Students, advocates mourn targeted schools
Academies were part of bold experiment
They trickled out of Noonan Business Academy yesterday afternoon, as if leaving a relative's wake. Some of the teens embraced one another; a couple of girls wiped away tears.
And then one boy walked up, opened his notebook, and pointed to a drawing of two gravestones - one for Noonan Academy and the other for the Academy of Public Service, two small high schools at the Dorchester Education Complex that could close as part of Superintendent Carol R. Johnson's sweeping plan to shutter and consolidate some Boston schools while expanding others.
"If they are going to take our school away from us, it will be like taking another life away," said 16-year-old Yvette Brown, a junior. "Everybody today was talking about dropping out."
The Business and Public Service academies were part of a bold experiment launched eight years ago - with millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - that broke down large traditional high schools into smaller learning communities to boost student performance.
The two academies, along with Tech Boston, emerged from the former Dorchester High School, which had been plagued with chronic underachievement.
Now, under the proposal Johnson unveiled Wednesday night, only Tech Boston would survive. The Tech proved so popular among parents that it turned students away each year for lack of space, while the other two academies struggled to fill seats.
Yet supporters of the two targeted academies questioned whether the district might be throwing in the towel too soon. While the schools were not always students' first choice, or any choice at all, they have succeeded in cultivating a close-knit safety net for a group of students, many of whom come from the city's most violent neighborhoods. Many have been touched directly by violence.
More broadly, advocates wondered what the closures would mean for the future of the small-school movement in Boston. The Tech Academy not only would stay, but it would also get a middle school program. A similar scenario is unfolding at the former South Boston High campus, where one academy is proposed to close so two others can expand.
"It would be a sad ending to a promising story," Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union, said, noting that smaller schools are more costly to run. "There are serious fiscal problems in the country, but to make a decision that is irrevocable, based on a short-term problem, is not the soundest decision. We are not talking about closing a
Boston school officials rejected any notion that they are abandoning small schools. In interviews yesterday, they pointed out that Johnson has proposed several new small high schools, including two single-sex academies.
"We are not under any circumstances backing away from small high schools," said Elizabeth Reilinger, chairwoman of the Boston School Committee, who also expressed empathy for those affected by the proposal. "When people feel like they are losing a sense of community, that's challenging."
Officials did not provide specific data on why the Noonan and Public Service might close, except to say the two schools were not popular choices among parents and showed uneven academic progress. Tough choices, they said, had to be made to make room for new ideas to boost student achievement.
A School Committee vote on the proposal is due Oct. 29.
"It was a goal to try some new initiatives to capture some students we are losing and ratchet up academic rigor so students can be successful in college," said Irvin Scott, the district's high school academic superintendent.
The Noonan and Public Service academies were created five years ago, based on successful programs at Dorchester High. But former superintendent Thomas Payzant said yesterday that not all of the staff initially championed the change, which was mandated because of academic failure.
Those that did embrace the concept, however, invested their hearts and souls, said Jack Leonard, who ended his five-year tenure as headmaster at Noonan in June and now teaches at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
Over the years, he said, students did show academic improvement: 95 percent of sophomores last spring passed the new Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System's science exam, and two years ago sophomores dramatically improved on the math and science tests.
He returned to the school yesterday to console staff and students, many of whom live in foster care or with a relative other than a parent.
"I know the superintendent is facing an extreme budget shortfall, and she sees she has one school where students are banging down the door to get in and the other two they are not," Leonard said later. "What I don't think she understands is that these kids don't have anyone at home advocating for them. "
Several students, he said, told them they would drop out before giving another school a try, but he said he thought it was just an emotional reaction to the news.
"It's not fair they are taking this away from us," said Kadie Lamarre, a 13-year-old freshman. "I don't want to go to school anywhere else." 