|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The lowlands of Southeastern Massachusetts, though sometimes swampy in their own right, feel far away from the halls of power in the nation’s capital. But this year, New Bedford found itself on the forward edge of national political debate about how and whether to fund public education.
Up-to-the-minute updates from Washington D.C. threw tens of millions of dollars into question for New Bedford Public Schools, while the Whaling City found itself as a case study in a multi-state lawsuit seeking to restore more than $6 billion across the country.
Meanwhile, the staff and students of the largely immigrant, working-class district confronted what it could mean for federal agents to raid their schools. Local leaders wrestled with their place in the fight.
But the business of running a nearly 13,000-student district, which is also New Bedford’s largest employer, had to go on.
Teachers fought for better wages and benefits, while district leaders continued to push for new buildings and renovations.
It was a year that history will remember. But many of its political and ideological questions — Should there be a Department of Education? Do immigrants still have a place in shaping America’s future? — remain in flux or under contest as 2025 ends.
New Bedford’s role in the federal fight over education
Early in the year, President Donald Trump reclassified schools as an acceptable location for immigration enforcement, rolling back a Biden-era order that designated schools as “protected areas.”
Superintendent Andrew O’Leary responded by saying that the real threat to New Bedford’s students and schools would be dismantling federal support for education.
O’Leary told The Light in an interview that the federal Department of Education had had a positive effect on New Bedford residents and schools. Its civil rights investigations protected students and families, and its research benefited low-income districts like New Bedford that can’t study curriculum effectiveness on their own. (These functions have since been shuttered.) The district also receives almost 10% of its funding from federal grants, O’Leary said.
“The first step in supporting public schools is realizing they belong to you and you should hold on to them,” O’Leary said. “They are your asset.”
Then, late on a Friday in March, district leaders received an email from Education Secretary Linda McMahon informing them (and 21 other Massachusetts districts) that previously approved pandemic-relief funds would halt.
The entire Massachusetts congressional delegation decried this move, which sought to withhold around $12 million from New Bedford schools and more than $100 million from Massachusetts schools.
Massachusetts joined a multi-state lawsuit to fight this action, and three friends from New Bedford marveled that their idea for a school-based health center (funded with these dollars) might feature in the legal arguments. When Massachusetts joined another multi-state lawsuit that fought against more than $6 billion in cuts, New Bedford became an example in the arguments.
“As a result of the freeze, the [New Bedford] school system will be forced to make difficult choices regarding staff dedicated to improving the lives of New Bedford students, with some staff likely to be terminated,” the filing read.
Both the $12 million in COVID-relief dollars and $2.6 million in other approved funding were eventually restored.
Building the future — Update on the schools’ building plan
At the end of 2024, New Bedford outlined its ambitious plan to replace seven century-old buildings and the half-century-old New Bedford High. Those replacements, plus major renovations to other buildings, would be funded in large part through the state’s School Building Authority.
This year, the district has made significant strides toward its goals. The new Congdon-DeValles building, which will consolidate two century-old schools in the South End, is under construction and on track for its spring 2027 opening.
Ashley-Swift, which will replace two more century-old schools, received approval for a feasibility study from the School Building Authority this year. The district hopes it might be open before 2029.
Meanwhile, the City Council just approved eight roof renovation projects, again largely funded through the state. (The eight schools: Campbell, Hathaway, Pacheco, Carney, Hayden-McFadden, Pulaski, and Gomes elementary schools, plus Whaling City Jr./Sr. High, the district’s alternative school.)
The old Parker Elementary saw its final day as a neighborhood K-5 school. This fall, it reopened as a centralized pre-school center. Renovations for its new, younger students included new traffic patterns and a new playground.
A new central kitchen has opened and is already delivering thousands of meals every day. A new health center is slated to open across from the high school in January.
Life in the schools — Teachers contracts, cell phones, a new literacy strategy
Amid all the political goings-on, students and teachers went about the hard business of building the future.
