The arguments for, and against, moving Boston's O’Bryant school (2024)

Education

Boston's plan to move the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science from its current home in Roxbury has been praised by officials while being harshly critiqued by members of the community.

By Ross Cristantiello

June 25, 2023

Earlier this month, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Superintendent Mary Skipper announced major initiatives to improve the city’s high school programming and facilities. Notably, their plans included overhauling two schools: the Madison Park Technical Vocational High School and the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science.

Currently, both are housed at the Malcolm X Boulevard campus in Roxbury. Now, the city intends to expand Madison Park at its current location and move O’Bryant to the vacant West Roxbury Education Complex.

City officials said they intend to begin construction in 2025. Wu proposed an initial $18 million in the Fiscal Year 2024-2028 Capital Fund for demolition and school design at the West Roxbury campus, and another $45 million for the design of Madison Park’s expansion.

In the weeks since, that idea has drawn ample amounts of acclaim and disapproval. Here is a look at the main arguments being made on both sides.

In favor of the plan

“The bottom line is this: we have two high schools who are battling for space,” Wu said on GBH’s Boston Public Radio last week.

In announcing their plans, Wu and Skipper said that moving O’Bryant and expanding Madison Park would allow both schools to grow significantly and offer better resources to students.

In its new location, O’Bryant would be able to add around 400 seats, officials said. This would expand its seventh and eighth grade classes, which Wu said are currently limited in size due to space constraints. She told GBH that having more students join O’Bryant before ninth grade would allow them to acclimate quicker and have more time to form lasting friendships.

O’Bryant would gain a “state-of-the-art STEM campus” after the move, improving programming in areas like biomedical science, engineering, and computer science.

Students would gain access to bigger and more modern athletic facilities, including a swimming pool. Skipper also touted the improved access to green space that would come with the new O’Bryant location.

The West Roxbury complex, where O’Bryant would move, was closed in June 2019 due to “major roof, masonry, and windows issues and significant deferred maintenance,” according to the city. A feasibility study from earlier this year concluded that the complex was in “good structural condition” with minor issues.

With O’Bryant moving, Madison Park would be able to more than double its student population, from about 1,000 today to about 2,200 students, according to the city. Officials said it would become a “hub for workforce development” in Roxbury benefitting both young people and adult learners.

Madison Park could expand its career and technical education (CTE) programs to better align with the city’s growth sectors and offer new partnerships with employers and labor unions. Early talks are centering around adding CTE programs in environmental science, biotechnology, early childhood education, robotics, and aviation technology. JetBlue has already agreed to a new partnership with the city that would help students break into the aviation industry.

Against the plan

The arguments against moving O’Bryant have largely centered on how the city is handling community engagement and concerns that it would decrease diversity in the exam school’s student body.

O’Bryant is the most diverse of Boston’s three elite exam schools. More than 35% of its students are Hispanic, more than 31% are Black, and more than 19% are Asian, according to state enrollment data. About 50% of O’Bryant students do not speak English as their first language, and almost 60% are from low-income families.

Aparna Lakshmi and Robert Comeau, two O’Bryant teachers, penned an open letter arguing against the move.

“We believe moving Boston’s most diverse exam school to the least T-accessible neighborhood in the city is not in the best interests of our students,” they wrote.

O’Bryant’s demographics would change, as families from neighborhoods like East Boston, Dorchester, and Roxbury would be less likely to enroll their children, they wrote.

Commute times will increase, causing more students to be tardy and making them less likely to stay after school for clubs, sports, and academic support, they wrote. They estimated that students would spend an average of 75 extra minutes per day on MBTA trains and buses.

In their announcement, city officials said that a new transportation plan would allow students from all neighborhoods to access O’Bryant. This will include dedicated shuttle buses running from transit hubs such as the West Roxbury commuter rail station.

Lakshmi and Comeau, among others, expressed skepticism about the city’s ability to adequately operate these shuttles. They cite reports that the number of MBTA bus drivers is shrinking and that BPS buses already struggle with reliability.

Sadiki Kambon, director of the Black Community Information Center, Inc., recently told The Boston Globe that the plan to relocate O’Bryant is specifically designed “for the benefit of white students,” as students of color would disproportionately have longer and more complex commutes.

“Has anyone actually studied West Roxbury’s enrollment demographics for its existing schools?” O’Bryant parent Rahul Dhanda said during a community Zoom meeting, according to GBH. “We will probably match that, where overrepresentation of white students compared to the district — not the school — compared to the district and dramatic underrepresentation of others, especially Black and Hispanic, is the norm.”

O’Bryant’s central location gives students easy access to partnerships with schools like Northeastern and Wentworth, Lakshmi and Comeau wrote in their letter. Its location in an area “rich in Black and Latinx history” allows students to “literally see themselves represented as they walk to school in the local shop fronts and in the murals that beautify neighborhood buildings,” they added.

Critics have taken issue with the secrecy the Wu administration took with the plan before it was officially unveiled. City Councilor Erin Murphy told the Globe that even the council was not aware of the plans in advance, and that Wu’s plan needs more transparency.

School Committee members also reportedly said that they were not looped in, and O’Bryant teachers said that they learned of the proposal in a quick Zoom call a day before the announcement.

“It’s a success story right where it is — in Roxbury — and because of where it is. Yet Boston Mayor Michelle Wu wants to move the O’Bryant to West Roxbury, which is 63 percent white and more than 7 miles away from its current location,” Globe Opinion Columnist Joan Vennochi wrote. “Why? It doesn’t make sense — not if you’re trying to build on what has already been accomplished at the O’Bryant, which is diversity, equity, and excellence.”