Boston Council Committee Advances MSBA Application for BCLA-McCormick School Campus

BOSTON — March 26, 2024 — Boston's Ways and Means Committee advanced a state school-building application that could lead to a new or renovated campus for the Boston Community Leadership Academy-McCormick School, a grades 7-through-12 facility on Columbia Point whose facilities scored a 9 out of 100 on the district's own condition assessment — the equivalent of the bottom 10th percentile districtwide. Chair Brian Worrell convened the March 26 hearing on Docket 0467, Mayor Michelle Wu's request to submit a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority's Core Program, with a filing deadline of April 12. Del Stanislaus, BPS chief of capital planning, told the committee the building scores zero in the facilities domain of the district's school-quality rubric, and Brian McLaughlin of the Public Facilities Department cautioned that even a successful application would likely not produce a finished building before 2030 or 2031. Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, a McCormick graduate, called the move overdue, saying "our kids are worthy of facilities that respect their intelligence and their identity." The Jackson Mann building in Allston-Brighton — flagged separately by Councilor Liz Breadon as an unfulfilled rebuild promise — holds the district's single lowest FCA score, a 4 out of 100.