City leaders met with the Superintendent of Boston Public Schools Thursday morning at City Hall to address what has been a violent start to the school year so far.
The meeting comes after a student was shot by another student on the grounds of Jeremiah Burke High School earlier this month.
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Superintendent Mary Skipper opened her remarks by noting that a safe learning environment should not be a luxury.
“The loss of a young person’s life is a loss of all that is possible,” she said.
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Cases of bullying and violence are once again on the rise this year. According to Boston Public Schools, bullying incidents in the 2021-2022 school year compared to the 2018-2019 school year increased by 80%. Sexual assault and misconduct cases in that same time frame went up by 67%.
BULLYING INCIDENTS AT BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
- 2018-2019: 243
- 2021-2022: 440
- ^80%
SEXUAL ASSAULT AND MISCONDUCT CASES AT BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
- 2018-2019: 439
- 2021-2022: 744
- ^67%
According to data provided to Boston City Council, there have been 145 incidents of sexual assault and misconduct reported to the school district so far this year; that’s an average of one incident per school.
“After the DESE report and then the Mission School came out where there were young kids as young as kindergarten being repeatedly raped in school, for years and it wasn’t being reported, it’s not acceptable at any level,” said Boston City Councilor Erin Murphy.
Boston City Councilor at Large Michael Flaherty, Chair of Public Safety, agreed.
“We had so many incidents of kids being assaulted, teachers being assaulted that either, A) Went unreported, or B) When it happened at the school site, the principal didn’t call 911,” he said. “What we saw last year was an incident where the kid was given an ice pack and sent to the nurse’s office, only to have the kid go to the hospital and have a serious concussion. That should never happen.”
According to Skipper, a plan to address these concerns is in the works. In the meeting, she said that educators will be trained and re-trained several times a year on protocols.
She added that she’s implementing an After Action Review, so that when there is an incident, staff can learn from what happened and improve.
“Many students are encountering the violence out in the street, so school is the safest place for them,” she told NBC10 Boston. “We need support, and we’re getting it from the city, from the faith based community, from our CBO’s.”
Skipper added that she wants to repair and strengthen relationships with law enforcement and bring in community partners.
Parents expressed their concerns with school safety, as well.
“We’re two months in. We’ve already seen shootings stabbings, staff assaulted,” said Naomi Hastings, a parent who pulled her 15-year-old daughter out of the school district.
“I’m a Black mother and I’m here to say I want to know my kids are safe in school. If that means my kid walks through a metal detector, fine,” she said.
Murphy made the case that parents need to be better-informed after incidents.
“An email two days after an incident where you don’t have a number or a way to reply back, that’s not acceptable,” she said. “I think families have been doing a good job making it clear that when something happens, they want to know.”
Flaherty told NBC10 Boston that he felt encouraged by the superintendent’s vision.
Murphy expressed cautious optimism.
“I’m hopeful, but I’m going to be carefully skeptical because the numbers are bad," she said. "The DESE report clearly wrote that Boston Public Schools has proven that they are not able to keep our children safe.”
