HomeMy WebLinkAbout1. Estabrook School HSR Feb 26, 2013HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT
JOSEPH ESTABROOK SCHOOL
LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS
ANNE ANDRUS GRADY
10 TROTTING HORSE DRIVE, LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS
AUGUST 2012
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank, first of all, the people who graciously shared their memories of
the beginnings of the Estabrook School in interviews. They gave me information
that I could not have obtained elsewhere, and they provided a personal note to the
explanation of the team teaching experience. I hope what I have chosen to quote
from them does justice to their contribution. I appreciate the support and
assistance of Principal Sandra Trach, and custodians Joe McFaline and Joe
McLaughlin of the Estabrook School. I thank Miriam Sousa, Assistant to the
Superintendent of Schools; Donna Hooper, Town Clerk; Pat Goddard, Public
Facilities Director; and Linda Carroll, Reference Librarian, Cary Memorial
Library, for efforts to locate and provide materials for the report. I thank Susan
Ward for her contributions to the report. I am grateful for the assistance of
DiNisco Design in the preparation of this report.
Cover illustration: Entrance and Mural at the Estabrook School
David Bohl, Photographer.
Unless otherwise noted, photographs in the report are by Anne Andrus Grady.
CONTENTS
I. Executive Summary - 1
II. Background - 5
A. PCB Findings - 5
B. EPA Directive - 5
C. Town's Response / Actions - 5
III. Historical Analysis - 6
A. Historical Background and Context - 6
1. The Team Teaching Philosophy - 6
2. Estabrook School Constructed for Team Teaching - 15
3. Changes to Team Teaching Over Time - 17
B. Historical Significance - 21
IV. Architectural Analysis - 23
A. Background and Context - 23
1. Design Derivation - 23
2. The Architects Clinch, Crimp, Brown and Fisher - 26
B. Original Building and Changes Over Time - 28
1. Project Data - 28
2. Timeline - 30
3. Construction and Exterior Appearance - 32
4. Plan, Room Use and Changes Over Time - 35
5. The Estabrook School from a Former Student's Perspective - 47
By Susan Ward
6. Landscape of the School and Former Uses of the Land - 49
By Susan Ward
7. The Mosaic Mural at the Estabrook School - 56
C. Architectural Significance - 58
V. References - 59
VI. Research Methodology - 63
VII. Plans and Documentary Photographs - 65
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Executive Summary I
L Executive Summary
On March 3, 2012, members of the Joseph Estabrook School community gathered to celebrate
the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the school's Parent Teacher Association. Enthusiasm
for the school and its early team teaching educational system was palpable in the room.'
Speakers at the event recalled their delight in being part of an innovative program among like -
minded people committed to a new kind of education. As David Horton, former principal and
early teacher, said, "It was like the heavens opened up." To this day, students from the early
years remain in contact, and they turned out in numbers for the recent weekend -long celebration
of the school.
Speakers remembered the special circumstances of the school's conception. The Lexington Team
Teaching Program, "begun in September, 1957, at the Franklin School, .. was probably the most
highly developed team teaching organizational structure in the country. "Z Recognizing the
limitations inherent in teaching such a program in a conventional school building, Lexington
took the bold step of creating a school that would actively support it. The Estabrook School's
significance rests on the fact that it was first elementary school in the country built to serve a
well- established team teaching program.
Team teaching can be defined as "an arrangement whereby two or more teachers, with or without
teacher aides, cooperatively plan, instruct and evaluate one or more class groups in an
appropriate instructional space and given length of time, so as to take advantage of the special
competencies of the team members. ,3
Collaboration with the faculty of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University
through its School and University Program for Research and Development (SUPRAD), which
had financial backing from the Ford Foundation's Fund for the Advancement of Education from
1957 to 1964, gave the Lexington Team Teaching Program the support and stability that allowed
it to flourish. The program received national coverage in books, academic articles, popular
publications, and network television broadcasts. Many educators came to Lexington to observe
team teaching, or to attend summer institutes on the program.
