Coletta Zapata files for a hearing on closing Charlestown High, and Mejia asks the School Committee to delay its Dec. 2 vote

Two City Council items on the proposed closing of Charlestown High School are now on the record and on the agenda for Wednesday, Nov. 4. City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, who represents Charlestown, filed an order for a hearing on the closure and the future of secondary education in the neighborhood. City Councilor Julia Mejia filed a resolution asking the Boston School Committee to postpone its Dec. 2 vote (agenda).

Families with students at the school, and those who expected to send children there, have the most at stake. Boston Public Schools proposed the closure last week, citing falling enrollment, the Boston Globe reported. Our Nov. 1 story covered the district's plan and the council's earlier requests on school buildings.

The hearing order

Coletta Zapata's order, docket 2097, was filed Monday (text). It says:

• BPS recommends closing the school effective June 30, 2028, as part of its Long-Term Facilities Plan, and the School Committee is expected to take it up Dec. 2.
• According to BPS, enrollment fell about 32% in three years, from 820 to 559 students.
• If the plan is approved, eligible 11th and 12th graders could graduate through June 2028, and other students would get priority in registration for 2028-29.

The order argues that enrollment alone should not decide a school's future. It asks for a hearing on the data and alternatives BPS considered, the effects on multilingual learners and students with disabilities, transportation and staffing, fiscal effects, and the future use of the building. It asks that BPS, educators, students and families be invited to testify.

City Councilor Erin Murphy also said she had filed for a hearing, CBS Boston reported last week. Only Coletta Zapata's order appears on Wednesday's agenda.

The resolution

Mejia's resolution, docket 2106 (text), says public notice of the recommendation went out Oct. 30, leaving about a month before the vote. It says the first two BPS community meetings fall within that month, one of them two weeks before the vote. It also says families, educators and elected officials were not told the closure was under consideration until the recommendation was ready.

It urges BPS and the School Committee to:

1. release the data and criteria behind current and past closure, merger and consolidation recommendations;
2. publish transition plans for affected students and staff;
3. release a long-term Master Facilities Plan with a defined engagement process;
4. postpone the Dec. 2 vote, and any other closure votes the public has not yet been told about, until those steps are done;
5. set clear protocols for future closure decisions.

The resolution also restates Mejia's call for an elected School Committee. The council referred her related hearing order to the Education Committee on Oct. 28 (our story).

What our records add

What a resolution can do. A council resolution states the council's position, but it does not bind the School Committee, whose members are appointed by the mayor. Resolutions are often adopted the day they are filed, under a suspension of the rules. If a councilor objects, the item goes to committee instead.

Hearing orders usually go to committee. On the regular agenda, hearing orders are typically referred to a committee, and the chair decides when to schedule them. The council's earlier requests for hearings on BPS facilities planning have waited since January, as our Nov. 1 story found.

The enrollment drop came up in the spring. At an April 16 Ways and Means hearing, a BPS official said Charlestown High was built for about 800 students (watch at 52:03). In June, Coletta Zapata raised the school's multilingual learners during the budget debate (watch at 2:28:44).

What's next

The council meets Wednesday at noon. BPS has said it will hold community meetings before the vote; check the district's closures page for dates. The School Committee is expected to vote Dec. 2.