Greetings!

Good morning,

Let's enjoy the warm weather while we can. A few different reports and some good information will follow, including a report on charter schools and some new PD opportunities. As always, we thank you for reading, and we ask that you please let us know what we could be doing better using this vehicle to inform the membership. Also, please feel free to forward this to other members who, you think, do not receive it. Our email list exceeds 6800, but there are still many who don't receive this bulletin. By the way, the list of email addresses gathered for this weekly e-Bulletin is ONLY used for this weekly mailing--no other purpose. The list is secure,  and cannot and will not be used for any other purpose. Anyone can sign up for future mailings by clicking on Join Our Mailing List on the right.

This past  week the BTU and the School Department held a joint meeting at the BTU office to discuss how the school system can  do a better job of  promoting itself to  students who leave the BPS each year to attend charter schools. Each student who leaves the BPS and goes to a charter school costs the city approximately $10,000 in money that would otherwise be spent on our students. This year the city is spending $44 Million to pay tuitions at 14 Boston-housed charter schools. (See chart above; data courtesy of Boston Municipal Research Bureau.)

Some of the students enrolled in charter schools have never been enrolled in the BPS. Others are former BPS students who leave the BPS for a variety of reasons. It has long been thought that the BPS does a very mediocre job of promoting itself to its own students, particularly to those who are in transition grades. Making matters worse, charter schools do an excellent job of recruiting our students. At $10,000 per student it's little wonder they recruit our students! This year the BTU and the school department decided to do something about the loss of students by providing an informational session for key middle school personnel to learn about the wealth of high school programs available to our students.

We decided to target the 8th-to-9th grade transition because it is a significant juncture in each child's life. Next year we hope to expand this program to other grades. About 175 BPS staff people attended this session, which lasted three hours. A few themes surfaced during the session:

• Our schools do an excellent job of educating all of our students, but we do a sketchy job of advertising same.
  

• The breadth of our academic programs is deep and unsurpassed by charter schools.

• Our schools offer a variety of creative programs and themes, supported by a vast network of partners and outside resources.
  

• We work hard to keep our students enrolled and engaged, and for those who slip through the cracks, we provide a wealth of other alternative opportunities.
  

• Some Charter Schools offer attractive 'come-ons' but often do a terrible job of retaining students. The much-heralded MATCH school, for example, has a drop-out rate of close to 70% from 9th grade to 12th grade. Many of those students forced out of the MATCH school leave the BPS in 8th grade only to return to the BPS before their senior year. The MATCH school is not alone among charter schools. MATCH constantly takes pokes at the BPS while bragging about its own alleged 100% student acceptance rate at college. What MATCH doesn't brag about is its incredibly high eviction rate of students. Nor does it brag about what happens to them.
  
  

We would like BPS personnel to better understand the wealth of high school programs available, and towards that end, a letter from the BTU will go out shortly to all MS and K-8 personnel explaining this issue. We also ask that our members better familiarize themselves with the wealth of offerings the BPS does offer. A couple of things we can do:

1. Call the different high schools and programs and invite them out to your school to explain the nuances of their programs.
2. Read for yourself the ins and outs of each program, as well as  of the student assignment process, which started last week and runs for months. Please share this information with your students.
   

Each January, GLSEN Boston holds a weekend-long retreat to support educators who wish to be open and out in their school communities. The retreat is open to LGBT and straight ally adults working in any school system (pre-K through college). The Retreat provides networking opportunities, information about policies and rights, and strategies for building personal and professional support networks.

Topics include:

• Becoming an agent of change in your school community

• Understanding the personal and professional decisions of coming out

• Recognizing the important role of straight allies in creating safe environments for educators and students

• Understanding oppression, privilege and social justice when and where:

Friday, January 25th - Sunday, January 27th in Provincetown, MA.

To register or get more information, please visit , or contact our office. Please register early to ensure space! PDP's are available! Contact Us at 31 Heath St., Jamaica Plain, Mass., 02130: director@glsenboston.org; P: (617) 536-9669