Team teaching and other innovative educational programs were part of a larger progressive
movement to improve the quality of life for everyone after World War IL In particular, team
teaching initiatives and the buildings they inspired represented attempts across the country to
address the school population explosion and the shortage of teachers at the time. The school
population in Lexington increased by 3000 students or 100% between 1951 and 1959. The
perceived need for innovative teaching methods became even more urgent after Sputnik went up
in 1957, when, according to Bill Terris, former principal at the Estabrook School, "the whole
country went into cardiac arrest over the situation." The Estabrook School was one of several
schools in Lexington to include a bomb shelter in its construction.
' A videotape of the celebration is available from LexMedia.
2 Medill Bair and Richard G. Woodward, Team Teaching in Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964),
15 -16.
3 David W. Beggs III, ed. Team Teaching: Bold New Venture (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press,
1964), 16.
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Executive Summary 2
Estabrook School was built for a population of 650 students at a cost of $1,220,000. As a
precaution, because the team teaching program was still considered experimental, the design also
included an option for conversion to twenty -three traditional classrooms for an estimated cost of
$18,000.
The firm of Clinch, Crimp, Brown and Fisher of Boston, which specialized in school
architecture, designed the Estabrook School. The development of the building program for the
Estabrook School was the joint effort of the architects; the Standing School Building Committee;
Dr. Donald Mitchell of educational consultants Kargman, Mitchell and Sargent; Franklin School
teachers; and SUPRAD representatives. The 13.3 -acre setting of open fields surrounded by
woods, the largest elementary school site in Lexington, enhanced the expansive feeling of the
building itself. The architect, Frank Crimp, who thought that the children should see something
beautiful when they approached the school, suggested the inclusion of the 48- foot -long mosaic
mural designed by fifth grade students at the Munroe School.
Team teaching at the Franklin and Estabrook schools inspired improvements that are still part of
the Lexington School System:
• Libraries in elementary schools. Before Estabrook, books were brought to elementary
schools on a weekly basis and stored in bookcases in corridors.
• Teacher aides and clerical aides, to free up teachers to spend more time teaching.
Even at the time that the Estabrook School was built, "each school [in Lexington] had its own
culture," according to Bill Terris.4 Among elementary schools, only the Franklin and Estabrook
Schools had team teaching programs. The majority of parents in those schools supported the
team teaching programs One parent went so far as to say "We thought team teaching would
change the world. ,6 The other schools retained the conventional system of 25 to 35 children
taught by a single teacher in a classroom of about 900 square feet in size, a system that is
sometimes called "cells and bells." In spite of team teaching's lack of universal acceptance,
teacher collaboration has continued in various forms until the present. From the 1970s onward a
variety of initiatives incorporated team teaching concepts. As Sandra Trach, current principal of
the school, said, "The spirit of the Estabrook School is within us."
However, team teaching, as a complete educational system like the Franklin and Estabrook
models, did not survive. The system required not only that teachers be committed to the concept,
but also that they spend enormous amounts of planning time to make it work. Even then, some
students did not thrive in the team teaching situation. In 1963, a petition was circulated
requesting that the new superintendent to be hired for the Lexington Schools be a "conservative."
Parents voiced concern that the team teaching and advanced placement programs were too
experimental. One parent said, "It does not help to be told by your children's teacher that `we are
4 Bill Terris, interview with Anne Grady, March 3, 2012.
5 Ethel Bears, "Team Teaching at the Franklin School," June 1969, 25 -26. Typescript in the Special Collections,
Cary Memorial Library.
6 Arthur Katz, personal communication, 2010.
7 Charles Butts, personal communication, April 2012.
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Executive Summary 3
still feeling our way. `8 One response from the School Committee was to authorize the
publication in October 1963 of a twenty- eight -page booklet, Lexington and SUPRAD, which was
distributed to every Lexington household in hopes of promoting a better understanding of the
collaboration with Harvard University and the team teaching program.9
When schools began to close in the late 1970s and early 1980s because of declining enrollment,
some teachers who were transferred to Estabrook were not committed to team teaching. Thus,
enthusiasm for team teaching there was diluted. Eventually, the greater cost of salaries for team
leaders and senior teachers became a barrier to continuing team teaching.
In 2010, elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyl compounds (PCBs) were identified at the
Estabrook School. Mitigation measures required by the US Environmental Protection Agency
brought levels down into the acceptable range, but with no guarantee of long -term effectiveness.
