City Council - Ways & Means Committee Hearing on Docket #1690

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For the record, my name is Brian Worrell, District 4 City Councilor, and I'm the Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Ways and Means. Today is October 2nd, 2025. The exact time is 2.04 p.m. This hearing is being recorded is also being live streamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity channel 8, RCN channel 82, and Fios channel 964. Bring comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.wm at boston.gov and be made part of the record available to all councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison Karishma Chauhan at karishma.chouhan at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 1690, a hearing regarding an appropriation for a feasibility study in schismatic design for the Ruth Bassin Academy. within the Massachusetts School and Building Authority, also known as MSBA core program. This matter was sponsored by Mayor Wu and referred to the committee on September 24th, 2025. We have received a letter of absence from Councilor Pepén. We know that one way to lift up our open enrollment schools is to invest in the facilities which boost their capacity to provide holistic educational programs and early college opportunities. Thanks to the MSBA, in the past two years, the city has been able to open one school per year. The Roos Basten project will give Dorchester a non-exam school option in a new facility and an early college pathway through partnership with UMass Boston. I will now turn it over to our today's panelists to introduce themselves and to get into their presentation. The floor is now yours.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, good morning, or actually good afternoon. Carlton Jones, the Executive Director of the Public Facilities Department. And I'm here with my colleagues to We'll bring this matter before you. We're very excited, once again, to partner with the Massachusetts School Building Authority. So I'm going to turn it over to Senior Project Manager Brian McLaughlin, who's going to go through a lot of the material. And then after that, he'll turn it over to our colleague from the school department.

Thank you, Colton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Massachusetts School Building Authority is the state authority that oversees funding of public school construction projects in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The MSBA is a reimbursement agency It works with local communities to create affordable, sustainable, energy-efficient schools across Massachusetts and is funded through one penny of the Massachusetts sales tax. MSBA has two programs, the Core Program and the Accelerated Repair Program. The Accelerator Repair Program is for roof, windows, and it used to be for boiler projects, now heat pump conversion projects. And the core program is for larger school construction projects beyond just straightforward repairs, such as major renovations, additional renovations, and new school construction. The City of Boston has made a strong effort to collaborate more with the MSBA in recent years. The City has opened the Dearborn STEM Academy, the Boston Arts Academy, Josiah Quincy Upper School, and most recently this past September opened the Carter School. In addition to that, City of Boston has also completed 35 roof, window, and boiler repair projects under the Accelerator Repair Program. The 35 completed repair projects combined with the four core projects result in $656 million in construction with $241 million in reimbursement coming back to the city from the Mass School Building Authority. For the school before you today, the process started with the MSBA in April of 2024 when the city submitted the statement of interest, which is what the MSBA refers to as their application. for the Ruth Batson Academy, formerly the John W. McCormick Middle School. Submission of the SOI to the MSBA was supported by the city council on April 2nd, 2024. MSBA reviewed the SOI in the summer of 2024, visited the school last fall, and invited RBA into the core program at the MSBA board meeting in December of 2024. The core program starts with an invitation into eligibility period. This invitation started for the RBA on July 1st, 2025. The eligibility period allows the MSBA to gauge financial and community readiness of districts by allowing them nine months to complete certain preliminary requirements of the MSBA construction program. Eligibility period action items include completing initial compliance certification, forming a school building committee, completing an enrollment questionnaire, providing the district's maintenance plan, submitting the school's educational profile questionnaire, appropriating funds for a feasibility study, To date, for the RBA project, the City has completed the following eligibility period action items. We've submitted the initial compliance certification We formed the School Building Committee. We submitted the enrollment questionnaire in the School Educational Profile last week. Today, we are here before you requesting $2,500,000 to bring on an OPM in Architect can deduct the feasibility state. I hit some button. There we go. Sorry, we're back on track. Again, we're here before you today to request $2,500,000 to bring on OPM and architect to conduct the feasibility study. This slide provides a timeline of MSPA action to date and what we're going to expect within the next year. So again, we went to the MSBA board in December. We started the eligibility period July 1st. The next immediate step is to complete the remainder of the eligibility period tasks, which will be done by March of 2026. This will allow the MSBA board to move the Ruth Batson Academy forward into the capital pipeline by a vote of the MSBA board into the feasibility study section of their process. We will then be eligible to bring on an OPM and an architect, so we'll use the funds that will be appropriated by the City Council. to bring on the OPM and architect likely in the spring and summer of 2026 and we'll start the feasibility study and pre-design work in the late summer fall of 2026. I'm going to turn it over to Del now who will speak more directly to the Ruth Batson Academy.

