City Council - Education Committee Hearing on Docket #1282

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For the record, my name is Henry Santana, at-large city councilor, and I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Education. Today is September 29, 2025. The exact time is 2.09 p.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcasted on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Files Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.education at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all councilors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to a sign up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you are looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison roncobb at ron.cobb at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 1-2-8-2, order for a hearing regarding the Boston Public Schools' exams school's admission policy and proposed changes. This matter was sponsored by Councilors Enrique Pepen, City Council President Rucy Louis-Jean, and City Councilor Ben Weber and was referred to the committee on June 25, 2025. Today I am joined by my colleagues in order of arrival. Councilor Fitzgerald, Councilor Pepén, Councilor Flynn, Mejia, and Councilor Coletta Zapata. Before I introduce our amazing panelists that we have here today, I would like to give the opportunity to my colleagues for brief opening remarks. Starting with the lead sponsors, and then we'll go to an order of arrival. So, Councilor Pepén, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My co-sponsors, Councilor Louijeune and Councilor Weber, thank you to them as well. To the Boston Public Schools leadership here today, thank you for being here, and the number of community members who have advocated for equity in our beloved schools, not only now, but in the past decades. I'll just start off by saying that I'm a proud alumni of the O'Brien High School. My wife is a proud alumni of the Boston Latin Academy. We are now new BPS parents and plan to enroll our children in BPS throughout their primary and secondary education. I say this to show that I know the firsthand how difficult I know firsthand the deep commitment that every parent and guardian has to ensure their student has the best education possible. I acknowledge that these recommendations were not slapped together and come from a place of data-driven analysis since the latest policy changes in 2021, which is why I look forward to this hearing being a conversation to help me understand these recommendations better. Not only for the students in my district, but to those across the city. To level the playing field for all students and their socioeconomic backgrounds. I also acknowledge that BPS wants to be more equitable. BPS wants all children to succeed. and that our exam schools represent the beautiful diverse city of Boston. And so I hope that this discussion will also be part of the start of a pivot towards bringing more attention and resources to all of our high schools. So that can be as highly regarded as the exam schools. I look forward to having this conversation and to ask my questions today. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Councillor Pepén. We've now also been joined by Councilor Brayden and City Council President Roussouli Jen. Council President, you are the second on this, so I'll give you opening remarks right now.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the lead sponsor, Councilor Pepén, for filing this. I want to thank the administration and the advocates who are here to provide testimony. I think it's an incredibly important conversation for us to be having. Obviously, Education ranks high in terms of the issues that we deal with here in the city of Boston. And myself, as a graduate of Boston Latin School, knows how that school was transformative in my own life. I want to make sure that kids from all neighborhoods From all language backgrounds, an area that we need to really focus on, making sure that this is a school that is opening and welcoming, where even our English language learners can thrive. that that is happening at all of our exam schools that educate about 25% of our student population, which is a significant portion. I was last week with students from the African American APs class at Boston Latin School, a class that did not exist when I was a student there that shows how much progress and forward thinking has been happening at a school like Boston Latin School, which is important. And we have to do two things at the same time. We have to make sure that we are bringing up the quality of education at all of our high schools so that parents don't feel like it's exam school or bust. My oldest sister went to West Roxbury High School. I went to Latin, my youngest went to Latin, the older went to Latin Academy. There are options in our school system for our families. We have to do a better job of making it better and we have a lot more work to do at the elementary school level to make sure that we are preparing our own BPS kids, ones who often don't have the option or don't have the choice to go to schools that offer greater academic rigor, that allow them to be better prepared for an exam school. And so I see our job here as twofold. Yes, talk about the exam schools. Also talk about how we're bringing up All of our high schools so that families feel like Boston can be a home for them regardless of what's happening at the exam schools. We also have the Josiah Quincy with a beautiful new building. We have Boston Arts Academy, Fenway Pilot. We have great things happening at Eastie High. and work that I want to continue to do with you, Superintendent Skipper, is looking at our schools, especially in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, at the elementary school level that have been on the transformation list longer than we want them to be. and we're making progress and it's incremental but it's slow and it's keeping behind too many of our black and brown kids. So I am proud of graduating from all of my schools at BLS and know that too few kids, when I got into Latin school, too few of those kids were coming from Mattapan like me, were coming from parts of the city that are too often left behind. So I think this is an important conversation. I think one of the things that I want to make sure that I articulate clearly is that our exam schools should not shut out anyone. They need to be citywide schools. I am such a champion for citywide schools because of how they work at bringing our city together and our neighborhoods together. If nothing more, one of the biggest benefits for me at Boston Law School was having friends in every corner of this city in a way that coming from a Haitian family, Mattapan and Hyde Park is what I knew growing up. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. I think it's really important. I just don't want us to lose sight. of the Forest for the Trees, and making sure that we're talking about all of our schools. Thank you.

Thank you, Council President. We've also been joined by Councilor Weber. Councilor Weber is an original co-sponsor. You'll have the floor now.

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to the panel, especially Superintendent Skipper. Thank you for being here for this. I joined a couple of my colleagues at school committee meeting on Thursday to testify about and many more. We're here to talk about what kind of a school system we want as a city here in Boston. But in addition to that, I think we're talking about what kind of school system we'll be allowed to have by the Supreme Court of the United States. As the First Circuit said in the first challenge to these changes was Boston has a legitimate interest in having schools that invite not just kids who test well, But kids who we think would have tested well if they had the same resources. And by focusing on socioeconomic status, and location. We are bringing in a broader range of kids from all across the city in terms of socioeconomic status and location than we did in the past. So to that extent, I think we're on the right path with these changes in terms of You know, what we're actually doing and the specifics of it as a BPS parent of two kids. I've been living these changes for the last five years. I think the first year we got rid of the ISEE. My son was going from eighth grade at Mission Hill to ninth grade at BAA, or he ended up in ninth grade at BAA. We tried to get into exam school. Based on his GPA and our zip code, we couldn't do it. Now, with my daughter, you know she went she would have had 10 bonus points the you know if she was a year older she went up with two bonus points coming out of the curly And now I think she's going to want to submit. She's talking about BLS. She's at BLA doing great. It would be great if she stayed there. But we're looking at three bonus points to zero. and frankly I think on behalf of all families across the city it's been very frustrating to do with the system that seems to change you know every fall and You know, trying to figure out a way we can have some predictability for our parents. Also, lastly, I will, like I said, this is school committee. I represent three schools that don't get bonus points, the Manning, the Kilmer. and the Linden. It's impossible to explain to those families. They're in BPS. They're in the system. Why they should be at a disadvantage, trying to figure out how to Give those families a fair shake at our exam schools. I know Council President Louijeune just spoke eloquently about it, but we're really talking about 35% of the kids, 65% of our students that are not part of this conversation. They're not going to an exam school. Really, what are we doing? Again, I think it goes back to the first thing I said. What kind of school system do we want? I think all of us want a school system that is serving all those kids and we're not having these conversations where It's a focus on just basically the kids who can put together a good MAP score and have good GPA. How are we serving all of our students so they feel like they're getting a world-class education? Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Webber. Now I'll go in order of arrival. Councillor Fitzgerald, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate it. Having attended two of the three exam schools at both Latin Academy in seventh and eighth grade and Boston Latin through graduation, we've got some experience here. What we're gonna talk about today is probably the most important thing for keeping families in the city, right? We know that and so on. Families now choosing other options that they are either moving out of the city to find better and cheaper schools to go to and even applications have been down in certain areas because of the lack of I don't think anyone is disagreeing. We want to make sure all options are for all of our kids all across the city. I do believe that in an iron and sharpening iron type school that Boston Latin has always been and that we should continue to promote something like that. But we want to make sure those in under-resourced areas of course have the opportunity if they did not originally to to partake in that and and get that education as well so looking forward to today's Fitzgerald, Councillor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to go on record in support of the proposed changes to our exam school admission policy, which includes adding a citywide round for top performing students and elimination of school bonus points. At the outset, let me say that we are all seeking a system that is fair to every sixth grader that is seeking an opportunity to attend one of our three exam schools. I have heard from parents over the last few years, both across the city and in my district, that relate to me that that has not been the case. Qualified students, applicants scoring as high as 100, have been denied based on where they live. In the last few years, I have had parents tell me that they live on the wrong side of K Street or E Street in South Boston in older housing stocks. However, if they lived in a new condo across the street Their child would have been accepted. I know a system like that doesn't work when we have a mix of single families, triple-deckers, large family buildings. Adding a city-wide round for top performing students would allow all students I also talked with longtime education and concerned parents who emphasized to me that this is a win-win for Boston. But they also stressed that there is an unfunded mandate for an enrichment program with grades four, five, and six across the city that has not been implemented. We should be looking at this enrichment program to help more students to be ready to apply, especially our underserved communities. Having more of our children participate in such programs will not only benefit our exam schools, but it will have the consequence of benefiting all students across the district. On eliminating school-based points, I continue to hear from many parents that they have not worked as intended and proven to be unfair. Moreover, schools with similar levels of economically disadvantaged students are not all consistently receiving the same bonus points. Parents across the city also continue to contact me advocating for a policy that would allocate seats and many more. and elimination of the bonus points is our next best option. As a result, I fully support the thoughtful changes that are being proposed as we strive to ensure that every sixth grader and their family has an equal opportunity to earn an invitation to one of our exam schools and what it could mean to their future. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Mejia, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the sponsors for hosting This hearing, and I'm proud to say I think I'm the only city councilor that is a BPS graduate from a non-exam school. An open enrollment child. Wow. And I'm still standing here. I think you already know my posture as it relates to the exam schools. I really do believe that we are spending too much time and energy. I'm an Oxygen speaking on behalf of three schools that are coveted and I am really proud of the work that then the NAACP Lawyers for Civil Rights under Dr. Casillas' leadership where we had the bold audacity to think that we could meet the moment for our most vulnerable students and I'm really proud of that work. and my colleague, Councilor Rowell. eloquently said in some of his social media, you know, I be trolling, that we are not going back. And it seems like, you know, we're supposed to be this bold, progressive, you know, council. And I'm really looking forward to really meeting the moment and making sure that We don't undo the significant work that was done to provide more equitable opportunities for students here. As an English language learner myself, I think that there is some concerns around access to our recent arrivals and I think that There's some work that we need to be doing in that space. And Mr. Rose, it's good to see you. You know, I used to be a parent agitator when you were at BPS, so it's good to see you in this side of the work. I'm curious what your role is now and looking forward to being on the other side of this good fight that you had back in the day when you were in your position. I am going to assume best intentions that I know that you are leading with equity and black and brown first. And I am looking forward to having a conversation That really meets the moment. And I am not interested in going on and on and on. But I will say that my daughter was one of those kids That got into an exam school because she didn't have to take the exam and I did not want her to go to an exam school and BPS had called my We were on our way home and BPS had called because I did not respond to the letter. I did not respond to the invitation because I did not want my daughter to and many, many more. You know, the neighborhood that we lived in was high poverty and all that good stuff. And she asked for me to go ahead and at the very least pick a school. And I didn't want BLS because my daughter is not and academic. And I didn't think that she would do good in math or science, so I didn't pick Leo Bryant. I picked Boston Latin Academy. And she got in. And what broke my heart is that her first year there, she said that she wanted to demonstrate that she belonged and that she was going to get the honor roll every semester because she did not want to be a zip code kid. That broke my heart that she had to demonstrate or feel like she was an imposter, which is what I always feel like anyways, and it just, It helped me understand how difficult it is for children who are seen as zip code kids. And I think that there's a lot of work to be done in terms of how we make access and opportunities for our students that does not stigmatize them or pit neighborhood against neighborhood, which is one of the things that we're really great at doing here is putting people against each other. And I think that we have an opportunity to get this right. and I think having the right conversation is gonna get us there. And so I look forward to doing just that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Mejia. Councilor Calera-Zapata, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair, and I want to thank the lead sponsors. Thank you for being here, everybody. I really look forward to the conversation. So I'm a proud BLA alum. I think when I went, it was the most diverse high school in the state at the time. really grateful for my experience there I loved my time at Latin Academy and I have an incredible network of friends citywide because of that experience and so as an exam school kid I felt like it was important at the time in 2020 and 2021 to say publicly how badly these changes were needed because the system was so inequitable. So before 2020, the reality was that a majority of the kids who got in did because their parents were tuned in. They were well resourced to get us tutoring to ISEE. They drove us to the test on Saturdays. Not too many kids could. They largely spoke English, et cetera. So I think we all understand that we needed that to change. I've already gone on record saying that I'm generally supportive of the proposed changes to reflect four tiers and additional points as well as grades in the MAP test. This is reflective of what the parents in District 1 were asking for. And so I really look forward to the conversation. I do have some questions about protected populations with the new system and look forward to the conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and good afternoon, everyone. Well, you know I'm not from around here. I didn't go to an exam school. I went to a little country primary school in rural Northern Ireland and we had two teachers. We didn't have any electricity. And the teacher that was in charge of the school was ideologically opposed to the concept of selection at 11. Because there was an 11 plus exam, which was an exam school admission exam. So none of us got prepared for the exam. We all failed the exam. We all went to a really good comprehensive high school down the street, three miles away. I have a particular view of that. I would admit my I maybe didn't have as much academic rigor as my brother and sister, who were coached and tutored and prepared for the exam and all went off to the exam school. But I do feel that we We have to really look at how do we prepare kids. I think someone talked about the enrichment program through grades four to five and six. It used to be called advanced work, I think. When Jackson Mann was functional as a citywide elementary school, they had an advanced work programme that immigrant kids from all over the world, their families were from all over, English was not their first language. They were doing the advanced work. They were prepared. They were ready. And they passed the exam and went to BLA or Boston Latin or wherever. I really, my big gripe is that as someone, we take all the air up talking about exam skills all the time, when we need to be really focused on what happens to all the other kids. We might have the best High School in the country. Boston Latin is recognized as an extremely successful high school. But what happens to all the other kids? I have the same critique of the education system that I came through in Northern Ireland. We had some of the highest achieving kids in the United Kingdom, but we also had kids who left school who were not able to read. and I think we probably do the same. So we need to really focus on reading skills before third grade. We need to really put some resources into these enrichment programs for our grades four, five and six. to give more kids the opportunity. And then preparing our parents. If your families are not tuned in and you don't know how to apply, We had a kid this summer who came out top of his, he passed all the exams and he did not get into an exam school because there was a misunderstanding or a snafu in the system. If you have a kid who's coming out top of the class in your school and they're told that they can't get into an exam school this year, well, first of all, There's something wrong with the system. How do we get these kids guided and our parents guided through the system so that we can actually make sure that they land where they need to? So he's going to be ninth grade before he gets to an exam, so we're wasting time here. All of our kids deserve a world-class education, regardless of whether you go to an exam school or not. And the other thing I've learned in listening to the conversations in various areas about this is, students who are bilingual, If you're a Spanish speaker and you're doing the exam in English, if you have the exam questions in Spanish as well, you have two exams, two papers, but you can read it in both languages. Your performance will go up. Your test scores will go up. Because you think in Spanish, it's like you have an extra step in the process to do the test. So offering bilingual testing is another thing that we can be thinking about. to make it more equitable for folks so that we can capture all this talent. We have so much human capital and potential with our students across the city. and so many families are just giving up, throwing their hands up and saying, we're out of here, we can't do this anymore. They want predictable pathways, they want support, and they want to see their kids flourish and thrive and be successful. So I'm really delighted. I'm going to not say any more at this point because I want to learn about these new changes. But we should be the best public school system in the country. We're tired talking about this. We've been talking about it for decades. It is time to fix it. Everybody is running out of patience at this point, so it is time to get going. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Braidon.

Councillor Rowell, you have the floor. Thank you chair and thank you to the sponsor for bringing forward this hearing and then thank you also to the district superintendent colleagues for being here. Last week I spoke at the school committee alongside my council colleagues and I will just Reiterate what I said there is my questions and concerns around the decline year over year and then The policy revisions after that decline so if we're not going to be making any annual revisions prior to For three years or five years, I'm not sure what the step is. I would love to make sure that we understand a little bit more on what caused those declines. The other thing that I'm very interested in is studying other districts. We see that their district exam schools or the exam schools in other districts have smaller percentage of students Thank you. Thank you. of the City, Private Schools, METCO, or Charter. So, just looking forward to this conversation. Just a lot of questions around the detail and just making sure that we are making every school Thank you, Councilor Worrell.

We've also received a letter of absence from Councilor Durkan. I would now like to introduce today's panelists. With us here today, we have Superintendent for Boston Public Schools, Mary Skipper. We have Monica Hogan, who is the Chief of Data, Information, and Systems Improvements with BPS. And we have Dr. Colin Rose, who is a Senior Advisor for Strategy and Opportunity Gaps with BPS. Really appreciate you all being here. Obviously, we have a filled room. We'll turn it over to you all for a presentation and opening remarks. We're going to counsel quality questions.

That's great. So thank you, Councilor Santana, and thank you to those counselors that sponsored the hearing. But also thank you, and we want to acknowledge all the counselors that are here today. To really give us an opportunity to discuss the recommended changes. Last week, as you know, we presented our recommendations of change to the Boston School Committee at the September 25th meeting, and today we'll review them with you. We'll also give some historical context relative to the exam school policy. I'm joined today by Monica Hogan, Chief of Data Information Systems Improvement, Dr. Colin Rose, Senior Advisor for Strategy and Opportunity Gaps. Our district's goal regarding exam school admissions has not changed. We are committed to creating an equitable and transparent policy that ensures all students have an opportunity for a seat at one of our city's three exam schools, Boston Latin Academy, Boston Latin School, and the O'Brien School of Mathematics and Science. The purpose of this reconsideration of the policy is a provision within the policy itself that calls for a thorough review after five years. And we're now at that five-year mark. As requested by the school committee, each minor change over the past several years has been in service of addressing issues that were raised in improving the policy. In December of 2024, we promised to come back to the school committee with an analysis of the policy's impact over the last five years. And we presented those findings at the body's June 17th meeting. Following the June meeting, we collected feedback from the community from July through September. There were several reoccurring themes that emerged through this process, which we're addressing in the recommendations. The need for a clear and simple policy, The need for high quality school options beyond the three exam schools and the need for a consistent policy that will remain in effect for a number of years with a predictable time period for review. Last week we presented our recommendations to the school committee. Our recommendation is meant to keep what's working about the current policy and fix what's not working well. We think these changes will lead to a system that is overall clearer and more equitable.

