Boston Mayor Michelle Wu affirmed on Boston Public Radio that the seven-month free museum pilot program will not be expanded beyond Boston Public Schools students right now.
“Believe me, if I could wave a magic wand and make it so that museums were free for everyone and they could still financially support themselves, that is my dream,” Wu said on Boston Public Radio Tuesday.
The pilot lets the roughly 45,000 BPS students and their companions go to many of Boston’s cultural institutions for free on some Sundays. The pilot launched last month and is set to run up to August. It’s drawn criticism from some, including sitting Boston City Councilors, for only allowing BPS students and leaving out kids who go to METCO, private or charter schools.
Wu said she opted to start the pilot with BPS students, in part, to try to bring in families who’d never been to those museums before. The city also already has a streamlined method of communication with BPS parents and students.
“We don’t have that mechanism to communicate with all the students and families in the other kinds of communities that we’re talking about here,” she said.
Implementing such a program as is was no small feat, Wu says, requiring negotiations with six different institutions.
“It took a year to get a negotiation with all of those institutions to a place where those groups were on the same page. Because they are struggling right now, coming out of the pandemic,” she said. “They are still making their way out of that financial hit.”
At the New England Aquarium, for example, where space is tight, the institution worries about hitting their capacity on Sundays.
“They already are worried about whether we’re going to reach that capacity limit, where they’re going to have to turn away paying customers and visitors at the door because of the commitments to BPS,” the mayor said.
Wu intends for the program to continue in its current form, and continue to be open to the public’s suggestions.
For example, the mayor may consider the possibility of offering free admissions on a different day of the week. After speaking with a visitor at the Boston Children’s Museum this past weekend, Wu was told that the limited schedule of the MBTA on Sundays could discourage students and their families from visiting.
“Here’s what we’re measuring,” Wu said. “Who’s going? How did they find out about it? Whether it’s their first time at these institutions. Who they’re bringing with them.”
Despite challenges, the program has already shown promising results. According to Wu, 45% of the the BPS families who have gone to Boston Children’s Museum under the pilot were visiting that museum for the first time.
“It is very much my hope that we can expand. My sense is that we'll need to find some more funding for that to happen, and that will be something that we have to plan out,” the mayor said.