Thank you, Brian. Good afternoon. My name is Del Stanislaus, Chief of Capital Planning for Boston Public Schools. Thank you, Councilor Worrell. I will walk us through some of the Root-Batson Academy merger process milestones and some background about the Root-Batson Academy School. In April of 2024, the Boston School Committee officially renamed the merged BCLE McCormick campus the Ruth Batson Academy. Paying tribute to civil rights leader Ruth Batson and her lifelong commitment to equity and educational opportunity. The new name reflects a proud identity for the school community and connects students to Boston's history of leadership in advancing justice. The merger process began in May of 2019 with the initial proposal introduced to school committee. In December of 2022, the school committee voted to merge the two schools into a single, stronger community. From 2021 through 2022, site consolidation and planning work began at the Harbor Point Campus to prepare for the unification of students and staff and programs. In September of 2024, the consolidation was completed and all students were learning together on one campus under the new Root-Batson Academy name. Over the past five years, several Boston public schools teams have engaged students, families, educators, and community partners in a robust process that included planning, meetings, feedback sessions, and collaborative design work. Next slide. These conversations ensured the merger was shaped not only by logistics, but also by the voices and aspiration of the school community. The result is a school identity and culture that reflects unity, Inclusiveness and Academic Ambition. The unified Root-Batson offers strengthened academic programming that blends the best practices and traditions from both BCLA and the McCormick. Wraparound supports have expanded to better serve students and families, ensuring access to counseling, enrichment opportunities, and community resources. The RBA team is currently deepening an already strong partnership with UMass Boston, the district's first university-assisted community hub school, to encourage students to participate in early college and gain access to the university library and other campus resources. Over the past several summers, the BPS facilities team performed renovation work, including updating a live skills room updating science labs, painting, and acquiring new furniture. We are excited that the school community is now a unified community and are excited to work together on their future building pending continuation in the eligibility period with the MSBA. We will use the tools that were developed with the BPS community during the pre-K through 6, 7 through 12 school design study to ensure we're designing a new state-of-the-art high school in North Dorchester for students in the city of Boston. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation. I just want to also acknowledge that Council President Louie-Jen has joined us. We'll now go over to Councilor colleagues for our first round of questions. Councilor, the floor is now yours.

Thank you. And I apologize that I came in late. But just so that I understand, this is a hearing for an appropriation of how much?

$2,500,000.

And this is outside of the MSBA process? This is from our own funding?

This would be with a collaborative project with the MSBA.

Collaborative with the MSBA. Okay, for the feasibility study and schematic design. And so we're not talking about any actual work yet. The $2.5 million is for the study and a design that we will then turn over to the MSBA or working in partnership with the MSBA.

Sure, yeah, we'll use this money to bring on the OPM and architect. We'll start the design of the project. We'll bring it to a point where we'll have a project scope budget. and we'll understand what the cost and what the actual project will look like but it's usually the 18 to 24 month process before we'll come back to this body for a second appropriation for the entirety of the project.

Has it been submitted and approved by the MSBA?

No, this is one of the action items which will likely have approval to move forward in either February or April of 2026 by the MSBA. But we're working with the MSBA currently to get these action items. The prerequisite action items completed.

And when do you anticipate being done with the schematic design and the feasibility study?

Likely by 2027. Okay. the fall of 2027.

So you wouldn't even complete this before you know, yes or no, from the MSBA?

We'll be working with them during that time. So they, we submitted to them probably early fall of 2027, and they'll bring it forward for a schematic design vote to approve the scope of the work. Late 2027.

But has MSBA overall, maybe let me take a step back, have they approved this promise? Yes. I think what I'm hearing you ask is yes.

The initial acceptance has already occurred.

And we already did that. So I was just trying to get an answer.

So we submitted an SOI statement of interest that the MSBA has approved, has accepted us into their eligibility period. So it's not a, excuse me, it's not a project as of yet. but we are in the beginnings of their stages towards the project acceptance.

Great. That's great to know. Thank you. This is a school that matters a lot to me. This is my middle school. The McCormick School worked a lot with the the principal who is now regional superintendent Andrea Johnston here in the city of Boston or is in some way working with the central office. and I remember visiting the school and hearing a lot of complaints from the students about the gym being under just there being a lot of problems with like the physical structure of the gym because it's a merger The school infrastructure as it existed prior was for middle schoolers, and there's a lot that needed to be upgraded to really include the school right by my house, BCLA, that community in. and so there were like locker issues, there were issues with like a lack of science classroom. Just wanted to make sure that all of those things are being wanted to uplift and that we're considering and those are all gonna be part of the schematic design.

That's right, Madam President. and in fact, the whole feasibility study is to look at all of that and to say how well does the existing facility meet those needs, if it does or does not, and if it doesn't, what would be the next step.

Thank you. Where does the Dever School play into this? We know the Dever School is closing. Is the physical footprint for where the Dever is, is that going to be involved at all in this plan for the Ruth Batson Academy?

Yes, the MSBA is going to look at the entire campus, correct.

