By Cheryl Buckman
In March 2025, the Boston School Committee approved the closure of Dever Elementary, Community Academy, Excel, and Mary Lyon High, all now set to close at the end of this school year. Then last month, the committee approved closures for Cash, ACC, and Lee Academy Pilot, all scheduled to close at the end of the 2026–2027 school year. That’s seven school closures approved in less than a year within our city’s public school system.
School committee meetings are meant to be democratic spaces where families, teachers, students, and neighbors can influence decisions that affect their lives. Yet, after countless hours of testimony and public comment, it is painfully clear that the outcomes are largely predetermined.
Parents have stood at the podium with prepared remarks—speaking about the disruption to their children’s education and the fear of long bus rides. Educators have shared real-time classroom experiences, raising concerns about staff morale and student learning. Students have bravely spoken about losing the one place they felt safe. Community members have warned about the long-term harm to neighborhoods already strained by inequality.
And still, the closures were approved. This isn’t just planning or restructuring. This is systemic disruption, carried out despite sustained community opposition.
Each school closure is more than a budget line or a building shuttered. Children face new commutes, larger class sizes, and fractured friendships. Teachers lose positions, community connections, and the ability to serve the students they know best. Neighborhoods lose gathering places, cultural anchors, and intergenerational ties.
When four schools were approved for closure last March, followed by three more in December, it did not feel like transparent governance—it felt like a pattern of decisions made behind closed doors. If the voices of parents, educators, and students do not influence these high‑stakes decisions, then what is the point of public commen
If community feedback is only a formality—an agenda item that never changes outcomes—that erodes trust not just in the school system, but in our civic process itself.
After seven closures in eleven months, we deserve answers. Were meaningful alternatives explored before closures were approved? Were long-term educational and community impacts shared transparently before votes? Did any decision change, even slightly, because of public input?
Transparent leadership means engaging the community early, honestly, and with real opportunity to shape outcomes—not presenting closure plans as faits accomplis.
This isn’t resistance for its own sake. This is a call for better process, shared accountability, and genuine listening. Closing schools should be a last resort, not a recurring strategy. Because if the voices of Boston’s parents, educators, students, and neighbors don’t matter at school committee meetings, then one must ask:
Where, exactly, do their voices matter at all?
Cheryl Buckman is a South Boston resident and BPS parent/educator/advocate.
