[1] In 1709, on its own initiative, the city of Boston opted to, "nominate and appoint a certain number of gentlemen, of liberal education, together with some of the Reverend Ministers of the Town to be Inspectors of the School."
[1] In 1851, the committee appointed the city's first school superintendent, a position that lacked significant executive power.
[1] In 1905, the School Committee was decreased to five members, each elected in staggered years to four-year terms.
In 1924, the City Charter was amended to enshrine that the school board would only have five members.After a referendum was passed by Boston voters 1949, the committee's members' terms were decreased beginning in 1952 to two years in length, with the members being elected at-large.
[1] In 1981, the city's voters passed a referendum expanding the Committee to thirteen members, with nine representing electoral districts and four being at-large.
Terms remained two-years in length[1] In 1989, Boston voters were presented with a non-binding ballot question on whether the city should adopt a mayoral appointed Committee form which would see the committee be shrunk to seven-members, all of whom would be named by the mayor from a list of Boston residents put form by a nominating panel, with their appointments subject to City Council confirmation.
Despite having advocated for this change, as Mayor Flynn was preparing to leave office in 1993, he questioned whether the change had been a good decision, conceding that it had disenfranchised the input of voters in shaping the school board, and had upset many communities of color in the city.
[6] In July 1993, Flynn remarked, Let me acknowledge that taking the right to vote away from people is not a pleasant thing for me.