This and other deficiencies in the 50- year -old school, such as excessive energy costs, antiquated
systems, and lack of space to accommodate new program requirements led the Lexington Public
School District to seek approval and funding support from the Massachusetts School Building
Authority to replace the Estabrook School with a new school building on the site. The Lexington
Historical Commission required documentation of the school's history and architecture before
considering the Town's request to demolish it. This report is the result of that requirement.
The Historical Analysis section of the report describes the team teaching philosophy, discusses
the context for its development, traces its implementation in Lexington, and defines the historical
significance of the Estabrook School. The Architectural Analysis section documents the
architecture of the building and describes its role in supporting the team teaching program.
Possible influences on the design of the building are discussed and the architectural significance
of the school is characterized. In order to emphasize critical linkages some statements may be
repeated in the report. Plans of 1960 for the original building and documentary photographs of
2012 at the end of the report illustrate the building's architecture then and now.
This report has benefitted greatly from information provided by former teachers, principals,
members of the Standing School Building Committee, and others who were directly involved in
the construction of the school fifty -one years ago or who experienced the school in its early
years. Susan Ward's description of the school from a former student's perspective is included in
the report. These individuals and other resources are listed in the References. The research
process itself is described in the section, Research Methodology.
8 "Parents Lash at Advanced Placement Program in Local Schools," Lexington Minuteman, July 25, 1963.
9 Lexington and SUPRAD (Published by the School and University Program for Research and Development,
October 1963).
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Executive Summary
Frank Lyman with a group of students and teachers from the 1960s
at the Estabrook School celebration, March 3, 2012.
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report PCB Findings / Response 5
II. Background
A. PCB Findings
"During September of 2009, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued new
guidelines for concentrations of airborne polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) for public buildings
and identified that buildings constructed before 1978 potentially would have been constructed
with PCB containing materials. "10 Because there were schools in Lexington built before 1978,
the Town developed a plan for testing for the presence of PCBs in the Estabrook and other older
schools. On August 9, 2010 testing determined that concentrations of PCBs in the Estabrook
School exceeded guidelines for safe levels of the chemicals established by the EPA.
B. EPA Directive
From the beginning, the Town of Lexington worked with the US EPA and the Massachusetts
Department of Environmental Protection to develop plans for the remediation of the PCB
contamination. By December of 2011, mitigation measures had been carried out to the extent that
the EPA permitted the Town to continue to operate the Estabrook School until December 31,
2014. Ongoing monitoring of PCB levels was required, however.
C. Town's Response / Actions
In the period before the school opened on Monday, August 30, 2010, the window caulk, which
contained the PCBs and asbestos, was removed and replaced with new caulk. However, testing
revealed that PCB levels still exceeded the EPA guidelines. During the fall of 2010 and later,
additional remediation was carried out. Some work required that students be out of the building,
causing disruption to the teaching schedule. The work completed included:
• Removal of 550 linear feet (LF) of exterior PCB window caulk
• Decontamination of metal window frames to < l0µ /100 cm2
• Encapsulation of exterior brickwork surrounding the windows with epoxy coating
• Encapsulation of interior and exterior window sealants /glazings with bond breaker tape
and new caulk
• Construction of new walls (i.e. mini - walls) to encapsulate lower panels of curtain walls
(i.e. transite panels) which contain PCB caulk
• Enclosure of I -Beam chaises with new materials
• Encapsulation/sealing of areas along the new mini -walls with new caulk and/or foam
insulation
• Suspension of use of stand -alone steam radiators
• Establishment of heating and ventilation system operating procedures /conditions))
10 Lexington Public School District, Application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for replacement of
the Estabook School, November 5, 2010, 13.
11 James T. Owens III, Director of the US Environmental Protection Agency Region 1, letter to Patrick W. Goddard,
December 1, 2011.
