Boston School Committee Approves $22.8 Million FY26 Budget Supplement, Six Votes to One

BOSTON -- May 6, 2026, Boston School Committee approves $22.8 million supplemental budget request and rejects school choice program for a 32nd consecutive year. The committee voted 6-1 Wednesday to forward the fiscal year 2026 supplemental appropriation of $22,845,672 to the Boston City Council, with Member Edward Peralta abstaining, citing inability to fully review materials; the funds are driven primarily by historically high health insurance premiums and utilities overages that left the district with a projected $28 million gap after it had already saved $26 million through spending pauses and route consolidation. In a separate 6-1 vote with Member Michael Tran abstaining on civil rights grounds, the committee voted to keep Boston Public Schools out of the Massachusetts inter-district school choice program for 2026-2027, while Superintendent Mary Skipper said the district will spend at least a year studying whether to allow non-resident BPS employee children to enroll through collective bargaining agreement language. The committee also unanimously approved three grants totaling $1,455,426, including a $1.1 million state electric bus rebate, and received an eighth draft of a proposed artificial intelligence policy shaped by feedback from more than 500 community members, with a vote expected at the June 10 meeting; three youth leaders from Sociedad Latina testified that teachers are using AI detection tools to grade student work, in one case assigning a zero to a student's hand-written essay flagged as two percent AI-generated.