Florida Ruffin Ridley School | |
---|---|
Location | |
345 Harvard Street Brookline, MA 02446 | |
Information | |
Type | K-8 school |
Established | 1892 |
School district | Public Schools of Brookline |
Principal | Candice Whitmore Steven Simolaris Emma Gardiner Marianne O'Grady |
Grades | K-8 |
Enrollment | 798 [1] |
Student to teacher ratio | 11.6 [1] |
Mascot | Bees |
Website | Florida Ruffin Ridley School |
The Florida Ruffin Ridley School, formerly known as the Coolidge Corner School [2] and the Edward Devotion School or Devo, is a public K-8 school located at 345 Harvard Street, Brookline, Massachusetts, United States. It is a part of Public Schools of Brookline.
The school was founded in 1892 on land formerly owned by Edward Devotion (1621-1685) and later by his grandson, another Edward Devotion (1667-1744). The land was purchased by the town from a later owner. [3] The Devotions' 18th-century house [4] is preserved by the Town of Brookline and managed as a house museum by the Brookline Historical Society [5] and stands amidst part of its original gardens in the school's forecourt.
The school is attended by over 800 students from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, and is the largest of eight public elementary schools in Brookline. The school emphasizes diversity, with English being a second language to over one third of the student body, among which about 40% are English Language learners. Roughly 37% of students are non-white or multiracial. [6]
The school has a Parent Teacher Organization supporting activities including field trips, "Arts Council," a science fair, Math night, and an International Night. [7]
The school was reconstructed and enlarged (completed in August, 2018). [8] For the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 academic years, the student body was split between two temporary buildings, termed Lower Devotion School (grades K-4) and Upper Devotion School (grades 5-8). [9] The principals of Lower Devotion were David O'Hara and Jennifer Buller, [10] and the principal of Upper Devotion was Monica Crowley. [11]
Built in 1892, the school was named for the second Edward Devotion, who decreed in his will that any money left over after the payments of his debt and funeral expenses be given to the town for use "towards Building or Maintaining a School as near the Centre of the said Town as shall be agreed upon by the Town." [12] Although the money was long gone by the time school was built, the school was apparently named for him in recognition of his original request, although no records from the 1890s survive discussing the naming. [13]
John F. Kennedy attended the school from 1922 to 1924. [14]
Until 2005, the school librarian was award-winning author Norman H. Finkelstein, who wrote the book The Other 1492 [15] (not to be confused with the similarly named professor Norman Finkelstein).
In 2018, a citizen-led movement endorsed by Brookline's Town Meeting and School Committee began the process of renaming the school, recognizing that the estate of Edward Devotion sold for his bequest included a slave. [16] In May 2018 the name was changed to the Coolidge Corner School pending a new name. [17] The name was changed to the Florida Ruffin Ridley School as of September 2020, following the vote of Town Meeting in November 2019. [18]
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, and part of the Boston metropolitan area. An exclave of Norfolk County, Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Allston, Fenway–Kenmore, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and West Roxbury. The city of Newton borders Brookline to the west. It is known for being the birthplace of John F. Kennedy.
Brookline is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 5,639 at the 2020 census, up from 4,991 at the 2010 census. Brookline is home to the Talbot-Taylor Wildlife Sanctuary, Potanipo Pond, and the Brookline Covered Bridge.
Hollis is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 8,342 at the 2020 census, having grown 9% from the 2010 population of 7,684. The town center village is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Hollis Village Historic District.
Brighton is a former town and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, located in the northwestern corner of the city. It is named after the English city of Brighton. Initially Brighton was part of Cambridge, and known as "Little Cambridge". Brighton separated from Cambridge in 1807 after a bridge dispute, and was annexed to Boston in 1874. For much of its early history, it was a rural town with a significant commercial center at its eastern end.
Allston is an officially recognized neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was named after the American painter and poet Washington Allston. It comprises the land covered by the zip code 02134. For the most part, Allston is administered collectively with the adjacent neighborhood of Brighton. The two are often referred to together as Allston–Brighton. Boston Police Department District D-14 covers the Allston-Brighton area and a Boston Fire Department Allston station is located in Union Square which houses Engine 41 and Ladder 14. Engine 41 is nicknamed "The Bull" to commemorate the historic stockyards of Allston.
