Boston Latin School

Boston Latin School
motto	Sumus Primi
founding	April 23, 1635
Sponsorship	public
place	Boston
Headmaster	Lynne Mooney-Teta
Students	2383
Employee	139
Annual budget	$ 10 million
Website	www.bls.org

Plaque on School Street in memory of the first school building (2008)

Schoolhouse Auditorium on Bedford Street (1844–1881)

The Boston Latin School is a public magnet school in Boston in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . It was founded on April 23, 1635, making it both the first public high school and the oldest surviving school in the United States as a whole. The Public Latin School was a bastion for teaching the sons of the Brahmins of Boston , which enables the school to boast of teaching a wide variety of prominent Boston citizens. The lesson plans follow the curriculum of the Latin schools of the 18th century, which view classical studies as the basis of an educated mind. Four years of Latin tuition are compulsory for all students entering the school as the 7th grade , three years for all 9th grades .

In 2007, the school was ranked in the top 20 US high schools in the US News & World Report . For 2012, the school is ranked 38th in the list of gold medals in the top 100 high schools in the United States. A total of 21,000 public high schools from 48 states and the District of Columbia were examined by the US News & World Report for the study. The school building is part of the Freedom Trail .

history

At the beginning the school had very few students, today it attracts around 2,400 students from all over Boston. From the Boston Latin School four presidents of the stem Harvard University , four governors of Massachusetts and five signers of the Declaration of Independence of the United States . Benjamin Franklin and Louis Farrakhan are among the school's most famous dropouts .

The school was modeled on the Boston Grammar School in Lincolnshire , England , which many of the original settlers in Boston attended. Today's students say with pride that Harvard College, founded in 1636, a year later, was built for the first graduates of the Boston Latin School . Be it true or false, many former students from the Boston Latin School have always gone to Harvard as students, most recently about 25 per year. Over 99% of the approximately 300 annual school leavers are accepted into at least one college .

Since it was founded in 1635, the BLS has only admitted male students and only hired male teachers. The first student was accepted in the 19th century. Helen Magill White was the first woman to graduate from the school, and later the first woman in the United States to earn a doctorate . Shortly after graduating from high school in 1877, the Boston Latin Academy was founded and only accepted girls. For a good century, all qualified students attended this school. It was not until 1972 that the first mixed class was established at the BLS .

Before the first female students were accepted, there were already female teachers at the BLS. In 1967 Marie Frisardi and Juanita Ponte were hired as the first female teachers.

The first headmistress Cornelia Kelley was in office from 1998 until her retirement in 2007. As her successor, Lynne Mooney Teta was chosen , who thus occupies number 28 in the order of the headmasters. She graduated from BLS in 1986 and was previously deputy headmistress.

Locations

photo	place	Coordinates (links to maps & photos)	swell
	The first building of the Boston Latin School , circa 1635.	42 ° 22 '4.1 "  N , 71 ° 3' 35.6"  W.
	The first school building on South School Street , 1748–1810.
	Second school building on South School Street , 1812–1844.	42 ° 21 '27.5 "  N , 71 ° 3' 34.8"  W.
	The School Building on Bedford Street , 1844–1881.	42 ° 21 '13.8 "  N , 71 ° 3' 39.8"  W.
	The Warren Avenue School Building , 1881–1922.	42 ° 20 ′ 39 "  N , 71 ° 4 ′ 24.2"  W.
	The school building on Avenue Louis Pasteur , 1922 – present.	42 ° 20 '16.9 "  N , 71 ° 6' 7.3"  W.

 Map with all coordinates of the Locations section : OSM

Science & teaching

The motto of the Boston Latin School is "Sumus Primi" ( lat. For "We The first are"). This statement relates ambiguously both to the year the school was founded and to its academic structure. Since its inception, the school has followed the same standards as elite private New England preparatory schools for college or university , but with the same egalitarian attitude as public schools. From an academic perspective, the school surpasses regular public schools in wealthy Boston suburbs, which in particular within the prescribed for all public schools in Massachusetts annual MCAS - assessment is measured. The Brooklyn Latin School was founded in New York City in 2006 and was explicitly modeled on the Boston Latin School . In the course of this, many traditions and a large part of the curricula were adopted.