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 6
III. Historical Analysis
A. Historical Background and Context
1. The Team Teaching Philosophy
Team teaching is "an arrangement whereby two or more teachers, with or without teacher aides,
cooperatively plan, instruct and evaluate one or more class groups in an appropriate instructional
space and given length of time, so as to take advantage of the special competencies of the team
members. ,12
The idea of teacher collaboration has been around for centuries. Schools designed to
accommodate flexible class sizes were proposed as early as 1849.13 It was not until after World
War II, however, that the term "team teaching" was used. The concept was first proposed by
Francis Keppel, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and future US
Commissioner of Education, as a way of attracting talented young people to the profession of
teaching and addressing the great shortage of teachers. He said in 1964:
A decade ago my interests in encouraging new ways of organizing teachers and pupils
grew out of a desire to recruit able young men and women into teaching and to keep them
in the classroom. Three aspects of the teacher's career seemed to present serious
obstacles: the low ceiling in salary, the lack of any clear path to increased responsibility
and intellectual growth, and the lack of adult criticism and companionship. These
elements appeared to be present in the career patterns of the other professions with which
the schools were in competition for personnel. And the schools were not doing well in
comparison. 14
Dr. Robert H. Anderson described the inception of the team teaching approach:
A small group of faculty members at the Harvard Graduate School of Education sat down
together to consider some extremely tentative proposals for school reorganization. These
proposals had first been sketched informally by Dean Francis Keppel in a mimeographed
memorandum to which reactions were solicited. Finding that the proposals embraced
both some exciting theoretical concepts and a promising new structure for school
operations, the faculty group developed and refined the Dean's proposals to the point
where it soon proved feasible to approach several school administrators and to consider
plans for testing the new arrangements. 15
12 David W. Beggs III, ed. Team Teaching: Bold New Venture (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press,
1964), 16.
13 Henry Barnard, School Architecture (New York: Barnes, 1849), 261. As quoted in Judson T. Shaplin and Henry
F. Olds, Jr., eds. Team Teaching (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964), 218.
14 Judson T. Shaplin and Henry F. Olds, Jr., eds. Team Teaching (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964), x.
15 Robert H. Anderson, "The Organization and Administration of Team Teaching," Judson T. Shaplin and Henry F.
Olds, eds., Team Teaching (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964), 174.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 7
The immediate result of the discussions was the establishment of the School and University
Program for Research and Development ( SUPRAD). Among the faculty members included in
the planning were Assistant Dean Judson T. Shaplin, author of an important book on team
teaching in 1964, and Dr. Anderson, Professor of Education, who would supervise the Lexington
Team Teaching Program (LTTP) and who became known as "the father of Team Teaching for
his years of leadership in implementing the concept. "16
Team teaching and other innovative teaching programs received a boost of support in 1957 after
Russia launched Sputnik, the first manned space flight in history. The event produced an
outpouring of concern that American education, especially in the sciences, had fallen behind
education in the Soviet Union. "People saw Sputnik as a golden opportunity to initiate
innovations. 07 Within a year, the National Defense Education Act was passed. The act provided
$877,000,000 to be spent over four years on education intended to improve national security.
The funds provided financial assistance primarily for study of science, mathematics, and foreign
languages. 18 Earlier in 1951, the Ford Foundation established the Fund for the Advancement of
Education "as an independent organization to support new and experimental programs at all
levels of education. "19 The Lexington Team Teaching Program under the direction of SUPRAD
was among the large number of educational programs that the Ford fund supported in the 1950s
and 1960s.
Other universities, such as the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California, were
involved in innovative educational programs and in team teaching in particular, using various
models of collaboration with school systems. Dr. Robert H. Anderson described the rationale for
school and university collaboration:
Among the reasons for establishing the School and University Program for Research and
Development ( SUPRAD) was the belief that public school systems might more easily
close the gap between educational ideals and educational realities if they joined with
private universities in programs for research and demonstration. Relations analogous to
those between medical schools and hospitals were seen as a way toward tough- minded
research and unbiased evaluation of new ideas. Among these ideas was the contention
that the existing organizational pattern of American schools and classrooms may be
inadequate and unsuitable in view of the vast population increase and the severe shortage
of professional workers as needs are now defined . 20
Team teaching can mean many different things depending on who is practicing it. Fortunately,
people directly involved in the program explained the Lexington Team Teaching Program, which
was recognized in 1964 as the largest and most comprehensive team teaching program for the
16 Medill Bair and Richard G. Woodward, Team Teaching In Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964), v.
17 Bill Terris, interview with Anne Grady, March 9, 2012.
18 1950's Education. http: / /www.enotes.com/1950- education - american- decades /national- defense - education -act.
