Statement on Boston School Committee’s Expropriation of McCormack Middle School Athletic Fields

On the Columbia Point peninsula, the McCormack Middle School is in the process of transforming into a 7-12 secondary school through merger with Boston Community Leadership Academy. The new high school must offer varsity sports to attract students, and fortunately, the McCormack does have an athletic field.

But for at least the past two years, some city and school officials have been trying to turn that field over to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester, at no charge, for construction of a BGCD field house, to which McCormack students would have only limited access.

The School Committee has been asked to approve this arrangement at its Wednesday, August 5, meeting.

We call on the Committee to put off any commitments regarding this school-owned land until plans for the new McCormack secondary school are complete and the combined faculty and students can take part in the planning.

We also call on the Committee to respect the interests of the Harbor Point neighbors who have been maintaining the field and using it after hours for decades.

Students, faculty, and neighbors have said clearly and almost unanimously that they want improved open space, not a closed structure covering most of the land.

Their voices have been consistently disregarded. It is probably not a coincidence that the residents and students of the area are mostly low-income people of color, while the board of the BGCD includes well-connected leaders of the construction and real estate industries, wealthy philanthropists, congressmen and celebrities.

In this period of heightened awareness of the systemic racism that American society it built upon, and the structural racism inherent in both education and land use in Boston, the word “equity” has been used frequently by Boston Public Schools officials and our Mayor. School Committee members can now show they mean what they say by listening to the voices of the school and Harbor Point communities and refusing to approve the current proposal to let the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester build on the McCormack land.

The Boston Coalition for Education Equity is a collaboration among civil rights, education, and community organizations across the city of Boston that are committed to dismantling education inequity.