Approvals

Whether or not a new student is accepted is decided on the basis of a combination of the number of points achieved in the Independent School Entrance Examination (ISEE) and current grades. In addition, only Boston residents can attend school. Although the school caters for grades 7 to 12, it only accepts new students at grades 7 and 9. As a result, the higher grades sometimes have significantly fewer students than the lower grades, as a relatively large number changes schools in the meantime. The school has traditionally been said to have a swim or dive mentality, but significant efforts have been made in recent years to create a more supportive atmosphere.

The Boston Latin School's restrictive admission process is controversial because it is a prestigious , highly effective and efficient school in an urban school system that is one of the worst in the state. The admissions are very competitive and it is not uncommon for less than 20% of applicants to be accepted. By the 1997 school year, the Boston Latin School reserved 35% of the available places for underrepresented minorities, which were also allocated when the performance was actually insufficient. However, the school was forced to abandon the practice after losing a series of lawsuits in which non-minority girls sued despite having better grades than admitted minority girls.

As a result, the school defended itself legally against the demand that the admission procedure be completely discontinued and that the available places be raffled regardless of criteria. Since 1997, the Boston Latin School's minority population has fallen from 35% to below 19% in 2005, although the school, along with other Boston public schools and the Boston Latin School Association, made great efforts to welcome and enroll more minority students to keep the school. Some are calling for a quota on the number of students to be admitted from Boston public middle schools .

Curricula

Main entrance to the school building on Avenue Louis Pasteur (2007)

The most time-honored of all the traditions at the Boston Latin School is declamation . Grade 7-10 students are required to deliver a speech three times per school year in their English class. There is also a public declamation where students of all ages and from all courses recite a memorized speech to a larger audience. During the lecture, they will be assessed on various characteristics, including memory, presentation, language, and expressiveness. The top-rated speakers in three of the first four public declamations will have the opportunity to speak to a jury made up of alumni and receive special awards.

In addition to this long-standing tradition, the school's modern language department recently launched an annual competition called “World Language Declamation”. During National Foreign Language Week (usually the first week of March), Grade 8 to 12 students will give speeches in languages ​​other than English. Most of them choose the language they are learning, and some speak in Latin , Greek or their mother tongue . The judges are invited from various institutions all over the city and evaluate the students in categories comparable to the public declamation. The speakers are categorized according to their learning progress and not according to the selected language, so that only students with a comparable level of knowledge compete against each other. Schoolchildren who regularly excel in this competition will be awarded the Celia Gordon Malkiel Prize in the “Night of Prizes” .

With a controversial decision among some alumni, the school decided in 2001 to shorten the duration of compulsory Latin lessons by one year starting with the 2006 school year. This reduced the minimum required duration of instruction for the 7th grade from five to four and for the 9th grade from four to three years. This decision was made by the chairman of the Latin Language Department, recognizing that the requirements that had been in force until then were preventing students from taking sufficient courses in major subjects such as physics , chemistry , computer science and modern languages . Nonetheless, students are free to continue Latin at school through their sixth year, and many take this opportunity, particularly to maximize the number of their AP courses.

In a codicil in 1789 , Benjamin Franklin left a legacy for the Endowment of the Franklin Medals , which are awarded to the best students upon graduation. The Dixwell Prize comes directly after the Franklin Medals in terms of prestige and is awarded as an award for outstanding performance in Latin or Greek.

