Cambridge Rindge and Latin School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Name |
Cambridge Rindge and Latin School |
| Address |
459 Broadway |
| Town |
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 |
| Established |
See Article |
| Community |
Urban |
| Type |
Public Secondary |
| Religion |
Secular |
| Students |
Coeducational |
| Grades |
9 to 12 |
| Accreditation |
New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) |
| District |
Cambridge Public School District |
| Nickname |
CRLS or Rindge |
| Mascot |
Falcon |
| Colors |
Black and Gray/Silver |
| Newspaper |
The Register Forum |
| Website | |
The Cambridge Rindge and Latin School is the only public high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
The school, serving grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Cambridge Public Schools.
Once two separate schools called Cambridge High and Latin and the Rindge School of Technical Arts, the merged entity today is now commonly abbreviated as CRLS or Rindge.
The students are divided into subdivisions which seem to change name and geography within the building every year. Currently the "Small Learning Communities" are called C, R, L, and S. Until June of 2000, the subdivided schools were known as the Houses of Pilot, Fundamental, House A, Academy, Leadership, and the Rindge School of Technical Arts or RSTA.
In 1990, RSTA became a "house" within the main CRLS school. The "Houses" then became "Small Schools" 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The High School Extension Program, at the site of the old Longfellow School, just down Broadway St., offers a nontraditional approach to the high school learning process, handling only 60–100 students at a time.
CRLS is also noted as being one of the most racially diverse schools in Massachusetts and one of few to feature a heterogeneous student classroom mix. [1].
Contents |
[edit] History
CRLS is actually several separate schools combined into a greater whole. In 1648, just twelve years after the founding of Harvard University, a school system was set up in Cambridge (then known as Newtowne), marking it the fifth town (after Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester, and Salem) in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to do so. Master Elijah Corlett's "lattin schoole" was born. The school was seen as a supplemental part of Harvard, and gained wide recognition.
- “And by the side of the colledge a faire GRAMMAR Schoole, for the training up of young Schollars, and fitting of them for ACADEMICALL LEARNING, that still as they are judged ripe, they may be received into the colledge of this Schoole. Master CORLETT is the Mr., who hath very well approved himselfe for his abilities, dexterity and painfulness in teaching and education of the youth under him.” [1]
Originally Rindge Tech and Cambridge High and Latin, the former began in 1888 by Frederick Hastings Rindge as The Cambridge Manual Training School, and the latter as both Cambridge English High School in 1838 and Cambridge Latin School in 1886. These came together later as Cambridge High and Latin. Finally, in 1977, Rindge Tech and the Cambridge High and Latin High School were merged, with the old Cambridge High and Latin building demolished in 1980. Today a commemorative archway to the old Cambridge High and Latin building can still be observed on the street corner of Broadway and Ellery Streets overlooking the grassy field area of the Joan Lorentz Park.
[edit] Controversy
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the school was subject to multiple accusations of inherent racism in its infrastructure, which led to the disbanding of the original houses, as well as the changing of the original school mascot from a bust of a Native American to a yellowjacket, and eventually to the currently used falcon.
Albeit not intentionally, the original houses eventually represented a racial and/or class divide within the school itself. Pilot House was known for its "alternative" students who dressed and were perceived as counter-culture or alternative lifestyle, and who were allowed to address teachers by their first names in an era when this behavior was generally not acceptable. House A comprised mostly mid and lower class whites; B House was mostly African Americans; C House was mostly Latino, southern European, and Mediterranean; and D house comprised mostly students of various African descent. Finally, the vocational house known as Occupation Education or Oc-Ed (later to be known as Rindge Tech and finally RSTA) was a mix of lower-class students from across the municipality.
During the 2004-2005 school year, the student-dubbed "Haitian Nation" of the vastly Haitian-populated School 4 (previously in Academy before Principal Paula Evan's swapped up students into different houses) was removed.
[edit] Extracurriculars
Theatre and dramatics are very much alive at CRLS, with a continual presence in the MHSDG One-Act Festival and its many disciplines. Two students won honorable mentions in the 2007 playwrighting contest, and the school proceeded to State Finals with an adaptation of Charlotte's Web.
[edit] Notable Alumni
- Patrick Ewing, NCAA Basketball Champion at Georgetown and Basketball Hall of Famer
- Rumeal Robinson, NCAA Basketball Champion at Michigan and NBA player
- Matt Damon, actor and screenwriter
- Ben Affleck, actor, director and screenwriter
- Casey Affleck, actor
- Orson Bean, actor
- Traci Bingham, actress and model
- Max Casella, actor, The Sopranos and Doogie Howser M.D.
- Peggy Cass, actress and comedian
- Eric Cornell, 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics
- E. E. Cummings, poet
- Gina Grant, famous for gaining early admission to Harvard, only to have it revoked when it came out that she had killed her mother
- Karl Hobbs, current head coach of the George Washington University Colonials basketball team
- Korczak Ziolkowski, sculptor of the Crazy Horse Memorial
- For more, see Notable Cambridge Alumni by Stephen G. Surette, the school's unofficial historian
[edit] Register Forum
The school's newspaper, Register Forum, has the distinction of being the oldest continually published public high school newspaper in the country. The newspaper was first founded in 1893 as the C.M.T.S Register, the name was further changed to the Rindge Register, and in 1977 when the two public high schools in the city merged their papers merged as well. The Cambridge Latin Forum merged with the Rindge Register to become "The Register Forum". Since then, the paper has won numerous awards in high school journalism[citation needed].
[edit] Athletics
Athletics have always played a major part in the school's extracurricular activity structure, and most of the school's 30 teams have received some form of statewide recognition of excellence. Some of the best sports players and coaches in the world have come from the athletics department at CRLS. The 11 fall and winter sports take place between September and Thanksgiving (the day of the Football team's final game), and between the first Monday following Thanksgiving and February/March. The ten spring sports start on the third Monday in March, and finish in late May.
The teams are supported by the fundraising efforts of Friends of Cambridge Athletics (FOCA) who sell "Cambridge Athletics"-branded clothing to subsidize the teams.
- See main web page: CRLS Athletics
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- CRLS homepage
- Cambridge Public School Department homepage
- Pearl K. Wise Library
- The CRLS Sub-Community of CambridgePublic, an unofficial information and discussion site
[edit] References
- ^ Michelle Bates Deakin (June 8, 2003). Course Correction. Boston Globe. Retrieved on 2008-01-10. Cambridge Rindge and Latin is one of the few urban high schools to place A students and D students in the same classrooms. Achievement-blind classes are intended to break down barriers, but it remains to be seen if the program will serve as a national model or a cautionary tale.