19 John J. Scanlon, "The Fund for the Advancement of Education," Bulletin of the American Institute of Biological
Sciences (A.I.B.S. Bulletin) (June 1957): 12.
20 Robert H. Anderson, Ellis A. Hagstrom and Wade M. Robinson, "Team Teaching in an Elementary School," The
School Review Vol. 68, No. 1 (Spring 1960): 72.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy
elementary grades in the country, in detail. Ethel Bears, Principal of the Franklin School, wrote a
thoughtful account in 1969 of her experience with team teaching after twelve years of
supervising the program. Medill Bair, Superintendent of the Lexington Public Schools from 1959
to 1963, and Richard G. Woodward, Coordinator of Instructional Materials and Services in
Lexington, co- authored Team Teaching in Action .21 The book was essentially an instructional
manual for "colleges and universities educating teachers, .. educators and laymen interested in
establishing team teaching programs in their schools, .. and architects, educators and laymen
interested in designing facilities for team teaching. ,22 Robert H. Anderson, as SUPRAD Director
of the LTTP, contributed to Bair's and Woodward's book and wrote extensively elsewhere about
the Lexington experience. Excerpts from what these authors have written explain the Lexington
program.
Under the team - teaching pattern, groups of teachers take joint responsibility for the
instruction of a segment of the school population. Typically, from three to seven or eight
certified teachers take responsibility for the instruction of from seventy -five to 240 pupils
of similar age and grade.23
Teaching teams in Lexington for instruction in Math, Language Arts, and Social Studies each
included a team leader, a senior teacher, teachers and teacher or clerical aides. All teams are
under the direction of the school principal. As Dr. Anderson explained in 1960:
The teaching program is formally organized into a hierarchy whose basic unit is the
teacher.... The position of teacher in the teaching team carries with it the status and
prestige commonly accorded the position in the self - contained pattern of today.
Above the position of teacher is that of senior teacher. Depending on the size of the team
and the age of the pupils, the team may have one or more senior teachers. A small team
may have none. The senior teacher is an experienced teacher who has special competence
in a particular subject -matter area or in a particular skill or method. The senior teacher
assumes responsibility for instructional leadership —both in his team and, if needed,
across teams within the building—in his area of special competence....
At the apex of the team hierarchy is the position of team leader. The team leader, a
specialist in a content area that complements the areas of his senior teacher assistants,
also exercises certain general administrative and co- ordinating functions. The team leader
also has primary responsibility in his team for the identification of pupil needs and
readiness and for the assignment of pupils to groups; for directing the continual re-
examination and development of curriculum; and for the training and supervision of
junior and less experienced personnel on his team. To discharge his responsibilities
21 See page 13 for comments on Medill Bair's dynamic leadership of team teaching in Lexington.
22 Medill Bair and Richard G. Woodward, Team Teaching In Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964), v.
According to Bill Terris, this book was translated into Japanese.
23 Robert H. Anderson, Ellis A. Hagstrom and Wade M. Robinson, "Team Teaching in an Elementary School," The
School Review Vol. 68, No. 1(Spring 1960): 76.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 9
effectively, the team leader is released from classroom teaching responsibilities for about
a third of the school day.
In consideration of their additional training and increased responsibilities, senior teachers
receive a salary increment beyond the teachers' schedule and team leaders receive an
increment beyond senior teachers.'
The role of the principal under the teaching teams organization will probably become one
of enhanced prestige and responsibility, somewhat akin to the present role of director of
instruction. Since the team leaders and their subordinates are able to attend to many
routine administrative and management details, the principal has more opportunity for
leadership in curriculum development, instructional supervision and guidance....
By taking advantage of the opportunities provided through the presence of specialists and
clerical aides, and by taking advantage of release time provided through the scheduling of
large group lessons and through the creation of fewer groups than teachers, much more
effective use of professional personnel can be realized under team organization that under
the self - contained pattern....
By holding team meetings before and after school, there is an opportunity for discussion
of instructional problems. In many respects, the team structure provides an extension of
the training period with its emphasis on planning, observation and evaluation.24
Ethel Bears said:
The team teaching organization in some respects is like Pandora's box. Problems become
obvious to all because of the interdependence of personnel in teams and in the school.