Publications

The Boston Latin School's two main publications are the literary magazine The Register and the school newspaper The Argo . The Register was founded in 1881 by George Santayana as a school newspaper, but over the years it has developed into a purely literary magazine. It publishes prose and poetry written by the students as well as works of art . The magazine appears twice a year and is usually looked after by two editors-in-chief. The school newspaper The Argo is much younger and was only founded after the register was converted in March 1969. As of the 2006/2007 school year, the newspaper appeared seven times a year. Both the register and the argo are produced exclusively by students. Both publications have already won awards from the New England Scholastic Press Association .

The BLSA Bulletin published by the Boston Latin School Association is also published.

Sports

The Boston Latin School sports teams call themselves the Boston Latin Wolfpack with the jersey colors purple and white. In American football , the school's team has competed against constant rivals from the English High School of Boston every Thanksgiving since 1887 . This ongoing competition between the two schools is the oldest in all of the United States.

Both the school's female and male hockey and volleyball teams have been very good since its inception, but have won few titles, particularly after the school dropped out of the Boston Public Schools League . The girls 'teams in football , hockey and tennis and the boys' team in hockey are among the few title winners .

Extracurricular activities

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The BLS YouthCAN

The existing since 2006 BLS YouthCAN is the B oston L atin S chool Youth C limate A ction N etwork group , which has now formed more than 15 other groups. YouthCAN last worked in 2010 to acquire sufficient funds for a green roof , which can provide the schools in the area with interactive classrooms - the study objects are always not far away. An important event of the groups is the Climate Change Summit , which takes place annually in May . So far, YouthCAN has raised several thousand dollars for the green roof and has garnered the attention of local Boston politicians and Al Gore supporters .

BLSTV

BLSTV is the school's own television station that has been on the air since 2003. Every day updates are made to all members of the school through this channel. The station is operated entirely by students of all ages. The transmitter is also responsible for recording school celebrations and events.

The Boston Latin Theater Company

The school's theater group produces three to four plays each school year, including a spring musical . The school traditionally performs a one- act play as part of the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild (MHSDG) festival . Kid Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh , performed in 2007 , made it to the semi-finals of the festival and won numerous awards for acting , lighting design and sound design . In 2004 a student received an award for directing the play Dimly Perceived Threats to the System .

Other contributions by the theater group to the festival included The Moonlight Room (Tristine Skyler, 2006), Reckless ( Craig Lucas , 2005), The Dining Room (AR Gurney, 2003), TV ( Jean-Claude van Itallie , 2002), Interview (Jean- Claude van Itallie, 2001), Adaptation ( Elaine May , 2000), WASP ( Steve Martin , 1999), Black Comedy ( Peter Shaffer , 1998) and The Romancers (Peter Shaffer, 1997).

In the winter of 2008 the group produced Tilt Angel , which made it to the finals of the MHSDG festival for the first time since 2004. It won a variety of awards for individual and group performance in acting, sound, makeup and lighting design. It was also selected as one of two plays performed from Massachusetts at the New England Drama Festival 2008, which no play at the school had made before.

In spring 2008 the musical The Secret Garden was produced, in 2009 the piece Dark Play or Stories for Boys . Former members of the theater group are now studying at secondary schools Harvard College and Emerson College and at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University , the Northwestern University , at Boston College , the Boston University and the School of Theater at the University of Southern California .

The Boston Latin School also has its own improvisational theater group called the Yellow Submarine Improv Troupe , which is known for recording anyone interested without a prior hearing.

The Junior Classical League

Since 2000, the Boston Latin School has been actively participating in the National Junior Classical League , founded in 1936, at local, regional and national level , thus cultivating the tradition of in-depth academic engagement with classical studies in connection with creative forms of expression in the visual and creative arts .

The school regularly hosts quiz bowl competitions on the subject in late November or early December , and school officials participate in similar competitions at the state level in April and across the United States in July-August. In recent years, the JCL at the Boston Latin School has grown significantly, so that the school often represents the State of Massachusetts in competitions at the national level.

