A new poll by MassINC found only 17% of Boston Public Schools’ parents knew “a great deal” about the district’s plans to merge and close district schools.
And just 10% of Latino parents knew “a great deal about the plans,” even though Latino students represent the majority of students in Boston, according to the survey released early Tuesday.
The Boston School Committee is expected to propose a recommended list of school closures and mergers at its Wednesday night meeting.
Boston Education Justice Alliance Director Ruby Reyes said she’s not surprised that families, including many Latino families, feel like they don’t know what is going on.
“I think the ability to be involved in meetings — being made accessible to families that are working two and three jobs that are lower income — is also an area that the district has profoundly failed at,” she said. “Then also the language piece. If you're not doing robocalls to families, I really doubt that you're doing robocalls in a language other than English.”
The poll was sponsored by the Boston-based Shah Family Foundation, which has said it hopes to aid public dialogue and decision-making around public education in the city.
Parents who were best informed about district and school planning tended to have advanced degrees (72%) compared to parents who have a high school degree or less (34%).
“The parents who are most likely to be surprised are parents with either high school or less than their education level or in lower income households,” said Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group. “They don’t know what the plans are calling for or some of the different options that might actually be chosen.”
Reyes said the district's process has been fuzzy, causing low-income families to be less informed. She said the stakes are high because those are the communities that could be most affected by closures or mergers.
“There’s just been this vague process where the district and the city have said that something will happen, but they haven’t provided a concrete list of schools that will need to be closed or merged,” she said. “When they have made these proposals, they’ve done it without community input.”
The survey found white parents were more likely to say they have heard “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of information compared to Black or Asian parents.
But only a third of Latino parents say they knew of any plans to merge or close schools.
“The vast majority of those are communities of color with low-income residents like Mattapan, Dorchester, parts of Roxbury,” Reyes said.
The majority of schools most in need of repairs that also have declining enrollment are located in Roxbury, she said.