No longer can what is happening to Johnnie in Miss Jones' class remain behind a closed
classroom door. The principal must see problems as challenges to look for solutions. He
must work with his administrative cabinet to find ways of effecting changes that will get
at the problems.25
As summarized in Team Teaching: Bold New Venture, David W. Beggs III, ed., the various staff
members work together to:
• Cooperatively plan and evaluate instruction;
• Organize groups of different sizes for different kinds of instruction in a flexible daily
schedule;
• Use space and media appropriate to the purpose and content of instruction.26
24 Robert H. Anderson, Ellis A. Hagstrom and Wade M. Robinson, "Team Teaching in an Elementary School," The
School Review Vol. 68, No. 1 (Spring 1960): 76 -77; 80 -81.
25 Ethel Bears, "Team Teaching at the Franklin School," June 1969, 9. Typescript in the Special Collections, Cary
Memorial Library.
26 David W. Beggs III, ed. Team Teaching: Bold New Venture (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press,
1964), 16.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 10
FLOATING SPECIALIST
MUSIC
ALPHA: GRADES ONE and TWO BETA: GRADES THREE and FOUR OMEGA: GRADES FIVE and SIX
Diagram shoeing typical organization of teaching teams in the SUPRAD
Project. Note "floating" specialists, who serve all teams in each building.
Planning is the heart of team operation. Here a teaching team
holds one of its regular planning meetings at the Franklin School.
Lexington and SUPRAD, Paul A. Perry, ed. Published by SUPRAD, October 1963, page 6.
As team teaching took off in Lexington, those involved experienced an exhilarating, if labor
intensive, work situation. Team teaching took an enormous amount of planning. Once the
Estabrook School was built, the teaching team had the pleasure of using the new spaces as
proposed. They strove to meet the objectives of a team teaching program outlined by Ira Singer:
1. To develop creativity, adaptability, responsibility and habits of inquiry in students.
2. To make more intelligent use of teacher's specialized talents, interests training and
energy.
3. To improve the quality of teaching through the in- service nature of the team design.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
SPECIALIST TEAM
FLDATlNG SPECIALIST
PHYSICAL EDl1CRTI0N
TERM
LRT
LEADER
LEADER
k7/ATEACHER
TWO
TWO
SENIOR
SENIOR TEACHERS
SENIOR TEACHERS
THREE
THREE TEACHERS
THREE TEACHERS
CLERICAL AIDCLERICAL
AIDE and TEACHER
AIDE CLERICAL AIDE and TE ACHER AIDE
ALPHA: GRADES ONE and TWO BETA: GRADES THREE and FOUR OMEGA: GRADES FIVE and SIX
Diagram shoeing typical organization of teaching teams in the SUPRAD
Project. Note "floating" specialists, who serve all teams in each building.
Planning is the heart of team operation. Here a teaching team
holds one of its regular planning meetings at the Franklin School.
Lexington and SUPRAD, Paul A. Perry, ed. Published by SUPRAD, October 1963, page 6.
As team teaching took off in Lexington, those involved experienced an exhilarating, if labor
intensive, work situation. Team teaching took an enormous amount of planning. Once the
Estabrook School was built, the teaching team had the pleasure of using the new spaces as
proposed. They strove to meet the objectives of a team teaching program outlined by Ira Singer:
1. To develop creativity, adaptability, responsibility and habits of inquiry in students.
2. To make more intelligent use of teacher's specialized talents, interests training and
energy.
3. To improve the quality of teaching through the in- service nature of the team design.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 11
4. To provide a program of student grouping which permits instruction to be more
effectively geared to individual student ability.
5. To provide realistic treatment of individual differences to supplement the identifying and
diagnosing of these differences.
6. To provide time and facilities during the school day for teachers to prepare lessons,
develop imaginative materials and keep abreast of new developments.27
The people interviewed for this report would agree that the structure and objectives outlined
above were not the most important component of team teaching, but rather, "The heart of the
concept of team teaching lies not in details of structure and organization but more in the essential
spirit of cooperative planning, constant collaboration, close unity, unrestrained communication,
and sincere sharing. ,28
People who taught at Estabrook in the early years provided examples of how team teaching
worked in practice and how the flexibility of the program encouraged creative teaching. Dr.
