Happy 100, Columbus Park School!

Columbus Park School is celebrating their 100th birthday this year!

We do have schools that still have corridors that look like this:

BUT—facility geek alert—the boilers aren't that old. These were MSBA approved for funning in 2013 and went in last summer. 

Vernon Hill School

Part of my periodic series of inside looks at WPS. As always, if you click the photo, it'll make it bigger.

I was over at Vernon Hill Elementary today, ahead of the impending blizzard. If you're a Worcester resident of any duration, you probably know this building, built in 1931, as Providence Street Junior High:

, 

The front entrance brings you straight through the lobby and hallway into the auditorium, where the stage is backed with a mural of the school:

(That's the new math materials in all those boxes!)

Here's what the room looks like from the front: 

 

Back out in the entryway, there are two murals. 

It says: "The intrepid Diggory Sargent. 

The mural on this wall shows the Indian attack upon the Diggory Sargent House-hold and the subsequen removal of his wife and children to Canada. This school now stands up what was once Diggory Sargent's land.

The attack on the Sargent family happened in the winter of 1703/04 during the second attempted English settlement of Worcester. Sargent had served as an English soldier durin King Philip's War and is said to have refused to leave Worcester even during the conflicts on the edge of English settlement. He was killed in the attack; his wife was killed shortly thereafter. The children were among those carried to Canada; some later returned in Massachusetts.

"The peaceful Indians of Packachoag on the opposite wall.
The more peaceful activities of the Indians are depicted.
John Eliot, Captain Daniel Gookin,  and Sagamore John are here shown in the of Nipmuck Indians atop Packachoag Hill where Holy Cross College now stands."

Eliot, known as "missionary to the Indians," who translated the Bible into Algonquian, shown with Daniel Gookin, Worcester County Sheriff, who was among those charged with founding Worcester, and Sagamore John (Horowaninit of Packachoag, who lead the Nipmucks in the area during early times of English settlement). 

"These mural paintings were made possible through the generosity of the Saint Wulfstan Society, the efforts of the Worcester Public School Art League, and the gifts of the graduating classes 1937B, 1938A and B, 1939A and B, and 1940A and B of the Providence Street Junior High School. Both murals were painted by Will S. Taylor, who attended the Worcester Public Schools before becoming on of the country's outstanding mural artists and a student of the lives and customs of the North American Indians."

The president is in town

Have I told you lately how amazing Donna Lombardi is?

...but don't take my word for it: here's Representative McGovern today on the floor of the House of Representatives:



Today Worcester Public School Nutrition Director Donna Lombardi received this year's Healthy Start Leadership Award from the EOS Foundation, for the great work she's been doing (and, I have it on good authority, is going to continue to push to do!) on getting breakfast into kids by having universal breakfast in the classroom. 

We also had 18 of our elementary schools recognized for having 80% or better participation rate for the past year on breakfast. All of our elementary schools in Worcester that have poverty rates of 60% or above have universal breakfast in the classroom. 

And it won't stop there!

Congratulations, Donna! Well deserved!

Signs of Worcester's industrial past

More unseen corners of the Worcester Public Schools...today: the Worcester East Middle School's boiler room.

When Worcester East Middle School was opened in 1923, Calvin Coolidge was in the White House, a first class postage stamp was two cents, and the newly opened Grafton Street Junior High School was heated with three massive boilers that burned coal.

Much of that has changed, but the boilers are still there, having been converted over their history first to oil, then to natural gas.

It is difficult to get the sheer size of these boilers. These photos were taken from a basement-level catwalk over them; the boilers themselves are a story and a half or so down further. Each is the size of a steam locomotive. They are massive.

The boilers were manufactured here in Worcester at Stewart Works (as you might be able to read on the doors, which say STEWART BOILER WORKS  WORCESTER, MASS  1923). The Worcester Historical Museum has a photo posted of workers shoveling coal into just such boilers. 

 Of Stewart Works, Ellery Bicknell Crane in Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, published in 1907 has this to say: 

THE STEWART BOILER WORKS of Worcester, well known throughout the New England states, and which stands high among the leading industries of the city of Worcester, sustaining a reputation for thorough workmanship and honorable dealing, has since September, 1888, been under the ownership of James C, John C. and Charles M. Stewart, sons of Charles Stewart, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, who learned his trade in England. Upon his arrival in Worcester, Massachusetts, Charles Stewart began manufacturing boilers for Bellows & Whitcomb, who were at that time engaged in building portable steam engines...In September, 1889, the works were moved to new shops at the present location, Albany street. The plant is extensive, covering a space of nearly two acres of land located a half mile east of the Union station, and on the line of the Boston & Albany Railroad, and easily accessible from all parts of the city of Worcester by means of the electric cars. The main building is sixty by three hundred and seventy feet, and there are a number of smaller buildings for various purposes, all admirably equipped with machinery, There is a spur track running alongside the works, and with a powerful electric hoisting crane gives excellent facilities for receiving and shipping goods. The firm manufactures locomotive, marine and tubular boilers, tanks for oil, water and general purposes, smoke stacks, penstocks, and heavy plate iron work of all kinds. They also attend to repairs of boilers in mills, etc. They employ on an average seventy-five men, many of whom have served at the works for a long period of time.

