As the three-year deal between BPS and state education officials to avoid a receivership comes to an end, the education commissioner said Tuesday the Boston district has made good “effort” — even if it isn’t meeting all the deal’s requirements.

Acting Education Commissioner Russell Johnston at a state education board meeting Tuesday provided a recap of what has resulted from the work related to the Systemic Improvement Plan.

“The word that I’ve used repeatedly is mixed,” he said. “We’ve seen mixed results, but definitely much effort, really concerted effort on behalf of the district, the School Committee and the mayor in order to meet the requirements that are in the SIP.”

The district and DESE signed the Systemic Improvement Plan (SIP) in order to narrowly avoid a state receivership of the struggling district in June 2022. The deal, which builds off a former 2020 agreement between BPS and DESE, outlines benchmarks related to transportation, attendance, special education and other subjects the district was required to meet over the three-year period.

The SIP is set to expire in June 2025.

Johnston spoke positively about the district’s progress, indicating BPS remains on track to avoid a state receivership. The commissioner noted that DESE will maintain “continual oversight” even after the deal ends.

“There’ll be areas that we will continue, obviously, to work with the district on,” said Johnston. “But what I’m particularly pleased about is the development I’ve also seen in the School Committee within BPS to provide the kind of oversight, the accountability that is required to continue these improvements beyond the life of the SIP.”

Statements from BPS and city leadership applauded the commissioner’s report, noting BPS’s “strides in the right direction.”

“Over the three years, we have made notable progress in addressing systemic barriers and have enhanced our operational capacity, maintaining a laser focus on transportation,” said BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper, noting critical work still to do in areas like the rollout of the Inclusion Education Plan, operational systems and raising the bar academically.

Johnston highlighted several areas of improvement, including the release of the long-term facilities plan and enrollment data, student safety planning, supports for multilingual learners and students with disabilities, and staffing and covering bus routes.

Board members pushed on bus transportation timeliness, which has been one of the most high-profile issues plaguing the district. BPS was required to meet 95% on-time bus performance in the SIP, which Johnston called a “particularly high bar.”

“They have not fully reached it, but we do see that by and large there is just steady improvement in this area, which is what we really need to see,” Johnston said.

Skipper said bus on-time performance averaged 94% for the month of March and route work through new GPS tracking is ongoing.

“I think a three year learning curve with something that impacts attendance, something impacts student safety, something that is a daily operational matter, that ultimately has to be successfully tackled is way too slow,” said Board member Michael Moriarty. “I think that is a failure ultimately.”

Moriarty added that the state’s current tools of interventions and accountability of school districts are “not working,” and called on the Legislature to adjust processes like these.

DESE’s update on the SIP comes weeks after the watchdog organization Boston Policy Institute released a report saying the state intervention in BPS has failed to aid academic outcomes.

“There are elements of what Boston is dealing with which may be intractably sort of set up in a way that or beyond any one person, any one school committee, any one superintendent’s control to fix,” said Board Chair Katherine Craven. “So I think we as a board should just remain open to any constructive potential future engagement with the Boston Public Schools.”

Originally Published: March 25, 2025 at 7:35 PM EDT