In the mid 1970s, small group of mostly young teachers from Brighton High School was convened to plan and eventually open a magnet comprehensive high school being built at Roxbury Crossing. The school began as an annex to Brighton High and moved to a temporary site on Arlington Street in downtown Boston while the Madison Park Campus was being finished on what was then New Dudley Street in Roxbury.

When Madison Park High School opened in the late 1970s, it was the product of a long struggle for equal education by a lower-Roxbury community that had been cut apart by demolition for the planned I95 [SouthwestmCorridor] extension. It was to be a positive use for the land that had been taken by force from the black and brown residents of the area. Madison Park was a spacious campus high school, a magnet for students from all over the City. Its music building, named after Roland Hayes, the world-famous African-American tenor and composer with the participation of the Hayes family, had performance spaces and practice rooms. The science building had its own lecture hall, library, laboratories, and classrooms. The school had another large lecture hall and there was a radio station added as well.

The large, well-equipped gymnasium had rowing, diving and swimming pools, a dance studio, extensive playing fields, tennis courts, all intended for both school and community use. Madison Park, it was hoped, would offer students of color a chance to attend a strong academic high school with white students who chose integrated quality education, and both would have a non-exam school ladder to higher education.

Despite the racial turmoil in Boston at the time, MP was started as a model integrated school and students from all neighborhoods of the City attended the brand-new campus. Its young, dedicated staff was well-prepared to open a new kind of school and a new environment for learning in Boston.

The Hubert Humphrey Occupational Resource Center, built next to Madison Park, opened in the Fall, 1980 as a state-of-the-art technical high school. The Federal Court had ordered the building of the new center as one of the remedies for desegregating Boston’s segregated vocational technical schools. Staff spent over two years creating the curriculum for its 26 vocational programs, hiring new instructors of color, setting up the business and labor partnerships and equipping the ‘shops’ students would need for the 3-pronged programs it hoped to provide Boston teenagers: school to career, school to technical college and school to university options.

Students from all Boston high schools were eligible to attend the ORC for a half day of technical instruction while they received their academic instruction at their home high schools. The ORC, it was hoped, would offer students of color as well as white students a path to union construction, medical area, small business and office jobs that would bring prosperity and equity to the of-color community on a par with job opportunities for all other Bostonians.

What happened shortly after a promising start is a very sad story.

In 1981, only 7 years after Madison Park opened, Proposition 2 ½ cuts forced the layoff of 20% of the MPHS staff. Most of the young teachers who had designed programs and given the school its special energy were laid off and never returned. A biased School Department raised the idea that Madison Park should be closed and its campus given to Boston Technical High which had been moved onto the Madison Park campus taking over more than half its academic class space, including the science and music buildings and theater. MPHS students walked out of school to protest the proposed closing and community outrage saved the school but, in the end, Madison Park was forced to merge with the Humphrey Center. Then the Humphrey Center transportation ended and students had to choose to enroll full time at Madison Park, no longer receiving academic instruction nearer their homes or do without tech/voc education. Although the change was phased in over 4 years, it caused a drop in total enrollment.

The City abandoned Madison Park’s college prep programs and gutted its technical programs. Administrators without experience or expertise in tech/voc education were chosen to head the school. Then, the entire administrative suite of the ORC and building 1 were taken over for central office staff. This and space allocated to O’Bryant required sections of the vocational areas, closets and storage areas to be turned inappropriately into academic classrooms. Some of these new ‘classrooms’ had no air vents, most had no windows. The smallest rooms went to SpEd classrooms. Federal Perkins Grant money specifically targeted for accredited vocational education was divided between Madison Park and programs elsewhere.
As MCAS scores became the primary determinant of school ‘success’, the focus of the school then shifted from technical/vocational education to a remedial academics base. The school began losing its business partnerships, co-op jobs and union ties as it could no longer fulfill its original mission and hope of generating a skilled labor force inclusive of students of color who had been traditionally left out.

In the nineties, talk of the potential for technical education to answer the urgent needs of Boston families of color for well-paying jobs led Boston leaders to visit Lexington, MA and even Germany to see quality technical/vocational high schools with long waiting lists for seats. But these same politicians who decried the lack of Boston residents on Boston construction sites did nothing to make sure that MPTVHS would be treated in the same manner as the other regional technical/vocational high schools in Massachusetts that have almost double the budget of Madison Park. While the same time that Boston’s Superintendent and School Board members continued to have extensive ties with local business and unions, they did not seem to make the connection lacking to this day: Boston students are denied the option of quality technical/vocational education at the high school level, nor do they have access to hands-on programs at lower levels.

