School System Failed Bowditch Students: Letter To The Editor

To the editor:

As one of Nathaniel Bowditch School's first students, I’m so incredibly disappointed that the question of “underperformance” has been “solved" by closing down my former school.

I’m disappointed that the School Committee has implicitly blamed the students and teachers for the lack of funding this school has seen for years on end, resulting in the slashing of essential and core programs like reading specialists, reductions of classes, and even the end of the historic dual language program.

The turnover of the school’s administration, 5 principals in 7 years, people that are essential for keeping the school on track with its academic goals, also impact the stability of the school. These never-ending transitions require extra, uncompensated effort on the part of our teachers who must continue to navigate and accommodate changes in direction. With over 70% of the student population classified as “Hispanic”, a clear legacy of the once innovative dual language program, it is clear that this school has a demographic imbalance but to claim that it is somehow shockingly segregated now in 2018, is a complete disregard of the school’s origin, history and failure brought on not by its students, but of the decisions made to let Bowditch, and more broadly, public schools fall by the wayside, into a ditch of failed public institutions.

I hope that every Bowditch student that no longer has a school to call their own knows that they didn't fail this education system. This education system failed them.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Barzola, Salem, MA

Ms. Barzola is a 2013 graduate of Salem High School and a 2017 graduate of Boston University. She attended the Bowditch School through the end of the 2008-09 school year.

Patch file photo.