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Are you looking for information and advice as a prospective teacher, or as a parent enrolling children in the system? Because those are so very different and I'd have much different things to say.
For parents: the schools are very, very troubled. MCAS scores are bad, graduation rates are low, drop out rates are high, there are safety issues in the schools and constant budget pressures. Old books, old buildings. On the positive side, you do have school choice, there are a number of charter schools -- although many of charters perform just as poorly as the regular public schools, a couple are real standouts (Boston Collegiate Charter) -- and at the secondary level, there are a couple of fantastic exam schools (such as Boston Latin, which is comparable to the best districts in the state), and specialty schools (O'Bryant School of Math and Science) that are really, really outstanding. If you can get into those, wonderful. But it's very hard, obviously, because so many parents want their children going to these schools.
For teachers: pay is quite good compared to other districts, but the reason for this is the difficult conditions. Most facilities are not very good, and supplies are short. And having to walk through metal detectors every day to get to work can get depressing. This is one of the more difficult districts to teach in. And I have heard -- but this is not first hand -- that the administration can be removed and difficult to work with. Burnout is high. But for teachers who really feel strongly about "giving back," this is certainly a good place to work.
Thanks,
My wife and I are both teachers, and had heard some good things and some bad things about BPS.
Do you have any info about what public schools are like in Arlington, Brookline, Cambridge? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Cambridge is pretty close to Boston in terms of work conditions and student population. A lot of the same issues with safety and performance.
Arlington and Brookline are both much higher-performing schools -- they are more affluent areas (Brookline especially) so even though they are close to the city, they are not city schools -- a whole different work environment, and in terms of student performance, districts I'd be happy to have my kids in. Brookline is somewhat better in terms of MCAS performance in the lower grades, for whatever that's worth.
But I don't personally know any teachers in either district, so I don't know what those districts are like in terms of administration.
Thanks,
My wife and I are both teachers, and had heard some good things and some bad things about BPS.
Do you have any info about what public schools are like in Arlington, Brookline, Cambridge? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
There are good and bad things in every school systems. There are exam schools where only top kids can get into. They scores better than most sub-urban schools. I suggest you look at the Boston school website.
However, in general, teachers are facing more social issues in cities than in suburbs. Resources are limited. Usually taken mostly by mandate that are not funded.
There are towns' school website and MA Department of education website for reference. Not sure what you are looking for.
Thanks Smarty,
We are trying to find out if we want to teach in BPS or go a little outside the city. My wife is elementary, and I am High school history/social studies. Do you know if the BPS has sports teams at their schools, or are they private club teams? I ask because I am a baseball coach, and would like to continue coaching. Thanks for all of your input!
Thanks Smarty,
We are trying to find out if we want to teach in BPS or go a little outside the city. My wife is elementary, and I am High school history/social studies. Do you know if the BPS has sports teams at their schools, or are they private club teams? I ask because I am a baseball coach, and would like to continue coaching. Thanks for all of your input!
Oddly enough, as much as Boston is desperate for teachers, it can be quite hard to get hired there -- the system is big enough that there seems to be quite a lot of red tape, and they have a strange online personality test that is, I think, bizarre: you have to apply online, then they send you a link for this test. It's multiple choice, and some of it is just hard to answer -- the kind of hard where you feel no answer explains how you'd react, but you have to choose one, or where your answer would depend on the specifics of the situation, yet the question is very vague. It allows for no nuance, that personality test. My hubby took it and was not impressed that this was how the Boston district decided to screen applicants.
Just an FYI. Go to www dot bostonpublicschools dot org -- they have job listings and school profiles there.
Thanks Smarty,
We are trying to find out if we want to teach in BPS or go a little outside the city. My wife is elementary, and I am High school history/social studies. Do you know if the BPS has sports teams at their schools, or are they private club teams? I ask because I am a baseball coach, and would like to continue coaching. Thanks for all of your input!
Yes. There are sports teams in the high schools. However, I am not sure about which school has which sport. I know many has football, hockey, track and soccer. Not sure about baseball. Again, it is one of those budget items. Most suburban high schools now require students to pay a fee to play. $100-500 per sport depending on town or sports.
Last year I had an opportunity to be a part of an organization called Playworks, an amazing organization that puts talented young people into struggling elementary schools to promote physical activity, to provide social emotional learning opportunities and to eliminate bullying through a more intentional recess environment. Playworks was recently recognized on December 12 by David Bornstein in the New York Times Opinionator column as one of the best national asnwers to the question "How can we nurture the social and emotional development of children?"
