Boston Public Schools welcoming students back to class day after Georgia school shooting

BOSTON — Boston Public Schools will open their doors to students on Thursday morning for the first day of the 2024-2025 school year.

They will welcome back more than 54,000 students to their 125 schools.

This year, for the 23,000 students who take the bus, a new, improved real-time bus tracking system from Zum is being used.

Superintendent Mary Skipper also said Wednesday, “We start the year with over 100 % of the drivers and the bus monitors, and that traditionally has been a barrier for us of getting the buses out and getting them out of the schoolyards.”

But going back to school can bring uneasiness for both parents and students after Wednesday’s school shooting in Georgia where four people were killed.

Boston 25 Security Analyst Dan Linskey reminds we live in a world where children have to be prepared to deal with these crises.

As a former Boston Police Superintendent-in-Chief, he said they used to keep lockdowns private and not over the police radio in Boston so parents wouldn’t get upset.

But now that many of the students have cell phones, they’ve had to modify how they operate.

“Where we changed it is we used to say we’re locking the school down and give no information. Now we say we’re putting the school in the safe mode and the principals, we put out exactly what’s going on. We have a report of a violent incident in the neighborhood. We have a report of somebody who might have brought a prohibitive item into the school. Law enforcement is present and they’re conducting an investigation. The children are safe and secure in their classrooms, right? That takes the anxiety out of the parent, knowing that that’s what’s going on,” said Linskey.

Linskey said parents should talk to their kids and tell them if they’re hearing from other kids at school or on social media that someone is planning to do something, come forward and report it.

He said brave students are the first line of defense to stop a potential threat.

He added that police train for copycat events after a school shooting or false reports.

“We saw a lot of that in Massachusetts last year, where fake calls and squatting calls were going in, where police were going in, thinking there was an issue and making sure that we’ve prepared police officers to, you know, go in and get in there as quickly as possible,” Linskey explained.

Linskey added, “At the same time, make sure we realize there’s an actual situation there. We’re not falling victim to somebody who’s just trying to get a large police presence to scare and intimidate our students, staff, and faculty.”

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