Anderson placed great stress on the group process of discussion and decision making. Bill Terris,
original teacher and principal for many years, said:
We worked together as a team and it was very exciting. We spent hours planning. The
school would close at 5:00 o'clock and we would still be trying to figure out what we
were going to do tomorrow. So the team adjourned to [secretary] Ruth Oley's house. She
opened her house to us. We would be there from 5:00 to 7:00 or 8:00 while we were
planning. Not every night. We planned for a week . 29
With the emphasis on innovative teaching, Dick Barnes came up with the following solution
after trying conventional methods of teaching the need for punctuation at the end of sentences to
a class of advanced students:
Finally one day I was so frustrated with them that I said, "I want you over there to close
that door, and you over there to shut the blinds, and you to shut the lights off. Then all of
us are going to gather down here, and they did that." I said, "I am going to tell you a
secret. You know what a secret is. You don't tell anybody else. You keep it to yourself
forever. Every sentence ends in some kind of punctuation!i3o
The exercise worked and students remembered it years later.
27 Ibid., 27 -28.
28 Stuart E. Dean and Clinnette F. Witherspoon, "Team Teaching in the Elementary School," Educational Briefs,
No. 38 (Washington Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education, January, 1962), as quoted
in Bair and Woodward, Team Teaching in Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964), 22.
29 Bill Terris, interview with Anne Grady, March 9, 2012.
30 Dick Barnes, interview with Anne Grady, March 16, 2012.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 12
In another incident, teachers found the solution that eventually had an important effect on girls at
the school:
People noticed in weekly planning sessions that girls do fairly well in science and some
in math, but they don't talk in the classroom. We decided, with the consultants from the
university, to try putting the girls in a classroom [by themselves] and having them do the
same project as the boys. For the first week of the so- called experiment it was just the
way it was before. The second week we began to notice that the girls were becoming
more overt and talking with each other more. By the end of six weeks they were
exuberant about science and math, where before they would never get involved in it. It
really changed how they thought about math. When we put them [back] with the boys,
they continued to contribute. I don't know who was stunned the most, the girls or the
boys.
We tried things like that. It was so easy in a school like that rather than in traditional
classrooms. We did other things like that with different kinds of groupings. Frank
Lyman's creativity was just sensational. Teachers who probably wouldn't have done
things on their own became exposed to his techniques. It was really quite dramatic.31
Frank Lyman described two epiphanies that he had while teaching. The results inspired others
and spread throughout the Estabrook School and beyond:
[Here] is an example of an idea that was generated from a child. In 1965 I was talking to
a boy who had a lot of problems and he wouldn't speak to anybody. I started to draw his
problem with lines and vectors and he then took the pencil and started to draw and talk. It
was a sort of Helen Keller moment. I went to one of my language arts classes, a four -
five -grade combination, and said to them, could you draw a diagram of the causes and
effects of the Western expansion? And they did.... There is nothing new about flow-
charting ideas, but what was new was that no one had ever heard of its being done in
elementary school.... The term for that now is cognitive mapping.
That was an innovation that occurred within this very open, "let's- try -to- learn - how -to-
teach" environment. I think it did affect people in the building and they did it. I was a
pretty liberated person there — to think what I wanted to think and do what I wanted to
do.
Another [example] was cooperative learning strategies. When I was first there I didn't do
any pair learning. When I left, half my day the children were in partners, teaching each
other, writing poetry together, discussing together. This was another epiphany that
occurred... from frustration when I was reading a story [to the children] about the Italian
immigration and I ask them to tell me what I just read. The just didn't know. In a kind of
frustration I said, "Alright, would you just tell each other what I just read," and they
chattered and then I said, "Now tell me what I just read." And now they raised their
31 Ibid.
Anne Andrus Grade June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 13
hands and they knew something. What I did [then] was research. I would take a story
and have the children talk in partners after I read it. I would test them in a week; I would
test them in a month. I'd test them in three months and got tremendous recall.... They
didn't call it cooperative learning in 1965.
That was a very important aspect. It spread around the school. We had children going to
other classrooms teaching other children in partners. They did their diagrams in partners.
