The mission of the Chelsea Public Schools is threefold: to ensure conditions of opportunity so that children arrive at school ready to learn; teachers enter classrooms ready to teach; and a serious, substantive curriculum exists for all schools. Yet, the challenges the schools face as part of an urban school district may sometimes seem overwhelming.

However, under the leadership of Irene Cornish, the Chelsea Public Schools, in partnership with Boston University, have established an exemplary early learning program that offers instructional and developmental support to youngsters as young as three years of age—all as part of the traditional, free public education program available to all residents of Chelsea. The district has furthermore set upon implementing over a three-year period the Core Knowledge curriculum, first envisioned by the educator E. D. Hirsch of the University of Virginia. The Core Knowledge Curriculum will mesh nicely with the Massachusetts State Curriculum Frameworks but grant the added advantage of providing the kind of civic glue and common background so necessary for students to function successfully in the modern American society.

To improve the continuity of the educational program and grant greater institutional stability for Chelsea’s youth, the district is undertaking the revamping of middle school configuration. Opening in the fall of 2004 will be three middle schools—two housed at the Williams building, one at the Clark Avenue building. The schools will provide programming from grades 5 through 8, and each school will have a distinguishing identity developed in consultation with parents, faculty, and the students themselves.

The district received a five-year federal Reading First grant and began revising and implementing a comprehensive early reading program (grades kindergarten through 3) at the start of the 2003-2004 school year. The program builds upon the substantial success of Chelsea’s literacy efforts in the early grades and envisions the expansion of the Open Court reading series, an apt parallel to the Core Knowledge curriculum, into all the district’s early elementary grades.

Thus far, the Chelsea Public Schools have met improvement targets under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002—one of a very few urban school districts to boast such an achievement. Furthermore, as of the present school year, the district has met or exceeded the statewide achievement averages in two of its elementary schools. The district’s target is for all Chelsea students to achieve at least at the state average within the next half-decade and for all students to be “proficient” in English language arts and mathematics by the federal target year of 2013-2014.

Thomas Kingston
Superintendent ad interim