http://www.wbur.org/2010/10/26/lee-academy
On Tuesday night the Boston School Committee discusses a controversial plan to close or merge eight schools as part of its Acceleration Agenda. It’s an effort to improve the academic quality of every school in the district. Most of the schools on the closure list have high MCAS failure rates and above-average dropout rates. One school stands out.
Lee Academy in Dorchester stands out because it’s a pilot school. The school started six years ago to test the idea that if you integrate preschool with elementary school, it would produce better results.
Kids start Lee as young as 3-years-old. Four hundred families are on the wait-list for the preschool program, which is nationally accredited. The district gives two main reasons for wanting to close the pilot school — low academic achievement and wanting the building to expand another school.
“Sometimes when we merge schools it’s really about trying to merge the best models that we have with other models, particularly if they are in close proximity,” said Boston Superintendent Carol Johnson. “These two schools happen to be in close proximity and that was why they were identified.”
Not sure where DU stands on pilot schools (kind of non-chartered charters). But the parents here are absolutely up in arms about this.