Petition for a Special Law re: An Act Relative to Reorganization of the Boston School Committee.
Thank you, Councilman. Here. Thank you, Constitution. Any other final final question. Final thoughts at 0199 will remain in in committee. Mr. Clerk, please read docket 0187, please. 0187 Petition for a special law enacted relative to reorganization of the Boston School Committee. Thank. Thank you, Mr. Clarke. The Chair recognizes Councilor Arroyo, Chair of the Committee on Government Operations Counsel Arroyo. You have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Committee on Government Operations held the hearing on Monday, April 11th, on docket number 0187 petition for a special law regarding an act relative to recognize h b organization of the Boston School Committee, which was sponsored by myself and counselor Julian here. I'd like to thank my council colleagues for attending Counselor Brady and Counselor Louis Jahn. Counselor Flynn, Counselor Murphy, Counsel of Clarity and Counselor Zero. This home rule petition would establish a transition from a fully appointed school committee to a fully elected school committee in the city of Boston as it's currently written. The legislation takes in takes a phased in approach to that transition, doing it over time so that not the all the elections are not at the scene at all. Those seats are not filled by election. At the same time, in the future they would be on the ballot the same time, but it phases in that approach. This hearing was an opportunity for counselors to refresh our memories of the hearing held last year and for new councilors to hear from residents and advocates and share their thoughts. At the hearing, the committee heard from parents, teachers and students at Boston Public Schools who voiced their concerns about the current state of the appointed school committee. Committee also heard from several advocates who outlined the history of Boston's decision to establish an appointed school committee highlighting the deep inequities this created. There was also a conversation about national models of school committees where they've been either hybrid or appointed and or elected. There was further discussion on the proposed phased in approach and process, as well as how this would play out with the current superintendent search and potential state receivership activity. That good initial conversation. I'm going to recommend that this docket remain in committee for a series of working sessions, the first of which will be tomorrow. And it'd be great for counselors if you do attend to come sort of with your ideas for what this could look like or what it should look like. The goal here is to have multiple working sessions, the first one to sort of collect from councilors what they would like this to look like ideally, and then to work to find a collaborative sort of way to get this done in a way that helps everybody see what they want to see out of this as much as possible. So that's tomorrow and I look forward to seeing folks there. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel Rail. Would any other council like to speak on this matter that she recognizes? Councilman here. Councilman, here. You have the floor. Thank you to my co-sponsor, Councilman Arroyo. I want to thank all the amazing advocates who helped us get here to this historic point, the U.S.A. Coalition, the Boston Educational Equity Coalition, former elected school committee members, students, teachers and families and so many others. You all help to ensure that this hearing was not only productive, but it also centered community expertize. As I said during the hearing. We received a mandate from the people to return to an elected school committee in the city of Boston. And there will be times in the future just to discuss specifically how that would work. But this hearing was meant for us to focus on the why. And I think our panelists and members did do that perfectly in terms of identifying what our why is. So I just want to thank Counselor Arroyo for his leadership and the entire crew that worked alongside our office, hosting a series of community conversations and native languages. It's important for people to understand what's at stake. So our office, alongside Consuelo Arroyo and the Coalition, hosted a series of community conversations and thank you to Casa Luzon for co-hosting with us, the Haitian Creole. We did one in Spanish only, and we're looking to do one in Chinese Mandarin in the near future. And the goal really is, is to help ensure that people understand what's at stake and to inform our thinking. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you, councilman. Here what any other council would like to speak on this matter at this time? Thank you. Do you want the one? I wanted to highlight that I am in favor of an elected school committee. And I think it's important for residents to have a voice in the future of the Boston schools. I am concerned about the timing of this. And I've mentioned this at the hearing, the working session. So I guess my question maybe to counsel Royal. One of the things I highlighted is what impact this would have on the search for the superintendent. Of the Boston Public School System. I know we've discussed this at length. But are we able to? Get a sense of what this what the search committee thinks of this this proposal at this time, if it has any effect at all on how we select who was selecting as a superintendent, I just am curious about that. So if you have any comments. Not to put you on the spot. Council Royal. But just wanted to ask you that question. Happy to answer that. I have not spoken with the search committee on the superintendent search. I recognize sort of the fact that we are in the beginning of a new mayor's term, even though this process is about 30 years in the works and is something that has happened even or started under the previous administration or maybe two administrations ago, depending on how you keep track of it. So I would just say that part of my consideration in the way that the doctor was originally written is the fact that this is phased in so that we don't immediately just take everybody who's on the school committee and say out with all of you and move forward in that way. It phases in the elected approach so that you're not looking at a fully elected school committee until 2026, and it's working in stages to get to there. So you get some of the new elected seats every municipal election up until the 2025 municipal election. Obviously, all of these things can be discussed in a working session and sort of ironed out with folks. But the idea here was how do we do this in a responsible way? You know, voters haven't voted for a school committee in 30 years. So you have to get the education that that's actually the thing on the ballot. Then you have to have all of these sort of races planned out in terms of making sure that all of the the actual infrastructural things are ready to go. And so all of those things, I think we should take into account all those things I think we should talk about in a working session to directly answer whether or not I've been told that makes any difference in the current superintendent search. I have not been told that it does, but I also have not spoken to the search committee, so I couldn't speak to that one way or the other. Thank you, Counsel Royall, and thank you for your leadership on this issue and for an informative hearing. 0187 will remain in committee. Mr. Clerk, please read docket 0259. So I can number 0259 An ordinance amending City of Boston Code Ordinance Chapter 15, Section ten and establishing the Boston Fair Chance Act.