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The Great Divide

Race, class, and opportunity in our schools
CAIR-MA's 2019 Muslim Youth Leadership Program.

‘I was too scared to tell anyone’: In new survey, 61 percent of Muslim students say they’ve been bullied in school

Fourteen percent of Massachusetts students surveyed said they don’t feel comfortable telling others at school that they are Muslim.

Members of The Busy Bees, a class for 3-year-olds, play together during their school day at the Boston Nature Center's Pathways to Nature Preschool program in January.
Biden’s universal preschool plan a ‘game-changer’ for Mass., but final version could look very different
President Biden’s proposal for free, high-quality preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds would create powerful change in Massachusetts, one of the nation’s most expensive child care markets, educators and parents said.

Tyler McGinley, the school board chair in Cumberland, Maine, with her children Bea, 5, and Ford, 7.

In Maine, the debate over schools returning full-time rages town by town

The low attendance rates speak to the difficulty of compelling students who already disliked school to attend when it’s optional.
Tahmi Johnston, left, and Carly Henderson, both 17, raised their hands after delivering a speech about the racism they experienced in high school at a Worcester "Justice for George Floyd" rally in June 2020.

Worcester won’t fight lawsuit aimed at diversifying school committee

Worcester’s elected officials became the latest in Massachusetts to abandon an electoral method that constituents called discriminatory.
Nicole Calabrese chaired a ballot committee that supported eliminating Native American imagery from Wakefield's high school logo, but voters backed keeping the current logo by an 11-point margin.

In divisive vote, Wakefield residents back keeping school’s Native American logo

Wakefield residents voted to support keeping the high school’s Native American-themed logo by an 11-point margin, offering a nonbinding but public rebuke of the local School Committee’s decision weeks earlier to eliminate the decades-old “Warrior” imagery.
One Massachusetts town is putting its Native American logo to a vote. Residents say the debate is tearing the town apart
The Duxbury High School Dragons football team celebrated after they won the Division 2 MIAA Super Bowl in 2016.

In Duxbury, a celebrated football team with a boorish underside

The win-at-all-costs, leave-it-all-on-the-field style of play that helped raise Duxbury’s sports profile to one of the best in the state masked a very different team culture.
Duxbury schools say parents of Parker Foley have no legal basis to sueDuxbury reels as school scandals raise questions of transparency
‘I just have to be grateful to even play.’ Inside Brockton football’s COVID-altered season
COVID-19 has upended life as we know it — including high school football. In Brockton, getting a chance to play is better than not playing at all. (Shelby Lum/Globe Staff)

Watch: ‘I just have to be grateful to even play.’ Inside Brockton football’s COVID-altered season

The pandemic has ripped away many of the tiny joys and touchstones of adolescence — like high school football. This spring, a Globe video journalist followed the Boxers as they embarked on a brief season. Watch their story.

Visit our archive of all stories from The Great Divide team

This special series features student essays, poems and artwork on living and learning during a pandemic.

It was hard enough being a low-income university student. Then COVID hit

Last fall, Jasmine, a sophomore at a public four-year university in Massachusetts, received an e-mail from one of her professors telling her she was failing her class. This essay is an edited version of Jasmine’s belated response to her professor.

Listen to high school junior Maceo Wright’s spoken word poem, ‘Damn Pandemic’

I swear sometimes it’s like they want to build the world without us. We fought for our equality but still there ain’t no balance. How we supposed to fight back when they holding all the power?

• My name is Mariella Murillo, and I am struggling

• A teenager’s lament

• The lockers, once full of ideas with all the books stuffed inside them, are now just full of memories

Globe Opinion

A student stands atop the steps of the Idaho Capitol Building on April 26 in downtown Boise. The Idaho Senate has approved legislation aimed at preventing schools and universities from “indoctrinating" students through teaching critical race theory, which examines the ways in which race and racism influence American politics, culture, and the law.

Did questioning his daughter’s world history course make David Flynn unfit to coach football?

The controversy opens a local front in the ongoing culture war waged in public schools across the country over critical race theory.