O'Neill.

Under the current policy, there are some students that have very high composite scores, but because of what elementary they attend or what neighborhood they live in, it can be mathematically difficult or impossible for them to receive an invitation. Our recommendation is meant to address that issue, ensuring there is a pathway for the highest scoring students citywide while preserving the basic structure of distributing invitations equally across all socioeconomic tiers. which has worked well over the last several years. The school committee is scheduled to vote on these recommendations next month. If approved, we're also asking that the policy remain in effect for three admission cycles or three years. At this time, I'm just gonna beg indulgence for the presentation. I know sometimes when we come, we go straight into commentary, but I think because there's just, I think it's worth us just doing a bit of review for the council So at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Monica and to Colin, and then I'll rejoin to give the actual formal recommendations. So with that, Monica and Colin.

I'll jump in. Thanks for having me. Good seeing folks and meeting new. Really the context which I found myself in coming back to the district six months ago. In 2021, Boston School Committee voted to amend the BPS exam school admissions policy to promote more equitable citywide access to the district's exam schools. So there was a school committee task force who explored possible admissions policies with the goals of expanding the applicant pool, maintaining academic rigor, and generating a student body that better reflects the racial, socioeconomic, and geographic diversity of all students in the city of Boston. Essentially, it's the belief that there's brilliance across all of our neighborhoods and from all backgrounds in our city. And that if we're going to have exam schools, that we must make sure that there's access for all those children. As in any process, it's important to keep that history and those values in mind as we talk forward. Based on the work of that task force, the school committee, and at the time, Dr. Caselius, who was the superintendent, I recommended that the school committee approve a new admissions policy that Considered students composite scores made up of GPA and a test called the MAP that's given in BPS schools. Distribute an equal number of exam school invitations to each socioeconomic tier of Boston. and assign students additional school-based points, students that go to Title I schools, so 40% economically disadvantaged or more. As well as points for students in public housing, experiencing homelessness or in the care of DCF. The policy required a full review after five years to analyze the outcomes. And in December of 2024, the district announced that we'd be conducting an analysis to explore other variables connected to some issues. I'll hand it off to Monica.

So before we go further into the presentation, we wanted to just remind everyone of the current policy. So the current policy divides the city into four socioeconomic tiers based on census data. Interested students rank at least one of the three exam schools, take the math test, and submit grades. Their test scores count for 30% of the composite score and grades count for 70%. Additional points are currently added for students attending a school with 40% or more economically disadvantaged students, as well as students experiencing homelessness in the care of the Department of Children and Families or living in BHA-owned housing. Invitations are then distributed to the highest scoring applicants within each tier. An equal number of invitations are distributed to students in each tier. And if all seats at a student's first choice school are filled, the applicant is invited to their second or third choice school. Next slide. Although the original aim was to do this retrospective and exploration of updates to the admissions policy after five years, the policy has changed each year. So this table shows the changes over the last six years, going back to the years immediately preceding the tax forces recommendations and including the tweaks starting in school year 22-23. I do want to note that in school year 2021, While the policy was the citywide ISEE end grades process, the district did make a change in how we administered the ISEE test. and that was the first year that BPS students were able to take the ISEE during the school day as opposed to on a Saturday as a few counselors mentioned. Next slide. So this slide shows the timeline of our current review. This started with a presentation in the late spring of the recent context and changes to the policy since the reforms in 2020, as well as disaggregated enrollment and invitation That data is in the appendix of this presentation. Then we presented three simulations based on recommended areas of study that were outlined in December of 2024. These simulations explored three different variables, the additional points, a city-wide round, and sizing tiers by applicants, which Dr. Rose will briefly cover this afternoon. This summer, there was some community engagement, which I will talk about more in the next slide. And then this fall, the superintendent, considering the community feedback, advice from district and city advisors, the historical context, the stated goals of the policy, made a decision to move forward with a recommendation which she will share later in this presentation. Next slide. This slide gives a high-level overview of the engagement process from this summer. The district held two webinars that over 500 participants attended to ask questions and share feedback. A feedback form was available in all of the major BPS languages on our website and closed on September 14th. We received 326 responses with 81% of those responses from current BPS students and family members. We also circulated a video that was posted online and shared with different community groups about how to give feedback. Next slide. We heard loud and clear from the community that they want a stable policy that is easy to understand, easy to explain, and doesn't keep changing. The feedback also emphasized that the district needs to ensure we have a strong portfolio of high school options beyond the three exam schools. In the appendix are the themes that we heard from the engagement relative to the three different variables. The feedback form also included a number of responses that outlined individual experiences of applicants from the last few years to support their perspectives. Next slide.

All right, before we pass it to the superintendent to share recommendations, I want to take the time to review each variable that was under consideration for this committee and the community, namely additional points, Socio-economic tiers in a citywide round. Next slide. The first variable to review are the additional points. So in the current policy, there are two ways students can receive additional points on their composite scores. One, first, if they attend, again, a school that is 40% or more economically disadvantaged, or what folks popularly know as a Title I school, these students receive an additional number of points that is equal to the tiered differential. A confusing phrase that we can go over later, but basically it's a number of points from 0 to 10. The second is for students experiencing homelessness, living in BHA housing, or in care of DCF. These students receive an additional 15 points. The decision points for this variable were, should school-based points be removed? Should school-based and housing points be removed? Or should housing-based points be kept but adjusted? Those are really the three main considerations. Next slide. The second variable that was considered was socioeconomic tiering. Currently, there are four socioeconomic tiers, home to roughly an equal number of school-age students in the neighborhoods. We explore the possibility of adjusting the four socioeconomic tiers to instead have an equal number of exam school applicants instead of school-age children. So the real decision point here was should we keep the socioeconomic tiers or should we change to tiers that reflected the exam school applicants instead? Next slide. Finally, the third variable was the potential addition of a citywide round. So a citywide round would be created for students with the highest composite scores across the city, no matter where in the city they live. This could be implemented in two different ways. One, allocating 20% of the seats at each exam school to the highest scoring students who selected that exam school as their first choice. or you could allocate 20% of the exam school seats to the top scoring students period and they could choose no matter what school they chose as first meaning that A particular school could have more students going there and not the other two. So the decision point here was, should there be a citywide invitation round for students with the highest composite scores in the first place? and then if so, should the citywide round distribute 20% of the invitations at each school or should it be 20% of the seats to the highest scoring students no matter what school that they picked as their first choice? With the three variables under consideration review, I'll now turn it over to Superintendent Skipper to present her recommendations on the changes as well as an outline for the full policy for this committee.

Great. Thank you, Colin. So on slide 12, first, we're recommending removing all school-based points. They're hard to explain. There's a difficulty in justifying them, the number 10. They also change competition for seats within each tier, but not the same across all tiers. And this is just increased tension, competition among BPS schools, in some case impacting families' enrollment decisions at the elementary level. As a reminder, parents choose elementary schools, but ultimately we place students at the elementaries. And certainly for programmatic seats, we place students. So sometimes it isn't even a school that's not getting points, that it's not the parent choice that the kid's actually there. So for just lots of reasons, we felt the school-based points The school base points also raised some students composite scores above 100. which meant it was mathematically difficult or in some cases impossible for students with high composite scores to receive an exam school invitation. So that's the first, reduce all school-based points. The second is to reduce the number of housing points, but to allow for housing points. and this recommendation is to reduce the housing points from 15 to 10. Initially when chosen, the selection of 15 points was chosen to be higher than the number of school-based points. So that's why at the time it was 10 school-based points and the committee recommended 15 to create that difference. Our analysis of the 2025-26 admissions cycle shows that the actual difference in composite scores for students who qualify for housing-based points and students who do not qualify is 10. and so upon that, that's our recommendation to go from 15 to 10 for the housing base points. A third recommendation is around the addition of a city-wide round, meaning that the first 20% of seats at each school will go to the highest composite scores. And I just want to be specific. This isn't the 20% of the highest scores of students. This is the 20% of seats in each of the schools. The 20% was part of the initial consensus recommendation from the 2021 Exam School Admissions Task Force. After this citywide round, the remaining 80% of the seats will be distributed equally across socioeconomic tiers. and this will ensure that students with the highest composite scores will have access to an exam school while also preserving the basic structure of the socioeconomic tiers. Finally, we're recommending that the socioeconomic tiers continue to be sized so that each tier has an equal number of school-aged children living in it. As a reminder, students are assigned one of four tiers based on their home address. Each tier is made up of a group of Boston census tracts with similar socioeconomic characteristics, looking at the number of households under poverty with limited English proficiency, households that are owner-occupied, Single Parent Households, and Educational Attainment. So to be clear, we're not recommending changes to the criteria students must meet to be eligible for consideration for an exam school seat. Consistent with the current policy, in order to apply to an exam school, a student needs to have a grade point average or GPA of B or higher, rank at least one exam school on their school choice list, and have a valid score on the MAP Growth Assessment Test. A student's composite score is based on 30% of their MAP growth score and 70% of their GBA consistent with the current policy. In terms of what's next on slide 14, As we said, we presented our recommendations to school committee last week at the October meeting on the 8th. We'll continue to hear reactions, reflections, public commentary. We're expecting to bring this policy for a vote on November 5th at the school committee meeting. If approved, the new policy would go into effect immediately and would apply to the 26-27 admissions cycle. The district will continue to analyze each year of student invitations, but we've heard overwhelmingly from families that they want this policy to remain stable. So part of our recommendation is that the policy will remain consistent for at least three years of data until that's been collected and analyzed. We want an exam school policy that can stand the test of time and give families the stability and predictability to plan all around, and we believe this recommended policy change strikes that balance. The district will work to explore ways to increase access, as many of you have brought up, for students with disabilities and multilingual learners to the exam schools. The district will also adjust the timeline for residency verification for non-BPS students and strive to better align to the district's operational needs. Currently non-BPS students must prove Boston residency by the third Friday in November. This date isn't aligned to the timeline for the MAP test and creates confusion for families about deadlines. We realize there's a lot of information there. That's the reason Monica and Colin have been steeped in this for many years, and can certainly answer lots of questions, particularly around calculation pieces and You know, when and how things were introduced in terms of changes. I think what I appreciate about the councilor's commentary is that much of it was echoed in public comment that we heard and in the responses we received. particularly that we can't just focus on these three schools but that we have an ecosystem of secondary schools in which three out of four students attend and it's our due diligence to make sure that those schools are as strong as possible with college preparedness with CTE and the ability for students to do career connecting activities and have the highest opportunities for academic rigor. I appreciated hearing that from the councillors and there was much of what many of you said that was echoed in the testimony that we've heard thus far. So with that, I will turn it back over, Councillor.

Awesome. Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you to your team. For that, we are now going to move to councilor questions, starting with the lead sponsors, and then we'll go in order of arrival. I am going to be giving timing this section. Every councilor will have six minutes, so I just want to remind that we do have two Panels today. We have the administration with us right now, and we'll have a community panel after this. So with that, I'll pass it over to the lead sponsor, Councilor Pepén, for your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And to Superintendent and your team, thank you so much for being here once again to provide testimony and show us what work you've been doing so far. You can see it's a packed hearing. There's almost all councillors here. So it's a very important topic to all of us. I mean, there's nothing more important than our kids' education, so I think that's very telling. I also, doing some digging and research on this topic, and obviously listening to this presentation, it just shows that how I know that we're all trying to work to get to the same solution, which is to provide kids with good education. Now, with that, I do want to ask In 2020 and 2021, when the current policy was put into place, the goal was to make the demographics of all three exam schools more representative of the city of Boston. What I haven't heard is, did they accomplish that? Were you guys able to see success based on that policy?

Yeah, I mean, definitely it moved towards parity towards the populations in our city, not all the way there. You know, prior to 2020, I was in the district. We worked on access to like the ICE test, which was content that's not in our schools. So we did school-based testing. We increased the exam school initiative, really targeted family schools that did not. and many more. So there was already work going on beforehand, but that moment, and I wasn't here, but that moment when they switched over to doing All the stuff that we talked about today did increase and make an initial pretty big bump in the number of black students, Latinx students across the exam schools.

Okay. Do you feel like This new proposal, the new proposal continues to spread that message of creating a more representative school body in the exam schools.

I think that this past year's data and one of the struggles we're having with so many changes every year to some minor part of the policy is that we're trying to address issues coming up, but at the same time, we don't then know from a comparison How all of the different variables relate. And so what we did see in this past year was we saw a dip back for our black students and our for both our black and brown students. And we've tried pulling apart to look at it, to analyze it, and we're really not able to clearly see how any one of the things we did impacted it. I think the closest we've come is to see, and part of this is that every applicant pool is different. You can have a policy and you can create simulations, but you can't predict behavior of who's going to ultimately apply or not. And so from that perspective, it's just very hard to use it in a predictive way. But the recommendations that we've put forward, such as removing the school-based points, is really already in the changes where we're really trying to and many more. Thank you. Thank you. without making a further change. Until we can do that, we won't know whether what we saw in this last one is a trend that we're all of a sudden seeing because it wasn't there before or whether This is just an anomaly of the year and reflects more the applicant group.

I would say this is not a these recommendations don't progress that forward. What we try to look at is make sure that it isn't pulling us back as best as we could, right? I think there were weaknesses in the form of policy that were difficult to explain, somewhat arbitrary. And so trying to get to a place where there's some solid ground, where this thing doesn't change every year, I was so surprised coming back. I was gone for five years. And when I came back and saw that this thing changed every single year for five years, I thought that was wild to me. You can't learn anything from that. You can't see what's affecting what if you're changing something every single year. If we are able to get to a space that's kind of doing no harm but gets us to a space where people can leave it alone for multiple years and then we can work in the background the stuff that we used to do again in recruitment and making sure kids are prepared and and many more. I think it's important to think about things like bettering the schools, making sure there's excellence for all kids, things that aren't part of a policy but things we should be doing is kind of I think part of the goal is to get This conversation, the oxygen gets taken out of the room, and my time and other folks' time are taken around these tables instead of actually improving all of our schools. So that's the most honest answer I can give you.

And I appreciate that. And I really want to ask just because I think that's a question that's in all of our minds. So I wanted to put that at the forefront of today's conversation. And, you know, when I went to the O'Brien, I had to take the IACE. My parents didn't know about that test. It was because of a teacher that told me, hey, you should apply to take this test. Dad dropped me off at BLA on a Saturday morning. Thank God I got into the O'Brien. I really do credit a lot of my My success based on what I was able to learn and gain from the O'Brien experience. Where I'm leading with this is part of it isn't just the admission policy. It also has to do with What other councilors have mentioned about their elementary and middle school experience. Have we taken a more proactive look into how can we ensure that kids that may not be as well resourced or a parent that can't pay as much attention or Similar to my parents, how can we help those students make sure that they have an equal path before they even get to the point of applying for an exam school?

Yeah, I mean, I think this is that in the question about the broader high school, Thank you. Thank you. All the way down to preschool for the simple reason that by the time the students in fifth and sixth grade, no matter what kind of ESI or boot camp you're doing, you can't close multiple years of gap. So the access issue is a very real one and one that we have to continue to work on. I think what we're seeing in the latest testing data is that we're seeing some really positive things in the literacy side. and we knew that it would take a year, like a few years for us to embed within the BPS high quality instructional materials. for us to get equitable literacy into all of the classrooms with teachers using it on a regular basis and then certainly building in Tier 2 and Tier 3 like advanced math and other kinds of math enrichment and other kinds of reading interventions as ways to begin to close those gaps. Until that happens, the applicant pool is going to be more influenced by what students haven't been giving as opposed to what they're given in a short amount of time with enrichment right before they sit for the map.

Thank you. I know my time is up, so I'll wait for the next round of questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Pepén. City Council President Louie Jane, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I actually just want to follow up with where Councilor Pepén left off. You know, a lot of what he said resonated with me and my family experience. Globe wrote about it. had no idea what school would, he just asked someone one day, what's the best school for my kids to get into? And then he had to go around and figure out, okay, how do I have access to the exam school initiative? On weekends, was taking classes to prep for the ISEE. That's great. And I'm so happy that I was able to tap into that resource. I do think that part of our role as government and as people who believe in improving education outcomes for everyone It can't be so individualistic. It can't be so dependent on one parent who oftentimes doesn't speak the language, doesn't have access, doesn't have privilege, doesn't have the resources to be able to know, ask someone. I think that's part of as much as I champion parent involvement, it's really hard when people are working three to four jobs to tell them, that they are the ones who have to take the initiative to figure out what makes the most sense. And that's why I believe if we are to have a truly citywide school having tiers where we're making sure that everyone from across the city, from Mattapan, from Dorchester, from all parts of the city can access is truly important because even those individual ESI classes on the weekends are not enough, as you said, Superintendent, to really shift That lack of academic rigor among all of our schools. So I just wanted to make that point. I wasn't going to, but then Councilor Pimentel, I was like, I'm going to make this point. You came over the summer and you did a policy briefing for counselors. And in that policy briefing, There's a listing of transformation schools. My elementary school is on this transformation school. My middle school is on the transformation school. What I would like to see is over the past years, and I know that school community members have asked for data and we're still waiting to sort of see that data about effects. I would like to see what the policy has looked like for acceptance from these transformation schools to any of the exam schools and whether that's increased or decreased through the chair. I don't know if you had anything to...

So we can certainly do the crosswalk. I think the transformation list differs year to year because schools get added and taken out. And in fact, This year we'll be actually exiting, which I'm very happy about, quite a few. Also, just of note, we had six commendation schools, which is the most BPS has had in the recent data from today. and we're seeing some really good growth across the schools. But in terms of the transformation, we'll do as much of that crosswalk as we can to just give you a sense of the population.

Thank you. We no longer have advanced work class in the way that I had them when I was growing up. And I think part of that was to provide, in some sense, some of the academic rigor that We are, public schools are not able to compete with when you compare them to other private schools or METCO or other options. What has replaced that? I know part of the system was there was supposed to be an enrichment from fourth to sixth grade. Not saying that that's enough. I really do believe that rigor starts even earlier. And part of the desire is for the rigor to be widespread, but we haven't seen that. Can you talk about where we are?

