There have been 1,925 incidents at Boston Public Schools since September, including bullets found at four schools over the last two weeks, a city councilor said Thursday.
The ammunition was found this week at Boston Latin Academy, a grade 7-12 school in Dorchester; and last week at three k-8 schools: the Young Achievers Science and Math Pilot School in Mattapan, the Maurice J. Tobin School in Roxbury and the James F. Condon School in South Boston, Councilor-at-Large Michael Flaherty said.
Last week, students at the 9-12 Boston Arts Academy in Dorchester held a walkout to protest what they described as unsafe conditions.
“We need to increase our public safety efforts and lean on our partnership with the Boston Police Department,” Flaherty said. “Victims who’ve been bullied or assaulted should not be the ones who have to leave.”
A police-reform law that Gov. Charlie Baker signed in December 2020 lifted the requirement that districts have at least one school police officer. But Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy said she would like to see police safety officers in every school.
“Parents are worried,” said Murphy, a former BPS teacher. “If we’re not able to keep kids safe, we can’t even begin to start teaching them.”
The councilors’ comments came a day after the school committee voted to close the Mission Hill K-8 Inclusion School in June after Superintendent Brenda Cassellius released a 189-page report, written by the Boston law firm Hinkley Allen, citing years of student-on-student bullying and physical and sexual abuse of children as young as kindergartners.
But one parent at Thursday’s school committee meeting said those problems are not unique to the Mission Hill School.
Deirdre Manning, the mother of two students at the Dr. William W. Henderson K–12 Inclusion School, told the committee that children as young as fourth and fifth graders were being assaulted.
“I would like the school committee to be on notice that I feel the implosion of the Henderson Upper School will be the next embarrassment that happens,” she said of the school, whose students include children who can’t speak, children with cerebral palsy and children with Down syndrome.
“These are children who are medically fragile and are at risk,” she said. “My fourth grade daughter reports that there are fights almost every day … We feel that the district is not providing the support to the administrators and teachers at Henderson Upper. Those educators are being threatened by families.”
Flaherty said at least three dozen students have left the Henderson since Principal Trish Lampron was attacked by a student last November and knocked unconscious.
The district released a statement Friday saying: “Boston Public Schools is deeply committed to protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of our students, families and staff. Any incidents that occur on school grounds are handled appropriately by school staff.”
Councilor-at-Large Michael Flaherty’s quote has been updated.