How many coronavirus cases have been reported in Mass. schools? Check our map

The number of coronavirus cases reported in schools has been steadily rising since the late fall and early winter.
Mass. reports 604 new coronavirus cases among public school students, 65 among school staff membersCoronavirus cases are rising among children and teens in Mass. Here’s a closer look at the numbers

Boston to close Jackson Mann K-8 School in Allston

Officials notified staff and families about the closure on Wednesday, ending nearly two years of consternation over the school’s future.

Mass. commits over $70 million for summer programs to combat learning loss during the pandemic

The funding will allow school districts and community organizations to set up both classroom and recreational programs for students of all grade levels.

Parents brought students to the side entrance of the Roger Clap Elementary School in Dorchester in April.
How should Boston Public Schools spend $400 million in federal funds? The district launched a commission to figure it out
A newly launched commission will help Boston Public Schools allocate nearly $400 million in federal pandemic relief funds, coming in part from the American Rescue Plan.

Charlee goes to Weymouth High School with the school resource officer, Ryan Hamacher, as the district’s official community resource dog.
Charlee the community resource dog is a hit in Weymouth classrooms
Students attending Weymouth’s public schools in person this spring are getting to know a new member of the community: Charlee the dog.

NYC schools rename Columbus Day in effort to please both Italians and Indigenous people

In a possibly futile effort to please both Italian Americans who celebrate Christopher Columbus and racial justice advocates who accuse him of genocide, the New York City public school system has designated Oct. 11 as Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous People’s Day.

Newton schools, CAPS Collaborative partner to continue Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program next year

Newton’s public schools will continue a Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program next year after partnering with the Westminster-based CAPS Collaborative to oversee the effort.

R.I. educator picked as next principal of Somerville High School

Matthew Buchanan, principal since 2019 of Providence’s Hope High School, was selected from among 33 applicants for the post.

Scituate police investigating hateful language used by middle school students

Milton rejects using rainy day fund to add school positions

More than $2 million awarded to 10 Mass. vocational schools for additional training programs

School amid the pandemic

Mass. reports 604 new coronavirus cases among public school students, 65 among school staff members

Officials estimate that about 690,000 students across the state are attending some form of in-person learning, and about 135,000 staff members are working in buildings.

Biden hits goal to reopen schools in first 100 days even as many students choose to learn remotely

President Joe Biden has met his goal of having most elementary and middle schools open for full, in-person learning in his first 100 days, according to new survey data, but the share of students choosing to return has continued to lag far behind.

Mass. reports 718 new coronavirus cases among public school students, 94 among school staff over two-week period

The number of cases reported among staff members was at its lowest level since October.

Read all of our stories about school reopening and education amid a pandemic

Featured Stories

Medford, MA - 10/7/20 - Maureen Ronayne sits with her son, Daniel, as he reads aloud in the family's backyard. Daniel has struggled with reading since preschool, when he couldn't pick up on the letters of the alphabet, or learn to pronounce his name. Over six long years, his parents battled slowly to get Daniel the support he needed, including a spot at the Medford public school with the most reading specialists, a separate class at the school dedicated to reading remediation, and a private tutor funded partially by the district. But when schools shut down in March, all of the 10 year-old's extra supports came to an abrupt halt. So, too, did his progress learning to read. "I got him to read a couple of times over the spring," says his mother, Maureen Ronayne. "He was literally tripping over every word. I was like, What just happened here? We had worked so hard to get him where he was at and we're seeing a complete regression." (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)

For schoolchildren struggling to read, COVID-19 has been a wrecking ball

Flavia Peréa and her now 7-year-old son dug for worms in their local community garden in Somerville.

A Somerville mother is stunned: How can school officials accuse her 6-year-old son of sexual misconduct and report him to the police?

Skyla Withers, 5, left, and Giovanni Gamble, 5, play with other children at the Cooper Community Center in Roxbury in January. They are among hundreds of children who have benefited from Boston's expansion of city-funded prekindergarten in recent years.

Eight years after Walsh’s promises, Boston prekindergarten is still not universal

When Em Quiles' second-grade son didn't participate in zoom classes during remote learning due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the school reported her to the Department of Children and Families.