Actually, AWC went away while I was not here. Do you remember what year?

I was part of that. It was slowing a slow death because it was a dinosaur. It really was not. I think it meant something in the 80s and 90s when we switched to the Common Core. Everybody was kind of using the same curriculum. And quite often as I visited those classrooms, the rigor in those classrooms was no different than You're just essentially segregating kids, right? So we take a test in third grade and say, we have high performing kids in this school, so let's just put them in this classroom. So we had thought and we had started working on what we were calling excellence for all, which is kind of what I think has been The thought and the follow-through around this can't be a program. You don't make programs to transform education. You transform education in schools, right? Core Tier 1 instruction needed to improve. The experiences of kids in everyday classrooms need to improve and become more rigorous. you know fortunately there's more high quality instructional materials the pedagogy is a bit different and more rigorous in our general education classroom so that's kind of what happened to AWC. It was dwindling already, and I think it just fell apart.

But one of the critiques that I've heard overall, and this is... Dovetails into another question that I have in terms of grade inflation, whether we're like, are we still seeing it coming out of certain schools? Do we know what schools where there's more grade inflation happening? It's both a question of grade inflation and How are we assuring that our kids in K-6 are prepared for the rigor of the exam schools that I think is Yeah, so I think...

I think the reason that we, when you kind of marry the issue of lack of high quality instructional materials In not having access to grade-level instruction, that's pretty destructive for a young person trying to gain those skills. And that's much of what we were seeing, even though, to Colin's point about AWC, something was called AWC. So we really tried to make sure that what we're doing is addressing all classrooms as opposed to pockets, which is what was happening before, knowing that our students move around and no matter what school they're in, we want to make sure They're getting access to that grade level instruction. We have added in and are adding in tier two and tier three, which is things like Reading Recovery and Intervention, additional kinds of learning specialist supports for students, math enrichment, advanced mathematics, in different kinds of programs. We most recently added the Calculus Project, Young People's Project. These are all meant to, particularly in grades four, five, six, to take students and kind of accelerate through and complement with what's in their class. That's more of the type of work that we need to be doing. The ESI program, which you participated in, still exists. In fact, we've added resource to it each summer. We don't want waitlists with it, and we try to get the word out to students to make sure students who might be coming from schools where they have been a transformation school that those students get enrolled in there as a way to be able to build skill up. We will be expanding it down to the fourth grade. It's currently serving fifth, sixth, and then eighth graders. who would be taking it for the ninth grade seat. So these are all things that we're continuing to add in that I think addresses what you're talking about, right, which is to try to Create as much of a level playing field for all students who are going into the test. I think your point about access though, I just want to take a moment to awareness, to just take a moment to address that. I think in general, for our multilingual learners, special education students, and students coming from different parts of the city, we need to do a better job around awareness. of what the exam schools are, how a student or a parent goes about applying. Part of the move from ISEE to MAP was the MAP is something all students are organically sitting for. And so in that way, it's not one extra barrier step that a student needs to take. It's also a highly regarded test around the country. So I think it's all of these kinds of moves that we're making that the goal is to really Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I know that's my time. I have more questions about English language learners and about some of the legal issues, but I want to thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council President. Councilor Weber, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Well, just a little background reading some of the cases. The Supreme Court a couple years ago in Students for Fair Admission Outlaw, basically affirmative action, the use of race in admissions by Harvard and North Carolina. and in that decision there's some discussion about well you know you can't use other you know fat ways to get around that and say you're looking at something else. But then at the same time, I think Gorsuch in there says, well, you can just look at economic status and probably end up with the same sort of diversity gains that Harvard and UNC had. So I don't know legally what the answer is, but I think just in terms of we're talking here about demographics of the city and socioeconomic background, it's like we're We're having to jump through all these hoops, I think, because we're dealing with a Supreme Court that doesn't care about the same things. as our city here and equity and how do we get to equity in a way that is going to stand up to scrutiny. At the same time, I know in the first circuit decision, it was 20, school year 20, 20 to 2021. I think that's the first year we use the ISE plus grades. You know, the composition of the exam schools, their white students were 39%, Asians were 21%, Latinx was 21%, black students were 14%. That same year, the demographics citywide of the school, even though there were 39% of exam Students were white, only 16%, I think, of the student body was white. Asians, 7% of the student body, they made up 20% of the exam schools. Latinx students were 36% of the student body, they only made 21%. of 21% of the exam schools. Black students were 35% of the student body in Boston, and they were only 14% of the exam schools. So I think we're talking about how to Make our schools more equitable and clearly that's one way to measure it. And I certainly think as we go forward, we're just keeping all these things in mind. I don't know what the answer is. In terms of these proposals, you know, I think when I look at my district, District 6, looking at students at the Linden, most of them were calling for an end to the I do think that a race neutral way to approach this is bonus points for all the BPS schools. We talked, you can say why that isn't a good option. I guess, do you have an answer for that, Superintendent?

By all accounts from our legal counsel, we would not be able to do that. We would not be able to just give something using public dollars for education. We would not be able to Give something to our internal BPS students that we would not give to students of taxpayers around the city

Okay, yeah, my sense is that we don't know, there's no like certain case on that, but I hear you and we want a system that's gonna stand up to judicial scrutiny. Thank you for that. But in terms of District 6, looking at the Linden, if we move the bonus points, there are going to be more Chances for those students to get an exam school spot. I think in prior years, it's been, you know, you needed like almost over 100 to get in to an exam school. If you don't get the points, you don't have that option. But to do this, we are allowing other students of private schools to gain access to those seats. Do you know what the ratio is, like if there's going to be more seats for kids at the Linden and the Kilmer and the Manning? How are they going to be? There are going to be also kids from private schools who are going to have a shot at that. Sure.

So points are given to students who are in charters and private. And sometimes people don't realize that. From a predictability standpoint, this is the difficulty, right, is every applicant pool is different. So I couldn't tell you right now if next year A whole bunch of parents chose to apply who are coming from private or charter that didn't in the previous year. We wouldn't have any way of knowing for particular schools what that would ultimately mean. and I'll turn to Monica to confirm that since she is

Yeah, the policy doesn't guarantee students from any particular school, so we can't necessarily predict whether or not the Linden would get more or less seats in a particular simulation.

Have you done any, do you have any data on my census? We had testimony I think when we first changed this about the climate. I think BLS in particular for people of color being in that school. Do you know if that, have you done research as the climate at that school changed? We do climate surveys.

We can certainly take a quick look. In talking with the leaders of those schools, Nothing has been raised. I think there's a great deal of... effort put into just making sure and reaffirming for students that every student that gains a BPS exam school seat is there upon merit. and then there's lots of supports for all students once they're there in the exam schools to be able to get what they need in order to do their best academically and contribute to the school.

Okay, and then do you have any data on how kids from different tiers are performing at the exam schools? Do you keep track of that?

We haven't sorted by grades like that, but just again, looking at retention data, the retention data is actually a bit lower than it's been historically at the exam schools. Looking at MCAS, You know, BLS and BLA were both commendation schools or schools of recognition. O'Brien was listed, as you know, in World News Report. So, like, there's lots of evidence that our exam schools are doing quite fine. I think you meant the attrition rate. The attrition rate has been lower at all three exam schools than they had previously. I call it retention rate.

Okay, so the attrition rate has improved or definitely not gotten worse. You know, kids getting in are staying in these schools. They're obviously performing at a high level in terms of state, statewide. I just, just a brief comment and I'm done, Chair. You know, in terms of, like, we talk about these schools and I think, you know, Mejia spoke about talking to her daughter, and you hear about, we had this debate over the O'Brien School, and I think one goal should definitely be that everyone feels comfortable at all these schools, regardless of Their Race, and to the extent we can include that in our policies. You know, I haven't heard a lot of talk about this, so I'm interested maybe in the next round to address that. Thank you, Chair.

I can answer that just very quickly. Part of every school quality plan, Councilor Weber, is for us to establish a welcoming and safe environment for our students. and so the climate surveys are actually attached to every school's quality school plan. That's how important it is. So the exam schools are a part of that. If we were to see difference in data, the regional supes would address it. To the best of my knowledge, we have not. but these are very large schools, right? Latin school is 20 over 2,500 kids. And so I think it's one of those things where we have to just keep working to, Make our schools as welcoming as possible, have adults that students can outreach to if they're feeling uncomfortable, if anything's being said, if there's any bullying that they know who that they can go to. That's what we need to do, especially in very, very large schools. But to the best of my knowledge, nothing has come of their climate surveys.

Thank you very much, Superintendent. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilor Weber. Councilor Fitzgerald, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Just real quick, this is going to stick for the next three years, as I understand. So for parents or anyone listening with kids looking to get in exam schools, if you have a child in third grade currently, that means when this starts, The next three years, four, five, six. So if you're in third grade right now, this will be the policy for when your child would take going through the exam schools, right? Be taking the test.

Hold on, I believe that's right. I mean, some of it would be when we choose to revisit the policy. We chose to do it in the fall to have impact in the same school year. School Committee hasn't asked that level of detail or specified it. My recommendation is three years. Five is just too long and I think frankly forced the conversation of change with the School Committee. Monica will do the calculation.

I'm just trying to get folks who are listening in saying, hey, if I get a kid in third grade, this is the policy that's going to affect me and I want to pay attention. That's all. So in looking back, the five years that we just had, what is the data behind the 20% I know there are other schools Lowell High School not to be confused with Lowell Massachusetts but Lowell High School in San Francisco gets a lot of comparisons to Boston Latin School of the West Coast and they have a 70% merit acceptance rating and then do bans, if you will. So I was just looking at, was there any data over the last five years that we've looked at that got us this 20% acceptance number? and why would not be higher if we wanted to?

First, I would say any kid that qualifies for exam school is making it on merit, right? And I think we start getting into this zip code kid, versus other rounds. So just that language. But I think what we try to look at is if the complaint is that kids that are getting extremely high scores are not getting into their first choice, what is that threshold? You know, what exactly is that score that is, for better lack of words, like street fair, right? That, you know, a kid got a 98, a 99 and just couldn't get into their first choice. It just doesn't seem... I could walk to my friend down the street, they're gonna tell me that's not fair, right? So we started looking at kinda what that threshold would be when we think about the grades in the test, kids that got As, right? What is that threshold? And it was around the 20%, 15, 20% range. I'll pass it off to the data expert.

Yeah, I think the differentiator in composite scores under the current system is really the student's MAP score. We don't see as much differentiation in GPAs as we do in test scores. And part of that is all students must have at least a B in order, B GPA, in order to be considered an applicant. as well as the 2021 policy to address a previous question about grade inflation. The 2021 policy included a clause that the district needed to create a grading system where an A plus would be treated as an A. So in the GPA calculation for exam schools, an A plus and an A both get the same weight.

I just want to be mindful of my time here. But so to get that 20% number, you said what you're explaining to me now, that is used to say the appropriate percentage that we thought would be 20%.

Yeah, we examined, I think, past and that's also what the task force had previously

Okay, thank you. In the socioeconomic tiering that we have, all four tiers, I read this, has the equal number of school-aged children. Takeoff, not to put on my conspiracy hat, but it just so happens to work out that each socioeconomic tier had roughly the same amount of children, or were we making it work so it would fit equally That each socioeconomic tier roughly had the same amount of children because I just find it hard pressed to just say coincidentally all four just happen to be roughly equal amongst the tiers.

The tiers are intentionally designed to have that roughly equal number. So to not go too deep into this, essentially every single census tract in the city of Boston receives A score, if you will, based off of different data from the U.S. Census. These are then ranked from lowest to highest. And depending on the number of children that the U.S. Census reports, there are in grades five through eight in each census tract. We create groupings that get to that roughly equal size.

Ron Charles, Okay.

So it's not happenstance, it's designed that way.

So it is designed that way. I would wonder if we just took it at face value what the tiers would fall under. Again, not knowing the answer, just by comparison's sake, if you took away and just did it regularly. The redrawing of the tier lines happens each year, as I understand. Will that continue in this new process? Because I've gotten lots of calls of saying I've made the decisions because of X and then the next year it is different and now, you know, I dropped from a I made these decisions five years ago and you know now my daughter's chances of getting in plummeted and that people are very upset obviously does that continue this year to year like around the fringe

Yeah, I believe the intention would be to continue to calculate the tiers each year.

Okay. Can invitations be based on the number of applications per tier? And have we looked at that? Or is that a legal thing? Or is that, why hasn't it been based on That. Not again. This is not me condoning or agreeing or anything. I'm just asking the question, can invitations be based on the number of applications from each tier?

It could be, but I think we decided that it was wise not to. Please just explain why. A couple of reasons. I think one, If we were to do that when we talk about competition, you can imagine rallying your neighbors to apply more because then our neighbor would get more seats even if students weren't necessarily going to apply to begin with. almost a loophole we're creating in it that encourages that type of behavior. It also, I think, would, because more students from high SES backgrounds apply, we would lose the geographic representation that we were looking for in the form of politics. When the public task force was created. So I think it would unbalance the city again so that you wouldn't be having the same number of kids from Mattapan, Dorchester, et cetera. Getting Seats. And then it would, to me, create more confusion and more competition and more loopholes for folks to start gaming. I don't know if there's other...

No, I think it really, it's about maintaining the original spirit of diversification of socioeconomic and making sure that that's reflected in the tiers. And the more we change the tier, we alter the number of applicants, The less likely that that holds true.

I appreciate your time. I just want to make sure it's understood. These are questions that are asked of me, and that's why I'm asking you all. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Fitzgerald. Councillor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the superintendent and her team for being here. Superintendent, are there plans to add more seats to the free exam schools? to expand that pool. And what are the short-term and long-term plans are in terms of adding, potentially adding more seats to the three exam schools?

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. We hear this question often. There are currently no plans to add additional seats. All three schools are physically maxed in their space. Additionally, just from a Thank you. Thank you. and the current situation.

Thank you, Superintendent. You're welcome. We just spent hundreds of millions of dollars building the Josiah Quincy High School, certainly a gem in the city of Boston, an exceptional school, high school. It's not an exam school, obviously, but it's an excellent high school. There are other excellent high schools as well. What are we doing to support those high schools? And let me just ask, is Josiah Quincy School, although it's not an exam school, are their academics as close to the three exam schools? Could you compare it in a certain way that they are equally strong academically as the three advanced schools.

So the Josiah Quincy has an IB curriculum, International Baccalaureate, which is very competitive curriculum. It's slightly different than what schools like the three exam schools would do in terms of AP. They also have early college. So they're very competitive academically for sure, the Josiah Quincy. The other school is the Snowden that has the IB track, but those are the only two in the district that offer that for parents wanting that and students wanting that.

Are we able to, and I know we are supporting the Josiah Quincy School, but I'm sure we're equally supporting the Snowden School as well, which I'm thankful for. What are we doing to also support students that want to go to those two excellent schools? Are we making an opportunity available to them that maybe it's not as prestigious but they're also excellent schools.

Right, and so this is a great question because I think what we're really trying to do is to build up our early college across all of our high schools So we've seen a dramatic increase in three years where we started off with less than 100 students enrolled in early college, and we're now at 1,000. So that is one of those things that we need to continue to shout from the rooftops across our schools. We just received a national recognition for the amount of APs we offer, and that wasn't limited to the exams. That was across our high schools. We have college CTE at Madison, but then we also have college pathways that exist. We used to have around 1,200, 1,300 students. Over the last four years, we're now at 3,500. These are all opportunities where students can get actual credentialing. EMK is a great example of that with the partnership with with Mass General Brigham. And so I think that there's part of what we have to do as a district is to continue to ShareOut and Communication invite folks into our schools and I really appreciate every counselor in here who visits the schools with me because you see firsthand the great work that's happening every day and that's what matters. But I do think that we have to continue and put a lot into comms. And I think part of this is helping parents and students at the secondary level, particularly if they're choosing in the seventh grade, they know what they're choosing from and about. and there's lots of great choices in BPS. So this is gonna be a focal point for the next several years now that we have such rich early college international baccalaureate and career pathways going in the high schools.

Thank you, Superintendent. Superintendent, we referenced Snowden, we referenced Josiah Quincy, but what can we do to bring those other high schools up to the academics of a Snowden or to JQS? to support them so that they become an excellent school as well. I'm sure they're doing excellent things there, but how can we work to support those schools that might be struggling, but they also could be In a place where they could improve their success if they are supported. Is that fair to say?

Absolutely. And I think we see in the data, whether it's Boston Arts Academy, whether it's Dearborn with its Stem and Early College, every student being part of Early College, Fenway, Wall-to-Wall Early College, New Mission just got a school of recognition from the state. You know, we're working across the schools to make sure that we can put competitive courses in there. Madison Park, you know, this is why we put it forward for the MSBA for that project and we've made a commitment to build it. because we need to have the best CTE school in the state, if not the country. But also the Tech Bostons, the Englishes, the Braidons, The East Boston's, right? There's lots of great work and all these early college and pathways that are happening. Boston Green Academy in Brighton really is our example of green technology. They have a freight farm that students can go into. So part of this is bringing back some of the ways that we used to get parents and families to visit the schools. to be able to do not just the college and career fairs, but to actually do the secondary fairs. So we're going to be doing more Zooms with parents. And then Brett Dickens, who is our new head of secondary, Her plan is to get a lot more materials out to parents ahead of time. So to Counselor Flynn's point, they can see the good work that's happening in these schools.

Mr. Chair, could I make a final point? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I know this subject was brought up earlier, Advanced Workshop, the program. My son went to that program and did very well there, and a lot of other students did. It kind of declined. Not the success of it, just the program of it declined. I always thought that that school was preparing young students academically to get into one of the three exam schools. I just don't think they had the support from BPS at that time. Maybe it's an opportunity for us to reconsider advance work or however we phrase it, but to provide and many more. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving me an extra minute.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Mejia, you have the floor.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So we're going to have two rounds, right? So, you know, I think it's really interesting. You know, I talk about the fact that I was a BPS graduate, and I grew up here during the height of busing era, and I feel like This conversation is similar, but yet different in some ways, but there still is the sentiment of these exam schools being coveted and exclusive to a certain tier of Students. And that is real for a lot of families when we're talking about equity and access. And so I'm curious if you could help us understand to what extent this proposal is being driven by educational considerations versus external pressures and politics. And I'm asking questions that my constituents are also asking, just so that you understand the framing. BPS is currently defending the tiered admission policy in federal court against a lawsuit claiming it unfairly limits whites and Asian students. And could you just for the record and to assure our public who is tuning in, that these changes are not in response to those who opposed the 2021 equity measures from the start.