Teachers won a new contract this year that they saw as a large victory. For the first time, teacher contracts include a small amount of paid family leave protections, which all private-sector employees in Massachusetts have enjoyed for years. Teachers won this benefit by picketing outside of School Committee meetings for months, though New Bedford avoided the more-dramatic strikes that won the benefit in other districts.
Students entered a brave new world — or really a brave old world — forfeiting cell phones during the school day. At New Bedford High, students now keep their phones in rubbery Yondr pouches, locked during class hours. All middle schools are also piloting phone-free programs.
The youngest learners in New Bedford, meanwhile, are learning to read under a new curriculum, supported by a state grant that promotes evidence-based teaching strategies. A mother-daughter-monster team showed how it’s done.
Across the district, the arts have made a romping comeback. Music and theater classes have returned to every elementary and middle school. The feat was accomplished efficiently: “smart scheduling” rotated many existing teachers through more schools.
At year’s end, The Light found that enrollment trends showed a decline in the number of immigrant students. But O’Leary cautioned that it’s too early to know what these numbers really show — and said he saw no evidence that a “culture of fear” was driving these students away.
Other year-defining education stories
Here are other can’t-miss stories about education in New Bedford this year.
‘School Committee member Bruce Oliveira dies at 72’ — The long-serving member of the School Committee passed away unexpectedly, and condolences poured in from around the city and the state to remember a life in service of New Bedford.
‘Now is the moment for Voc-Tech admissions reform’ — Greater New Bedford Voc-Tech now accepts students using a lottery system, after years of criticism of its application process. Gov. Maura Healey proposed mandating further changes, though neither reform advocates nor school administrators got fully behind her.
‘New Bedford teacher charged with assault and battery’ — A Hayden-McFadden elementary school teacher was charged for physically assaulting a student with intellectual disabilities, and The Light broke the story.
The School Committee failed to pass, then finally did pass, a “Safe Zone Resolution,” which vowed to uphold the rights of immigrant students.
Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org
Federal funding for cities is a danger to the divided govt that protects individual right. Its short-range Pragmatism.
There have been plenty of articles that have come out about low test scores and issues with absenteeism, so it’s no surprise that not everyone believes in the leaders of this school administration and that they’re working in the best interests of students and the future of their education.
Finally, someone’s comment gets posted with the truth, while others are not posted. Many comments have not been posted.
I can attest to that. I worked in the NBPS 30+ years.
Did you make NBPS better, or just endlessly complain?
Wow, this guy really needs to get his facts straight.
Albert I was known as the BOM, “B” of the mailroom. I was used to explain AFSCME contract to coworkers. Example a school year clerk going into a full year position. Explaining that they would not get vacation come July 1st. That they were advanced vacation time to use and if they left, resigned, retired before July 1 st, would actually have to pay the pay some or all back, depending when they were leaving. I was known as archives. I was known as BOM but was in good company of other top notch employees such as BOB ( God rest her soul, my trainer, I worked for her in HS.) and KIT. 3 women who were in our positions for protection of the financial system. Larry’s girls!
Madalena Morris, Harvard University
Lily Gonet, Yale University
Caitlyn Cordeiro, University of Connecticut
Meredith Kelly, University of Connecticut
Acelyn Fitzgerald, University of Tampa
Mia Colangelo, University of Maryland
Luke Tarpey, University of Connecticut
Xander Faria, Yale University
Mariam Hasab, Smith College
Taya Carvalho, Tufts University
Who worked in the best interests of these kids?
Wow, how about the hundreds that graduate without knowing how to add and subtract or spell. DOE has the statics online. Not great 10 or so vs hundreds.
Madalena Morris, Harvard University
Lily Gonet, Yale University
Caitlyn Cordeiro, University of Connecticut
Meredith Kelly, University of Connecticut
Acelyn Fitzgerald, University of Tampa
Mia Colangelo, University of Maryland
Luke Tarpey, University of Connecticut
Xander Faria, Yale University
Mariam Hasab, Smith College
Taya Carvalho, Tufts University
That’s the odds 10/700+, pretty sucky statics. Just because you comment twice with the same 10 doesn’t make it 20. It’s the same 10!
