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Students and families in New Bedford have a right to an equitable education. However, assuring these rights requires constantly confronting direct and indirect barriers to inclusion and equity. On March 28th, when we received a notification that previously approved ESSER [COVID-relief] projects were in jeopardy, I was stunned but not completely surprised.
We have repeatedly noted that comprehensive urban districts remain overlooked in capital funding and policy. That has never held us back, however. We have increased facilities spending more than any other district in Massachusetts and maximized all available opportunities to combine, multiply, and match credits, repair programs, loan orders, and state and federal grants. We are now approaching a decade of record investments in our buildings.
As is our track record, within 24 hours of the U.S. Department of Education’s clawback announcement, New Bedford’s facility, finance, and capital planning team developed plans to manage any disruption and communicated with our state partners to maintain progress on our exciting ESSER projects.
Massachusetts is pushing back. On April 16th, I sat next to Massachusetts Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler when he told a superintendent roundtable, “we have your back.”
We are very encouraged by the actions taken by Massachusetts and more than a dozen other states to file suit and reverse the unlawful directives issued by Secretary McMahon. As the lawsuit states, the Secretary’s recklessness sees “substantial confusion spread through districts, and the resulting policy uncertainty stands to cause immediate and devastating harm to vulnerable students and families.” These directives not only undermine long-standing student protections but also threaten the core purpose of ESSER — supports that “help students recover from lost instructional time in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Unique among the region’s grantees, New Bedford’s ESSER investment in non-recurring projects avoids a fiscal cliff and ensures all city students will see recurring benefits well into the future.
While ESSER funding is well understood as one-time funding, its impact can — and should — be long-lasting. That’s what recovery means.
Projects like the central kitchen and school-based health center (SBHC) will elevate health and nutrition for all city students, including those attending non-district schools, for decades to come. Meanwhile, targeted space renovations at Brooks and Hathaway will extend the useful life of these buildings, adding to multimillion-dollar MSBA projects and saving city residents millions against future obligations. The HVAC project at Gomes, like the project completed at Pulaski, will increase the number of students served in climate-controlled environments.
It remains striking that New Bedford is without a school-based health center (SBHC) — a gap that echoes through our absenteeism, homelessness, and student wellness data. Secretary McMahon should note that her home state of Connecticut has made student wellness a clear priority, demonstrated by its expansive network of SBHCs — a model strongly underwritten by federal support.
Research has repeatedly shown that bringing health providers and schools closer together works. As the Journal of School Health notes, “School-based health centers improve access to care, reduce absenteeism, and enhance academic performance, particularly among underserved populations.” This is not a new revelation: it echoes the legacy of Dr. Louis Z. Normandin, who at the turn of the 20th century provided school-linked health services to our city’s students and families.
Our expertise as educators means we cannot dodge, nor “DOGE,” our way past our responsibilities. New Bedford’s facility work and financial management is a model of innovation and efficiency. In contrast, recent directives from the U.S. Department of Education not only undermine long-standing student protections but also threaten to dismantle supports that help students recover from lost instructional time in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Above all, we must note that despite deliberate disruption from D.C., this will be a year of celebration. Amid new and legacy barriers, we must remain encouraged to see the culmination of our strategy to close longstanding gaps in learning environments and student services.
As I noted several years ago, our students should not have to compromise because of where they live, and our staff should not have to compromise because of where they work.
Andrew O’Leary is superintendent of New Bedford schools.
The administration is being treated the way they have treated other employees. You got busted. It’s not the first and is definitely the last. I won’t let things lie.
way to much spending of FREE money, funding massive costs, focus on education with wooden chairs attached to desks. its about the kids who want to learn, you dont need fancy expensive adult centers
Oh my God, you hit the nail on the head very well said.
Imagine reading all these details about funding policy and developments and making the comments above. No wonder we need schools.
What’s the matter, truth hurt. Karma, best when it comes back around. No child lost a thing. The admin got taken away things they weren’t suppose to be spending on. It’s about time. They want to waste, I will report. Someone is finally listening.
You can read all the articles you want. It’s the facts that count. Use funds inappropriately, they get taken away, OH WELL!
It’s not easy to read an article and believe it, especially when working in the middle of it all, has a fact centered opinion, myself and many others. You either a part of the waste and sneaking or against the waste and finally Washington is seeing through it all. I’m a democrat and happy to hear the money is being taken back. Stop the misuse of funds!
If your merits are great and do great things (proven) contact DOGE and present your books, your positive results and your great talents on helping students. Honesty is the best policy. Doge is seperating good spending from fraud and waste. If something is represented in the wrong column, present it.
Resist and Lawsuits is not the answer.
Many in the state want Audits to show proper spending. If spending crossed lines, this is where things look bad.
If you can prove fraud & waste in one space, money for good things for children may be the end result. Dont fight, do whats right.
Amen to that.
The light is a left wing propaganda media outlet. It doesn’t report news it projects left wing ideology and twists stories to fit left wing looney bin theories . America is fed up with the nonsense.
Don’t know what your reading. Nothing here is left winged.
I hope the funds keep getting pulled, from programs and grants mis used. My husband and I had to work for what we have. We were never handed anything. As a matter of fact when laid off in 2013 we had to wait 11 weeks before unemployment kicked in. I am sick and tired of having to work for everything then others get handed things as freebies. The ones that had their school loans paid off when Biden wad in, that was wrong. The correct thing would have lowered the borrowing rate, but make them pay. A large percentage of the borrowers would spend on luxury items, vacations, patio furniture not paying down the loans. They should be forced to pay the loans. We never filled for bankruptcy and up today will never! I’m a Dem!
Not sure what you’re reading. I see democrats coming forward glad the money is being taken back. Misuse funds should be an automatic denial of future monies while the administration remains.
When all of you New Bedford residents are outraged with your rent increase, and you now pay over $2,000 per month to live in a three bedroom apartment surrounded by one of the worst areas in the city, remember that the reason is the property owner paid $500,000 for the house that required a 20% down payment of $100,000 and the monthly payments for the mortgage payment, property insurance, water & sewer, and maintenance costs total over $4,000 per month, and the costs are increasing annually, thanks to the overlap of federal & state government agencies doing the work the state agency alone could cover, and the superintendent of schools shouldn’t lie away at night thinking of new ways to spend the tax payer dollars, and the number of residents who live on a fixed income who don’t get an increase each year that match the new cost of a school health center, and the medical staff who work there daily.