Kenmore Square is a square in the Fenway–Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is formed by the crossing of Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue, and Brookline Avenue. It is the eastern terminus of U.S. Route 20, the longest U.S. Highway. The Citgo sign is a prominent landmark in Kenmore Square, and Fenway Park is just to the south. Kenmore station is located under the square, with a surface bus terminal inside the square.
Coolidge Corner station is a light rail stop on the MBTA Green Line C branch, located at the intersection of Beacon Street and Harvard Street in the Coolidge Corner neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts. With 3,440 daily boardings by a 2011 count, it had more than twice the ridership of any other surface station on the branch.
The C branch, also called the Beacon Street Line or Cleveland Circle Line, is one of four branches of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's Green Line light rail system in the Boston, Massachusetts metropolitan area. The line begins at Cleveland Circle in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston and runs on the surface through Brookline along the median of Beacon Street. Reentering Boston, the line goes underground through the Saint Mary's Street incline and joins the B and D branches at Kenmore. Trains run through the Boylston Street subway to Copley where the E branch joins, then continue through the Tremont Street subway to downtown Boston. The C branch has terminated at Government Center station since October 2021.
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation's oldest art schools, and the only publicly funded independent art school in the United States. It was the first art college in the United States to grant an artistic degree.
Coolidge Corner is a neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts, United States, centered on the intersection of Beacon Street and Harvard Street. The neighborhood takes its name from the Coolidge & Brother general store that opened in 1857 at that intersection at the site of today's S.S. Pierce building, which was for many years the only commercial business in north Brookline.
Brookline High School is a four-year public high school in Brookline, Massachusetts. It is a part of Public Schools of Brookline.
Maria Louise Baldwin was an American educator and civic leader born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She lived all her life in Cambridge and Boston. Writing in 1917, W. E. B. Du Bois claimed she had achieved the greatest distinction in education to that time of any African-American not working in segregated schools.
Brookline Hills station is a light rail station on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line D branch in the Brookline Hills neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts. The station has two side platforms serving the line's two tracks. It was closed from April 2021 to January 2022 as part of adjacent construction on a Brookline High School building, which included renovations to make the station accessible.
The Edward Devotion House is a historic house at 347 Harvard Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA. Built about 1745, it is one of the town's few surviving 18th-century structures, and is of those the best preserved. The house is owned by the town and administered by the Brookline Historical Society as a historic house museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
Coolidge Corner Theatre is a nonprofit, independent cinema and community cultural center in the Coolidge Corner section of Brookline, Massachusetts, specializing in international, documentary, animated, and independent film selections, series, classes, and seminars.
The Acera School is an independent, nonprofit, co-educational day school in Winchester, Massachusetts, United States, serving gifted students across Greater Boston in grades K–8 with the option for a bonus Grade 9. Acera's approach to gifted education is centered around engaging students in meaningful learning given each students’ unique capacities, needs, and passions. Its teachers emphasize the development of core capacities such as systems thinking, critical thinking and problem solving, creativity, ethical decision making, perspective taking, collaboration, emotional intelligence, and leadership.
Lawrence Allen Ruttman is an American attorney, author, and historian. He is best known for his five books: Voices of Brookline; American Jews and America's Game; his baseball memoir, My Eighty-Two Year Love Affair with Fenway Park: From Teddy Ballgame to Mookie Betts; his memoir, Larry Ruttman: A Life Lived Backwards: An Existential Triad of Friendship, Maturation, and Inquisitiveness; and Intimate Conversations: Face to Face With Matchless Musicians, scheduled for publication on October 1, 2024.
Florida Ruffin Ridley was an African-American civil rights activist, suffragist, teacher, writer, and editor from Boston, Massachusetts. She was one of the first black public schoolteachers in Boston, and edited The Woman's Era, the country's first newspaper published by and for African-American women.
Public Schools of Brookline (PSB) is the school district of Brookline, Massachusetts.
Ada Claudia Korkhin is an American Olympic pistol shooter. She represented the United States at the 2024 Paris Olympics in Women's 25m Sport Pistol, at 19 years of age.