QUEST

QUEST on Facebook:

Advocacy for Quality, Equity, and Transparency Within the Boston Public Schools System

Boston school facilities data project

Have you heard rumors that BPS is planning to merge and close schools in the district?

For ten years, we have been promised plans. The state gave BPS a deadline to submit a Master Plan by December 2023, but it never happened.

A coalition of parents and community members have been asking BPS to be transparent and honest with school communities for six years. Instead, BPS has been making plans for closures and mergers in secrecy and without community input, so school communities are forced to try to piece together the information ourselves.

The BuildBPS/Green New Deal Coalition made a spreadsheet of all the data that they suspect may influence decisions about which BPS schools are closed or merged. They have also drafted a summary with their observations and demands – including their demand that BPS must have a new, modern facility ready for students BEFORE closing or merging their school.

Please click here for the summary and spread sheet

In 2023, Boston Public Schools embarked on a project called Reimagine School Funding, seeking to update its school funding policy in a collaborative way. BPS invited a variety of stakeholders and personnel to work on the project, including a steering committee, a principal working group, a funding policy design working group, and consultants, sixty people in all.

At the end of the yearlong process, a report was written making recommendations and reviewing intended impact. To date, the report has not been released publicly, despite requests. QUEST believes that the work of the Project should be made public and in the interest of transparency, is releasing the report here.

We especially applaud the recommendations of the committee that BPS “collect and make available all revenue information by school, inclusive of philanthropy, fundraising, and other private sources” (page 28), echoing QUEST’s ongoing work on equity in funding and private fundraising in schools.

NOTE: When the Reimagine School Funding project was announced, QUEST asked to bring our historical knowledge and equity perspective to the new plan through a seat on the working group. Our participation was denied.

Please click here for report

Current issues QUEST is focused on:

Facilities, Resources and School Closings

Quality education requires a commitment by the school district to the efficient, sustained, and equitable use of resources.

Privatization of Education

Public education, including its physical facilities, is a public good that should be under community control.

Student Assignment

All students should have equitable access to quality school options through a transparent and accessible system of school assignment.

ABOUT QUEST

QUEST (Quality Education for Every Student) is a volunteer grassroots organization of parents with children in Boston Public Schools. Founded in 2012, the group initially came together over concerns about the inequities of proposed changes to the BPS assignment system. We continue to ask how education policies and practices can help to dismantle past oppression, increase opportunity, and provide greater access to quality education for all.