths to better educational outcomes than they were before COVID 19 closed schools across the city.

• Prioritize vaccination for in-class educators and all BPS administrative & support staff - to ensure they can focus on education and not concerns about their safety and that of loved ones

• Ensure that students have access to the social/emotional/mental health personnel they may need to support a successful return to the classroom

• Establish a permanent admissions process for our Exam Schools that ensures truly equitable access for all students in Boston

• Rebuild our school infrastructure and provide every student with a physically healthy, environmentally sound learning environment; this should also be directly linked to job-training and career development opportunities within the building trades specifically for Boston residents

Build a Child-centered Boston

• Establish universal K0 & K1 access at BPS schools

• Expand availability and access to multilingual academic instruction & learning opportunities that celebrate the diversity of language communities throughout BPS

• Reduce the amount of BPS budget dedicated to transportation by increasing quality options that keep kids closer to home, and not traveling across the city in pursuit of a reliable education Increase support for extracurricular enrichment activities connected to BPS learning & student development objectives

• Make sure every child in Boston has reliable access to broadband internet Invest in the upkeep of community centers and public parks

Support Wellness & Safety

• Support increased mental health and trauma-informed counseling

• Provide reliable access to menstrual products for all students in need, and contraceptive options in high schools

• Ensure mandatory sex education is medically accurate, comprehensive, and LGBTQIA inclusive

Give Students & Families a Voice

• Shift the Boston School Committee to a hybrid Elected-Appointed model to provide communities with a direct voice in school governance.

• Ensure the School Committee Student Representative is a full voting member, with stipend

• Bring School Committee meetings directly to Boston’s neighborhoods so students, parents, and residents have more opportunity to have their voices heard.

• Support student leaders in reforming the Boston Student Advisory Council and ensuring that students from across BPS, reflecting a diversity of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds, are represented.

Invest in Our Children’s Futures

• Invest in Madison Park and make it a national leader in green vocational technical education.

• Propose a municipal workforce co-op training program for Boston’s high schools. Advocate for baseline foundational funding for schools to minimize the impact of student departures on the ability to deliver reliable, high quality education.

• Address longstanding challenges in successfully recruiting, advancing, and most importantly retaining, educators & administrators reflecting the depth and diversity of the BPS student population

Reform the Boston School Committee into a hybrid Elected-Appointed Model.

30 years after the last change to our school board, the direct voices of our neighborhoods and communities in the education of our children are still absent. I believe the way forward is a hybrid model that combines elected & appointed seats.

This model preserves accountability for the Mayor, adds accountability for the City Council, and, most importantly, provides Bostonians - especially our students - with direct voices at the table in decisions about the education of our children.

Support Madison Park and make it a national leader in green vocational technical education.

We need to value vocational education as the practical tool for meeting Boston’s challenges that it is. We should be celebrating the windows of opportunity that vocational education has the ability to provide, particularly since we know that college may not be the right career development pathway for every student – and that it should not need to be in order to build a successful life in today’s Boston.

In order for Madison Park, the only vocational high school in BPS, to reach its full potential we must engage in a significant reimagining of what vocational-technical education looks like in Boston and for the future. As a leading hub of science and technology; a city where climate resilience is a growing concern for maintaining our way of life; and the home to some of the most dynamic higher education institutions in the world, Boston is uniquely positioned to use the resources right in our backyard to turn Madison Park into a national model for 21st century, Green vocational education.

This training must be supplemented outside of the shops by an academic curriculum that actively speaks to the importance of responsible environmental stewardship – and the critical role that skilled tradespeople must play in making it a reality - enabling them to be both successful professionals and ambassadors for practical environmentalism in society. As the next generation of cosmetologists, auto technicians, chefs and more, developing and implementing climate responsible professional training is sound educational, economic, and social policy.

Propose a municipal workforce co-op training program for Boston’s high schools.

A program modeled on Northeastern University’s successful and long-standing Co-Op program can create direct links between the various departments and agencies in city government and our high schools, allowing students to gain a firsthand understanding of the work of the city and, potentially, their place in it. This will generate a robust, diverse, and direct pipeline of talent that is ready to begin work keeping Boston running on day one.

Boston’s municipal workforce does its best work when it is as reflective of our city’s population as possible. In addition to creating the next generation of early career municipal workers, this proposal plants the seeds for more diversity in department management and leadership – which is critical to sustaining the institutional change and gains achieved by this plan. The skills developed through this program will also allow students to be competitive applicants for similar positions with government agencies outside of Boston, further expanding their options for career making jobs. The ultimate goal of this program will be to expand beyond city government and to create a suite of career development partnerships within Boston’s corporate and non-profit communities as well.

Endorsed By