In New Bedford, school officials renovated a planetarium at the high school to use for history and science lessons.
In Lynn, city officials transformed a former bank into a place for pre-college classes that has doubled the program’s ability to enroll students.
And in Chelsea, the city acquired a church it plans to turn into classrooms to free up space in its high school.
These urban districts all turned to unconventional learning spaces out of necessity, as years of unequal funding left them with outdated facilities.
Public schools in Massachusetts are funded through a combination of state, local and federal dollars. A recent MassINC report found that Gateway Cities and Boston received less funding for schools than suburban communities, despite notable need for building upgrades in some of those urban districts. The result is that Black, Hispanic and low-income students in the state are more likely to attend overcrowded schools with inferior physical conditions.
School leaders in New Bedford — one of the communities with the most deficient facilities in Massachusetts — say they want the funding system to be made more equitable, but they can’t wait for that to change.
“If there isn’t a new building on the horizon, you have to be very creative and you have to invest, because you can’t wait,” Superintendent Andrew O’Leary said during a tour of the high school recently. “Nothing more important than school buildings; that’s where our kids are.”
New Bedford invests in upgrades while setting sights on new buildings
When the “new” New Bedford High School opened in 1972, a local bank called it a “giant step forward” for the city. It included a planetarium and a swimming pool.
But as the decades passed, the school’s modern amenities became derelict. O’Leary said the facilities were neglected because of the district’s limited funding. The planetarium grew outdated and “beyond repair,” he said. The six-lane swimming pool, cracked and leaky, was forced to close.
These deficiencies add to challenges in a city where about 24% of New Bedford residents live below the poverty line, more than twice as much as the rate statewide, according to Census data. Still, the majority of residents, about 77%, have a high school diploma or higher.
School and city officials are determined to improve their schools. O’Leary said the city has used a variety of state and federal grants, as well as local funds, to update its facilities.
The city was able to obtain $200,000 in local funding to upgrade the planetarium in 2019. The renovation included replacing the 1970s-era control systems, installing new floors and seating, and repairing the walls. The planetarium is now an asset used by the city for a variety of events, including planetarium shows.
School officials were able to renovate the six-lane swimming pool in 2023 with the help of $3 million in pandemic relief funds, and update the cafeteria with the help of federal school lunch funds.
Next month, school officials are planning to open a health sciences unit at the high school, supported by the New Bedford Community Health Center. The center will provide primary care, vaccinations and other services that school nurses haven’t had the capacity to handle.
These efforts haven’t stopped the city from working with the Massachusetts School Building Authority to create new buildings. It’s scheduled to open a new elementary school in 2027, with the help of a $70 million grant from the authority.
But there is more to do, and the school building authority only accepts one school per district into its main grant program at a time. Even for schools that are accepted, it takes years before the doors can open. New Bedford High School Principal Joyce Cardoza said working with the authority to open a new building can take up to a decade.
“Sometimes our schools are waiting much too long to really have the option to keep up with what the times are,” she said. “We get it done now, but in 30 years it becomes outdated again.”
Lynn’s bank purchase provides much-needed space
Lynn is another urban district with a minority-majority population, with a 41% Hispanic population, and a median income of $74,000 per household, according to Census data.
More than 16,000 students attend the district’s 27 schools, according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. And more than a dozen of those schools were built more than a century ago.
Mayor Jared Nicholson said finding alternatives to some of those outdated and overcrowded schools has been a challenge — but not impossible.
In 2024, the city bought Eastern Bank’s former regional headquarters for $12 million through a bond approved by the city council with a nearly unanimous vote.
In October, the 150,000-square-foot space became the new home for the Frederick Douglass Collegiate Academy, an early college high school program. The new space has allowed the college program to increase its enrollment, projected to include some 625 students next school year.
School officials also moved their administrative offices to the former bank, freeing up space for 17 pre-kindergarten classrooms in the former location.
“All this growth was made possible by being creative and repurposing existing buildings,” said Nicholson. “You add all these different programs up, it’s about maybe a thousand seats. Maybe more. That is the equivalent of building a brand new high school. And that would cost $200 [to] $300 million.”
Lynn has only opened one new school in the last 30 years, Nicholson said, but will soon add another. In 2023, Lynn received a $103 million grant from the Massachusetts School Building Authority for a new middle school building, slated to open in January 2028.
Nicholson said the authority has been a great partner for the city, but recognizes the authority’s limitations.
The school building authority is funded through one penny of the state’s sales tax collection. The authority also has a $1.2 billion annual cap on the total value of grants it can approve.
The MassINC report recommends the state increase funding to the MSBA and allow it to prioritize most needy schools.
The state authority declined to comment for this story. But Mary Pichetti, the authority’s executive director, wrote a letter to MassINC following the release of the report stating that the agency sometimes works with districts to ensure new facilities will have adequate support after the doors open. “There have been instances where the MSBA has pushed urban communities to make deeper investments in their buildings,” she wrote.
Pichetti also spoke at the annual Massachusetts Association of School Committees conference this month in Hyannis. During a panel, she joined other staff to advise school systems on how best to navigate the grant application process, recommending that districts have a comprehensive idea of their local financial plan before applying.
Chelsea cobbles together local funds and donations for renovations
Chelsea school officials say sometime they have to move forward without knowing all the answers.
Chelsea School Superintendent Almi Abeyta says when she took over in 2019 she heard from many that the Chelsea Opportunity Academy — a learning initiative for over-age students needing special help — needed a space separate from the high school.
The district found its answer in a church, buying it in 2024 for $2.8 million stitched together from local funds and private donations.
It’s not yet ready for students, however. Abeyta said renovations of the church will cost $12 million, and so far, they have raised $9 million for the effort. She said there’s no clear timeline on when the project will be complete — but she’s confident it will get done.
Abeyta said she hasn’t resorted to applying for the school building grant program because it may slow down their renovation process.
Other schools, she said, are relatively new, built 30 years ago, equipped with libraries and other amenities available in more modern times.
“We want to make sure that our buildings are welcoming, that they’re clean, and that our children are learning in facilities that are bright, that are beautiful and that say, we care about you,” Abetya said.
