Our children need your help. I am writing to seek your support for the improvement of high school education in the City of Boston. The Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission Report issued in 1996 documented a need to build at least two new high schools in Boston. Since that report was released, not one additional home room has been constructed.

Boston does not have a high school built this century. We have renovated a number of high school buildings, including the Burke High School Building currently under reconstruction, and we have replaced roofs, re-pointed bricks, patched up holes in the walls, re-painted and re-furbished many of our schools and classrooms. However, Boston hasn’t constructed a new high school facility since 1979. Meantime, more than 3,200 high school students attend classes in sub-standard facilities. I believe that high school students in Boston deserve to have the best high school facilities. Instead, most Boston high school students attend classes in rooms that were constructed more than thirty years ago. Many high school students attend classes in buildings intended for middle-school students and some attend classes in elementary school buildings. We also have students attending classes in the basement of the YWCA. We have a scandalously high drop out rate in Boston. We lose more than 1,500 high school students every year. They drop out of school facing an uncertain future in a very competitive and sometimes unforgiving world.

More than 3,000 residents signed petitions supporting the construction of a new high school on the grounds of the former Boston State Hospital site. The project is also endorsed by the Boston State Hospital Citizens Advisory Committee, the Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts, the Boston Teachers Union, ACORN, numerous elected officials including Councillors Chuck Turner, Felix Arroyo, Sam Yoon, and others. Ten members of the Boston City Council requested that the Governor reserve the land for the high school. In 2004, Michael Contompasis, former interim superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, stated that the Boston State Hospital site is an ideal location for a high school.

State legislation was passed in 2000, reserving 20 acres of land for the purpose of constructing a new campus-like high school for Boston. Unfortunately, that legislation expired on June 30, 2005. The City of Boston submitted a request to the State to construct a new school on that site in Mattapan, but did not seek the necessary funding for the high school.

You can help by calling the Mayor and the Governor to support the construction of the Mattapan High School and play a key role in helping our children attend a first-class facility. Most students have just one opportunity for their high school education. We need your help to insure that our students receive a better chance to succeed in school and in life. Please support the construction of the first 21st Century high school in the City of Boston.