Sham processes

The Boston Latin School has been participating in the Mock Trial Program since the Massachusetts Bar Association established the Mock Trial Program in 1987. The team has since won the Massachusetts Championship twice (1987 and 2006). In 2006 it was ranked 24th in the US championship. Every year the group receives a new mock trial and prepares appropriate papers for opening arguments, evidence, cross-examination and closing arguments on the side of the prosecution as well as the defense. Then regional competitions are held to advance into the championship series.

music

The Boston Latin School maintains a lavish range of courses on the subject of music . There are numerous elective courses such as brass music , choirs and string orchestras , but participation in these courses does not count towards school grades. There are a cappella groups, a show choir, a gospel and a chamber choir . The instrumental offerings include the Football Pep Band , a big band and junior big band , a flute ensemble and an orchestra . In addition to these extracurricular opportunities, there are also fully academic music courses that are counted towards school grades, such as an introduction to music theory and advanced placement courses.

The a cappella groups Wolftones and Wolfettes are the only music groups that are entirely student-run. Both organize an annual concert entitled STAND in Harmony , the proceeds of which go entirely to STAND, an anti- genocide group at the school.

The gospel choir was very popular in the 1990s, but lost many members due to a lack of leadership and a lack of interest. He was revived in the 2010/2011 school year.

Every year, all music groups demonstrate their skills at holiday concerts (mid-December) and music nights (in spring) at the school.

In addition, the Boston Latin School music groups participate in the Massachusetts Instrumental & Choral Conductors Association Festival every April . In 2006 the string orchestra won the gold medal there for the second time in a row, while the Senior Concert Band and the Concert Choir achieved bronze ranks. 2007 won Senior - strings gold and the Wind Ensemble silver. The Boston Latin Big Band made it to the finals of the International Association for Jazz Education competitions for six years in a row , winning gold in 2007. In addition, the band once took first place in the High School Jazz Festival at Berklee College of Music .

The NUTRONS Robotics Team

The NUTRONS Robotics Team was founded in 1998 in collaboration with Northeastern University and participates in competitions in the design and construction of robots worldwide . For this purpose, six weeks are available to develop robots that compete against the robots of other teams in a specific task. In 2001 the NUTRONS won the National Championships with students from the Boston Latin School. In 2007 the team won the Boston Regional Championships. In 2008 and 2009 the team received the Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award .

Fine arts

The visual arts are still a very important part of the workload at the Boston Latin School, even though they don't have as extensive funding as the music field. Grade 7 and 8 students are expected to take regular basic arts courses as an introduction to the visual arts. Older students have the option of taking art as an elective. These include a normal course to teach the basics and an extensive, two-year Advanced Placement course (AP course) that prepares students for secondary art schools and supports them in creating portfolios .

The school has three large 2D studios, a kiln , a computer lab and a photo lab available to students in the art program , although there are currently no photography courses. Analogous to the music nights, there is also a night of the arts, which is dedicated to the works created in the AP courses.

The Wolfpack Volunteers

The Wolfpack Volunteers were founded in 2004 as a voluntary organization and introduce the students to voluntary activities. The organization offers its members the opportunity to volunteer in various places in the Boston area and encourages them to get involved in events in the neighborhood. Through alumni tours around the school premises and the organization of college fairs, the students gain valuable experience in leading others as well as in structuring and communication through working together in a team.

further activities

There are also many other extracurricular activities such as B. the Red Cross Club, the BLS Recycling Committee , a writing club, a pottery group , the Invisible Children Club , a Dungeons & Dragons Club, a Gay-Straight Alliance , the BLS Wolfpack Spirit Club , a Ski Club and the Model United Nations Club .

In pop culture

• In the episode Six Meetings Before Lunch of the first season of The West Wing , Sam Seaborn, played by Rob Lowe , mentions the Boston Latin School in a discussion of public school reforms and school vouchers. He said, "Boston Latin, the oldest public school in America, is still the best secondary school in New England." Mallory O'Brien replied, "It can't all be Boston Latin or Bronx Science ."
• On January 8, 2002, then- US President George W. Bush attended the Boston Latin School after signing the No Child Left Behind Act .
• In episode 12 of the first season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip , Matt Albie , played by Matthew Perry , mentions that his nephew received a 3.8 grade from Boston Latin .
• In the 2008/2009 school year, former US Vice President Al Gore visited the school and praised the students for their commitment to raising public awareness of environmentally sound behavior.