Yeah, I will look at you and say that my recommendations that I put forward today have nothing to do with the lawsuit. The recommendations that are being put forth today are ones that have been talked about. In fact, some as far back as the initial commission. I think what we have seen at our school committee which is the governing body of the district over the last four years is Particular issues that have come up that happen sometimes when you have a policy that's going in effect first time that was not thought about or intended, but they happen. and things like students having over 100 and being mathematically not able to gain an exam school seat would be an example. Students attending schools where they have been placed there, not the parent having chosen there, but unfortunately would not get points, would be another. So I think what you're seeing in the recommendations is our best attempt to sort of codify and for once kind of bring to shape some of the things that popped up over the last three to four years and instead of every year making these micro changes where we can't track trend, it's instead now kind of the next rendition of the policy to address it.

Thank you. And so can you just tell us what the projected change will be in the racial, social, economic, and geographical distribution of admitted students if the proposed changes are adopted?

So I'm going to turn to our data expert.

So if you look in the appendix, Simulation B is aligned to the recommendation. So if you slides 24 through 28, Give the simulated data for both the 24-25 and 25-26 applicant pool.

So for the record, for those folks who don't have access to the slides, I'm asking specifically for those folks who are tuning in, if you don't mind sharing that and putting it on the record, that would be helpful. While you do that, I'm also curious, the education policy brief, I was not in attendance, so I'm curious if there was any recordings or any information that we can get so that I can have a better understanding of the transformational schools and what was discussed there. To the chair, no.

So yeah, the policy briefing that was referred to earlier, those are not recorded.

Okay, so then there's no way for me to know what was discussed there. But if there's a report or anything that you could share with me, I would like it. I just think that I'm always advocating for information, so it would be great to have. Do we have that data, Monica?

You specifically asked by race or other student groups as well?

So there's racial, socioeconomic, and geographical distribution of admitted students if these proposed changes are adopted.

So for economically disadvantaged students, Using the 24-25 applicant pool, in the current policy, 39.2% of students would have received an invitation and under the simulation, 35.5% of students would have received an invitation.

So that's a decrease? Yes. Okay. And then for racial?

So using again the 24-25 applicant pool, and we have the data for the 25-26 applicant pool as well that I can read out, Asian students received 20% of the invitations, which was the same in the simulation Again, 20%. Black students received 20% under the current policy and 19% under the simulation. So it'll decrease? Based on the applicant pool of that year. Latinx students 25% under the current policy and 22% under the simulation. For our students of multi-race or for other race categories, was 6% under the current policy and the same under the simulation and for white students 27% under the current policy and 31% under the simulation.

So the increases will benefit non

I think that's where what we see is that as the applicant pool shifts We see those percentages shift, so it is challenging to predict what may happen with a new group of students that we don't know what their makeup is.

Okay, so I hear my time is up, so I'll just wait for my next round. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Mejia. Councillor Coletta Zapata, you have the floor.

Thank you so much. Thank you all to my colleagues for their thoughtful questions. I have a few. We'll try to get them all in this round. But I appreciate, again, just your Your answers and some of my colleagues who already asked questions that I had. So I guess I'm just a little confused on the addition of the citywide round. The first 20% of seats at each school will go to the highest ranking students. Can you talk to me about how that operationally will happen? So I can imagine that a bunch of kids will rank BLS as their first choice. I don't understand why. BLA is the best. But when folks rank their first choice, and presumably it's more in one school than the other, how will that get distributed equitably, or will it?

Sure. So the proposal for the citywide round is that the first 20% of seats at each of the three schools would be filled by the highest performing students that ranked that school first across the city. So essentially that means every student who ranks BLS first would get rank order from their composite score highest to lowest and the the first If there are, I think it's roughly like 95 seats would be the top 20% at BLS. So the first in this hypothetical example, 95. highest scoring students who ranked BLS first would receive an invitation. and O'Brien. So the first 20% of seats at each of the three schools is filled with the highest ranking students. The students who do not receive an invitation in the citywide round would then be considered within their socioeconomic tier for the remaining 80% of seats in that each of the three schools. Did that help?

So just to further clarify, so first 95 seats at BLS. Right.

Roughly.

Roughly. Okay. And then it would automatically go to the kids who ranked BLA first for whatever seats that they have? Or would you continue to fill it in the BLS category?

So students, we fill seats based on student preference because we want to ensure that as many students are getting their first choice school as possible. So, I don't, Collin, do you wanna?

So it's basically, if you had 300 students who were the highest scoring composite scores, we would go kid by kid, and their first choice. So if the first 10 pick BLS and the next 10 picked O'Brien, then that would fill 10 of BLS's seats and 10 of O'Brien's seats. until we exhaust the 95 seats at BLS, the 85 or so 80 seats at BLA, and then it's a much smaller number, probably like 45-ish at O'Brien because they have such a small number of 7th and 8th.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. You must have spent time in classroom, so thank you. I appreciate it. Some of the policy impacts on invitations within the race and ethnicity. So I'd love to see in the appendix, and there's a lot of information in the appendix, so I appreciate you all including that as well. It looks like invites went up in East Boston, which is a historically Latinx community. Do we foresee or what are the projections for invitations under the proposed recommendations and will it have any impact, especially on the Latinx community in East Boston?

So the data in the appendix doesn't actually include the neighborhood data for the simulation, so we can certainly follow up and provide that. What you can see from slide 18 with the three maps of the city does show that the policy has Move to geographic representation that is more similar to the city than what is before, but I don't have the specific answer

But you have done simulations under this new recommended policy and what that might mean for, you know, various demographic groups like race and ethnicity. Yes. Okay, great. Through the chair, if we could have that. Thank you. School-based points, thank you for removing it. It was something that was playing out real time in my district, and it really was a poor proxy for individual socioeconomic status need. No better example than a single mom who just happened to be a waitress Fitzgerald has a really great apartment in the North End and her daughter went to the Elliott School and so she really felt penalized for things that were beyond her control and so I do appreciate that and just want to say thank you. Councillor Fitzgerald already asked my question for For considering number of applicants per tier that was something that Charlestown parents have been asking for in particular since 2023. I have an email up from Kathleen Charterborn. I just want to publicly thank her for her advocacy. There was a question about invitations not being fulfilled or kids not There would be invitations coming through or not actually realizing their attendance at these schools. Some would go unanswered or some kids would say, no, thank you. I have other options. There was a discussion about potentially rolling over those invitations. I guess, can you talk about any conversations around that, whether that was considered?

The only thing I can think of is that they're talking that it's in connection to the wait lists. So what basically happens is We don't have a... We can use past data to predict what we think the yield will be of the number of... The invites we send and the number who accept the invitation to each of the schools, but it's not a hard science. And there have been years where the invitations have been, we send them out and then the yield's been slightly lower and then of late the yield has been very high. and it's actually caused situations in all three exam schools of class size issues, particularly in the seventh and eighth. So the way that the schools do it now is we really try to do as many of the invites up front rather than form a wait list and draw off the wait list. If they're able to draw, they will. But if it's going to put them over in class sizes, then they won't. That's slightly different than what had been before, which was they would take fewer applicants and then go to the wait list. So it's really like a catch 22, right? Like it doesn't, either one, it's half dozen to one. Our preference is for them to invite as many students, get them settled up front as possible. and then if there happens to be a few seats left that is in accordance with the class size, they can pull from the wait list. But we have very high yields year to year in each of these exam schools.

Okay, thank you. And one last point that I will make has to do with DCF. I had a parent reach out to us that said that they had a child in foster care and they had just gotten off of the DCF care list and will no longer be receiving those bonus points. I guess I would just suggest Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Clarice Zapata.

Next up we have Councillor Breadon, you have the floor.

Thank you. It's a lot to take in. The Commonwealth, no, I'm thinking So redrawing the tiers change every year, are recalculated every year, using census tracts. One concern I have, and maybe it's an unwarranted concern, but one concern I have is that Commonwealth housing in Brighton is totally surrounded by high-end luxury housing at this point. Does that, so I'm imagining they're all on the same census tract because they're right beside each other. Does that change the, does that change the socioeconomic status Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So we could look at a map. I'm not familiar with the specific area you're talking about, but I know in areas in South Boston, for example, there are census tracts that are almost solely the public housing, but then surrounded by and some of the condos that you're referring to. And in terms of the tier calculation, we use the five-year average of data to try and stabilize as much as possible How much data may change from year to year?

Okay. And this may be a total zinger. I'm sorry about this. But how do males and females differ in performance in the testing? And does that impact their access to exam skills?

I don't have that data in front of me, but we can follow up on that question.

The reason I'm asking, in Northern Ireland, the girls always did way better than the boys, but the educational authorities split it 50-50. So there was a lot of girls that were discriminated against because they were getting high scores in the test but were not getting into exam schools because they split the numbers 50-50. The girls actually performed better in the test and should have been getting more places. But that's a curiosity just because of my background where I'm coming from. And I know I hear that we have issues with maybe young males of color, black boys especially, that they're and so on. You know, they don't have the aptitude in English that they need to be able to perform better in TASC, and actually not necessarily special ed.

So we can get you that data, but just looking very quickly at Latin schools overall, and I just pulled them up first. It is slightly heavier with female than it is with male. Despite the fact that our district is comprised of more males than females, so it looks like it might be slightly disproportionate. That's that one school. But we'll get the numbers for you, Council.

Okay, thank you. We talk about the top 20% across the city. Does that mean that we include every school-aged student regardless of where they go to school? or is that just within BPS?

The citywide round would be any student who applies regardless of where they go to school.

The 20% is the seats, though. It's not the number of applicants.

20%, yes. So 20% of the seats are very important. In terms of just generally, how many applicants do we get from outside of BPS every year? Do we know?

We do.

I believe it's around... Recently been around 300 or so non-BPS applicants for seventh grade each year, but we can get the exact numbers.

And what's the percentages of that of the total applicants?

A percentage of the total applicants. We need to do some quick math. So I'm just looking at the numbers. But in the 25, 26 The number of seventh grade applicants was a little over 1,400 and about 300 of them were outside of the district.

So that's almost 20%? I don't know, that's my mental arithmetic. 300 out of 1,400.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think that number has, again, the applicant polls differ year to year. I think in the last few years that's gone down slightly, but it does differ year to year. Interestingly enough, both BLS and BLA, if you just look at their current population, is skewed more female than male. Not usually, but so. And then O'Brien is actually skewed slightly male versus female. That's a whole math thing. Yeah, that could be our age-old math science.

All right. I don't subscribe to the notion that girls are worse than math and boys are. I don't expect you to agree with that.

I'm sitting next to one that's brilliant.

Exactly. I think that's all I have for now. I need my last five seconds. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Brayden. Next up we have Councillor Worrell.

Thank you chair and thank you again for being here and answering a lot of our questions. My first question is just going to go into the change year over year when it comes to black student invitations. Black student invitations rose to 22 to 24 percent. under the previous system, but fell to just 15% this year. While black students are 30% of the school age population, it's the largest change year over year since 2021. What explains this decline and how does the proposed policy ensure that we don't backslide any further on black student invitation?

So I mean, I think this year caught us all by surprise in terms of the drop. It was not something reflected in the previous year's data. The one thing we were able to see a bit, and I think either Monica or Colin can address it, but was that the GPA of our black students was lower than it had been. and since grades do count for 70% of it, that could have something to do with it. But it really was an anomaly from the other years. We don't have an explanation, at least in the data. Again, part of the challenge of the applicant pool is we can't predict the behavior, so that's going to always be problematic when we're relying on simulations based on the applicant data to say what something's going to do or not do. Monica and Colin, I know you looked at this as well.

I mean, the simulation doesn't fix that. If you look at what it would have been this year with... The current policy and the proposed policy is the same, right? So I think there's a bunch of things underneath that isn't just policy that's around like the actual applicant pool that we need to explore. I think Monica and her group at ODA have been trying to dig into, is it the grades? Because the grades were lower, right? Do we have a grading equity issue in BPS? That's not going to be solved by a policy, right? I think there's other things within the applicant pool that we need to think about around who is actually applying, who thinks they can see themselves in an exam school. Those things won't be easily changed by a policy, right? So, Monica, I don't know if you have any other insights, but It's been really difficult. Like, midway through the process of taking a look at these three variables is when we got kind of hit in the face with it. And it was hard because of the amount of changes every year, which is why I'm like, We've got to stop changing this thing. It was really hard to say, OK, last year's change was why. We've got to fix that when our data department is saying, well, that's not really why. So I don't have a great answer, but like I said, I think this is more of a lateral step so that we can actually have a policy that's well understood, that's based somewhat off of research. Not to put shade on people who made the original, but we have to think about those things when we're thinking about policy, especially ones that are going to be challenging. and ones that are like based in zero sum games where folks are really going to be fighting. And I think things like the points have been used to bludgeon the city and the district to change every single year.

So.

I'll just add from a data point of view, we did see the applicant pool last year get larger, but that increase did not come from additional black students applying. That increase was predominantly and many more. We also have Latinx students with a small increase for our white students. So black students made up a smaller share of the applicant pool to begin with. In 25-26 and additionally as the superintendent mentioned We did see the distribution of grades for our black students in the applicant pool shift lower than what we had seen in previous years, and we did not see that same shift with other race groups. Additionally, I'll just add that we have seen the percentage of students who receive those school-based points continue to increase each year. making the original intent of the points less impactful as more and more students are receiving those school-based points.

And the composite score is made up of 70%. Mapp, 70% grade, 30% Mapp. Did we or did the district do any simulations around adjusting that to see if that had Any change in terms of invitations? Was it 60-40, 50-50?

We're at the request of the school committee from last week's meeting. We're in the process of running simulations to see what the difference would be with a 50-50 test score grade split instead of 70-30.

My one request of that is that we do that with a real look back, not based on the one year. Because then we might potentially do something that further skews the data in the wrong way, like in a way that's not what we're trying to accomplish.

Right, yeah, and I learned the term great inflation from Council President, so just wanted to see if we were thinking that through. And it sounds like we are. One of the other questions I have is around Section 8 voucher holders. They often time face the same challenges as those in public housing, however they don't Correct me if I'm wrong, don't receive housing points. Are we looking to add them or make sure that they do receive these bonus points?

So the district is currently, part of the reason they don't receive points currently is we do not have a good way to identify who they are in the data. And so we're currently working with the Boston Housing Authority to sort of understand What a data sharing agreement may look like, but until we sort of understand what that looks like and are able to run simulations with that data, did not want to include that in a proposed policy without sort of understanding what the impact might be.

In addition, I think there's a lot to be thought about, especially around Section 8, because there's folks that would qualify but don't qualify because of who they are in the city. There are folks who choose not to, you know, access, public assistance that would qualify for public assistance. So, you know, quite often those type of measures are more proxies by neighborhood because there's a lot of individual choice and individual situations connected to those. We'd have to do a lot of due diligence that we weren't doing more harm than good in adding that population to whatever formula we would add them to.

But we are actively exploring it and we will continue to do that. We just want to make sure that we have a way to be able to do it cleanly so we're not leaving out groups of students in the process.

Right. And thank you, Chair. And I'll wait for my second round, but my next... Round the question would be around the large share of our student population. I know New York, the District of New York, I think 5%. and they have eight exam schools. Five percent of the student population goes to the eight exam schools here in Boston. It's around 27.5 percent, 25 percent. So how do we think that O'Neill. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilor Worrell. We're now going to go to a second round of questions from our council colleagues. I'm going to do four minutes per councilor for this round. Again, we do have a second panel. and we're at 4 or 8 p.m. right now. So starting with the lead sponsors and then we're going to order a rival. Councilor Pepén, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, what's good about having so many counselors in attendance is that a lot of your questions get asked. and a lot of them have been hashed so but also sparked some curiosity to me and it's one of my questions as a follow-up to all of these questions is is there ever a scenario where some of the seats are not filled at some of the exam schools and what happens to those seats.

I think in general the schools work to fill to the capacity that they have. Sometimes it's not a totally even number and this has to do with A lot of times seventh, eighth, and ninth graders take courses out of sequence in order to meet where they are. So they may take a math that's a grade level above, And so the leaders have to do the best they can to balance the seats for class size. In that way, there could be situations where you might have a couple of seats in this grade, but you couldn't cleanly fill them because you would push over the class size in the grades that the students are not taking those advanced courses. They really fill the seats.

Okay, that's good to know. What are the, I don't think it's been shared yet, how many seats are there in each of those three exam schools?

It's roughly 1,000 collective, with BLS being the most for 400.

We send about a thousand, just under a thousand seventh grade invitations each year. And we can get you the exact numbers of invitations that we've sent.

Yeah, the biggest note there is that the O'Brien, because of size class, because of physical size, only takes in half of the seventh grade that the other two exam schools take. They then take more ninth graders to offset, but that's the most that they can take in that seventh grade.

Gotcha. Yeah, I was one of those ninth graders that got into the O'Briens. I get that. Also, one of the other questions that I get from my parents is, not my parents, but parents in my district, is how do students decide to take the MAP exam? When do they take the exam? How is that? Where do they take it, et cetera?

So the current policy calls for the test to be administered twice for each student. That was an intentional choice by the task force in 2021. And so the first time they take the assessment is in typically early June. BPS students take the assessment during the school day and non-BPS students come to a district school on either on a Saturday or a Sunday to take the assessment on the weekend. The second opportunity is typically in early December. And then the district takes the highest reading score and the highest math score from the two attempts that the child made to be used in the admissions process.

Thank you for that. So where do the students that don't... Where do the students that don't go to BPS take the exam? You said somewhere else.

Where is that? It's usually... One of our BPS schools, I know there's been a site in East Boston at the McKay in the past. I believe BLA has been a site. I don't know what they all are off the top of my head, but we can provide that.

