Boston councilors, BPS debate proposed changes to exam-school admissions policy

Boston City Councilors and Boston Public Schools officials sparred Sept. 29 over proposed revisions to the city’s exam‑school admissions policy, with the superintendent presenting a package of changes she said would make the system clearer while preserving socioeconomic tiers and a range of councilors, parents and advocates warning the proposal risks reducing invitations for Black, Latinx, multilingual learners and students with disabilities.

"Our recommendation is meant to keep what's working about the current policy and fix what's not working well," Superintendent Mary Skipper told the City Council Committee on Education during the hearing. She asked the School Committee to vote on the recommendations in November and proposed that, if approved, the policy remain in effect for three admission cycles to provide stability.

The change package brought forward by Skipper and BPS staff includes four principal recommendations: remove school‑based bonus points, reduce housing‑based bonus points from 15 to 10, add a citywide round that would allocate the first 20% of seats at each of the three exam schools to the highest scoring applicants who ranked that school first, and keep the existing socioeconomic tiers sized by number of school‑age children in each tier. The district also proposed keeping the composite score calculation at 70% grades and 30% MAP Growth test scores and asked that the revised policy apply to the 2026–27 admission cycle if approved.

Why it matters

The exam‑school policy governs admission to Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science — three schools that draw public attention because of their academic reputation and historical underrepresentation of many city neighborhoods. Supporters of the 2021 reforms said those changes increased geographic and racial representation at the exam…