Alumni

At the Boston Latin School many famous American personalities have a degree in politics , religion , science , journalism , philosophy and music made. Of the 56 signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence , five had visited the BLS: Adams, Franklin, Hancock, Hooper, and Paine. Graduates and students of the BLS fought in the Revolutionary War , the Civil War , the First and Second World War and the Vietnam War . Plaques and statues in the school building commemorate the fallen.

Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame , usually just called The Wall , refers to the upper frieze in the school auditorium , where the surnames of well-known graduates are painted. These include Samuel Adams , Leonard Bernstein , John F. Fitzgerald , Benjamin Franklin , John Hancock , William Hooper , Joseph P. Kennedy , Cotton Mather , Robert Treat Paine , Josiah Quincy II , George Santayana , John Winthrop and many others. Most recently, the name of Wade H. McCree was added in 1999, with the fact that it was black causing a positive stir. So far there are no women among those named, as they have only been admitted to the school for 34 years and admission to the Hall of Fame is exclusively posthumous . At the moment there is only room for one more name, which the school management uses to encourage new students to perform well. There is also a lower frieze on which the names of many other graduates are named. The places there are also already allocated during lifetime.

The Alumni Association (BLSA)

The school has benefited greatly in the past from the work of the BLSA, a private charity whose primary goal is to engage and fundraise from former students. Most recently, the large-scale Pons Privatus ( Private Bridge ) donation campaign was completed, collecting US $ 34 million in cash from alumni and additional planned donations in kind worth US $ 20 million. This made it the largest fundraising campaign in the history of publicly funded schools. The donations will be used in addition to the $ 10 million the school receives annually for its expenses to fund teachers' salaries and maintenance work.

literature

• Henry Fitch Jenks: Catalog of the Boston Public Latin School, Established in 1635 . With an Historical Sketch. Boston Latin School Association, Boston 1886 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

Commons : Boston Latin School (Boston, Massachusetts)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