Okay. Well, thank you for that. I am. Councilor Flynn was kind of hinting at this with his questioning. And I'm curious, too, because I have a very amazing high school in my district, which is New Mission High School. I'm a big fan of that school. I was just there this past week doing 826 writing workshops with the students. And I just have so much great things to say. What I want to know is that how can we continue to elevate the quality of school like new mission to emulate the work of an exam school. And have we taken the opportunity to do any type of study of what's working at our exam schools and why they're shaping our students so well? to then implement that in other high schools?

Oh, we only had about six hours. I'm just trying to think of the simplest way to explain it. New Mission's a great high school. It does a great job. It's built its culture over many, many years. So when students are coming in, they're coming into like a system, and then they have a very steady... Thank you. Thank you. New Mission has a process by which it's an application. It's not a screening out application, but it's an application. And so it makes clear when students come what New Mission is about and why they want to be there. Many of our open enrollment schools have students assigned to them. Students don't always choose them. It might be that space is available. Our open enrollments also just have large portions or disproportions of special education and multilingual learner programming. and some of that is space because many of our open enrollments are in old comprehensive buildings so they have the most space. There's just lots of things that contribute to the secondary ecosystem having been somebody that lived it for many years. But I think, you know, New Mission has some really good practices that I think we are now in the regional network at this stage to share those best practice. We never had that really model in BPS. And so some of our highest performing schools, part of what we're doing is in the regional model, inviting principals into each other's classrooms and hallways to be able to see what's going on and then be able to take that practice back. Same with the regional network soups. So I do think that we're seeing more of that disseminate. We're also trying to get some of our leaders out into schools even beyond BPS as well to see what's happening.

That's great. I was able to learn a lot from previous principal Will Thomas of New Mission High School, just what he was able to do with that school. And that's essentially what I want to see be replicated in a lot of our high schools where I've always said this, we have such an unhealthy relationship with our three exam schools because we're so focused on them, but not realizing the immense potential we have at other high schools. So I just, I'm very lucky to have New Mission High School in my district. So I'm using that as a comparison to these three schools. That's great.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Pepén. Council President Nguyen, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I'm going to make a few comments and then get to my questions. At the end of my question, Superintendent, we talked about awareness. And I just wanted to, again, I look like awareness for parents who are English language learners, who don't have access, who don't have the social capital. I think awareness campaigns are so important and we need them, but they're not going to do the job. They are not going to, and I just wanted to re-emphasize that, they are not going to level out the scales of people who have information, people who have access to information, What is the topic of a dinner party conversation in one neighborhood that is not the topic of a dinner party conversation in another neighborhood because they aren't having dinner parties because all the parents are working overtime and triple time to make things work? So I think that's important. I also think it's important for us to talk about what are we trying to do with our exam schools. And even that is imperfect. If we're trying to identify potential, I'm grateful that I worked at the Posse Foundation. It's all about this idea of questioning meritocracy and who deserves what. And we just have a twisted way of thinking about what merit looks like. and I think there's no better way of showing that than these exam schools. It's why I think the tiers are so important because if we do believe again in citywide schools, the tiers help us do that and it's making sure that we're not shutting people out from potential. So I just wanted to put that on the record. I think there's also discussions that we need to have about the exam schools. I know O'Brien. I don't think people appreciate how highly ranked O'Brien has been. I spent a lot of my time two weeks ago in the North End talking to a parent whose son is thriving at the O'Brien and who's the only parent in the North End who has a kid going to O'Brien. A lot of this has to be around and so on. So it's a lot of decision making and how we help parents. And the next day I was talking to someone who it was like Latin school or bust when there are other Exam schools, other schools. So I think that we have an awareness campaign probably to do on the more affluent side about what our exam schools are and what all of our schools are able to achieve. Weber asked a question or pointed to a question I thought that was really important about who is choosing what schools. And I remember following very attentively Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because I know that there have been substantial efforts at Latin to reverse realities and perceptions of racism and discrimination at the school. Again, last week, talking to an AP African-American class that did not exist when I was there. So I'd like to see us do more work or if there's any data around who is that still true that African or that black and Latinx parents are choosing Latin school less than they are choosing O'Brient. because then I think it goes back to Councilor Coletta Zapata's question regarding how we're feeling that 20% and who is more likely to choose Lawton School and E. O'Brien. Superintendent, you once stated that Boston Lions School is one of the cheapest schools for Boston public schools to run, in part because of its sheer size. I'm sure the $65 million endowment also helps because other schools aren't soliciting, aren't getting. But I'd like you to talk about that a bit more. And I'd like to, if there's data on by race, who is choosing what school, I think that's important to know. What progress we're making on our English language learners having access to these exam schools. And then lastly, just to hammer this home, the lawsuits have been unsuccessful to date because they have not been discussions about race. They have been discussions about citywide schools and about how we are I think you do have some data on this.

Looking for the specifics so we can follow up on who ranks which school by race.

Well, I can jump back into the... So the larger the school, just from an economy of scale size, the more efficient it is with the dollars. The less... Special Education Programming is in it, which is a higher per pupil cost, the less Multilingual Learner Programming that's in it, which is a higher cost, then the per pupil becomes less. I think you're absolutely right with BLS. The counter to that is that they're blessed that they have a very strong alumni base and they offer quite a bit of student support programming for students. They offer a Saturday program. There's an after-school programming. They do summer programming for the incoming orientation for students. And then in addition to internships and so forth. We don't factor in the external dollars when we do sort of the per capita. So when you sort of look at the largest schools, those tend to be in the high school world, the ones that are the least per pupil in that way. And then in terms of the multilingual learners, this is something that as we roll out more bilingual education, more dual language, more access to native language, We need to start to build at each of the exam schools the staffing capacity for our multilingual learner students to succeed. What we know is that are ELL level fours and fives and to some extent threes. They do very well at the exam schools. The percentages have gone up getting in and then maintaining. In general, level fours and fives, when the general education becomes better, level fours and fives outperform non-ELL fours and fives. So we're starting to see that in some of the data. But I think in terms of actual newcomer programming, that takes an infrastructure that you have to build. At the high school level right now, we're building it out in as many high schools as we can. Right now, MMA is the only bilingual dual language that we have at the high school level, but we are now working with multiple high schools around starting programs, particularly around low incident language. So I would expect that access to grow. And we're going to start having conversations with the leaders of the exam schools about what is possible and how we can start to, both for our special education students and our multilingual learners, have them see themselves there and be successful there. as well as pursuing potentially like looking at the map and saying you know could that be something we could offer in more than just English.

Thank you. And I'm at the time, and if through the chair you could give the responses, that would be great in terms of who's choosing what school by demographic. Thank you. And I just wanted to highlight, Superintendent, you said support. and I think that ties into potential and the work that we did at Posse. It's all about supporting our kids because the potential is there among all regardless and it's about providing them the support to thrive.

That's right and that's actually what every single exam school leader said. And we'll be putting forward in their budget to continue that because some of that is externally funded and we need to with grants that are expiring. So my problem.

Thank you, Council President. Councilor Weber, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Just to follow up on that and sort of highlight the issues with the ISEE with multi-language learners and how and so on. of our student body, our multi-language learners. Based on the old system, approximately one half of 1% of those 35% would get an invitation. to an exam school. The current policy has that up to 3.5% out of 35%, which is not great. Simulation B, which I think you're recommending, would lower that to 2.5%. It's something we have to continue to work on and make sure that kids, just because they recently got here or at home they speak another language, we are creating opportunities for those kids. But my question is, I've got two questions. Hopefully I get to them. In terms of, you know, we've got the data, and it does differ a lot between 24-25 and 25-26 if you look at how they work out with the simulations. Some people have said, and I agree, that if we make these changes with these 20% set-asides for the three tests in schools, that that is going to bring in non-BPS and You know, those students who maybe haven't been applying, have we accounted for, you know, those, I think you said 300 non-BPS students in the last cycle, how much we, What is the numbers going to be? You know, if we because I think it's tell me if I'm wrong. I think it's undisputed that making these changes will send more seats to tier four, you know, where I live. And I think it's something around The 20% of the seats, I think our staff ran some simulations and it was about 45% of those seats would be in tier four, because they would have the sort of higher grades. I don't know if you agree with that. And then what do we think about the change in applicant pool if these changes go through?

Right, so I think Monica may have a little bit of data that we used in the simulations, but again, it is very, very hard to predict what the behavior of people who are applying is going to be or not. Probably the closest would be like, Prior to when there was this policy versus not.

That's okay. So we're not sure. Do you agree with me? Do you think... More non-BPS students were expecting to apply after these changes. Maybe that's not the reason for the changes. I'm not suggesting that, but that that would be it. We're not sure.

I mean, I think it's certainly possible. One of the changes that this policy did also make was that it required students to rank at least one of the three exam schools. and so a non-BPS student has to come in and prove residency, rank at least one of the three exam schools and sit for the MAP test as well as submit their grades and I think it's hard to say How behavior may change as the policy changes? That's OK.

So just my other question is, in terms of the 20% for each school, How does that work? So it's where you Choose your number one school if you're in the top 20%, whereas I think generally we expect Most of the people who anticipate being in the top 20% to pick BLS, but obviously people choose different schools for different reasons. Can you just tell me what the thinking is where maybe somebody, you know, if my child was on the border, you know, and I was like, okay, I don't know if this person's going to, my kid's going to get an invitation at all. I wouldn't put BLS number one because maybe I'd be in the top 20% of the BLA students. It just seems like There would be a gaming going on that I don't want to be in a position to do as a parent, and I'm not sure that's good for the district.

So I'll certainly have Monica or Colin chime in, but the way I would explain it is when we looked, if we had done it not based on the 20% of seats per school and we did it as 20 per seats purely citywide, At least in the data of the past applicant pools, we would heavily have filled the BLS seats through that process. So that's the reason we're recommending and the way I explained it was if you had say the top 300 Composite scores. We would literally go child by child. First two pick BLA, great. They're in BLA. The next five pick BLS. They're in BLS until, and the next five pick O'Brien, until these seats that that school has for its 20% cap are filled. So in that way, you're assuring a bit more that you're spreading out the highest composites across the schools more evenly, as opposed to if you did a 20% citywide round where Say 75% of the kids are picking BLS and so this is our way of being able to ensure that there's better spread across the schools.

As much of this conversation is BLS. Like, you would make a BLS round if it was just 20%.

Yeah, but the problem with that is I think you'd have a majority of, we'd be back in the old system. That's why we're not recommending it.

Yeah, which is why I'm glad you didn't recommend it. When you look at the demographics of O'Brien and BLA, they mirror our district. Like, when we're having this exam school conversation, quite often we are talking about BLS, and that round would be a BLS round. So, if you want to have a diverse BLS. and represent the full city, this is a better option to have the 20% of youth school.

Okay, well, thank you. I'd like to shout out my intern who's a BLS senior here, Quentin, in the back. Thanks for coming in and helping us with this issue. If you want to say hi, I'd just like to embarrass him. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Weber. Fitzgerald, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. So following in that line, some rhetoric and then a couple of quick questions. To me, for me to keep this simple, as many of us have to do, right, when getting in this complex issue, this is about the balance of setting the culture at an exam school versus opportunity for all. And that's why when I think about the 20% at each school, I always advocate for more. Around 50%, I'd say, is a good starting point. where if 50% of the school get in based off of the composite scores and you have the highest performing academic kids, that sets the culture at that school and then the other half of the school would get to be for those that the opportunity for all right you can you can start to use the socio-economic tiering and other and other I think if you talk to anybody up here that went to one of the exam schools, the defining characteristic that made it great is the fact that everyone from every neighborhood was there. No one is going to dispute that, having gone through it. And so how do we keep that going while also keeping the high academic rigor? and establishing the culture. So I think you are the company you keep. And so if you go to a school and you just needed that opportunity, that chance and you didn't have or there wasn't something available to you, and many more. Thank you. The number one mindset. And so that's just sort of what I go. But so in talking about leveling that playing field, the questions that I have is, how do we make it so that We have resources that each kid gets the same tutelage for all our children for the composite scores. You know how they always say, well, you got to get a tutor for the test and hence you got better scores. How do we make it where and that's why I also don't know whether the score or the grades between 70 and 30 should even be flipped because I know some schools flub the grade stuff and so I don't know if the weighing 70 percent I'd rather see probably a and more. How can we make sure that we provide extra toolage across the board to all students Not just BPS students, but all students in the city so that we can say, hey, you all had the same opportunity to be taught the same way to the test that we need to do and then we go out and take the test and we can use those scores to take that 50%. Is there something that's being done to, I know there is, but could you explain that more and what, is possibly being done and only because I only have one minute left I guess I could also throw in is there a strategy to where students rank the schools they want to get into because I know in the elementary school when we were doing my kids it's like Well, if you put your first choice school, that's going to get denied. So the school you actually want to go to, you should put in second. I'm not saying any of this is true or not, but that is... So sort of the rhetoric that's out there. Is there any strategy to where students should rank themselves for what school they want in order to get into going forward with any of these strategies? Saying, I want to go to Boston Latin if I rank it as my second choice, Maybe I have a better shot at getting in than if I put it as my first. But more importantly, the tutelage is for everybody.

I'm going to let Monica answer.

I think I know what I would say, but... Yeah, I think in... That particular example, I would recommend that the students continue to rank BLS first given the high percentage of students who rank BLS first.

Okay, that's what I would have answered.

Short answers are fine.

Yeah, I think just in terms of the tutoring piece, so we are actually attempting very much to incorporate High dosage tutoring, reading supports, like across the grades right now, this is the next level of our implementation. But in terms of the ESI, that would be as close as to sort of what you're talking about of getting ready quickly. We're planning to expand it back to the fourth grade and we're expanding the seats. and that is you know multi-week process over the summer that will work on skills you know it happens at BLS that's where we do it and we would just encourage parents and we will encourage parents to send students if they think that that's something that they're really interested in.

If I could just add one more, Chair, quickly. I notice in the simulations there are some combinations. There's only three. There are some combinations that are not provided just given the number of, you know, whether you use the housing points versus the other things. I think it was in the one you actually did to the school committee the other day. Is there any reason or what was the criteria and process for just offering up those three options as opposed to the other multiple combinations of those options that could have been offered?

Certainly we'll let Monica and Colin chime in, but from my perspective, we listened very carefully to the types of issues that were coming up and being raised both by school committee members and by the public. That's what we sort of based the simulations on. I don't know for the two of you.

Yeah, my entry point was a school committee presentation in 2024 in December around the things that they wanted to see run. And so these were the closest These three variables were the specific variables they wanted to see run, and then there's any number of combinations we could have run and taken like five years to do it, but... I think we had a lot of conversation kind of around the table around which ones would we put forward just to see what would happen.

And just to clarify, it was the tiers, citywide round, school-based points and housing points. There's obviously multiple more combinations you could have of those four. No need to go any further. I've had my time. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Fitzgerald.

Councillor Flynn, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, thank you to the administration, BPS team that's here. Colin, I know you talked about the advanced workshop in one of the responses that you had. Could you provide me maybe a couple paragraphs or a couple pages? I'd like to really look at that program and see why it was placed, it was not I thought it was going well and then I heard from you that there was some decline in the program, but I just want to see if I can get some accurate information on why it was eliminated.

Sure. And I wasn't in the district when it got eliminated, but we can go and look and see what the discussion was. The numbers were dwindling on their own.

Yeah, it was dwindling because the BPS lost interest in the program, I thought. Superintendent, I don't know if you have anything that you could provide, but I thought the program was doing very well academically, supporting a lot of students, students of color, but then it was eliminated.

It was not with me, so Monica, do you have a history on?

I don't have a deep understanding. I wasn't involved, I think, as... EFA, the Excellence for All program was also growing. I think the district at the time made some choices about where to continue and where not to continue.

So is there a program similar to Advanced Work Workshop. Is there a program similar to that? It might be called something different, but is there a program similar to that in BPS?

No, there's not a structured program which would exist in particular sites, Councilor Flynn. What there is is a deep investment in Curriculum materials and instructional practice in all of the classrooms to raise the level for all students. The excellence for all that Monica and Colin are referring to was a framework of positions in the last administration that were funded in the schools so that every school had a social worker, a nurse, things like that.

But do we know when that program was eliminated, was there seats that did the enrollment in that particular school for the three exam schools go down after that school was eliminated the enrollment in the exam schools has not really I'm just thinking were those students that were in that program were they academically prepared To go to the advanced workshop program, I mean to go to the exam schools and then all of a sudden that program is eliminated and there is no program for that strict academic instructions at a particular AWC School. And then because there is no strict structure like the advanced workshop, then it may have reduced the number of seats that reduced the number of students that went to a particular school in a certain neighborhood.

The only quick answer is that as AWC seats dwindled, diversity in exam schools rose. So I don't know, I don't think we did a definitive study around the closure of AWC,

No, no, that wasn't my question. My question is, did the enrollment at that school Do the number of seats that went to that school go down because that program wasn't there?

We would have to go back because I think it's before me.

Okay. And my final, well, my time is up. I don't want to take any more time. I want to be respectful to my colleagues. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Mejia, you're next. And before I start your time, please. I did forward you an email with the policy briefing that you were referring to with all the slides and stuff.

Thank you. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Councilor Mayer.

My time starts now. Thank you. All right, so I'm curious, how many points are allotted if you're an ELL learner or a student with an IEP?

There are currently no points that are associated with either of those two status.

Thank you for that. I am curious about, you know, we're talking a lot about This is all about the exam schools, but since we're talking about admissions and processes, I'm curious why at what point is the district going to look at the Admittance Policy for Madison Park.

The admissions policy? So we have an admissions policy now for Madison Park, right? It's going into the second cycle. And how's that going? So I think that one of the things we're trying to work through with Madison is Madison has a process, a very good one, of recruiting students. The difficulty is students showing interest on that application and then actually parents and students turning a form in that choose Madison is varying. So they'll go to a school, they'll recruit, and the student will be like, I really want to go. And then they go home. There's a conversation with the parent. and then the parent doesn't necessarily act on that or the student doesn't. So that's why we're trying to figure out is there an easier way to be able to do it. But Madison is working very hard given it's only a year and a half of the application existing. to try to make sure that students that are choosing Madison know what vocation is and want to be in it. I know they're going to start doing more visits to schools, which is really what's impactful.