All Bostonians should be as outraged about this biased and disparate treatment of Black and Brown students as are the Friends of Madison Park. Boston students deserve the opportunity to attend a fully funded and supported technical/vocational high school and they CAN have that option if sincere and proper attention is paid to Madison Park.

Despite all the changes, lack of support and threats of closure, there is another side to the history. Madison Park staff and students developed a fierce allegiance to the ‘MP Family’ over the 80’s and 90’s. Many, many accomplishments were achieved by students and also by teachers, including many Golden Apple awards, large contingents marching in the annual AIDS walks and the Veterans’ Day marches, many outstanding athletic team and individual performances, award winning participation in vocational skills contests and more.

The 80’s brought many sports championships for the girls’ and boys’ basketball, and Coach of the Year awards for coaches. The soccer and track teams consistently won City and State honors, and the cheerleaders scored high in the Battles of the Cheerleaders. MP became famous for its pep rallies, with local performers headlining the shows. Valerie Avant became MP’s first high school All-American athlete and Paul Lewis a college All-American.

The late 80’s were still racially hard times in Boston, with the AIDS epidemic and crack on the streets taking attention from education and placing resources away from deserving children and families. In addition, the loss of leadership by removing an elected school committee hampered the little progress that was made.  

By 1990 MP seemed to be making a comeback with the formation of Sigma Beta, visits to the school from Mayor Ray Flynn, leaders Mel King, Senator Ted Kennedy, and Jesse Jackson, and then in the spring Nelson Mandela, recently released from prison in South Africa chose Madison Park as one of his first stops in America where  he thanked and encouraged the students and community to put education on the top of their list for freedom and equality.

But local political and educational leadership were not convinced. In 1993, the State threatened to close the school. Students again rallied to fight for their survival as a school and again along with the staff worked furiously to win accreditation for its programs. 

In 1995 the Reggie Lewis Track opened next door, giving new emphasis to Madison relative to its location and bringing some good will to the many efforts to support the school. Originally, the track was to offer increased practice space to Madison Park teams, but that promise mostly evaporated.

However, the overt racism of the 90’s brought attacks on bilingual education just as MP’s Latino and Haitian populations were rapidly growing. One victim of this was the highly successful Cape Verdean bilingual program that had sent many students to careers in medicine, teaching and business. At this time vocational education was being slashed and programs cut. Many programs were left with one faculty member, unable to supervise coop placements and forced to balance 3 grades and exploratory programs alone.

Despite all this loss, the school community continued running many successful programs that led to successful employment placement for many young Black and brown men and women, enrollment in further education, and many accomplishments by sports teams, school publications, clubs and community service activities. A few examples include:

• Outstanding success in athletics including multiple conference and city championships in boys and girls basketball, State tournament appearances, baseball, soccer and track City championships, four appearances in the football Super Bowl, many All Scholastic student athletes who attended and graduated from College and two college All-Americans
• Formation of the College Club
• State and national awards in journalism for the school newspaper staff
• Globe art awards
• Project Hip Hop Civil Rights tour of the South and HBCU’s
• Visit by Magic Johnson on World AIDS Day in light of the fact that MP students had been marching in the AIDS Walk since it started in 1987
• Integration of literacy and numeracy into all tech/voc program instruction, a key instructional accomplishment and one now required by the State
• Visit by a large group of MP teachers to sister schools in Cape Verde and South Africa, and school wide collection of school supplies and money for them
• Skills USA teams and ROTC cadets success in competitions
• Formation of MP Alumni Association

As MCAS became the main index of success for a BPS high school, focus on success in tech/voc programs waned badly. Instead of recognizing that Madison Park students had only slightly lower MCAS scores than the average for Boston with only half the academic instructional time and not recognizing at all that these students develop a high level of skills in their tech/voc areas, Madison Park has been constantly castigated as ‘underperforming.’ In addition, ‘distinctive leadership’ that has made high quality tech/voc high schools across the region possible, was neglected for Madison Park. BPS administered the school as if it were a comprehensive high school, then judged it as such. This led directly to degrading of tech/voc programs which in turn led to Madison Park unable to attract qualified applicants.

