Boston Public Schools academic superintendent Linda Cabral explains the reasoning behind a new facilities proposal during a school committee meeting on Monday. Photo by Pat Tarantino

A months-long campaign to fight a Boston Public Schools plan to relocate Boston Latin Academy ended in victory for parents and students this week as BPS superintendent Dr. Carol Johnson formally announced a revised facilities proposal Monday night during a packed meeting of the Boston School Committee. The new plan will keep the exam school’s 1,700-student body at it’s current location on Townsend Street, while shifting seven other city schools to new locations for the 2012-2013 academic year.

The initial proposal to relocate BLA to a Hyde Park building was fiercely challenged by BLA parents, teachers, students, and alumni, who organized two demonstrations on school grounds and voiced their concerns at numerous School Committee meetings during the five-month campaign.

Johnson’s new proposal would shift seven schools with the longest waiting lists in the district into new locations, including the Hyde Park Education Complex, as a way to offer approximately 730 more students access to the affected programs. These schools include Another Course to College, the Boston Community Leadership Academy, the New Mission High School, the Mission Hill K – 8, Boston Arts Academy, the Fenway School, and the Kennedy Health Careers Academy.

During the School Committee meeting, Johnson also announced three K – 5 programs, including the Lee School in Dorchester, would undergo a three-year transformation into K – 8 programs in response to parent’s requests for added continuity in their children’s middle school curriculum.

Johnson said the schools would not see an overall increase in the size of their student bodies, instead adding additional years as students complete the fifth grade while contracting the number of students accepted into each program’s Kindergarten class.

The revised plan was an indicator of her department’s willingness to consider community response, Johnson said, but she stood by her support of the original proposal, which would have brought the Boston Arts Academy into the BLA location and relocate BLA students to the currently unused Hyde Park Education Complex.

The Arts Academy currently shares space with the Fenway School in the Back Bay and is now set to expand into the entire school, while the Fenway will move to a new location on Mission Hill.

“I want to emphasize that that proposal was based on wanting to expand access to excellence, that proposal would certainly have expanded student access to the BAA and the Fenway,” Johnson said during an interview following the committee meeting. “We didn’t have as much community support as we might have wanted [of the plan.] Part of the work we do is present a proposal and when we say we’re going to look at that proposal and consider feedback, we mean it.”

State Representative and BLA Alumnus Carlos Henriquez spoke out against the original proposal on several occasions and said he was pleased with the decision to let the BLA maintain it’s current location, crediting the BLA community for its activism. Henriquez also gave Johnson credit for taking their concerns into account, but said future conflicts could be avoided if families had a larger say in the development of proposals.

“[Johnson] has been very good about involving the community, but I wish there was more input from the community before proposals are presented as a way to make the process less adversarial,” Henriquez said. “If there was more of a visioning process, I think that would save her some stress when she has to make those difficult decisions.”

While the new relocation proposal has been met with a mixed reception by families from the seven schools involved in the move, members of the BLA community are relieved to be off the slate and are considering using their newfound momentum to organize a private fund for capital improvements that they say could make them less dependant on BPS for future projects.

BLA mother Irene Rotondo stands by her belief that the Hyde Park location was ill-suited for her son’s school, but said the BLA campaign could prove to be a useful example for parents unhappy with the newest proposal.

“I think it was the simple fact that we did not stop standing up until we were told to stand down, when we were told by BPS that we would be happy with the new proposal.”