No, I appreciate that. I guess the reason why I asked that question in particular is because I'm going back to the fact that exam schools are the coveted. It's like the Macy's of education as opposed to the Walmart, right? Which is kind of what happens in our school district. And so there's so much attention around revising and equitable and making sure that everybody has access, but we've been talking for decades about Madison Park and Investments and making sure that it's the world-class vote tech school, but yet all the time and energy is being absorbed within the exam conversation because going back to Race, Social Economic Status, Access, and Influence. And I bet you that the conversation would look very different if everyone in Boston was trying to get their kids into Madison Park. And I feel like from an equity standpoint, It's just important for me to name that as someone who has been looking at BPS for decades. I just feel like there is definitely something that's flawed right here, right now. And so I just want to name that for just Thank you. Thank you.

That is the goal.

Great. And so stability is important. But if the data in the first year shows a decline in diversity or any other harm, will BPS stick to a flawed policy for two additional Just for the sake of consistency.

I mean, I think what we would do is do our best not changing the policy, but to figure out what else we might need to work on in order to counter whatever we're seeing in the data. I think we're actually doing more harm changing this policy year by year based on the applicant pool.

Yeah, I would agree. And then so I'm just curious to what extent You know, it's hard for me to not think that this is a political situation just because there is a lot of public pressure right now. And I'm just curious, why now? Why the change now?

Well, this is the actual year we are supposed to open the policy by the policy. The policy says the fifth year. So this is exactly why we're doing the more in-depth this year. Look at it. It has not been... In my opinion, favorable to every single year be making these small changes that we then don't understand how cumulatively they impact. This is the moment.

And then I'll leave you with this question because I did hear my time up. If the goal is to really start looking at how we support our English language learners and our students with special needs and IEPs, why not have a Policy or a recommendation to increase the number of those students. that gain access to our exam schools.

So I think it's one of the things we're looking at. As we look at other districts that have these schools, we're not seeing in them where They're trying to drive that through the policy itself. They drive it mostly through awareness, access, support in the schools, but not through the actual policy language. And I'll just end with this, is that

Having worked in the education space, there is this narrative that charter schools don't want students who are English language learners or who have IEPs. And so very similar to that narrative, someone could say, Right, that we are discriminating against ELs and we're discriminating against students with IEPs, right, because we're not creating real pathways for them to be as competitive as other students because usually Those students are not wanted in certain schools, and it seems like a very missed opportunity for us to counter that narrative, and I'm just curious if there's an appetite for that. For us to kind of come to terms with that, that could be a perception.

I think that these are two groups that I have talked about extensively in my commentary to school committee. We do explicitly put as part of the recommendations that the district will study this and then to begin to build the supports needed for students with disabilities and multilingual learners to be successful in the exam schools. So that is a commitment that's within the policy revision that we're putting forward.

My time was up, right? Councilor, Chair, and I appreciate O'Neill, and I guess that will be the end of our time together since we only have two rounds of questions.

Thank you, Councilor Mejia. Councilor Coletta Zapata, you have the floor.

Thank you. I will add to the chorus of folks saying that we need to be investing in all high schools. And I know that there has been some closures in the past. I think we should be looking to beacons of academic excellence like East Boston High School. And I do appreciate, Superintendent, your commitment to opening up Barra East. I joked at the ribbon cutting that usually takes years and years and years to wait for something like this to happen, but it happened in two years and you and your team got it done. So I appreciate that and that's where ELs are flourishing. and I appreciate that investment so I'm really grateful for what's happening in District 1 but broadly speaking can you talk about what is happening and what investments are taking place and resource allocation is taking place for all of our high schools so that we can go beyond this conversation about just exam schools and really think about how we're investing in all of our kids. Thank you.

Right, so last year, I think you remember in the budget process, secondary schools was a big push for us. Things that would support mass core implementation, which is really raising the graduation floor for every single student that graduates BPS. that this coming spring and summer is the first year of cycle for that. There's really no other districts that are coming out and putting it as part of their graduation. So that's a very rigorous graduation requirement. Additionally, the early college, the career connections and the career pathways, we are investing across the board in our high schools in these areas. as well as IB in the schools that offer IB and AP in the schools that offer AP. I mean, this is really, and I think it goes back to the seventh grade because for the first time we're actually seeing more parents choosing the seventh grade transition into high school than ever before. So it has to start right at that seventh grade. So much like the exam schools starting with 60s, it has to start right with that seventh grade class and building those skills, both not just closing gap, but actually accelerating and offering those opportunities so that by the time the student's graduating, really every opportunity that they want is before them.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Turn my mic off. Thank you for that answer. And of course, I'll just use this time to drill into District 1 a little bit more. But Charlestown High School, anything progressing there that you can speak to now?

So Charleston High is a good example. We have a seventh and eighth grade innovation pathway that's being funded as a pilot by an outside grantor. and so every student actually gets to look at career option in the seventh and eighth grade at Charlestown High and then would have access to the early college and the career pathways beginning in the ninth. We think that's a wonderful model for seventh and eighth grades in general. And so we chose Charlestown High as the pilot site for that with the intent to expand it beyond Charlestown in the coming years. Chausson and I has also shown some good progress on their academic side. I think, you know, Ajay and the The school community are very much wanting to think about what can differentiate Charleston High in the future, what kinds of programming can be offered, and they're really approaching it and trying to come together as a community to do it. Much like has happened in East Boston or the Brighton-Austin area in the past.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Coletta Zapata. Next up we have Councillor Breadon. You have the floor.

Thank you. I'd like to go back to the Excellence for All versus the Advance AWC program. I understand that there was like a pilot study done on the Excellence for All and it was showing a lot of promise. but it was sort of patchy in terms of its implementation. Again, I think if that's what it takes to develop academic rigor for students to be successful, regardless of whether they continue General Admission High School and go into pre-college classes or advanced AP classes, or if they go to an exam school, it's good for everybody. Can you speak to some of the outcomes in that in terms of what was It was deemed to be successful, but what happened is that the wheels came off the bus.

This is dear to my, that program kind of grew up in my office when I was in the Opportunity Gaps office before. It was trying to bring culturally responsive, rigorous education, social-emotional learning, 21st century skills. And it was a pilot, so we had NYU do an evaluation that you've seen. of the Good, Bad and Ugly. I think some of the components for the schools that were part of that pilot, it just became core to what they did. You know, unfortunately, I stepped out of the district about five, six years ago, so I'm not sure what happened to the follow through with the last administration, Dr. Kaselius. But it aligned to what we believe is best practices, tier one practices in schools, right, and what kids deserve. Kids were doing, you know, capstones in front of big audiences at Boston University, WGBH. and it's really around expectations. What do we expect our children can do and how do we support them to do that? And that's the biggest challenge, I think, is making sure that everybody sees the talent in our students. I always say, you know talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not right which is why things like the tiered system in this policy is important because especially in a zero sum and I wouldn't even talk about equity because this is zero sum, right? I don't think anybody designing a district would have Today would create exam schools, for instance, but they're here. But you've got to make sure that kids have people that believe in them and they have some of the resources they need to be able to achieve the highest levels of rigor in the space. That's what I was trying to do and I think that's what we look at as best practice just at the elementary level in general.

Yeah, I'm very focused on the elementary level because I think what happens in high school is the foundational pieces of what happens at the elementary level. The other question I have was about, you know, they're probably a very small subset, but we do have gifted young people. You know, I read this other day about a young woman who graduated with a PhD, and she's 19 years old. They're exceptional, but how do we support and potentiate all the great How do we manage to support those kids? Or do they end up leaving the system and going to another place, go to private school or wherever?

Right, so I think this is an area, Councilor Breadon, where we're adding in the advanced math opportunities for students who We might want to learn more math or love math and have access to those advanced courses at an earlier time. Same with STEM. We have quite a bit of enrichment program relative to that. that students participate in. We have the equivalent of a Write Boston where there's literary magazines for those that are more inclination toward it. We're really trying to build up the before and after school programming as a way to continue to allow students outlet and push the summer and the investment in the summer programming with fifth quarter is really driven by students' interests and what they would like to learn be it academic with debate league or chess club. So we're really trying to listen to parents too and to students as to what they feel is gonna best help them to maximize opportunity. I think post-pandemic it was tough because we really had to reorient. But I think we're at a point now where acceleration is what we're attempting and we're starting to see in the data where that's taking hold. I think you'll hear more and more of these, and it's a good question for students that have potential. I think President used that term, right? The potential and interest. And that's really, to me, the sweet spot of where you offer these programs.

Thank you. I think my time's up. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Brayden. Councillor Worrell, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. I've been a big advocate for learning and enrichment should happen long after 2.30, right? I do believe that. It should happen up until 6 PM and that only benefits our students, but it's a strong support and beneficial to our families. So, you know, in this budget cycle, I know it's up and coming. I would love to see just more investment towards that. And I know, you know, we you know, the district has and shout out to Chief McCarthy for doing that a lot of that work. But we just love to see That being ramped up a lot more. When it comes to the conversation around the exam schools and just the data around it, BPS tracks this and you guys do an amazing job however it comes you know at this moment you know five years After the original policy was issued, I know there's other school districts where they present this annually on a dashboard, and I'll take a tool from Councilor Mejia's book, but would You know, BPS be willing to have an annual dashboard just to kind of track this. You know, I think Philadelphia does it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We currently share the data annually in a memo on our website, but I think we can explore a more interactive format if that is of interest.

Awesome. That's great. I'll just add this one last comment. I did not go to Boston Public Schools. I was part of the METCO program. So I went to school out in Lincoln and then Sudbury, Mass. I know it's a more affluent town. But it was a regional high school, so everyone was there. It doesn't matter. People might think that everyone in Lincoln or Sudbury is Making millions of dollars. That is not true. So, you know, whether you had an IEP, whether you test well, whether you spoke a different language, you know, you was in that school and we saw success. I just want to say that when you have A student representation that Boston has, I believe that it needs to be spread out evenly, right? Every kid, every student should have access to every one of our schools, no matter their learning abilities or the language that they speak. I definitely will continue to advocate for that, but thank you again for being here.

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, Councilor Worrell. I know that our panelists have a hard stop of five, so I think It's 4.59, so I think we did pretty good. We just want to thank our panelists for being here. Thank you, Superintendent, and your team for answering all of our questions. I know that there will be, I think we're going to follow up through the committee on some of the requests that my council colleagues have made just to make sure that we get that information from my council colleagues. But I will now dismiss this panel and will now welcome our community panel up to the stage.

Looking forward to see all of you at our school visits.

Thank you, Superintendent. So as we're transitioning, we're going to take a couple of public testimony. When your name is called, please come down to one of the two podiums and state your name, organization. and affiliation, please speak into the microphone and please keep your comments to two minutes. If you're testifying on Zoom, please accept the message asking you to be prompted, promoted to the panelists when it appears. So with us, we have Sharon Hinton, first up, then we're gonna have Deirdre Manning, Travis Marshall. If you can, yep, you'll have two minutes.

Can you hear me?

Okay. Yes, we can.

So I just want to say be patient with me because I've been here for three hours or two minutes. Okay. Good afternoon and thank you, Councilors, for having this hearing today. My name is Sharon Eden Hinton. I'm an educator with 40 plus years of experience in public, private, charter, independent schools, colleges, and universities. A doctoral candidate of education at Northeastern University, former BPS student and mother of a BPS graduate, and I also served as president of school site and parent site councils in various other BPS positions over many years. That being said, I'm calling for a pause in the voting on the attempt to revise the exam school admissions process before we drag our students Parents and teachers back to the way things used to be, which was never designed for and never fully worked for black, brown, special ed, or ELL students. I'm also requesting a broader focus on all of BPS and not just the elite exam schools. I attended BPS and later graduated in the top five percentile from Beaver Country Day School. I know the difference in access. Inequality education is a student and educator. My father was one of the architects of Operation Exodus along with Ruth Batson and Ellen Jackson, which became METCO. I'm of the belief that any configuration of formulas supporting the elites will inherently be inequitable for all. Focusing on primarily grades and adjusting the admission policies also does not address the systemic racism, i.e., redlining, segregation, discrimination, et cetera, that caused the historic academic inequities in the first place that have persisted since Brown versus Board of Education and busing. While I appreciate this reevaluation after five years of implementation, how was the data affected by the learning losses of COVID? In addition, I have five answers I'd like the City Council to consider during this hearing. and after. One. Were the webinars and meetings that were held to include parents during the late summer and preliminary election day at the beginning of the school year supposed to be real opportunities for parental and community input and engagement? Two. What were the outcomes of these webinars and meetings in terms of the demographic breakdown, the number of attendees, responses, et cetera? Three. What key stakeholders and outcomes were involved in the research, development, implementation, and processing of the questionnaires and surveys that were used as a basis for requesting a change in the emissions formula? Four, in the interest of full disclosure and accountability, what impact have the threat of lawsuits had on the decisions to make what have been termed by PBS and the administration tweaks to the formula? over the previous changes in the current proposed decisions. Five, what is the impact of eliminating middle schools going to have in the pipeline to exam schools? And finally, without a fully elected school committee and empowered citywide parents like council, why should Bostonians, parents, students, and teachers trust the decisions being made for us without us by the current administration? We don't get a do-over with our kids. This conversation needs to continue and include vocational technical education before we shuffle any more deck chairs on the BPS Titanic. It is my opinion that a vote by the school committee on these proposed changes is premature and needs more research, simulations and data extrapolations before being made permanent for the next three years. Thank you.

Thank you. For your testimony, next up we have Deirdre Manning, then we're going to go with Travis Marshall, Julie Santos, and Ben Starr. You have two minutes. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Deirdre Manning. I'm a single parent of two public school children, and I live in a Tier 3 neighborhood, although sometimes it's Tier 4. I would like to also reiterate the point made by the previous speaker. There's been no meaningful engagement by the district on this particular process. They had two Zoom meetings. One late August, one early September. And they had a Q&A where people could put a question into a black hole. and the people behind the microphones would answer questions that they wished. There was no back and forth. It's really absurd. I feel like Putin would have done more in terms of engagement. I also want to say that METCO, charter, and parochial school students are part of our community. People should include, I suppose, private as well. You can't set up a construct that makes it difficult for those students to compete for publicly funded seats. The current proposal, while an improvement because it no longer doubly penalizes students who live in Tiers 3 and 4 and attend a non-Title I school, including BPS's own students, It will suppress enrollment in tiers three and four. That's because there are more applicants than there are seats. So you really can't have a construct where almost all the applicants in tiers one and two get seats, but a lot of them are excluded in tiers three and four. I don't think that the citywide enrollment is something that's necessary if you actually just adjust the number of seats based on the proportion of applicants in each tier. I also want to state that these bonus points were from the get-go ridiculous. I feel like they were holding families hostage to underperforming schools. What they need to do is allocate bonus points directly to students in need. If they receive a means-tested public benefit, they can enter into a memorandum of understanding with the Executive Office of Health and Human Services and directly allocate those points to those students. That would help ensure that those students got a bit of a leg up because we all agree that those kids have had life behind the eight ball. I want to continue just a little bit longer if you'll forgive me because it's been three hours to wait for my turn. I do want the folks who are city councilors at large and the city councilors who represent South Boston, Charlestown, Alston, Brighton, Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury to understand that those students who formally walked into exam schools, who went to the Curley or the Murphy or the Sarah Roberts, those schools will not be sending nearly as many applicants. They are really going to be disadvantaged as private schools and others who learned long ago that they were not wanted and didn't apply. There were a thousand fewer applicants over the five-year period That those seats will become even more difficult to get. It's not right to pit 11-year-olds in such an educational Hunger Games as I said before. I do want to say BPS points have never been equitable for the very reason that the superintendent said. BPS treated you well. If you got into a good BPS school, that was fantastic. But I'm a former Henderson parent. My children loved the school. We loved the community. And after the principal was assaulted and knocked unconscious, people left in droves. We stayed. Problem Kids, I think, ended up there. There were fights near Daley. And we shouldn't be penalized because BPS failed us. We chose a charter school afterwards. And charter schools and parochial schools and others have to take I have to take this test under conditions that are wildly biased towards BPS schools. BPS should offer a Bridge Boston student an opportunity to take the MAP test at his or her own school. That student shouldn't have to give up a Saturday. to go take a test across the street at BLA, have to take math and ELA back to back in a marathon testing day without their peers, in an unfamiliar location and without their teacher. That is not equitable. Please look at the superintendent's circular and make sure that where possible, perhaps a number 10 is reasonable, but if Bridge Boston or Boston Collegiate or a parochial school wants to offer an opportunity for MAP testing within their school on a school day, that should be allowed. And please also look at the unfair and many more. We also have grade point conversion that they use only for BPS students who receive standards-based grades. Charter schools, they have those standards-based grades and it is depressing their GPA that that special process It's not equitable. Thank you so much, and I appreciate the little bit of the extra time.

Thank you. Travis Marshall.

My name is Travis Marshall. I live in Roslindale. I'm the proud parent of students at the English High School and the Bates Elementary School. The exam schools sit at the crux of a caste-based education system that rations opportunity and concentrates need based on the school that students attend. Exam schools build a physical wall between 12-year-olds, and advanced work did the same for 9-year-olds. Some students in BPS have foreign language options, have eight foreign language options, and others have one. Some students have 28 advanced placement courses, others have one. Some students have 32 sports teams, an abundance of art, clubs, and the benefits that flow from a $76 million endowment, and others have none. The reason that so much attention is paid to three schools is because families want opportunities for their students, and BPS decides who the right students are to reward with those opportunities. In the last four years, enrollment for all students of color at BLS has increased by 10%, and at the same time, the school's state accountability rating has gone up to its highest it's ever been. Simulations of the BPS proposal show a decrease in invitations to black and Latina students, economically disadvantaged students, and former English learners. Simulations also show a drop in the already minute number of multilingual learners and students with disabilities, groups that make up more than half of all open enrollment high schools. but less than 3% of exam schools. The BPS proposal essentially states that we've done enough for these groups, that we've overcorrected and have not chosen the right students to reward with opportunity. BPS frames this as a compromise. We will only stop arguing about who deserves invitations and who does not when every student has a guarantee that they will attend a school with comparable resources and opportunities. And until that happens, the simplest and most legally defensible policy is to use a lottery. Thanks.

Thank you. Next up, we have Julie Santos, then Ben Starr.

