Boston breaks ground on $97 million Carter School for students with disabilities

BOSTON — July 21, 2026 — Boston breaks ground on a $97 million rebuild of the Carter School, a Boston Public Schools facility serving students with disabilities. Mayor Michelle Wu and State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg joined Principal Mark O'Connor, Superintendent Casillas, and School Committee Vice Chair Michael O'Neill at the July 21 ceremony, which marked the first major project under the mayor's $2 billion Green New Deal for Boston Public Schools announced in May. The new building, designed by Perkins and Will and to be built by Bond Brothers, will expand enrollment from 24 to 60 students and will include a therapeutic pool, a rooftop outdoor classroom, a redesigned sensory garden, and an early childhood pre-K pathway. The Massachusetts School Building Authority, whose board Goldberg chairs, formally invited the school into eligibility on December 13, 2017, after MSBA CEO James McDonald and Executive Director Jack McCarthy first visited the site around 2015 or 2016. Goldberg recalled inaccessible doorways and bathrooms and the absence of a therapeutic pool: "So many good things that wheelchairs could not get through."