Bostonians Committed to School Diversity Haven't Given Up on Busing
When Boston software engineer Josh Weiss was deciding where to enroll his older daughter, Julia, in kindergarten in 2005, he was more than a little apprehensive about Hurley, the family’s neighborhood public school in the South End. Julia is white, which put her in a tiny minority at the school—at the time, one of about eight students out of 300. The vast majority of the school’s students were living in poverty, with many speaking Spanish, not English, at home.
"It was like a bunch of people standing on the dock looking at a cold lake, thinking about jumping. And just hoping your friends aren’t behind you laughing and calling you an idiot."
But in the end, the Weisses and a number of other middle class families in the neighborhood jumped in together. Today, about 20 percent of the Hurley student body is middle class, including Weiss’ younger daughter, Chloe, a third-grader. Julia, meanwhile, began seventh grade this fall at Boston Latin, an exam school for high achievers. Weiss attributes Julia’s