Chair Santana and members of the committee, I'm Jilly Santos, and I'm testifying on behalf of Citizens for Juvenile Justice. We oppose the superintendent's All those recommendations for the BPS exam schools admission policies, which are expected to decrease the proportion of invitations to low-income students, exacerbate existing inequities, and resegregate the exam schools. At a time when the Trump administration is attacking the importance of diversity in education, we find it extremely concerning that Boston is issuing policy recommendations that will produce outcomes in alignment with this federal platform. In BPS's Exam Schools Admission Policy Review for 2020 and 2025, one of the stated goals for this policy change five years ago was to, quote, lead to a student body that better reflects the racial, socioeconomic, and geographic diversity of all students in the city of Boston." Invitations to black students, Latina students, low-income students, multilingual students, and students with disabilities were actually highest in either school year 22, 23, or 23, 24. indicating that the 2021 policy was effective in increasing diversity at the exam schools. This change included the removal of the allocation of 20% of seats to top scoring applicants and redistributed them across socioeconomic tiers. BPS also claims that they identified the lack of access for students with disabilities and multilingual learners as an issue. Yet there is not a single consequential provision in the new recommendations that would serve to grow the amount of students in these disproportionately underrepresented populations, only a vague directive to, quote, explore ways to increase access. Actually, maintaining levels of diversity of any kind is not a stated goal for this admissions policy, which shows serious doubts about the district's true commitment to this principle. There was a 7% decrease in invitations to black students from school year 24-25, and BPS has offered no remedy for this inequity. Finally, we ask that BPS includes the voices of students and families who hold identities that are underrepresented in the exam schools in this decision-making process with community engagement forums that are transparent about how these recommendations will regressively impact access S. and Diversity. Any recommendation that results in less opportunities for Black students, Latina students, low-income students, students with disabilities, and multilingual learners is a disappointing reversion and a deliberate disservice to Boston schools and their stated commitment to equity. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Ben Starr. And then we're going to go Rufus Falk. And then we have Thomas McGrath online. So Ben Starr.

Hi. Thanks, everybody. Since none of you attended Sharon's hearing or Councilor Durkan's hearing on contractor parking last week, I'm going to dive into it right now. No, I'm kidding. I appreciate this hearing. I live up the street in what used to be a Tier 8 district. I don't know what it's considered today. My daughter graduated Latin school last spring. She was an incredible... Student at Latin, Athlete of the Year, taught for a class, would not have gotten in after that year. My son, three years later, didn't get in because of where his parents chose to live a dozen years earlier. Here's a dirty little secret. BLS isn't that great. It's an AP class in suburbia. It's just we're a giant city. That's all it is. Do you know why, if you ask METCO families, do any of them apply into the system for the exam schools? They don't. They stay in Lincoln-Sedbury, in Newton South, at Brookline High, because those places are better. But we're a big, messy city of 700,000 people, and it's the best we got. Again, I say BLS because that's where my daughter attended. I don't know the others as well, but I group all exam schools together. They're not that special. Why is BLS highly ranked? Because there's a filter that pulls out all the weakest performing kids. You know why Hopkinton is highly ranked? They don't have Metco. Right? It's to some sense a trick. BLS isn't that great. Regardless, I'm here to advocate for the 20% band because In the first year where this was pulled in, that solved the problem. The problem that that committee was trying to solve is well-resourced kids who are underperformers could get prepped for the test and get into the school. Without the 20% band, however, you knock out outstanding students who happen to live in high-income neighborhoods. They may or may not be high-income themselves. Last spring's valedictorian, north end, Elliott School Kidwood had no chance of getting in. Under the current system. That's a flaw that the best kids can't get in, as Councilor Breadon described the family who came to her who did not have felt the forms. Same thing, though. If you're a top kid and your parents happen to choose a certain neighborhood, and you went to your neighborhood school called the Elliott or the Linden and you can't get in, that's a problem. The 20% band solves for all these little problems. That's all I have. Thanks very much.

Pate. Thank you for your testimony. Rufus?

Good evening. I'm going to be brief. I stand here as a former advanced work class student and a student of Latin Academy, somebody who was a part of that process that Council Fund mentioned. When I was going to a part of the advanced work class, 78% of advanced work class students went on to examination high schools. It was the BPS's only real pathway to examination high school students. I went to the King Middle School. The King is no longer a sort of exclusive middle school now, it's a K-8, but that was a pipeline for kids who lived in Roxbury to go to examination high schools. So my only request is of the council, I know we're in the process of discussing new policies, but let's make sure that we are also students of past policies and what the implications were, the successes of those policies. There was no advanced world class seats for fourth grade and fifth grade in Roxbury based off of what happened during busing. So the idea was they wanted to get kids from Roxbury out of their neighborhoods. I had to go to the Phineas Bates. I was a graduate of Phineas Bates in Roslindale. I went to the Phineas Bates for elementary school because there were no Roxbury advanced world class seats for fourth and fifth grade. Again, I'm just encouraging our council and also BPS, let's make sure that we are students of past policies because we don't want to compound bad policy. or unintended consequences on potential new policies. So I stand here as a proud product of Advanced Work Class, student of Latin Academy, President of Roxbury, but just saying that if we want to make sure that we're trying to avoid as many unintended consequences as possible, let's just make sure that we are really searching and researching some of the past, maybe mistakes we have made, but also build on some of the successes that we had. So thank you for your time. Appreciate

Thank you so much. We have one person on Zoom and then we're going to go with our community panel. If we have Thomas McGrath on Zoom, can you just please accept the message asking you to be I believe I did.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Good evening. Thanks for giving me the time. I've been listening to this for like two and a half, three hours. and it definitely seems like across the city an appetite for exam schools and unfortunately everybody can't get into it. We're building a lot of schools in the city now. Would anybody Consider or bring to the topic of building another exam school. When was the last school built, O'Brien? So I think that's something that should be considered. I also want to speak on behalf of the student athletes. All the student athletes who do not get into the BLAs, the BLSs, and O'Briens are going to BC High, CMs, Savarians, Thairs, wherever. And I think that's not fair to the parents spending another 50, $60,000 a year when we have some of the best schools right here. So that's my take as a taxpayer. It's sad that some of these parents cannot use their tax dollars to educate their children. Thank you.

Thank you for testifying and thank you to everyone who came and testified. We're now going to go to our community panel. Yep, I think she's a panelist. So with us, we have Roseanne Tong, who is a 2020 One, exam school task force member and an independent research consultant. We have with us on Zoom Krista Magunson, who is a state organizer with Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance. and then with us on Zoom as well, I believe, we have Peter Alvarez, who is a parent at the Linden. Thank you for your patience. I'm over three hours now. I really appreciate you all being here, but I'm going to turn over, I believe, to Krista first, and then we're going to go over here. So, Krista, you have the floor. Thank you.

Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me. My name is Krista Magnuson. I'm a BPS parent of two students who attend the O'Brien. And as you said, I'm also an organizer with Mejia, the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance. Today I'm also representing one of our organizing tables, BEJA, which is the Boston Education Justice Alliance. There are many aspects of the proposed changes to our exam school admissions process that raise deep concerns, but for today I will stick to two. The shallow and insufficient family engagement process First to the engagement process that BPS conducted around these proposals for admissions changes. To state it plainly, the engagement numbers are Embarrassing. BPS held two webinars. They were set up such that attendees were unable to see even how many other people might be in that Zoom with them, with no mechanism for discussion of any kind. Questions could be submitted and then may or may not be addressed. Chat was closed. I have often complained in the past about BPS engagement practices and the way we are frequently called to be put into small groups for discussion, but these webinars did not even feature that small amount of actual conversation. The feedback form, which was the main mechanism for families to reply to the proposals and to the webinars, garnered a mere 326 responses, 81% of which, or 264, were actually from BPS families. This is from a district with more than 45,000 students. We are proceeding with a change when BPS has managed to solicit feedback from less than 1% of its community. Additionally, we don't know how many of those 264 BPS family responses were from black or brown students and families, how many were from economically disadvantaged families, like how many ELL students were represented in that feedback. These are communities that are often not in the room when the conversations happen. They don't feel heard by the district. Information is frequently not shared with them in inviting or accessible ways. So we know and I think BPS knows that you need to go to greater lengths to reach these families and yet we are being asked to move forward knowing that that did not happen here with two webinars held in the last week of August and the first week of school. I'll also note that the feedback has not been shared out broadly with the BPS community so that we can hear what the content of the concerns of the respondents have been. And the timeline has been rather mysterious. I pay a pretty significant amount of attention to BPS issues, but I ended up learning that the superintendent would be presenting her recommendations at the September 25th school committee meeting from the Globe and not from any BPS outreach of any kind. There was also no definitive announcement of when the feedback form would close, and it was closed a few days after the second webinar, which left very little time for families to discuss their concerns with their school communities or get any of their other questions answered. My other major concern is what is exactly the problem we are solving for. I was struck during the webinar that I attended at the way BPS representatives talked about sort of the arc of their presentation. They opened by talking about the original 2021 exam school changes and what strides those changes have led to in bringing black and brown students and economically disadvantaged students to the exam schools. And this is clearly presented as progress that we should be happy about, as I very much am. But then we moved directly to the set of the then three sort of three-prong proposal for possible changes to the admissions process when I expected that before we would hear about solutions, we would have an explanation of the problem we're trying to solve. If an increase in previously underrepresented students is a good thing, why are all the proposals we have on offer going to negatively affect those admissions rates? What happened to the goals of equity and access that were central in 2020 and 2021 When the advisory committee was working tirelessly to build out these policies. I think it's clear that BPS doesn't want to have to plainly address what the problem is that they're trying to solve because there's no way to say it that sounds acceptable. When the focus of the round of edits is to ensure more direct pathways to exam school seats for fairly privileged students at the expense of underrepresented and underprivileged students, it's not actually a good look to admit it. What is the problem we're solving for not enough rich kids doesn't really fly. And that doesn't even begin to touch on the racial disparities that we find in the exam school admissions process. So while the carpet is being laid out for more exam school access for private and parochial students, little to no time has been spent to reinforce pathways for student groups that often get overlooked. Several people today have mentioned There's no exam school pathway plan for students with disabilities or for English language learners. There continues to be minimal proactive and thoughtful reporting from the district to address the multiply mentioned 7% decrease in black student exam school invitations. and there's been no reassurance that the district is working to ensure that this downward trend does not continue. I'd also like to point out this is already traveled ground. In 2021, as we heard earlier, the exam school task force proposed assigning 100% of the seats through a system that considered student socioeconomic levels. The policy prior to then had included this 20% set-aside like that we have being proposed now. And data at the time showed that 70% of the students admitted in that set-aside had no economic disadvantages compared to 57% of the overall pool of students. Policy also led to historic lows in racial diversity. At that time, only 7.5% of BLS students were black, despite black students making up 30% of the overall BPS population. At the time there was a vigorous public campaign with hashtag keep it 100 for everybody to advocate for keeping it 100 in line with the original task force recommendations. We had community debate. Then Mayor Walsh ended up supporting keeping it 100. In the end, that set-aside was removed. So we've done this. We have this conversation. We made a decision. and we adopted those exam school admissions policies and yet every year since those changes were finalized, we've chipped away at the policy a little bit. You saw the slide earlier that BPS put up saying, explaining that there's been a change every single year so far since 2021. Not only does that lead to the instability that parents are so concerned with, but it is chipping away at the goals we set for ourselves in making the changes in the first place. and here we are you know messing with tears and this time around we're going to do something bigger we're going to make you know a multi-pronged change striking at a portion of the policy that's already been debated and decided. These proposed changes don't advance what I think we all understood to be BPS's goals of increasing representation for previously underrepresented groups, or at least in 2021, those were our stated goals. What they do, in fact, is move us backwards towards a resegregation of our exam schools. Last year was the 50th anniversary of Boston's supposed desegregation, and yet we are returning to those practices by way of a policy update.

Thanks.

Thank you.

How many minutes do I have?

I think we do like 20 minutes for the whole presentation. And do we have Peter online?

Yeah, yeah, I'm here. I'm here. If I could go just because I have kids in the background that are about to get a little wily at this point. I've had them on hold and you may see them in the background because I can't help it, but. Apologies. So just to introduce myself, my name is Peter Alvarez. I'm actually a Boston Public School alum from Madison Park Tech Folk High School, originally from Upham's Corner area of Dorchester. I currently live in West Roxbury and I'm the father of three BPS students at the Linden. I'm testifying in favor of the change which would allow the top performing students across the city to obtain admission into the and schools increasing fairness while ensuring that the socioeconomic tiers remain in place and keep 10 points for low-income students that live in housing. In addition to that, what I would push is for more categories, I heard Councilor Worrell talk about this, to be considered into the 10 points to truly expand the 10 of what students are getting these extra points from Section 8, MassHealth, SNAP, There's a lot of different ways to be able to ensure that the 10 points are given to more students. And I want to make a note here that I've heard a lot of folks saying, hey, if there's going to be low, just reading through like what people are saying, if there's going to be low income kids impacted at the Kilmer, Linden, Elliott, Mozart, Algieri, and Manning, that's just going to be the cost of doing business. Even though those kids are assigned to those schools, they effectively get no chance of getting into the exam schools while At the first change where the schools were getting 10 points for any school that was 40%, you had schools where you had families that were making over $500,000, a million dollars a year as household income, getting 10 points. So no one's really explained why moving in that direction was good, especially if you think about those schools that were getting 10 points. They would also have low-income students there, and those students were competing against the higher-income students Thank you for joining us. And also these are all Boston public schools with families that invest within the district that are effectively being punished. And their students, no one's really put up a case as to why students with a hundred A hundred score should not be getting into an exam school. And no one has actually flagged that as an issue or a problem that's advocating for the other side of this. And one of the things I think and I want to stress is I do think it's very important to expand the tent. of the students getting those 10 points to be just not Boston housing. Because I think there are low-income students, Across the district, yes, in West Roxbury, in Roslindale, in East Boston, in the North End, in Jamaica Plain, there are going to be low-income students. They may be in Section 8. They may not be on a census tract. That's somewhere on the tiers. I am in favor of the socioeconomic tiers and doing the waterfall through the tiers as well because it is ensuring more socioeconomic diversity and I think the right comparison point might be before the first, after the, like with this policy is gonna be going back to 2019 and seeing how the exam schools have changed over time. It's gonna be difficult. As a Madison Park alumni, I think every school has different factors. I was a student that did well. I went to Boston College after I was at Madison Park Tech Folk High School. If I went to one of the exam schools though, I was very truant in high school. I was late all the time. If I went straight to an exam school, I probably would have had horrible grades and I wouldn't have went to Boston College. That's why I'm also in favor of increasing our focus on all of the schools altogether. I agree with that. I also think that In doing so, and in believing in all of our schools, we also have to ensure some level of fairness across the district for our Boston public school students, no matter what school they go to. So I would urge a little more. I heard people say that, you know, and Councilor Weber made this point as well, giving points to BPS students and just seeing In addition to in this policy may bring more students into the district, may increase enrollment where we've been having less enrollment and having more families stay in the district and stay in BPS if they could get Point, and maybe it lasts one year and it gets invalidated, or maybe it doesn't and we'll have an even more robust public school system with more families choosing to be into BPS and not go into METCO and not go into private and parochial schools. Obviously, you're still going to get parents doing that. But I think you're going to have less of that. I think with the schools that are adversely affected, Families, as mentioned by the superintendent, are a lot of times there no fault of their own. That's the neighborhood that they live in. Or they're assigned to those schools for different reasons. Maybe it's the time. that the school starts or certain programs that are there. And a lot of them are effectively locked out of exam schools. Again, I have not heard anyone say. Yes, that is what I want or that's the right result that students to score 100, a 97 or what have you should be locked out of the exam schools. We all pay property taxes into the city. We all contribute. We are also BPS families. The proposed change will make sure that low-income students across the city, no matter where they live, get a shot at the exam school. And I also want to give a shout out schools like New Mission, Boston Arts Academy, Snowden, Josiah Quincy, Fenway. These are great public high schools, and I think we should continue making them great and making them a model throughout the district. And I'd like BPS overall to to create stronger partnerships with the likes of Upper Bound, Minds Matter Boston, and other college access and success programs for those schools that may not be performing as highly right now, they could get these supplemental programs in there and really Thank you. Thank you. I want all BPS schools to be great. I also want there to be fairness throughout the district as someone who grew up Black, Latino within the Boston public school system went to the Techville High School, and a first-generation American, first-generation college student that I am in favor of the 20% slots per school because I think it's the right thing to do. And I also am an attorney and I think that, you know, although no one wants to talk about it, I want to make sure that we're doing something that is not going to be invalidated and we got to go back to square one. So I'm not going to say more on that, but I do think that I say that on one end, but I'm not convinced that giving the points Thank you. Thank you. We really do think about students across the district. They don't have a choice of where they're going. We're keeping socioeconomic tiers. And we're also, I do think we need to expand the tent of where those 10 points go on an individualized family basis by taking in additional types of documentation. Thank you. I really appreciate the time.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for still being here. Besides being on the 2021 task force, I'm the parent of a BPS graduate. I'm also an education researcher who's published studies on AWC, EFA, and exam schools. I'm going to get into the weeds today because there's so much to cover. But I did share my evidence-based perspectives in two school committee testimonies, which I can share with all of you. For this hearing, I get that BPS is concerned about enrollment declines. The groups that have declined in enrollment at exam schools since the policy change are white, economically advantaged, and those who attended private, parochial, and METCO schools. I get that BPS wants a policy that is easy to explain, but their proposed set-aside for top 20% by school followed by the other 80% I get that the current bonus point system penalizes applicants from a few BPS schools. I have two proposals that address this problem. neither of which penalize lower tier families like the current recommendation does. I can discuss these in the Q&A. I get that BPS wants a stable policy, then don't change it. or if you do change it, have a good rationale that is about justice and is evidence-based, not about compromise that reduces access for our most historically marginalized students in sending schools. I will focus today's comments on the variables in the recommendation from Thursday's school committee meeting, which is simulation B from June 17th. First, I want to acknowledge that it's good that the recommendation keeps tiers, bonus points for housing, eligibility GPA, and counting school-aged residents instead of applicants for tiers. The variables changing in the current recommendation are eliminating bonus points, setting aside 20% of seats in each exam school for a citywide competition, with the other 80% by four equal tiers instead of the current 100% by four equal tiers. And just to note, responding to Superintendent Skipper's statement, the task force did not recommend a 20% set aside. It was added by the co-chairs at the last minute and never voted on. Based on school committee discussions this month, I predict that the final recommendation will add a third variable. giving more weight to the MAP test, 50% instead of 30%, and less to grades. I've already analyzed the simulations presented and testified that the recommendation portends a regression on the gains we made regarding representativeness. I want to make two suggestions in how BPS shares its simulations. Besides truly engaging the community, First, the simulations should be done on the 2020-21 applicant pool. And two, the public should see simulations that change one variable at a time. Let me explain. for the more accurate applicant pool. The shared simulations are based on the most recent two years of applicants, 24-25 school year and 25-26 school year applicant pools. which won't bear out because of the demographic shift in applicants from pre-pandemic to now. Private, parochial, and METCO students now apply at less than half the rate that they did in 2020-2021 school year. Invitations decline for white students and for socioeconomically advantaged students, suggesting a decline in applications. If simulation B is enacted, I predict The applicant pool will shift back to pre-pandemic numbers and proportions. So I suggest that the simulations use the 2020-21 applicant pool data Only then will we be able to analyze fairness and representation of how invitations are distributed if bonus points goes away and a 20% set-aside is implemented. My next suggestion is around simulations that we can analyze properly. I'm a molecular biologist by training. And when we test new conditions or new processes, we change one variable at a time. If we change two or more at a time and the outcome changes, how will we know which variable contributed how much to the change? BPS's recommended policy as of now changes two things at once, and they may even change the third thing, the weight of the test. The simulations needed to allow analysis of fairness and representation by student group would change one variable at a time. So that would be two sets of simulations that we haven't yet seen. One is the current 100% by tiers with no bonus points, and one would be the current bonus points with the 20% citywide by school. On the 20% set aside, if simulation B recommendation passes, the families whom BPS seems to want to woo back will likely receive invitations in the citywide top 20% round for each school. That's 20% fewer seats for students in the lower tiers. I've heard folks say, well, 80% will still be by tier, but really only half of those will be for students who live in the lower income tiers, which are demographically less white and less economically privileged. Adding a third change, the weight of the MAP test, is another distraction that we covered extensively in 2021 and achieved consensus on. I'll save my testimony on the use and misuse of tests in selective school admissions for school committee. But in a nutshell, many studies show tests correlate with family income, measure prior opportunities and have greater disparate impact than grades. Second, Grades are better predictors because they're cumulative and reflect effort as well as academic skills. Why would we increase the weight of a test score and decrease that of grades? So in my written testimony, I request a couple of other simulations that only change one at a time and include the 50% test score weight. To summarize, it seems BPS wants to boost its enrollment of affluent families by making two changes that benefit their chances of getting into exam schools while taking away seats from lower income families of color. The public deserves to see and discuss simulations that use the most accurate applicant pool available, which is pre-pandemic and that change one variable at a time. If BPS is running a new simulation for 50% test weight, then I request those simulations include one that changes only one variable. So current bonus points, current 100% by tiers, and 50% test. But if we want simple, fair, ungammable, and to allude to Councilor Mejia's poignant story from her daughter, no need to prove not being a zip code kid then lottery of eligible applicants by tier fits those criteria.

