The Boston City Council Committee on Ways and Means on Oct. 2, 2025, heard a request to appropriate $2,500,000 from the city's capital budget to hire an owner's project manager and an architect to conduct a feasibility study and schematic design for the Ruth Batson Academy, a merged Boston Public Schools campus now in the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) core program eligibility period.

Councilor Brian Worrell, District 4 and chair of the committee, convened the hearing and invited presentations from city staff and school district officials. Carlton Jones, executive director of the Public Facilities Department, said, "We're very excited, once again to partner with the Massachusetts School Building Authority," and described the request as the funding needed to bring on an OPM and architect to begin predesign work. A representative of the MSBA summarized the authority's role as a reimbursement agency funded by a penny of the state sales tax and noted the city is seeking $2,500,000 to start the feasibility process.

The request follows the MSBA's December 2024 invitation of the Ruth Batson Academy into its core program and the start of the MSBA eligibility period on July 1, 2025. City presenters said the eligibility-period tasks include a compliance certification, formation of a school building committee, enrollment and educational profile questionnaires and appropriation of funds for the feasibility study; the city has completed several of these items and submitted the enrollment and educational profile recently.

Del Stanislaus, chief of capital planning for Boston Public Schools, outlined the school's recent history: the consolidated campus was renamed Ruth Batson Academy in April 2024 after a merger process that began in 2019 and completed consolidation in September 2024. He said the merged school is deepening a partnership with UMass Boston as an "university-assisted community hub" and that recent facility work at the campus included science lab updates, a life-skills room renovation, painting and new furniture.

City staff presented a timeline: the eligibility-period tasks are expected to be complete by March 2026, which would allow the MSBA board to vote the project into the feasibility-study phase; the city would then procure an OPM and architect likely in 2026 and begin feasibility and predesign work in late summer 2026. Staff said the schematic-design submission and MSBA schematic-design vote are expected in late 2027, and the city would return to the council for a subsequent appropriation for construction funds after schematic approval.

Committee members pressed staff on several project details. Councilors (unidentified in the transcript) confirmed the $2.5 million appropriation would come from the capital budget. Members asked whether campus resilience (given the site's proximity to the shore), potential athletic field space, and shared-use agreements with UMass Boston and the nearby field house would be considered; staff said those issues would be reviewed during the feasibility study and that Boston Public Schools currently has an MOU with the field house for Ruth Batson students.

On enrollment, staff said the number submitted to the MSBA in the enrollment questionnaire was 1,000 students; presenters said current enrollment is 604 students, a difference staff described as the basis for sizing the new facility during feasibility. Committee members also discussed the McCormick and Devers campus footprints and confirmed the MSBA will evaluate the entire campus as part of the feasibility study.

Committee members and staff noted the city's recent track record with the MSBA: in recent years the city opened Dearborn STEM Academy, Boston Arts Academy, Josiah Quincy Upper School and the Carter School, and completed 35 accelerated repair projects. Staff reported that those efforts resulted in roughly $656 million in construction with $241 million in MSBA reimbursement.

No formal vote or appropriation was recorded at the hearing. Councilor Worrell closed the session saying there was no public testimony and the hearing on document 1690 was adjourned. The committee indicated it expects to see a subsequent appropriation request after the schematic-design phase, likely in 2027, if the MSBA moves the project forward.