“In the fall of 1888, in one half of a double house at 346-348 Walnut Street, Brookline, Miss Caroline Augusta Pierce opened a ‘class’ for children from neighboring families. Miss Pierce was twenty-six years old. Her school in its first year consisted of Miss Pierce herself; her assistant, Miss Edith Weston; and sixteen pupils of assorted ages. The present Park School is a direct descendent of this modest enterprise. [While the school has grown considerably,] the strengths of Park now are much the same as the qualities that gave vitality to Miss Pierce’s fledgling school. Miss Pierce’s School endured because of her passionate idealism, her unswerving standards, her integrity, her sense of play, and her loving heart – and because the children and their parents were as committed to Miss Pierce as she was to them.”

  • Jay Howland, The Park School: One Hundred Years, 1888-1988

By 1916, the school came to be known as "Miss Park's School" under the leadership of Miss Pierce's successor, Julia Park, and was formally incorporated as The Park School in 1923. As Jay Howland points out in her history of Park, "1888 was a good year for starting a school," noting that the 1880s also saw the creation of Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr, Wheelock, Barnard, Brimmer & May, Dana Hall, and Winsor. It was also a time deeply influenced by the American Romanticism movement, which underscored a belief in human possibility and individual potential. Howland points to the "Romantic view of children as innately good rather than bad" and "the role of the teacher was to help the child develop naturally in an atmosphere of mutual respect." 

Faulkner House/255 Goddard Avenue 

The School outgrew the Walnut Street location and moved in 1905 to a purpose-built schoolhouse designed by famed Boston architects Wheelwright & Haven. The School remained in that Brookline location, expanding into neighboring properties with time, until moving to the current campus at 171 Goddard Avenue in 1971, an opportunity made possible through the generosity of the Faulkner family, who donated 14 acres of rolling fields and woods. In 1980, the Faulkners also donated the additional 10 acres of land including the houses at 235 and 255 Goddard Avenue. Later, Park purchased adjoining acres, which included the house now home to Park's head of school, expanding the campus to 34 acres.

As Amanda Reeser Lawrence, PhD, noted in The Park School Bulletin at the 50th anniversary of 171 Goddard Avenue, the new Park School building was designed in the "Heroic" architectural style  often referred to as "Brutalist," a movement grounded in values also inherent to the Park School ethos: community, authenticity, progressivism, and diversity. Brutalism takes its name from the use of exposed, raw concrete—beton brut in French.  "[A]s every visitor discovers when walking through the hallways with light pouring down from skylights above, or touring the multi-level library at the heart of the structure, or perhaps most of all when encountering the whir and whiz of four-year-olds and 14-year-olds bustling through its connected spaces, the building is the opposite of 'brutal'—it's warm and welcoming, full of life and energy (Lawrence, The Park School Bulletin, Fall 2021). 

 

Since 2017, community support of The SPARK Campaign has made possible significant physical plant enhancements, including the addition of a turf field, the renovation of classrooms and collaboration spaces, and the creation of new endowed funds to support diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging initiatives as well as support for the testing may identify neuroeducational challenges requiring learning support, essential to our commitment to equity. The campus has also advanced sustainability measures with a solar installation that supports a significant portion of campus electrical needs.

 

Every stage of Park's journey has been made possible by the generosity and commitment of members of the Park community. Each move and expansion has been supported by parents, grandparents, and alumni because they believe in what Park accomplishes, and this ongoing culture of philanthropy ensures that our campus, facilities, and programs continue to provide the best in PreK-8 education.

 
 

About Park

About Park