Boston (Mass.). School Committee. Secretary

The Boston Public School system dates from 1647 and is the oldest public school system in the U.S.; in 1798 the School Committee (formed 1710) denied a group of black parents their request to establish separate schools for their children due to the unequal treatment they received; in 1812 it voted to support separate schools for blacks and by 1830 a completely separate educational system was functioning. In 1850 the doctrine of separate but equal facilities for different races was established in the Roberts vs. the City of Boston case; although after 1954 the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling deemed "separate but equal" unconstitutional, segregated school facilities still existed in Boston. In 1972 black parents filed suit against the School Committee for deliberately maintaining a segregated school system and in 1974 Judge W. Arthur Garrity in the Federal District Court of Boston, in Tallulah Morgan vs. James Hennigan, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the School Committee to eleminate the segregated school system it had maintained, by achieving racial equality through court-ordered busing (which resulted in rioting and racial turmoil).

The Secretary of the School Committee (SC) provides administrative and executive secretarial support to the SC, supervising the preparation and distribution of papers and agendas, preparing summaries of meetings, transmitting copies of votes and resolutions to the school superintendent, maintaining files and policy manuals, issuing permits, maintaing electronic data files, and many other duties as determined by the SC. Edward J. Winter was secretary of the SC from 1963 to 1987 with a career spanning many social and political changes in the world, the U.S., and city of Boston.