Okay. It's a school that's closing, but also at that school there were a number of issues with the playground area, so I just wanted to make sure I was elevating from my own time going there and talking to students and administrators there, some of the things that they pointed out, which were unfortunate for them. They felt like they were really lagging behind to really make the merger. I believe in these mergers. I think we probably need to do a lot more of them. We also need to make sure that when they happen that our kids have the resources that make sense for high schoolers in a building that was not built for them, right? McCormick was six through eight. So that's all I want to say. I'm very excited about this project. of course, the Taylor Shaw, another one in the pipeline. So I'm very excited for this moment and happy to see it moving along. Thank you, Mr. Chair. No other questions.

Is this appropriation part of the capital budget or is this appropriation coming from the operating? This is a part of the capital budget. Capital budget, thank you. And... For the feasibility study, are we ensuring that there is any specific, you know, this school being so closely located next to the shore, resiliency, is that part of, Yes?

Yes, that's going to be a part of the project.

Awesome. And then we built a couple of high schools from the Dearborn to the Boston Arts Academy to the Josiah Quincy Upper without any sports fields. What's the plan here and is there enough space to eventually build like a multi-purpose field?

I think that will be part of the feasibility study to explore When we work with the MSBA, we have the OPM and the architect on board to see what opportunities there are on the footprint of the McCormick site to see if there's the ability to include a field? I don't know that there is, but it was something that we'll be looking at during the feasibility study. Awesome. Thank you.

It's probably worthwhile, if I may add, just if we start calling it the Denver McCormick site, because that's a rather large Click print if you know if you look at the parking lots in the adjacent areas. So that's what the MSBA is going to look at the entirety of the area to see what we can do and what's possible. Awesome.

And then is there any goals in terms of how many students we're hoping to house in the new school? I only ask this just because when we build new schools, the facilities All of those things matter, not only because it's a new school, but to ensure that we have enough students for extracurricular, right? AP classes. We tend to see some of our best schools to be our biggest schools, East Boston and our exam schools. So any idea in terms of the size?

That's something that went through our thought process before we submitted the enrollment questionnaire to the MSBA and the number that we submitted was 1,000 students.

1,000 students, okay, thanks. and... I know we've already established early college here through UMass Boston. Are there any shared facilities, especially during a construction period, that we can use UMass Boston, whether it's providing access to the library, maybe gyms if needed?

I know that the RBA team in collaboration with teams in the City of Boston and also district level staff is working in close collaboration with UMass Boston on The College Pathway piece. I think that if we need to have that conversation with UMass Boston, I think the partnership is really strong right now, so we can have those conversations with our UMass Boston colleagues.

Awesome. Sounds great. I want to acknowledge that Councilor Fitzgerald has joined us. We'll now turn it over to Councilor Fitzgerald for any questions.

Thank you, Chair, and apologize for my tidiness, folks. We're trying to do a lot of things, right? Just want to say I'm excited about this. I think it's great as the school resides in District 3, and obviously with the closing of the Devers, there's a lot of folks that were upset, right, about I was at the Carter School last week and saw the collaboration between MSBA and the City of Boston and the Thank you. Once you guys have architect on board and start the feasibility study, you require all districts to look at multiple solutions to a facility. Problem include no build, either add renovation, right, and new construction. Is that correct?

Correct. Yeah, they'll be part of the feasibility sites. Look at all those various options.

Awesome. Thank you. And I saw that, how many kids, I heard that 1,000 is the number we used for the enrollment. I just got that off Councilor Orrell's question. But what was the current enrollment at the moment?

I can get that for you in one second.

Yeah. While you're looking that up, my other question was the future enrollment of the school and is that determined on the, based on the enrollment study with the MSBA, the 1,000, that's what we used.

Yes, that's the number, the 1,000 students, and their current enrollment is 604 students.

Okay, so let me call it an ad of 396 students. That's great. And how many times during the life of this project will you guys have to come back before us? To ask for, you know, do you authorize money or request or anything like that?

One more time.

Just one more time? Yes. Awesome. And when during the life of the project does that typically happen? with the MSBA. Is that like, sometimes when we do these back-to-back votes, sometimes folks come like, you know, we got to do an authorization and two weeks later, and then an authorization or is that sort of like as required could vary project to project?

will likely be before this body in the fall of 2027 for this project.

Fall of 27. Okay.

So we'll submit the schematic design submission to the MSBA. MSBA board will vote to approve that schematic design, and then we'll come back to this body to appropriate the balance of funds to complete construction.

Great. and a final question, just thinking about all the, there's a lot of activity going down there now, a lot of construction happening, right? There's future developments that we're not entirely sure of with Bay City, but the field house and the school here, Is there already collaboration between the two and how it will be used?

Yes, there is collaboration and the district, so Boston Public Schools currently have an MOU with the Fieldhouse team for root bats and students to utilize that facility.

That's perfect. That's awesome. It's a great thing. I'm excited. Thank you all. Sorry if there were any repetitive questions. And again, I apologize for my tidiness. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Again, thank you for being here. Thank you, my Councillors, for All their great questions. Thank you for central staff, IGR. There's no public testimony, so this hearing on docket number 1690 is adjourned.