Park Street School is a Christian school located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, serving students from the ages of two to sixth grade. The school offers a comprehensive academic and content-rich education to a diverse group of students.
The school was founded in 2000 as a preschool called Park Street Kids by a collaborative effort led by a group of mothers at Park Street Church. Then, in 2002, an elementary school was added, called Park Street School. Today, the combined school has over 200 students, and more than 100 children are in the preschool area. A faith-based, high-quality education is the cornerstone of the school.
The school states its mission as follows:
“Strategically located in historic Beacon Hill, Park Street School and Park Street Kids are neighborhood schools that seek to unite children of diverse racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds from Greater Boston in a nurturing school of the highest academic standards. Through an engaging, content-rich curriculum, we strive to empower and equip each child with a love of learning, a passion for truth, a heart for others, and an understanding of God's love and grace for us in Jesus Christ.”
The school's curriculum is rooted in the Core Knowledge philosophy of education as developed by E. D. Hirsch, who advocates developing a strong foundation of knowledge grade by grade across many subjects, such as English, language arts, world history and geography, American history and geography, visual arts, music, mathematics, and science.
At Park Street School, this is translated into a content-rich curriculum that creates a strong foundation of knowledge that is continuously expanded and enhanced in each grade. The curriculum and instruction are age-appropriate, integrated, hands-on, and responsive to individual differences in ability and interests. Students gather a rich body of knowledge each year, revisiting topics in subsequent years. According to the school, such a content-rich and spiraling approach to education trains its students to thoughtfully reason and apply sound judgment to problems they face, both academic and social. It also develops students who are culturally literate and able to express themselves in a broad range of contexts.
In many schools, art and music are extracurricular activities. But at Park Street School, they are part of the standard curriculum, as are Spanish, science, and physical education. The school offers many performance opportunities, dramatic, instrumental, and musical, throughout the year. The elementary school offers after-school classes ranging from private piano and violin instruction to club activities such as cooking, dance, chess, and choir.
The school’s facilities in downtown Boston had been the home of another school since 1914 but have been completely upgraded with special regard to ventilation, lighting, and fire protection. It includes a library, gymnasium, stage, and rooftop playground, along with the expected “recitation rooms.” The elementary school has multi-media capability, a state-of-the-art science lab, a library with a large stone fireplace, a gym with a 40-foot climbing wall, and computers in every classroom.