Boston Council presses BPS on final four schools without AC

City Council · Meeting of September 15, 2026

Boston Council presses BPS on the last four schools still without air conditioning. Chief Operating Officer Brian Ford told the Committee on Education, chaired by Julia Mejia, that Boston Public Schools has cut the number of buildings lacking cooling from roughly 90 to four: Community Academy, Mather, Mozart and Taylor Elementary. A full fix could cost roughly $35 million, or about $24 million excluding the MSBA-funded Shaw-Taylor project, with the Mozart electrical upgrade alone estimated at $3.4 million.

Mather parent Ben Engel, citing classrooms over 100 degrees and a 160-signature petition, called it "an emergency, not a situation that should be in early discussion phase with no public timeline." BPS spends about $12,000 a year on popsicles as an interim cooling measure. No votes were taken; councilors, including Enrique Pepén and John FitzGerald, pressed for funded timelines ahead of the city's next budget cycle.

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Source: the City Council meeting of September 15, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.