Boston Urban Educator of the Year Awards $10,000 Green-Garner Scholarship

  • Last year at the Council of the Great City Schools’ 67th Fall Conference in San Diego, Boston school board member Michael O’Neill was selected as the winner of the Green-Garner Award, presented to the nation’s top urban school board member. Sponsored by Scholastic, the award came with a $10,000 college scholarship to be given to a student graduating from Boston Public Schools in 2024.

    Six students were selected as finalists for the scholarship and the winner was announced at last month’s Boston School Committee meeting.

    Julie Cyprien, a student at East Boston High School, was named the winner of the $10,000 scholarship. Cyprien, who took dual-enrollment courses at Bunker Hill Community College, participated in a criminal justice track at her school, which has guided her career interest. 

    In the fall, she will attend Salem State University, and after graduation, she plans to obtain a law degree at Suffolk University Law School.

    "My dream is to one day become a judge,” said Cyprien in an interview with WCVB-TV. “Go to law school, be a lawyer and then I would like to be on the Supreme Court.”

    However, Cyprien wasn’t the only student at the school board meeting who received good news. The five students who competed for the scholarship against Cyprien also had reason to celebrate.

    As a result of an anonymous donation of $50,000, it was announced that each of the students would receive their own $10,000 scholarship.

    In an email to the Urban Educator, O’Neill wrote that receiving the Green-Garner award in front of his peers was memorable, but it was even more memorable, as a recipient, to be given the opportunity to award the Green-Garner Scholarship to a deserving graduate senior.

    He was also touched by the generosity of the unnamed benefactor whose anonymous donation made it possible to award an additional five $10,000 scholarships.

    “Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it best ‘Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world,’” O’Neill noted. “With the opportunity to award these six scholarships, we were able to do a little bit of good where we are, and we look forward to following and supporting these deserving youth as they continue in their path to improve their families and communities in the future.”