As the boilers burned coal (and large amounts of it), there were doors that have onto the street for coal delivery through a chute:

Up until recent years, there was still a "fireman" designation in the Worcester Public Schools custodians' contract, from the days when it was an additional custodial duty to keep these stoked with coal to heat the building.

These are among the projects for this summer, as the Mass School Building Authority has committed to funding 80% reimbursement on replacement. 

While the School Committee member part of me is relieved that we aren't trying to nurse these through another winter, with school plant welding things back together in a frigid building, and the utility costs these entail...the Worcester history buff is a little sad to see them go. 

Today at Claremont Academy

Governor Patrick announcing a $75,000 innovation planning grant for Claremont Academy this morning:

WPS Annual Arts Festival

"A huge thank you to...the great citizens of Worcester, Massachusetts who believe in a quality arts education for all out students!"

Inauguration 2014

And when we say "Open to the public," we mean it! Please come.

Decking the halls

Or, in this case, the Durkin Administration Building...

With thanks to Jim Bedard and the Facilities crew for making us festive!

A little late on my Halloween post

h/t the MTA twitter feed for the image

To cheer your Thursday...

...go look at the photos by Steven King of the Union Hill second graders visiting the Worcester Senior Center for a lesson on Johnny Appleseed and apple pie!

Facing south

Another for the views you may not have seen: here's the view from the fourth floor of the Durkin Adminstration Building, facing south.

That's Holy Cross on the hill in the distance.

They said to follow the directions

And in this week of standardized testing, I leave you with this, courtesy of 22 Words (who got it from Reddit).

Southwick on Worcester Classical and English High School

...when Worcester took the revolutionary step of making high school co-ed:

The Latin Grammar School, where John Adams once taught, had always been exclusively for boys. Worcester girls who aspired to higher education were given special classes in the Centre District School near Lincoln Square, and that school has sometimes been noted as the first public high school for girls in Massachusetts. There were also a number of private female seminaries available in the area, such as the well-known Mulberry Grove Boarding School in Leicester, run by sisters Eliza and Sarah Earle. Eli Thayer’s Oread Institute for female higher education opened later on Castle Street. But coeducation at the high school level was a novel idea in 1844, and the debate apparently became animated at times. 

Mr. Southwick goes on to cite the influence of Dr. Woodward, who more or less settled the issue by letting it be known he was in favor. Before he did, however, one of the "town fathers" (in a story I found in the Worcester Historical Museum files; not, alas, online!) said that he doubted the gentling influence of girls on the boys: when he had last passed the girls' school, he had been pelted by students with snowballs!
The second building for Worcester High School, built, as Mr. Southwick relates, on Walnut Street after the old building was outgrown, was a Victorian masterpiece. Designed by H.H. Richardson, and built by the Norcross Brothers, it had a central clock tower and was a city landmark until, after years of poor funding for maintenance, it was knocked down in 1966 for the building of then Paul Revere Insurance Company's new building. Of it, the New England Home Journal of 1883 said:

It stands as the stimulus of many hundreds of our youth in all the lower schools...

That's Worcester Classical and English High School (eventually Commerce) on the left and English High School (eventually Classical; now the Durkin Administration Building) on the right.

We opened a new library today...

at Elm Park Community School!

Should you wish the photo

Here's the final page of the calculations from DESE on Worcester's Net School Spending.

Norrback Ave library

Another in the occasional series of photos of places you may not have seen in the Worcester Public Schools.

Here are the constellations on the ceiling of the library at Norrback Avenue Elementary School.

Yes, the starts really light up! It's really a lovely room, and I will post more photos of it soon!

Chicago strike sign of the day

And, after the jump, a weekend video bonus:

This sign is pretty great, too

Admittedly, from the Labor Day march:


From the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign Facebook page

The clock is ticking in Chicago

With the picket lines scheduled to form in Chicago at 6:30 am tomorrow, negotiations are continuing tonight. The Chicago Teachers Union blog is reporting that there will be a press conference at 10 pm (which you can watch live here; remember, times are Central)..
And (via Facebook), no, they aren't bluffing:



Daily Kos has a report from strike headquarters from earlier this weekend.