 Map with all coordinates of the Locations section : OSM

• Official website of the Boston Latin School
• Boston Latin School Association website
• Boston Latin School Arts website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ABOUT BLS. History (375 Years). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 13, 2009 ; accessed on November 25, 2011 (English). 
2. ^ Boston Latin School. In: Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved November 25, 2011 . 
3. ^ First Public School Site and Ben Franklin Statue. In: City of Boston.gov. Retrieved November 25, 2011 . 
4. ^ Boston Latin School. In: NNDB . Retrieved November 25, 2011 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Best High Schools. In: US News & World Report. Retrieved November 25, 2011 . 
6. ^ Eddy Ramírez: The First-Class State. Two examples of how Massachusetts gets it right. In: US News & World Report. November 29, 2007, accessed November 25, 2011 . 
7. ↑ Benjamin Franklin. In: Exodus Books. Retrieved November 25, 2011 . 
8. ↑ John B. Judis: Maximum Leader. In: The New York Times . August 18, 1996, accessed November 25, 2011 . 
9. ^ Marie Frisardi Cleary: The Halls Of Boston Latin School. In: The New York Times. May 19, 1985, accessed November 25, 2011 (letter to the editor). 
10. ↑ Amanda Bergeron: Juanita Ponte, 62; taught at Boston Latin. In: Globe Correspondent. July 21, 2007, accessed November 25, 2011 . 
11. ^ Tracy Jan: Boston Latin headmaster to retire. (No longer available online.) In: The Boston Globe City & Region Desk. February 16, 2007, archived from the original on February 21, 2007 ; accessed on November 25, 2011 (English). 
12. ^ Mayor issues heat alert for residents. In: The Boston Globe. June 26, 2007, Retrieved November 25, 2011 (English, paid article). 
13. ↑ Coordinates estimated from: George Lamb: Plan of Boston showing existing ways and owners on December 25, 1635. In: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library. Retrieved November 25, 2011 .  and George Lamb: Plan of Boston showing existing ways and owners on December 25, 1645. In: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library. Retrieved November 25, 2011 . 
14. ^ Henry Schenck Tanner: The American traveler . 8th ed. Philadelphia, New York 1842, OCLC 38640826 .
15. ↑ Coordinates estimated from: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Historical Maps of the United States. In: University of Texas Libraries. Retrieved November 25, 2011 . 
16. ^ Henry Fitch Jenks: Catalog of the Boston Public Latin School, established in 1635 . Ed .: Boston Latin School Association. Boston Latin School Association, Boston 1886, OCLC 697645423 , p. 94-95 .
17. ^ Coordinates estimated from: Map of Boston, 1865. In: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library. L. Prang & Co., accessed November 25, 2011 . 
18. ↑ Coordinates estimated from: Henry Fitch Jenks: Catalog of the Boston Public Latin School, established in 1635 . Ed .: Boston Latin School Association. Boston Latin School Association, Boston 1886, OCLC 697645423 , p. 75 .
19. ↑ John Powers: SCHOLA LATINA bostoniensis CCCL ANNOS NATA; (BOSTON LATIN AT 350). In: The Boston Globe . April 21, 1985, p. 12 ff. , Accessed on November 25, 2011 (English, chargeable article). 
20. ↑ Tracy Jan: Growing a Boston Latin in Brooklyn. New York academy seeks to replicate famed school. In: The Boston Globe. March 4, 2006, accessed November 27, 2011 . 
21. ↑ About BLS. (PDF) Admission FAQs. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 29, 2008 ; accessed on November 27, 2011 (English). 
22. ↑ The Boston Latin School Admission Court Ruling ( Wikisource )
23. ^ Atila Abdulkadiroğlu, Parag A. Pathak, Alvin E. Roth, Tayfun Sönmez: Changing the Boston School Choice Mechanism. (PDF; 1.2 MB) (No longer available online.) January 7, 2006, archived from the original on September 12, 2006 ; accessed on November 27, 2011 (English). 
24. ↑ Kate Stevenson: National Foreign Language Week. (No longer available online.) October 13, 2008, archived from the original on September 3, 2006 ; accessed on November 28, 2011 (English). 
25. ↑ Awards and grants. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: Boston Latin School website . Archived from the original on April 10, 2008 ; accessed on November 28, 2011 (English). 
26. ↑ Anand Vaishnav: BOSTON LATIN EASES LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT. In: The Boston Globe. April 13, 2001, SB1 , accessed November 28, 2011 (English, paid article). 
27. ↑ ARGO. (No longer available online.) In: Boston Latin School website. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; accessed on November 28, 2011 (English). 
28. ↑ BLSA Bulletin. In: Boston Latin School website. Retrieved October 8, 2019 . 
29. ↑ Emily Werchadlo: It's quiet defined by Latin and English. Recent history aside, there's no rivalry like it. In: The Boston Globe. November 24, 2005, accessed November 28, 2011 (English, paid article). 
30. ^ Dwayne Dahlbeck: Latin's first conquest comes at last. BOSTON LATIN 33, BOSTON ENGLISH 6. In: The Boston Globe. November 23, 2007, accessed November 28, 2011 . 
31. ^ President Bush Speaks in Boston. In: CNN .com. January 8, 2002, accessed November 30, 2011 . 
32. ↑ Ronaldo Rauseo-Ricupero: Bush Comes To Boston After Education Victory. In: Harvard Crimson . January 9, 2002, accessed November 30, 2011 . 
33. ^ Boston Public Schools 2006 Budget. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 29, 2008 ; Retrieved November 30, 2011 .