BPS Family Days

At the 2024 State of the City Address, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced the launch of BPS Sundays, a new public/private partnership between the City of Boston and several cultural institutions. The program, which would be launched in February of that year, would provide free access for Boston Public School families to Boston Children’s Museum, Franklin Park Zoo, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Science, and the New England Aquarium on the first two Sundays of every month.

For Boston Children’s Museum, BPS Sundays built upon its many existing access programs, while also creating a common free-access experience managed by the City. The groundbreaking initiative invited students and families to play, enjoy, discover, and learn at these vital cultural institutions. Over 60,000 students and their families took advantage of this opportunity in its first year across all of the organizations, with 7,500 individuals visiting Boston Children’s Museum in its first year of BPS Sundays.

Over time, the Museum and its fellow institutions were excited to extend this pilot program by including additional museums, and expanding to serve all of Boston’s school children, inviting them to engage with the full range of Boston’s premier museums and adding performing arts organizations such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Ballet, and the Huntington Theatre Company. This was an important step toward opening Boston’s vibrant cultural world to all students and their families who live in Boston, from grades Pre-K to 12. This so called “Boston Birthright” ensures that all Boston’s children feel welcome and at-home at all of Boston’s world-class cultural spaces.

Boston Children’s Museum is proud to have collaborated with Mayor Wu in pilot-testing and expanding BPS Family Days, much to the delight of our enthusiastic visitors!