Boston mayor to include Catholic school students in free-museums program next year

The Boston Children’s Museum is one of the participating museums in a program that provides free access to some of the city’s most famous museums twice a month to K–12 students — including, in a recent policy change, Catholic school students. / Credit: Tim Pierce, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Boston, Mass., Dec 9, 2024 / 12:40 pm (CNA).

Boston’s mayor is planning to include students at Catholic schools in a program that provides free access to some of the city’s most famous museums twice a month — a change in policy from earlier in the year.

Mayor Michelle Wu announced the shift earlier this week.

“If you’re a K–12 student and you live in Boston, you and two guests will be able to visit nine of Boston’s most iconic and inspiring spaces for free the first and second Sunday of every month,” Wu said in a video posted Wednesday.

The current program, which Wu announced in January, allows students in Boston public schools to visit six museums free of charge on the first and second Sunday of the month with up to three family members. But it excludes students in Catholic schools, home-schoolers, and other students not in the city’s public school system.

The new version of the program, called Boston Family Days, is scheduled to begin in early January 2025, which is an election year in the city.

The current free-Sundays program, estimated to cost $1 million, is funded partly by the city through federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 money and partly by donors, including Amazon, nonprofit foundations, and individuals. 

Each museum also contributes, because the funds provided by the city don’t cover the full admission fee, said Carole Charnow, president and chief executive officer of Boston Children’s Museum.

“It’s great news that the Boston Public Schools’ Sundays program can be expanded to include all of the children of Boston, including Catholic schools, private schools, charter schools, and METCO,” Charnow told CNA by telephone Friday, referring to the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, which enables minority students to attend public schools in suburban towns. 

“And we are grateful to the mayor for her leadership in founding and developing this program, which brings all of the cultural riches of Boston to Boston schoolchildren, many of whom have not had the opportunity to visit before,” she said. 

Between Feb. 4 and Oct. 13 of this year, Charnow told CNA, 6,429 people visited Boston Children’s Museum through the city’s free public schools Sundays program, of whom 41% said they had never been to the museum before. 

She said Boston public schools contact every family in their own language every Friday before one of the free Sundays to invite them to participate. 

Other museums in the program are the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Franklin Park Zoo, the Museum of Science, the Institute of Contemporary Art, New England Aquarium, the Museum of African American History, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts. 

No Catholic school students at start 

Wu came under fire in some quarters earlier this year for limiting the free-museums program to public school students. 

Two members of the Boston City Council, Erin Murphy and Ed Flynn, introduced a resolution on Feb. 28 calling for the program to include “ALL Boston families, regardless of what school their children attend.” The resolution noted that there are “13,000 Boston children who attend charter schools, nearly 7,000 Boston children who attend parochial or private schools, more than 3,000 Boston children who attend METCO, and 273 Boston children are home-schooled.” 

“Let’s give them the same opportunity as every other family does. Why are they being penalized?” Flynn said during the city council meeting Feb. 28. 

There are more than 45,000 students in the Boston public schools, and Wu has argued that she needed to determine the cost of the free-admission program before considering expanding it to students who aren’t in the city’s school system. 

The mayor and all members of the Boston City Council are Democrats, but there are divisions. Wu and most of the city councilors are progressives, while Murphy and Flynn are often described as centrists. 

Flynn, son of former Boston mayor Ray Flynn, is widely seen as a possible challenger against Wu in the city’s September 2025 preliminary election for mayor. 

The mayor’s press office did not respond to a request for comment by deadline Friday. Neither did spokespersons for Flynn or Murphy. 

Catholics respond 

Eileen McLaughlin, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Boston, thanked the donors and the mayor for including students in Catholic schools in the free-museums program next year. 

“The Archdiocese of Boston Catholic Schools Office is excited to celebrate the success of the initial pilot program and grateful to all of the benefactors who made it possible for the expansion of the program to include students in Boston Catholic Schools and to Mayor Wu and her team for recognizing Boston’s museums as a learning space for our students and their families,” McLaughlin told CNA on Friday by email through a spokesperson. 

C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, praised city councilors Flynn and Murphy for what he called “their defense of the rights of Catholic school students in the city of Boston.” 

He called Wu’s decision this week to include students in Catholic schools and other students in the free-museums program “a belated but nonetheless appropriate redress of an initial injustice.” 

Doyle noted that a majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years have tended to grant religious freedom claims, as the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, reported in December 2022.

“At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has found that the denial of neutral public benefits to the students and parents of religious schools is unconstitutional, the Wu administration’s exclusion policy was, at best, tone-deaf, and almost certainly, unlawful. It would not have survived a court challenge,” Doyle said in a written statement.

The new version of the museums program is scheduled to run from January 2025 until December 2026. To participate, families need to fill out an online form to receive a program pass from the city.