Back to School is right around the corner with school starting on Monday, August 28th for students in grades 1st through 12th. Kindergarten begins on Tuesday, September 5th and Preschool starts on Wednesday, September 6th. * Parents with questions regarding uniform requirements at their child’s school or school hours should call their child’s school for further information. Bus stop information is available on the district’s website (www.springfieldpublicschools.com). *The Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership has reported that three schools will have different start-of-school dates and that the schools are in direct communication with families. Those schools are Springfield Realization Academy, Springfield Honors Academy, and the High School of Commerce.
Back to School Celebration
Springfield Public Schools and Sodexo, the district’s food service company, will host the annual Back to School Celebration Saturday August 26th (rain or shine) from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Blunt Park (1780 Roosevelt Avenue). The celebration is free and open to Springfield Public Schools students and their families. Every school will have a table and representatives from every school will be present. The celebration will also include food, music, attractions, games, and giveaways (several thousand backpacks will be distributed to the first students to arrive with an adult).
New This Year
Renaming of Homer Street School to Benjamin Swan Elementary School Homer Street School will open as Benjamin Swan School this year, in honor of the longtime politician and civil rights activist.Born in Mississippi, Swan moved to Springfield in 1950 and graduated from the former Technical High School. During the 1960s, Swan served in several roles with the Springfield branch of the NAACP and became the Western Massachusetts coordinator of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He also organized the Springfield chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality and helped organize and lead a protest that grew out of an incendiary police incident that occurred at a lounge in Mason Square. In 1965, Swan marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma. As a state legislator serving the 11th Hampden District from 2009-2016, Swan held leadership positions on many legislative committees, including several that focused on youth education and development. Through his legislation, a youth development center was created in Springfield. He is also a US Army veteran of the Korean War.
DeBerry/Swan Elementary Schools Construction of the new state-of-the-art $95 million DeBerry-Swan School is complete, and doors will open to students on Monday, August 28th. The new school will be the home for students from DeBerry School and Homer Street schools, both of which were over one hundred years old. Each school will continue to exist independently, but the two schools will share the new building. While Homer has been renamed the Benjamin Swan Elementary School, DeBerry will keep its name, which honors the Rev. William DeBerry, a Springfield native, civil rights leader and founder of organizations like the Dunbar Community Center.
The Dual Language Program at German Gerena Elementary School Another exciting development underway this year is the creation of a dual language program at Gerena. Springfield Public Schools now offers the opportunity for pre-k and kindergarten students to learn in both English and Spanish. Committed to academic achievement and cultural understanding, the dual language program can be an excellent choice for students who speak Spanish, English, or both. Specialized teaching strategies are used so that students spend half their day learning educational content in both languages.
