Boston City leaders considering a proposal to close Charlestown High School were met with outrage from students, parents, and teachers at Thursday night’s Charlestown Neighborhood Council meeting.
Boston Public Schools and Mayor Michelle Wu say they are weighing a proposal to close the school at the end of the 2027 school year, citing declining enrollment in the overall school system. Charlestown High School enrollment is down 32%, leaving the building slightly-more-than-half full, officials said.
The proposal suggests transforming the high school into a new anchor secondary school, since only 21% of Charlestown High School students live in Charlestown.
“It’s devastating. And I think if it were truly that there’s something so deeply wrong with our school, although it would be hard, we could accept that. But we know that not only is our school a wonderful place, but the district has also held us up. Mayor Wu herself called us a flagship school 12 months ago. And yet, what has changed now?” said Becca MacLean, a teacher at Charlestown High School. “It would be not only devastating, but it would contribute to the gentrification that we’re seeing in Charlestown across the board.”
Charlestown High School students have also made their voices heard at prior city meetings, including a Boston Public Schools Committee meeting earlier this week.
“Our students are reading about the closure, they are writing their testimonies, they are showing up in numbers, they are organizing amongst themselves, and that’s kids from 12 all the way to 22,” MacLean said. “So I could not be more proud to stand along side my educators, our parents, and our amazing students to protect this place that we love so much.”
The potential closure is part of a larger proposal by Boston Public Schools that would downsize the school system by 20 schools by the end of the decade.
