Mayor Walsh with Hannah Buckley, winner of the Dr. Thomas S. Durand Memorial as a Project DEEP tutor. Photo by Jacob Aguiar

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh was the keynote speaker at Project Dorchester Education Enrichment Program (Project DEEP ) Recognition Night on May 16 at the IBEW Hall. The event was held to acknowledge the accomplishments of the students who earned scholarships to a summer camp of the students’ choosing through Project DEEP’s tutoring program. It also recognized the efforts of the high school students who volunteer to tutor the younger students.  Read more

Last week’s vote by the Boston City Council revealed a disturbing lack of judgment on the part of three city councillors who voted “present” rather than support a resolution supporting the 60th anniversary of Brown v. the Board of Education. The landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision offered a new interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, paving the way for long-denied justice to black Americans and minority groups across the board. Most notably, it ruled that the separate and unequal treatment of any Americans in public schools was unconstitutional.  Read more

Looking to provide educational opportunities to the Mattapan community, the Mattahunt Community Center on 100 Hebron Street will partner with College Bound Dorchester to provide career and college readiness programming to its visitors.  Read more

A milestone in UMass Boston's latest building project was celebrated with a traditional Topping Off ceremony on the Dorchester campus on Wed., April 30. The installation of a decorated I-beam was pushed off until better weather on Friday, but officials were on hand to admire the work to date at General Academic Building Number One (GAB1) — a $113 million, 181,000 square foot, four-story structure.  Read more

Mildred Ave. kids: Firefighter Jim Walsh joined students from the Mildred Avenue School on Monday. Shown, (standing, l-r) are Yanell Woods, Camari Bailey, Jaquan Jones, Firefighter Jim Walsh, teacher Lynne Travers, Jamoni Waller, Narzvel Sawyer Rodriguez and Evy Ayala; (sitting, l-r) Ibsael Polanco, Danny Silvestre, Simone Darling, Chiosna Bernadeau, Tyra Jennings,Kendra Cole, Destiny Omo, Princess Sawyer Rodriguez, Keren Osorio and Tamera Francois.

A day after the tragedy that took the lives of two Boston Firefighters, fifth grader Evy Ayala walked the halls of Mildred Avenue School with a fireman’s boot looking for donations to help.

The boot belongs to her brother, Jerrell Ayala, who worked with the fallen firemen. When swim teacher Lynne Travers saw Evy with her boot, she decided to plan something more.  Read more

Oliver Hernandez: Photo by Ed YooCodman Academy student Oliver Hernandez from Savin Hill recites Shakespeare’s Sonnet 110 and Act V, Scene ii from “King John” morning and night.

Hernandez is preparing to compete against nine state finalists this Saturday for a spot in the National Shakespeare Monologue Competition that will be held in New York City from May 4-6. He is the only public school student from Boston to make the state finals.

Arriving in the country at age nine, Hernandez was born in the capital of Dominican Republic and started his American education at the John Marshall School on Westville Street. Hernandez said he was pushed back a grade when he arrived and did not speak a word of English.

“I had a Spanish speaking teacher as part of the bilingual program, but my teacher just spoke Spanish,” he said.  Read more

The former Woodrow Wilson school on Croftland Avenue, now Dorchester Academy. Photo courtesy Dorchester Atheneum

A plan approved by the Boston School Committee in December will dramatically increase the number of available seats at Dorchester Avenue’s coveted William Henderson Inclusion School beginning this fall.

A key aspect of the plan will be the gradual relocation over the next five years of the school’s upper grades – along with students from the Harbor Pilot Middle School – to the former Woodrow Wilson campus on Croftland Avenue off Gallivan Boulevard near Codman Hill.  Read more

Lower Mills campus of Pope John Paul II Catholic Academy: Formerly known as St. Gregory's Elementary School, will be renovated this summer.Middle school students from the Mattapan campus of Pope John Paul II Catholic Academy will attend classes at the Lower Mills campus next fall as the school system seeks to open up more space for pre-kindergarten seats in Mattapan. The move comes as long-awaited renovations to the former St. Gregory’s campus are set to begin this year— adding new amenities to the Dorchester Ave. campus that will be geared towards middle schoolers.

“In order to provide the best education for all students there are several changes we need to make for the 7th and 8th graders. Starting in September, our 7th and 8th graders at the Mattapan campus will attend classes at the Lower Mills campus,” said Sister Ellen Powers, CSJ, Regional Director of the academy, in a letter to parents issued this week.  Read more

Four students at the Martin Luther King Jr. K-8 School on Lawrence Avenue were transported to the hospital for checkups on Tuesday after they shared pills and vitamins one of them brought in from home.  Read more

Students Challenge Neighborhood Profiling by French Government from Chris Lovett on Vimeo.

Chris Lovett of BNN-TV's Neighborhood Network News reports on the visit of the French consul general to Codman Academy. The consul was invited to the school by students upset by the French Foreign Ministry's travel advisory that warns its citizens to avoid parts of Boston, including Dorchester.  Read more