The Madison Park Technical Vocational High School campus's redevelopment process received kudos earlier this week for moving forward but loud jeers for the methods used to inform and perform the meeting.

A kick-off meeting on Monday, Oct. 17, was the second gathering on the topic in the last month. After 90 minutes in the virtual meeting, which drew two members of the City Council, Wu administration officials agreed better outreach was needed.

“I have asked 1,000 questions to the host and none were answered,” said Roxbury Councillor Tania Fernandes Anderson. “I’ve had my hand raised for 40 minutes and been ignored and passed over. I’ve never seen a community meeting like this…If this gets to the funding stage it will have to come before the Council Ways and Means Committee, and I’m the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, and you will not even call on me to ask questions. This is an outrage.”

Councillor At-Large Julia Mejia also questioned the outreach, as did members of the Friends of Madison Park and the Madison Park Alumni Association. Meanwhile, parents and staff at Madison Park and the abutting John D. O’Bryant High School received multiple emails and robo-calls about the meeting.

“This process needs to start again from the beginning,” said Louis Elisa of the Friends of Madison Park. “You’re not on solid ground.”

Dion Irish, Mayor Michelle Wu’s chief of operations, and Boston Public Schools (BPS) officials indicated there was no “ill intention” and they would be glad to reconsider the format, to have in-person meetings and to do better with outreach.

“We’re happy to do as much engagement as anyone thinks is necessary,” he said in response to the criticism. “We’re happy to do more of this and we recognize this isn’t the best format for everyone, but we learn and we grow together.”

A first kick-off meeting two weeks ago drew only 15 people, and so the kick-off effort was given a second chance on Oct. 17. Many felt the effort was yet-another failure despite attracting more than 230 participants.

The meetings are aimed at starting the $500,000 visioning study, which includes four workshops planned for Oct. 26, Nov. 10, Nov. 29, and Dec. 13. The study looks to involve parents, staff, community members and other stakeholders to come up with ideas for what the new facility should focus on educationally and programmatically.

Importantly, no current students at Madison Park would still be attending the school by the time it is built, according to a construction timeline that looks at least six years into the future before any building project is completed.

Jason Bowers of AnnBeha Architects and David Stephen of New Vista, an educational facilities consultant, were hired by BPS and the city’s Public Facilities Department (PFD) to run the visioning study.

“The reason we’re moving with the study is to begin to understand the needs of the school…and what renovations will make it a better environment for the students,” said PFD architect Pedro Hernandez.

Already, architects and consultants have been surveying and studying all seven buildings on the campus, which total one million square feet and include Madison, the O’Bryant High School, an adult education building and a re-entry program.

“Madison Park has gone through many, many, many changes,” said Linal Wood, a 1983 graduate and officer in the Madison Park Alumni Association. “To see something like this to change the environment for Madison Park and our community is a good thing. We need this to change and get everybody past the arguing and bickering and stop that because our community needs solid ground to land on.”

The loudest voices from the parental and staff perspective came from the O’Bryant School. The grade 7-12 school has approximately 1,600 students and shares the campus with Madison Park. But parents and staff said that even though the study is also looking at O’Bryant’s facilities, the school community felt left out of construction plans despite similarly deteriorating conditions.

“We’re right next door and our classrooms are crowded,” said a parent who identified as Ms. May. “We’re an engineering school and we don’t even have engineering tools for the students to use…It’s really about the students and parents and faculty that work in these buildings.”

O’Bryant math teacher Nefertiti Lawrence, a Roxbury resident and active member of the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan group, said it isn’t right to ignore the O’Bryant while talking about Madison Park.

“There needs to be some equity there,” she said. “The design should also include and cater to our school as well as Madison. I keep hearing a Madison Park project and not a Madison/O’Bryant project. That’s something I’m really concerned about.”

In response to that comment and others like it, Drew Echelson, BPS deputy superintendent, wrote in the meeting’s chat that they are looking at the whole campus but focusing on Madison Park.

“Step One in the feasibility study is to work in collaboration with the community to determine the education plan which will be used to drive design and feasibility decisions,” he wrote.

Those who would like to join in the working groups and the planning process more intently should email Carolyn Meadows Marquez by Oct. 21 at Capitalplanning@bostonpublicschools.org.