What you are commenting on ate facts!
Thank you leaning right, we celebrated when we saw your comment!
Read between the lines, and the anonymous rage comments the Light allows and see how so many just want to destroy and damage. What a time to be alive as Americans aged 55 to 70 spit anger at the community they benefited from.
Sounds like you’re the angry one. Every age group including Americans ages 55 to 70 should have every right to their opinion. Americans 55 to 70 have worked hard, have years of knowledge, have contributed to their community, and paid taxes for decades. Where ever a person’s political alliance falls, every one should still be able to provide their opinion, whether it be on the Light or any other media platform.
I don’t always agree with you, leaning right. But, that is well said.
Wrong, the community benefited from us. We did not benefit from the community!
Wow, that’s what I was going to say, to Hess!
What you spit out of your mouth is just offensive to others. The schools are FAILING it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. You apparently are one of those that try to sweep things under a rug. GOD SEES ALL! An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. No longer turning the cheek so they can smack me on the other side.
E Howland, I fail to see how I benefited from that community. Well within the age bracket you referenced. Perhaps you were born with a silver spoon?
While everyone has the right to display a opinion in a free environment, it yet comes with the responsibility to evaluate the benefits of its display to such.
What’s the matter, does the truth hurt!
Display the truth for a change! Finally, if you only knew! You can’t handle the truth!
The bottom line, which this paper doesn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole, is that less children in this school system, equals less spending, equals less property taxes. New Bedford can not be both: an affordable place to live and a city with a large school aged population.
Furthermore, your cost of educating a student is through the roof because of your disproportionate burden of children that don’t speak English in their homes, come from another country with very low educational foundations and/or are classified as special needs.
This burden that NB carries drives up your student population numbers, drives up your per student expenditures with no corresponding educational gains, drives up your property taxes and subsequently drives up the cost of rent and housing in what has been historically an oasis of affordability.
I have said it before and I will say it again:
Mr. Mayor, how many third world villages do we need to simultaneously be educating to make it ‘enough’?
Gee Bill, You hit that on directly. For a moment minute I thought your comment was from another commentor, Jeff
Bill has no policies.
Just another nattering nabob of negativity.
People in glass houses, shouldn’t throw rocks!
It student population due to the mayor’s leadership?
What are your policies to improve NBPS?
ICE in the schools?
Say it out loud, again and again.
Parrot! Over and over!
Heard and observed, Hang it up.
Get rid of the superintendent reflecting student failure and get rid of the hr director, employee failure. AFSCME voted out the minions……kept them from spreading their cockamamie plans.
Amen to that!
NB has always been a Third World city.
Were you born here?
Your parents?
New Bedford likes Mr. Mayor.
Sixth term, 64% of the vote.
Not Trump’s numbers.
You are off your rocker. I’m 64 born and raised in New Bedford. WTFudge, third world city. You need professional help, especially thinking we like Mr. Mayor. Same dillusional residents putting him back in.
Agreed, Hess. Hopefully you aren’t related to this Albert person.
I am not related. Thank God!
Trumps team needs to come to NBPS and every single wrong doer, be held accountable. Albert are you part of the incompetent administration, sure sounds like it. Disgusting how the test scores are available for all to see failing. Below average, FAILURES!
This city keeps submerging in more crap. We are getting in deeper and deeper. The city and schools. The worst is the schools because the children are suffering. The will be uneducated in a city that is already in drastic need if refocusing. New mayor, new superintendent, hr director. Just be rid of them, this city would be a much better place.
Comments are missing again! Facts were stated. Were are they. Stop withholding. Maybe if you posted all comments you’d get donations. You are not fair. Stop stifling the victims.
What Albert Hess and E Howland fail to see is this is not a Trump issue. This is incompetence in the New Bedford Public schools administration is the issue. The last 13 yrs in the school dept, like the last 13 years in the city leadership has gone to hell.
New Bedford schools in the age of disgrace. Not due to Trump. Due to management. Another time they are going to use the blame game. Blame everyone except themselves!