Boston Latin Academy School Characteristics

• 125 year history of academic excellence with outstanding rate of college placement
• Co-educational student body representing Boston's rich multicultural, multiethnic     population
• Dedicated administrators and faculty who challenge and encourage students
• Supportive Alumni Association
• Active and supportive Parents and Comminity Booster Club

Mission Statement

The students of Boston Latin Academy, their parents, and the faculty share a commitment of excellence. Our curriculum, while firmly rooted in the study of the classics, liberal arts, and fine arts, has been developed to ensure that all students are well prepared for success in college and success in life. Students are encouraged to appreciate the ideas and practices expressed in the classics and to recognize the evolving continuum between them and the complex, ever-changing challenges of our society.

Our goal is to foster a setting where students learn to listen, to question, to read, to empathize, and to make choices based on sound, ethical principles. We believe that this can be best accomplished within a disciplined, caring, and supportive school environment. Therefore, in addition to our emphasis on academics, we offer a broad spectrum of support services that provide psychological, tutorial, and medical help for those students in need. With encouragement, support, guidance, and practice, students will gain confidence in their own ability to mature, to learn, and to succeed.

Boston Latin Academy enjoys a richly diverse faculty and a student body with pupils coming from all of Boston's neighborhoods. This mix challenges us to appreciate our differences while celebrating the similarities that unify our community. The City of Boston itself offers us access to its internationally acclaimed colleges and universities, its hospitals and laboratories, its music and art centers as well as its many businesses and industries. The school further enriches the curriculum with a variety of student activities, clubs, and student exchange programs. By performing community services students are encouraged to take a role in the larger community outside of school.

It is our hope that through our academic, cultural, and social programs, each student will be prepared to assume a vital role in an integrated and global society. (top)

History

Boston Latin Academy was founded in 1877 as Girls' Latin School. The founding of the school was the result of citizen and parent participation and the intention to establish college preparatory training for girls. A plan to admit girls to Public Latin School was formed by the Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women and Henry Durant, president of Wellesley College.

A committee was formed to discuss the issue. A petition with a thousand signatures was presented to the School Board in Sept. 1877. The board referred the question to the subcommittee on high schools.

Meanwhile a group of parents met with the headmaster of Public Latin School and asked that their daughters be admitted. Although the headmaster was willing to teach the girls, he thought it best to wait for the subcommittee's decision. Ultimately the subcommittee recommended that a separate Latin School for girls be established.

Girls' Latin School opened on West Newton Street in Boston's South End in 1878. The school had only 37 pupils in its 3 classes. The first class graduated in 1880 with 6 members. The number of students grew each year. When the number of students exceeded 350 in 1898, the school committee moved the first four classes to a building in Copley Square while the fifth and sixth classes remained in the old building. In 1907, Girls' Latin School moved into a new building, shared with Boston Normal School located on Huntington Avenue in the Fenway.

The school remained there until 1955, when Teachers' College expanded, forcing Girls' Latin School to relocate to the former Dorchester High School for Girls building located in Codman Square

In 1972 the School Committee recognized a state law which ended sex discrimination in the two Latin Schools. As a result, boys were accepted into the school and the name was changed to Boston Latin Academy.

In 1981, Latin Academy moved back into the Fenway area, this time to Ipswich Street, across from Fenway Park. It remained there until the summer of 1991, when it moved again, this time to its present location in the former Boston Technical High building, located on Townsend Street in Dorchester. (top)

Enrollment

Boston Latin Academy has grown substantially since its initial class of 37 students in 1878. At the start of the 2002-2003 academic year, Boston Latin Academy enrolled 1,620 students in grades 7 through 12. The student population is 59.6% female and 40.4% male with the following ethnic diversity: 26.8% Black, 40% White, 21.5% Asian, 11.4% Hispanic and 0.3% Native-American. (top)

Staff

Administration

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Location

Boston Latin Academy is located at 205 Townsend Street, Boston (Dorchester), Massachusettes 02121. The telephone number is (617)635-9957; the fax number is (617)635-6696; website is http://www.boston.k12.ma.us/bla

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