Awesome. Thank you to our community panel. We're now going to go to Councilor's questions, starting with the lead sponsors, and then an order of arrival. Councilor Pepén, we're going to put five minutes on the clock. You have the floor.

Councilor Pepén Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, for this panel, I don't necessarily have a question, more of a thank you for the work that you do because I'm speaking to you, speaking to you directly here because I'm just so, I remember a conversation we had at, was it V Healthy? And Rosalyn, you came to one of my coffee hours. You very much were talking about the inequalities that even exist among the three exam schools in themselves. Not just between exam schools and regular schools. And I really wanted to for my other colleagues to hear your perspective and the work that you've done. So this is me saying thank you for being here. Thank you for being a panelist. I'm going to allow my colleagues to ask you questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Pepén. Council President Nguyen, you have the floor.

Thank you. I, like many of you, can talk about this issue all day. Both from a personal perspective, from an educational justice perspective, yeah, this has been, this has been, Probably one of the more difficult conversations that we have because it's about, it can be very much about individual, right? Like what I was saying earlier is that like the tiers are necessary because we want to counteract The failure of systems. And so I wanted to, at the same time, one of the things that does concern me is the mathematical impossibility of certain folks from certain neighborhoods to be able to get into any of the exam schools. I take issue, I wanna say that I take issue with the pressure that we put on our system, our schools to believe that, All there is are these three exam schools. But I also very much understand it, right? As someone who went to Boston Latin School, went to Harvard Law School, would that have been possible without the rigor that Latin school Gave me, not sure. But you stated that you have a model for getting at that mathematical impossibility. and that has not been considered. And I would like you to talk a little bit more about what that model is that you've been able to create that gets at the mathematical impossibility, right? Because for me, city-wide schools, all of our neighborhoods should feel like this is their school, a school that they can get into. Right? Like part of the issue is, yes, when I was at Latin, there were kids from Mattapan, but there were like three. There weren't that many. And there were some neighborhoods that had a great sense of representation at the school. So I don't want to make it mathematically impossible. Like I don't want it to be three kids from Mattapan. I want it to be more, but I also want it to be, I don't want any neighborhood to be shut out. What is the proposal that you have?

Yeah, thank you for asking. So, well, there's actually three. One is from Councilor Weber, which is bonus points for all students who attend public schools.

There's a potential, I'm looking into it as well, but like the, and I've heard this before, the potential illegality of such a plan.

Yeah, yeah. And so the other two are There's a lot of research behind them, especially at the selective college level. Although there is some at the selective high school level, which one is lottery, which I've already suggested. So if we keep the eligibility requirement and then Do a lottery among all eligible then every sending school, every applicant has a chance, right? Assuming every sending school has eligible kids who apply, then that's one way to make sure that it's mathematically possible for every kid to get in.

And what point do you conduct the lottery? Is it after assessment of the MAP score?

OK. Although my personal opinion is it should be whoever wants to go to an exam school, but I know that's not on the table. And then the other option that I've studied is the top. certain percent of every sending school.

Like similar to like the selection process in Texas?

Exactly, exactly. And research has shown that, well,

I just wanted to know what the options are. I get it. The potentially legally dubious option of points for public schools, lottery based, and the selection.

Top certain percent. That adds up to the seventh grade seats.

How would you do that for, I mean, are you including in that charters, METCO?

Yeah, yeah. Private, parochial, every school that, I mean, because the potential legal problem around all public schools is not one around the top certain percent of every sending school.

Thank you.

Weber, you have the floor.

Okay. Thank you. And I just want to thank all the panelists for their testimony. I could talk about this forever. I had two cases that I worked on against the Boston Police Department where we had two trials that each went on for a month just on the issue of What a multiple choice exam does and how you score it and the disparate impact that has based on race. So it was just, and I mentioned that just, Roseanne, I guess the question's for you in terms of, We dealt with an issue on that with there was an exam experience and education component of that composite score. And the city would say, look, we're measuring, you know, Education and Experience. That's not the multiple choice test. The thing was everyone had the same score on that portion of the test. So it really played no role in how someone, you know, in their composite score. Here, in terms of grades, do you know how much the grades differentiate between students in this process? Did you look at that? No.

Well, I've seen Monica's graphs about that, and I know that today they alluded to the fact that the MAP test scores differentiate more than grades do. But I'd have to dig through. Okay.

And I guess in terms of, yeah, and I assume that You know, in terms of the MAP scores, like, do we see the same kinds of different score differences on MAP that we saw on the ISE or that? Because, you know, what we learned in the case I worked on, Multiple Choice Test, you are, on average, going to see a score difference based on race. And it has nothing to do with intelligence. Often it's just even the test takers' own expectations for, oh, there's, you know. So do we have that data on the map? Is it any better than the ISE?

The MAP is an improvement on the ISEE because it's aligned to the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks. and to BPS curriculum, which the ISEE wasn't. It's also better because it's given in BPS schools, which the ISEE wasn't. The MAP test is a seriously flawed test. The first principle of assessment is that you use a test for its intended purpose. The MAP test is a formative assessment. It's supposed to give teachers information about how they're teaching. and it's being used for a high-stakes selective school admissions process. So it's breaking the first rule of assessment. It's only multiple choice items. So it's not measuring a lot of things that most of us care about. And third, nobody has ever shown that it has predictive validity, meaning that it is a good indicator of future performance. So in that sense, I think it's a bad test. And in fact, I think all tests show is correlation with family income with you know resources they basically cement opportunity they don't they don't accurately measure

And that information would support keeping the 30-70 division as opposed to going to a 50-50.

Yes. went through this for hours on the task force, hours, and settled at 3070. And we can look at the simulations and my prediction is if we go to 50-50, the demographics will look different.

I just wanted to mention that Councilor Worrell and others mentioned that perhaps the Black student numbers could go up by doing that. Yo, and I think it was mentioned that it was the GPA issue on kind of just different GPA inflation in different schools and what have you, and that that was what led there. So just wanted to flag that one piece. And I also want to flag that You know, students, all of the colleges, a lot of the competitive colleges now have re-added admissions tests, SAT and ACT scores again. And I really don't want our low-income students of color throughout the district to just have a view of tests that like when it's time to go to college, they're going to have to take them. I am also very skeptical of tests and using the right tests, but I just I also don't want to create a new test to test the students when they're already taking MAP and MCAS. So I just wanted to flag those two items

Okay, thank you. Chair, just if you let me one quick follow-up. Just apologize, Councilor Mejia. So just Roseanne, when you were on the task force, did you, and my belief is the first year We added the grades or maybe it was 2020, 2021. We actually had this 20% set aside at the school. Do you remember the discussion of that particular component? How that went and what your opinion was of it then when you were on the task force.

Well, I had to go back and refresh my memory in the past couple of weeks of what actually happened. And in our second to the last task force meeting, so meeting number 27, Several hours in, the co-chairs called A break and went off screen, and that had never happened before. And when they came back, they didn't adjourn the meeting, but they ended the meeting. and then I think it was two or three days later, we came back on to a public meeting and they proposed, they recommended I have to look, they recommended that the, hold on. Yes. They came back on and recommended the 20%. The task force never discussed it. The task force never voted. And speculation is that Some people behind the scenes made threats. That would not be good for the school department, and that's how the 20% got put in without task force discussion. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, and what was your recollection of how that... That worked the last time we tried it.

Oh, you mean the data?

Yeah, from 2020, 2021.

Oh, well, I mean, I can look it up for you after this meeting, but I'm sure that...

Weber, Councilor Mejia, you have the floor.

Why are you saying thank you to I didn't say nothing. I have to keep defending myself in this chair here. For me, and I really do appreciate everyone's public testimony and, you know, Roseanne, for you to be here. You know, we were on the ELL Task Force together back in the day, so... We're no stranger to equity work and fighting this system that we call BPS. But I guess for me, the best way for people who are in the weeds of this conversation to really Louis-Jean, Had it not been for BLS, she wouldn't have been, you know, her pathway to Harvard and Columbia set her on a pathway to have access and You know, more opportunities in certain spaces and places. Jack to pose that to me, who was bused during the third round of busing in Boston Public Schools. So I was bused from Dorchester to East Boston, where I ended up having to drop out. Eventually, almost at 20, graduated from high school, from Dorchester High, where it was called Dumpchester, right? So I went to Dorchester High at a time where, you know, It just was not the school to go to. So, but here we have two very different journeys within the Boston public school system, right? And it tells a tale of those who have and those who have not and how I think the same goes to why for me I have such a strong Belief and passion for making this as accessible to all students because it is about who has and who has not. And I think that we get so caught up with the idea and the illusion of fairness, whereas you are already faring far better than some students just based on where you live The type of parental household you grew up in. And so the system already is stacked against you just because of who you are and how you grew up and where you grow up. And so it is really challenging for me to have this conversation when there's so many opposing views. And so I'm curious, there is a question here, two minutes into it, but I'm just curious about how are we, and these are all for you too, Peter, because you agree with the changes, but I just really want to get to a place Where we can get this right for all of our students. But censoring equity and access for those kids who don't live in a white picket homes. So what does that look like, y'all? Because this is going to be, I know we're going to get chastised about this in the media at some point because this is all about politics at the end of the day. but how can we sleep at night right knowing that we have created an opportunity to open up our schools to more racially diverse and then now closing that back How can we make this right, right now?

Yeah, just to say like, you know, I think we have a third journey. I went to MP and then I went to BC from Madison Park. I had a lot of different, you know, I was in the upper bound program and that's why I kind of put a plug for some of those college access and success programs to be really, We kind of integrated into a lot of our schools and I think that's one avenue in addition to making all the other schools better. What I mentioned earlier too, I worry that if students like me who I was in high school were pushed to an exam school, I would have straight Fs and I wouldn't have made it to Boston College. Every school is different for different people. And I probably could have made it into the exam school. So I just want to make sure that we're not saying, OK, let's put everyone there. Based on me, where I grew up, I grew up with a father who was in prison for 15 years. I went to Madison Park. I was truant. I wasn't going to school as often as I should have. and I had great teachers and administrators that helped me through. And that brings me kind of here where I just think the students that are gonna be able to, like you want students to be able to get access to the schools. and I think everyone's heard and the superintendent Skipper and the counselors have all mentioned that there were students locked out of the exam school. I think the way to make it more equitable is to expand the categories for students getting 10 points so that there's more students getting the 10 points extra, that it's not just limited to Boston Housing and there's And some of those students may actually live in different neighborhoods. They're not always going to live, you know, if they're not in Boston housing, they can live anywhere in the city. So we want to make sure Section 8 students, SNAP, MassHealth recipients, all of that are able to get an additional 10 points. increasing their chances of getting in. Those simulations that are currently there are only based on Boston housing. So I think if you add that element to it and invest in technology to be able to make that a little Thank you. Thank you. their kids don't deserve it because x y and z so if they're locked out of the exam schools that's completely fine that's not really the right way to think about it because again schools like the linden and the Kilmer and the Elliott. Those schools also have students of color. They have English language learners. They have low income students as well. And so what are we doing with those students? Those students are also being locked out of the exam schools and they're dispersed throughout the district. So we want to do the best for the most and I think we need to go in there with that mind frame and also understanding that there are students I feel like you as well Julia we're both Like, I don't think I could have succeeded or thrived at an exam school based on the home life that I had. And so if I was just kind of brought in there, I don't think I would actually be where I'm at now. And I'm also a former Boston Public Schools teacher, and I was a teacher for five years. And so I kind of have a lot of different thoughts on this. And that's why I also plug like one of the panelists here, like giving students from BPS, all of them points. I think that's where we get more equitable too. I think it's worth trying even if it gets struck down. I think in addition to these changes, that's something that's worth trying for all of our students. I think that'd be really important.

How do we get this right? I think that believing we live in a meritocracy is a fallacy. Dr. Rose said every student has talent but not everyone has opportunity. You're not going to hear me say compromise is okay. I don't know if you've seen the graphic that explains equality, equity, and justice and the differences between them. Equity to me is kind of like what BPS is doing, tweaking things every year, trying to look at the numbers go up or down a little bit. And the graphic that I'm referring to has a picture of the giving tree and the apples and justice. So justice is straightening the trees. So that the apples aren't closer to some kids but others, or that some kids need a higher ladder than others. Justice means straightening the tree. which I know doesn't happen in nature. So what we're talking about is structures in BPS. The only way to straighten the tree is to get rid of exam schools. Exam schools structure BPNs into a tiered education system. I said at a previous school committee, it's three tiers. It's exam schools, application schools, and open enrollment schools. And the demographics are as you would expect. So that's my answer.

Thank you. Thank you. I do agree. I didn't even know exam schools existed, to be honest with you, until I started working in the education space. My mom never made it beyond the third grade, so nobody was even thinking about me even graduating high school to begin with, right? So this conversation is really about privilege. and I think that people don't realize their privilege regardless of what nationality they are. There's privilege in all different spaces and places and so I think it's important for us to and I also just want to acknowledge that you know shout out to Peter coming out from Madison Park, and demonstrating that I went to Dorchester High, you went to Madison Park, two open enrollment schools, and here we are. You are a lawyer, and I'm a city councilor, right? Exam schools are not the end all and be all, but we continuously pour all of our time and energy into these elite schools. And I struggled. I did not want to send My daughter to Boston Latin Academy. And the only reason why she ended up there was because she wanted to prove a point. that she belonged. And she did get the honor roll her first year. But the fact that she had to prove that and the fact that she got called the SIPCO kid really speaks volumes to how far we still have to go and the education space here in the city of Boston. We're over 50 years since busing and we're still having the same conversation. The only thing that has changed now is that the exam schools are the new You know, busting era. It really is. And I think that those are real important factors to put into this mix. And I think that we We have an opportunity here to really get it right. And I think if we continue to pit people against each other, which is how everybody always wins, right? You know, that's the fact of the matter. Our kids are the ones who are gonna continue to fail. And I think that we keep kicking the can down the road and making it easier for people to Take these votes, but I bet you if we put this up for a vote, you know, a resolution of whether or not we should pause or whatever, I don't know where the political will stands to do what is right for this moment right now because people would rather not have to make those decisions than the people who are making those decisions to support this, right? also benefit from that, right? And I think that that's where the danger is. And that's why being an elected official in this climate is very difficult in this moment because diversity, equity, and inclusion is under attack on the federal level. And here we are, an opportunity to stand and combat that, even within these exam schools, we're not gonna do it. And I just feel like it's a dangerous scenario to be in. And I can speak freely because I really don't care. I don't need the seat to do my job whether I'm here or not. Y'all gonna keep hearing my mouth because y'all were hearing my mouth before I came into this chamber, right? So like, I am not worried about whatever stanzas I take because I have nothing to lose. in taking those stances. And so I got a lot of freedom. So that's all. That's my TED Talk. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Mejia. Does any of my colleagues have any further questions for this panel? All right. Well, thank you. I really want to thank all of our panelists, our community panel for being here, both in person and in Zoom. I know we all have I want to thank our first panel, our second panel, my colleagues and central staff. and members for the public who have came and testified as well. This hearing on docket number 1282 is adjourned. Thank you.