I was assigned to the Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary School in Dorchester, MA where Catherine Constant (Some recognize Catherine as Doctor Constant as per the program she completed through her church to recieve a 'Doctorate') reigns as the school's principal. The Holmes bills itself as a 'Model 21st Century Inclusion School' with small class sizes, a strong music program and a wide array of partner programs from across the city and is a member of the Boston Inclusive Schoos Network, which links together the BPS schools offering and developing expanded inclusive opportunities for students with disabilities with technical assistance and support from Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative at Education Development Center in Waltham.
I will be blunt. While the music program, under the tutelage of Cliff Tettle, is actually excellent, and the class sizes are between 15-18 as advertised, the 'Holmes', as it's referred to in the way that most BPS schools are by the surname of their namesake, is not a 'Model 21st Century Inclusion School'; in fact, far from it. The reasons I say this are threefold: 1) Each classroom has only one full-time certified teacher, 2) Rather than an inclusion specialist in each classroom or even each grade, there is a paraprofessional, some of which do not have college degrees, 3) Each grade level is required to have one, just one, teacher who is a certified Special Education teacher. While a few grade levels do have exceptions to some of the rules, the school as a whole does not even scratch the surface of promoting an inclusion environment, let alone being a 'Model'. The school has its other problems, too.
Principal Constant is a weak and ineffective leader, and that if a fact that is universally recognized by teachers at the Holmes. The morale among teachers is quite low, but unlike the case of BRPS mentioned in an earlier Colab article, it has nothing to do with job security. At the Holmes, teachers are required to do the bare minimum and some teach for an entire year out of packets with no actual instruction. When children who had been bullied approached me with information, I referred them to Principal Constant and the response they got was to go tell their teacher. In another instance, a Kindergardener came into school one Monday after being with her mother at a party and receiving a cigarette burn just above her eye. As a Mandated Reporter, I did my duty and reported, but when I informed Principal Constant that I would be reporting, which is not required by law but is Playworks' policy, I was discouraged from reporting, with the following question being posed: Will !
you be th
e one who has to tell the mother why she can't send her child to school without fear that someone is going to try and take her away?
The inability of Principal Constant to maintain relationships with partner programs have resulted in at least five partnerships either pulling out during the middle of their contract or choosing not to renew with the school, as Playworks did, at the end of their contract during her seven year tenure leading up to the end of the last school year. In my role as a partner, I was threatened with physical violence by a paraprofessional for having her paged because she was not where she was supposed to be. What did Principal Constant do? She mocked me in front of the Program Director of my organization, which for Playworks was the last straw.
I finished with the Holmes in June of last year and am now a director of afterschool programs with a local municipality. I started writing this back then but I thought that with time and further reflection I might come to see things differently. It's been almost six months since my last day at the Holmes and I'm still filled with anger. I'm angry that parents are continually misguided into sending their children to the Holmes with the hopes that their inclusion needs will be met. I'm angry that interesting, effective and innovative partner programs (including Generations, City Year, Playworks and more) who have made a significant impact on the amazingly resiliant children in the school are constantly run out because the school and its principal are unwilling or unable to meet the minimum requirements for those programs to be successful. I'm angry because I see passionate teachers leaving for other schools where they wont have to pound their fists on the principal's desk!
to be he
ard; where they wont have to go home in tears because they've been chided and talked down to when they and the children they care about most need support. I'm angry because other leaders, including the former Manager of Extended Learning Services at the Holmes, have left because they are unable to work with the principal to create and maintain positive programming.
Aside from Principal Constant, the school has other problems. It is inadequately resourced, with teachers often spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars out of pocket to enhance their classrooms. I'm not naive to think that this is the only school or BPS is the only system where this happens, but it is one of the reasons that young teachers do not stay at the Holmes and other similar schools. Despite BPS' once-controversial bussing policy, the student body lacks any sort of diversity as far as race and socioeconomic status are concerned. Almost all of its students are a part of a free or reduced lunch program and the lunch comes prepackaged is heated on site and delivered to the student body. It is clear that style of food distribution only serves to further disconnect children from the idea that the food they're being served is a part of a process. The cafeteria, located in the damp, dreary basement of the school with concrete floors and walls and industrial wood!
en picnic
tables, is also occasionally home to mice.
Aside from those mentioned above, there are other positive things going on at the Holmes. The 'Achieve' After School program is superb! It uses child guidance techniques from 'Nurtured Heart' which are at the cutting edge of education research. Achieve employs highly qualified young people to lead age-specific groups through homework and programming provided by specialists, most of whom are teachers from other schools or programs and also includes opportunities for developmentally appropriate amounts of play.
The reason it was imperative that I write this was that over the course of my year at the Holmes, I fell in love with the student body. I became enchanted by their personas; enamored of their resiliency. Despite all the problems facing the Holmes, its students are truly remarkable examples of courage. What they need from those in the education community are champions who will ensure that they receive an education truly worthy of the people they have the potential to be.
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