Boston to expand free museum program to non-BPS kids
Original pilot excluded students from charter schools, METCO, and private schools
MAYOR MICHELLE WU said a pilot program providing free access to a set of Boston museums to Boston Public Schools students will be expanded next year to include all school-age children in the city.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu
Wu lauded the program’s success on Tuesday, saying more than 36,000 Boston students and their family members have taken advantage of it since its launch earlier this year. But the initiative became the flashpoint for criticism because it did not include some 13,000 Boston students who attend charter schools or students who are bused to suburban districts through the Metco program or who attend private schools.
Speaking on GBH radio Tuesday morning, Wu said the city was in “the final stages of nailing down an agreement that would expand [the program] to all school-age children throughout Boston.”
The “BPS Sundays” program, which Wu announced in her State of the City speech in January, gives Boston Public Schools students and family members free admission on two Sundays each month to six Boston institutions: the Museum of Fine Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the New England Aquarium, the Boston Children’s Museum, the Museum of Science, and the Franklin Park Zoo.
In February, when she celebrated the launch of the program at the Children’s Museum, Wu said the initiative reaffirms a belief that the city’s “world-leading arts and culture institutions are public infrastructure in the same way that our roads and bridges, libraries and parks, and schools are,” and they “belong to all of our residents, especially our young people.”
Limiting the program initially to Boston Public Schools students and their families, however, left out thousands of young people in Boston. One charter school leader said at the time that she had to tell parents who were excited when they heard about the program that it didn’t apply to their child.
That is now poised to change when the program is opened up in 2025 to all school-aged children in the city and their families.
“We want to make sure every young person in our city grows up having the chance to spark curiosity and wonder,” Wu said in her radio appearance on Tuesday.
The announcement came one day after the city said the program for Boston Public Schools students, which was originally only slated to run through the summer, would continue through the end of 2024.
The cost of operating the program this year is just under $1 million, and is being paid through a public-private partnership that includes $300,000 in federal pandemic funds.
Wu’s office said funding details on the continuation of the program in 2025 and expansion to include all children in the city will be available in the coming weeks.
Commonwealth News Service