In 2010 MP was again under attack when a succession of headmasters were unsupported, blamed for failings of the BPS, and replaced. One school year opened without a head of school. Another opened with no student or teacher schedules. The ensuing chaos led then Acting Superintendent McDonough to effectively shut down much of the school promising to revitalize it grade by grade, and he reduced the student body by almost half in the process. However, the revitalization promises never materialized under the next two Superintendents.

The Friends of Madison Park which had been formed around 2010 to support the school began to advocate strenuously for the hiring of a truly qualified Director. The Friends, originally led by Dennis Wilson and Mel King, brought in the entire Black caucus of local and State electeds, several parents, alumni/ae and teachers and retired staff who were already involved in some forms of advocacy for the school. Over the next several years a Steering Committee formed to maintain a steady presence in all matters concerning the school, meet often with School Department and City officials, make presentations at City Council and network with community groups.

During the summer of 2015, a Screening Committee formed under the direction of interim Headmaster, Al Holland to identify and select candidates for the position of Executive Director for technical/ vocational education. The idea was that a permanent Headmaster and other vacant administrative positions at Madison Park would be filled once the Director was in place. After a nationwide search, the Screening Committee, composed of teachers, students, parents, administrators, business, community and organizational representatives, recommended Kevin McCaskill to fill the Executive Director position. Several administrative and teaching positions were also filled that summer.

Kevin McCaskill, the new Executive Director, had held similar positions very successfully at two previous tech/voc high schools. He had the full support of the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators, that wished him well and pledged to support his new assignment. However, once he arrived, his position was reduced, cutting off his executive and budget authority at the root. He was effectively demoted to Head of School, meaning that his role in skills and career programs was greatly diminished. In a further swipe at his position, his very job was threatened, and students marched to BPS offices to save it.

McCaskill nevertheless, proceeded to build partnership after partnership, improve programs wherever possible, improve funding, and gain support all over the region. His list of supporters included luminaries such as Mel King and Tim Murray, former Lt Governor, former Director of Vocational Education in Boston, Jim Caradonio and the entire corps of African-American elected officials. He advocated for and increased student enrollment, and acquired additional resources, programs and activities for Madison students. The work with the staff at Madison resulted in the attached list of accomplishments and recognitions.

However, central administration continued to take numerous steps that caused problems for Madison Park, such as giving more of the already inadequate classroom and programmatic space in building #2 to the O’Bryant; attempting to relocate an unrelated adult education program into the facility; and creating a separate position and staff for career education and Chapter 74 programs at other schools not coordinated with Madison Park, the supposed ‘flagship’ school. While students and their parents/guardians are supposed to choose to attend a technical/vocational school, BPS central office “administratively assigned” ever increasing numbers of students from schools which closed, students who had IEP’s not including tech/voc education and/or who needed ELL program services.

Recognizing the need for improvements at Madison Park, several intervention and study groups as well as the NEASC certification team produced ‘plans’ for change. None were implemented and most simply reiterated the needs documented in previous plans. NEASC did two accreditation reports between 2006 and 2016. One notable BPS plan was the 2012 “Innovation Plan” in 2012. This was followed by the 2016 Turnaround Plan.

Head of School McCaskill set about trying to implement some of the recommendations of these plans, but as anyone familiar with the process knows, it takes 3-5 years to accomplish thoroughgoing change. So it came as a great shock to the school community that after a relatively tranquil period of leadership, in 2020 Superintendent Cassellius informed the Madison Park community that McCaskill would be reassigned from the school effective June 30, 2020 and that the Head of School of the John D. O’Bryant would temporarily oversee the whole campus that the O’Bryant shares with Madison Park, while retaining her position at O’Bryant. These are not only two separate and distinct schools, they require quite different expertise. After protest from many, this was reversed and McCaskill remained in charge of Madison Park until his successor was found.

In August 2021, a new Head of School, Dr. Sidney Brown was hired for Madison Park. McCaskill was reassigned to the central office to work on High School Redesign, effectively removing him from contributing to the efforts to improve tech/voc ed and not given an opportunity to fully brief or orient Dr. Brown who is not a tech/voc specialist though he is highly skilled in secondary education. Since Dr. Brown’s arrival, he too has experienced a lack of real support in securing administrative and support staff critically needed to advance the academic and technical/ vocational education at Madison Park. Eight months into the job he was yet to be fully staffed.