March 19, 1855: A Town Meeting vote decided to establish a High School in the town, and a committee of five people was selected to devise specific plans and estimates. This was the first major effort into providing a high-standard, quality education for Westfield children. The Boston English High School became the first public high school in the country in 1828, and in the School Committee report of 1837, Westfield recognized the law which stated that any town with more than 500 families should establish a school to teach the subjects of algebra, geometry, bookkeeping, surveying, and United States history.
At the time, the long-established Westfield Academy was not considered to be in this scholastic category because it was neither sustained by the town nor established solely for Westfield’s benefit. By 1840, there seems to have been some type of high school in Westfield, and there is little evidence to suggest if it prospered at all. At the time of the 1855 meeting the Committee remarked, “It is evident that our schools are not what they should be.” The plan was finally put into place: “First of all, provision [must] be made for a High School, free, like all the others, and open to all the children who have made certain specified achievements in the lower school.” $1,000 was voted to establish the high school in a room under Town Hall.
The institution began with two teachers: William A. Smith as the principal and Miss M. H. Thurston as the assistant. The first year of the new school attended to seventy-four students. By the 1866-1867 academic year, the school began preparing to move into the old Westfield Academy building. The town purchased it for $35,000 and officially moved into the building on April 16, 1867. After the move, the high school’s program of studies was expanded to four years instead of three.
The high school continued educating children in the Broad Street location, with two additions constructed in 1890 and 1906. The fall of 1930 marked the end of an extensive and harsh disagreement over where the location of the new high school should be. After many disputes and heated debates, a decision was finally made to place the school on Smith Avenue. Due to this new building, new opportunities were made to organize other grades more effectively, notably the seventh and eighth grades.
In 1962, a junior high school building was established on West Silver Street. The ninth graders were moved to this school along with the seventh and eighth graders, which left the tenth through twelfth graders at the high school. This new system became what is now commonly known as the 6-3-3 system (6 years for elementary school, 3 years for middle school, and 3 years for high school).
WESTFIELD HISTORY (Continued)
In the middle of March in 1836, Westfield voted to “no longer put Towne poor up at auction.”
March 20, 1837: The borders between Westfield and Southwick are established.
