After community outcry, Boston drops plans to move the O’Bryant school to West Roxbury

Boston school officials notified families Tuesday evening that they will “indefinitely” scrap a controversial plan to move the John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science from Roxbury to West Roxbury due to resistance from community members.

A letter sent to the O’Bryant school community Tuesday night obtained by WBUR claims that district officials have spent months “exploring alternative sites for the O’Bryant school building,” but that they failed to find a nearby site that could “accommodate the expansion and student experience that had been envisioned” for the exam school.

“With a lack of consensus around moving the O'Bryant School to the West Roxbury Educational Complex, we are halting those plans indefinitely,” the letter — signed by BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper, Mayor Michelle Wu, and Boston School Committee chair Jeri Robinson — states.

According to the letter, BPS still plans to renovate the Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, which shares a campus with the O’Bryant.

“We have heard a very strong foundation of support for the Madison Park renovation project and look forward to seeing the long-awaited improvements come to fruition,” the letter states, adding that the O’Bryant will stay put, at least, for the duration of that construction.

The surprise development reflects a setback for city and district officials, who sold the O'Bryant move last summer as the beginning of an ambitious expansion plan for the century-old school, which was previously known as Boston Technical High School.

O’Bryant staff — many of whom had been critical of the proposal — learned of the city's decision during a 15-minute Zoom meeting Tuesday afternoon led by Skipper and other district officials.

Almost immediately after it was announced by Skipper and Wu last June, the proposed move was met with strong pushback.

Some community members raised concerns over the difficulty of transporting nearly 2,000 students to a new location by the city’s border with Dedham, far from transit hubs. Others worried about the effects of moving Boston’s most diverse exam school — where 68% of students are Black or Latino —  from near the heart of “Black Boston” in Nubian Square to a largely-white precinct seven miles away.

The O’Bryant, which currently enrolls nearly 1,600 students, is the smallest of the city’s three exam schools but was set to expand by approximately 400 seats after its relocation sometime in 2025. It’s not yet clear how that planned expansion will be affected.

City officials, including Wu, had argued that the O’Bryant’s current building — part of the Madison Park complex it has occupied since 1987 — was never meant to be its permanent home, and that the building’s small size has held back its potential as a large and high-performing school specializing in math and science.

To help build excitement, Wu and Skipper took O’Bryant alumni, students and staff on tours of the West Roxbury facility last summer and fall.

Meanwhile, many O’Bryant teachers, families and alumni organized to block the move, culminating in a contentious City Council hearing in December — and a non-binding resolution opposing the idea.

In Tuesday’s letter to families, Skipper, Wu and Robinson noted that when it comes to upgrading BPS’s aging facilities, officials are “moving urgently to identify and prioritize needed investments every year” and that 10 capital projects are already underway.

“We are more determined than ever to ensure all our school buildings will support the range of student experiences Boston’s young people should have, and the process will continue at an urgent pace,” they wrote.