Your child’s a no-show at virtual school? You may get a call from the state’s foster care agency

Fredy Solís, a recent immigrant from Guatemala, spent the last year trying to learn from home. The Globe followed Fredy's 11-member Spanish class at Boston International Newcomers Academy through the pandemic, to better understand how school closures have affected the city's most vulnerable students.
A year of grit and despair

For one class of immigrant students, the pandemic threatens to upend their educational dreams

To understand the remarkable forces and obstacles newcomers to America have to contend with, a Globe team closely tracked one class at Boston International Newcomers Academy — BINcA for short — for most of a year.
Leer en español: Un año de lucha y desesperación: la pandemia amenaza con poner fin a los sueños de una clase de estudiantes inmigrantesYvonne Abraham: Students’ dreams made impossible by the pandemic
New to English and technology: One student's remarkable journey
Fredy left Guatemala for Boston in 2019. He was just beginning to learn English at Boston International Newcomers Academy when the pandemic shuttered schools. (Shelby Lum/Globe Staff)
As schools went remote, many students stopped attending
When classrooms went virtual, nationwide as many as 1 and 4 English learners have left their classes. (Shelby Lum/Globe Staff)
Education, Interrupted
This series explored how school closures in the spring of 2020 affected individual students.
Malaki Solo, a sixth-grader, works on his homework in his family's living room on Tuesday morning. Malaki, who is a generally confident student, has been feeling unmoored during this online learning experiment.

Online, but off-kilter: A day in the life of a Boston sixth-grader

Malaki Solo is one of more than 50,000 students in Boston studying at home to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Without enough to do, the 12-year-old spends much of his time bored inside his small Dorchester apartment.

Read our full Education, Interrupted series

Jaliyah Bacchus and her littler sister, Jayda, greet their mother, Trisha Anderson.
With daycares closed, it’s sometimes older siblings watching young children
It’s a common scenario affecting countless teenagers across the city and state, as more parents juggle a full schedule with limited childcare support.

Lisa Kincade was with her son Willie, 21, after going for a walk in their Roslindale neighborhood.
For high school seniors with disabilities, school closures can feel like walking off a cliff
For high school seniors, school closures have brought angst and logistical hurdles, including concerns about graduation and college delays.

Academics and Learning

At her home seated by the kitchen table, Adrianna Barnes speaks with a student on her computer.

From individual sessions to taking a real-world approach, here’s how teachers are adapting to the pandemic

Many Massachusetts teachers have begun to feel comfortable with teaching virtually, and now some are starting to experiment.

Mass. school districts' plans vary widely on key practices for pandemic-era education, review finds

The findings of a new survey from the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education underscore the wildly different approaches districts have taken to pandemic-era education in a state that has largely taken a hands-off approach to local education affairs.

Independent study for 6-year-olds? Some Massachusetts districts are skirting instructional requirements for kids

This school year, Massachusetts has reinstated its requirement that public schools provide at least five hours of “structured learning time” every school day. But interviews with a dozen parents, advocates, and experts reveal that districts vary widely on what constitutes remote education.

As schools reopen, students struggle with COVID trauma

At the outset of an unprecedentedly difficult year, schools are trying to help struggling students cope — a challenge exponentially complicated by the fact that many of them are learning remotely.

Equity and Access

Boston NAACP President Tanisha Sullivan, Mo Cowan of General Electric, and Senate President Karen Spilka discussed issues of racial and economic justice in a Rappaport Center panel with Boston College law professor Patricia McCoy and visiting professor Richard Cordray, the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Equity concerns spark discussion about school year

As policymakers think about ways to address learning disruptions students are experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic, one potential tool that got attention during a Boston College webinar Thursday was the concept of restructuring the academic calendar.

Thousands of Boston public school students cut off from dental care

Oral health programs were halted in March when school buildings closed amid the pandemic. But that has left students without an opportunity to see a dentist or hygienist for the past seven months.

Educational inequality likely to widen this fall as white students return to school and students of color learn from home

Roughly two-thirds of Black and Hispanic students live in districts where schools are starting the year remotely. By contrast, most white students—about 70 percent—live in school districts with “hybrid” back-to-school plans that include some learning time inside school classrooms.

