All Boston school-aged children in grades pre-K to 12 will receive free admission to nine of Boston’s cultural institutions starting January, in a move announced by city officials on Wednesday.
The move marks an expansion of “BPS Sundays,” a successful pilot program launched this past February that granted Boston Public School students free admission to six cultural institutions on the first two Sundays of the month. Now, city youth who are home-schooled, or who attend charter and independent schools will gain free access. So will kids who attend suburban schools through the voluntary busing program known as METCO.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced the expansion at the Museum of Science, joined by the heads of several participating institutions as well as BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper. Wu said the goal of the program from its inception was to increase access to the city’s cultural gems — and widen their reach.
“Each one of our young people deserves to be moved, surprised, challenged and inspired,” Wu said. “That is a core belief that we hold here in Boston.”
In addition to existing participants like Boston Children’s Museum, Museum of Fine Arts and New England Aquarium, this next two-year phase includes three new institutions: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Museum of African American History and John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the city said.
Dubbed “Boston Family Days,” the expanded program is funded through a public-private partnership budgeted at roughly $3 million, according to a city spokesperson. Funding is supported by the City of Boston, participating institutions and philanthropic and corporate donors including the Barr Foundation and Amazon.
Over 44,000 BPS students participated in the first phase of the pilot ending in August, officials said, with more than half of program participants coming from economically disadvantaged households. In her remarks, Wu noted hearing the personal stories of children who grew up in Boston but had never set foot in some of the cultural institutions right in their backyards.
Though successful in attracting BPS families, the pilot received criticism for leaving out the tens of thousands of Boston children who attend schools outside the district.
Milly Arbaje-Thomas, president and CEO of METCO, said the expanded program is meaningful for the approximately 3,000 Boston students who attend suburban schools through METCO. Entry costs at many city institutions can be out of reach for families — combined admission price for one child and one adult is $57 at the Museum of Science, for instance.
Arbaje-Thomas added that she was glad to see new institutions added like the Museum of African American History, which will allow many of METCO’s Black students to learn about their ancestral history, which can be limited or absent from their school curricula.
“Our students can actually have that sense of affinity, being able to go to a museum where they can actually relate to the history that’s being presented to them,“ she said.
Students can bring up to two family members to participating institutions. BPS students are automatically enrolled in the program, but children enrolled outside the district need to register with the city.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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