This is a web edition of GBH Daily, a weekday newsletter bringing you local stories you can trust so you can stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.
☔Sleet and that dreaded wintery mix, with highs in the 30s. Sunset is at 5:38 p.m.
Today we have a look at a 200-year-old library that’s keeping a record of democracy in Massachusetts. But first: The number of students at Chelsea Public Schools has dropped about 5% this year, or 350 students. Framingham’s student population is down by around 7%. Lynn Public Schools lost roughly 600 students between the start of 2025 and January 2026. Enrollment at public schools statewide fell too, but only by 1.6% compared to last school year.
Lynn Superintendent Molly Cohen said she can’t attribute the drop to one thing, but she knows that in her city — like the others listed above — there are more immigrant families than the state average, and a greater fear of federal immigration agents. “We know what we are seeing,” Cohen said. “We are seeing fear. We are seeing instability. And we are seeing the financial consequences of that instability land squarely on the districts serving our most vulnerable students.”
Lower enrollment also means less money for school districts, which get both local funding from their cities and towns and state funding which is tied to the number of students they teach. “Our public schools are paying the price,” said Vatsady Sivongxay, executive director of the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance. You can read Katie Lannan’s full reporting on the issue here.
Four Things to Know
1. A bill that would prohibit federal immigration agents from detaining people in courthouses, schools and churches in Massachusetts is moving through the legislature. One of the people asking lawmakers to pass it yesterday was Brenda Romero, a mother of three from Chelsea. Romero said one of her daughters was raped, and the family wants to pursue criminal charges — but is afraid to go into courthouses.
Federal immigration agents detained Romero’s husband at a courthouse moments after a judge approved his political asylum. “I am agonizing over whether to continue pursuing justice against her rapist. Not because I do not want justice, but because I am afraid to walk into a courthouse,” Romero said.
2. Marshfield went to the highest court in the state yesterday to argue against the MBTA Communities Act, the 2021 law that says cities and towns with access to MBTA service should allow construction of multi-family housing without special permission. Marshfield argued that the law is an unfunded mandate, which would mean it’s an extra responsibility the state government has placed on cities and towns without giving them the money to carry it out.
But justices on the state Supreme Judicial Court seemed skeptical of the argument. “Are there facts that say, line item by line item, that we can point to and say, ‘These are the direct, consequential costs of having to comply that are outside of the local stuff that we have to do in any event?” Justice Serge Georges Jr. asked. “We did not detail those,” Marshfield Town Counsel Robert Galvin responded.
3. Dr. Ashley Alford, a surgeon who provided gender-affirming care to trans patients at UMass Memorial in Worcester before all her appointments were abruptly canceled without explanation earlier this year, is now joining Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Some of her patients told GBH News the cancellations left them confused and worried about UMass Memorial’s gender-affirming care program, as well as about the future of their own care. UMass Memorial has since hired two new doctors who can perform vaginoplasties, also known as bottom surgeries.
“I’m not shocked that she’s landed herself at one of Boston’s top hospitals,” said Chrissi Bates, the first patient Alford performed a vaginoplasty on in Worcester. “She’s incredible at the work that she does. And I’m happy to be her patient.” Another patient said she’ll look into scheduling a surgery with Alford at MGH, but the experience with UMass Memorial left her wanting a backup option too. “This whole thing has been so secretive, so poorly communicated,” she said.
4. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is announcing a plan to scale back a regulation limiting how fast ships can travel in some areas — a regulation put in place in 2008 to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. NOAA officials said they are doing so to “reduce unnecessary regulatory and economic burdens,” and that they’ll replace speed restrictions with “alternative management areas and advanced, technology-based, strike-avoidance measures.”
The population of North Atlantic right whales stands at about 380 worldwide. Their leading causes of death are ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. Reducing speeds in their habitat has been proven to reduce the number of deaths, said Rachel Rilee of the Center for Biological Diversity. And while there has been some work on technology to reduce vessel strikes, it hasn’t been proven effective, Rilee said. “Shipping companies have been in compliance for almost two decades now,” she said. ”It’s built into their timelines, and they don’t have an issue with compliance.“
Photo essay: For 200 years, the Mass. State Library has recorded democracy at work
This week the Massachusetts State Library — a public collection of laws, meeting minutes and historical documents at the Massachusetts State House — celebrated 200 years since it was codified. GBH’s Craig LeMoult has a look inside the collection.
Who are your representatives? Legislative reference librarian April Pascucci shows what was unofficially known as the “bird book,” a directory of elected officials in the state, from John F. Kennedy’s time as a U.S. senator. He served in the role from 1953 to 1960.
Boston’s first city directory of residents, printed in 1789. The first name, listed alphabetically: Samuel Adams.
Legislative reference librarian April Pascucci spoke to legislative intern Michael Morrison. The library is open to the public, but a lot of the people who use it work in the State House, State Librarian Stacy Debole said. “So before they make a new law, they go back and they research why the law is the way it is and why it’s been changed over time,” she explained. “And this informs their decision making.”
Check out more library artifacts here.
Dig deeper:
-The first Secretary of War’s books are in Boston. What was he reading?
-Old broadsides and receipts offer hints to America’s Black Revolutionary War soldiers
-Were Paul Revere’s political cartoons more influential than his midnight ride?