Hundreds of Boston students who need laptops have not received them, advocates say

Data published by advocacy group Lawyers for Civil Rights show in many cases students with disabilities and those at predominantly Black and Latino schools were less likely to receive laptops compared to their peers without disabilities or at whiter schools.

Race and Diversity

Mandy Sun, left, and Sarah Xu, both 17 and seniors at Boston Latin School, recently released an open letter to school leadership in Boston, Quincy, and Malden, urging educators to take action to address anti-Asian racism fueled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Coalition of students urge school leaders around Boston to address anti-Asian racism

In an open letter to school leaders in Boston, Quincy and Malden, a coalition of Asian-American students and their supporters is urging educators to take action now to ensure their safety as a new school year begins.

How teachers are bringing lessons from the racial justice uprisings into the classroom

Galvanized by a summer of civil unrest, teachers across the Commonwealth are planning to integrate the tenets of antiracism into their curriculum during a school year already defined by change amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Black girls in Mass. nearly 4 times more likely to face school discipline than white girls, report finds

The state’s disparity is slightly higher than that of Alabama, the report by the nonprofit Appleseed Network found.

In embrace of W.E.B. Du Bois, Great Barrington names middle school after the civil rights icon

At the end of a two-and-a-half-hour Zoom meeting — in which dozens testified, mostly in favor of the proposed change — the Berkshire Hills Regional School District committee voted unanimously Thursday evening to rename the local middle school in honor of Great Barrington’s best-known native son.

Money and Facilities

Brendan Weissel Brandon played basketball in his driveway after the end of his school day. He is in 11th grade in Newton and will be studying remotely for the foreseeable future.

How Rhode Island brought most students back for in-person learning — and Massachusetts did not

In Massachusetts, only about a dozen districts, most of them made up entirely of elementary schools, plan to return all students to classrooms full time this fall. Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, the vast majority of the state’s 66 districts and charter schools plan to offer full-time in-person learning by October.

State school funding formula too generous to wealthy districts, report says

The state’s formula for funding public schools has changed over time in ways that pump extra money into wealthier districts while shortchanging low-income areas, according to a report released Monday by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

BPS students see bathroom improvements after Globe story

Students and staff at three schools mentioned in a previous Globe story said they have seen improvements, including more regular cleaning, reduced odors, and new janitors.

Baker budget doesn’t keep state’s commitment to poor students, critics say

Although more students would be classified as low-income under Governor Charlie Baker's budget, districts would get less extra money for each one of those students than they expected to receive.
Finalist for a Pulitzer Prize

The Valedictorians Project

The city’s top students from 2005 to 2007 set out to change the world. But then life happened. Explore their stories here.

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May 3: Universal preschool in Massachusetts: It could be a ‘game-changer,' but the final plan could be very differentApril 26: While most Boston schools remained closed, McKinley opened its doors. Yet almost no one cameApril 19: Asian American families overwhelmingly reject full-time return to BPS classrooms this month
STUDENT CORNER

Make sure your voice is heard

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Event Hub

Upcoming and past events

The Great Divide has been hosting an ongoing series of virtual events, with an emphasis on student voices, during the pandemic. Watch some of our past events:
The State of Race: EducationAll in this together? How to minimize harm in reopening schoolsGlobeDocs presents: 'My voice matters': Brighton Debate en Español teamThe Digital Divide: Education, Race and Virtual LearningGreat Divide Town Hall: What will it take for you to feel safe when schools reopen?

About The Great Divide

The Great Divide is a two-year reporting effort dedicated to investigating race, class, and inequality in Boston-area schools. It is jointly funded by the Globe and the Barr Foundation, a Boston-based foundation that has prioritized student success in high school and beyond. The Globe maintains editorial control and independence over the project.
Brighton High debate team members.
The Great Divide

‘My voice matters’: Brighton Debate en Español team gives students a platform to grow

Throughout the winter, scores of Boston students devoted much of their weekends to fervently argue about a single topic: whether the United States should limit its arms sales. Teens in the Boston Debate League verbally jabbed back and forth, poking holes in their opponents’ arguments.
IDEAS | Linda K. Wertheimer

Teaching about racism is urgent — but tricky

Many K-12 educators now want to go deeper on the subject of race. Are they equipped to do it well?
Tips for teaching about racism