They discussed History or whatever. It was just half the time.32
Another example of an innovative program was a six -week unit on Power and Technology. The
unit was conceived and taught by Bill Terris, whom Frank Lyman described as "the greatest
large group instruction teacher in the history of the world." The course was singled out for a
detailed description in Bair's and Woodward's book . 33
Bill Terris described how a child's problem could not remain hidden in a team teaching situation.
With teachers' desks in the teachers' workroom instead of in the classrooms:
Teachers would begin the day here; they would come back at the end of the day and say,
"Oh, I had a terrible time with Jimmy today. Did anyone else have a terrible time ?"
And two other teachers did. One said, "Well, you know, his father left this morning and
didn't say goodbye. 04
People interviewed for this report said the Medill Bair, Superintendent of Schools, was a driving
force behind team teaching in Lexington. Dick Barnes said, "Dan Fenn said at my retirement
party that Medill Bair's work was probably the most exciting thing in the country, and I think he
was right. Bair was just dynamic and he put Lexington on the educational map.... Medill was
his own Sputnik for Lexington." Jacqueline Davison, member of the Standing School Building
Committee, said, "Medill Bair met with the committee all the time. And I think it was his
enthusiasm and endorsement of a lot of things that we might have hesitated to do that encouraged
us to do them. 05 Estabrook's principal from 1961 until the late 1960s, Alexander Cummings,
was also a strong advocate for team teaching. Actually, Rudolph Fobert, the superintendent hired
after Medill Bair left, was also a supporter of team teaching.
32 Frank Lyman, interview with Anne Grady, June 15, 2012.
33 Medill Bair and Richard G. Woodward, Team Teaching In Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964),
131 -138.
34 Bill Terris, talk at the Estabrook School Celebration, March 3, 2012.
35 Jaqueline Davison, interview with Anne Grady, March 30, 2012.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 14
National publications lauded the experiment at Estabrook and illustrated the features of the
school's team teaching program:
"Nine year old chemistry students David Semon and Michael Tocci performing an
experiment at the Joseph Estabrook School in Lexington, Massachusetts."
Saturday Evening Post cover, September 14, 1963.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Construction for Team Teaching 15
2. Estabrook School Constructed for Team Teaching
Lexington made the decision in 1959 to construct the Estabrook School specifically for team
teaching after two years of experience with the approach at the Franklin School. Known at first
as the Grove Street School, the school was renamed the Joseph Estabrook School when Alan
Schuler, a sixth grade student at the Parker School, wrote a winning essay suggesting that it be
named for Lexington's first school master.36
The ultimate source of Lexington's decision to embrace team teaching was the arrival in town
after World War II of a liberal and progressive group of newcomers, young professionals who
worked in nearby universities and technology firms on Route 128, and their families. They
recognized the value of superior schools. They founded the Citizen's Committee for the
Lexington Public Schools in 1956.37
Like many suburban towns, Lexington experienced significant population growth in the post war
period. One thousand new residents per year came to Lexington between 1950 and 1963,
including many of the highly educated individuals described above .38 Furthermore Lexington's
school population increased from 2,813 in 1950 to 6,280 in 1960. Thus, action to accommodate
so many pupils was a priority, and innovative programs seemed like a good idea, not least as a
way of attracting new teachers to Lexington in a competitive market.
Lexington Public Schools Enrollment
1950 -1965
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Reproduced from Katie Papadonis, " Estabrook: A School Designed for Team Teaching."
Investigating Lexington's History, January 2000.
36 ,Joseph Estabrook Name of Grove St. School." Lexington Minuteman, March 2, 1961.
37 An excellent student paper on the subject is Derek Etkin's "Lexington's Academic Newcomers: The Change in
Lexington's Attitude Towards its School System from 1950 to 1972," for Lexington High School course,
Investigating Lexington's History, Lexington High School, January 1999. Special Collections, Cary Memorial
Library.
38Lexington and SUPRAD (Published by the School and University Program for Research and Development,
October 1963), 3; and "Long Range Comprehensive Town and Financial Plan for Lexington, Massachusetts, Part 3:
Long -range Land Use and Financial Plans and Programs." Prepared by the Lexington Planning Board and the
Lexington Planning Board and the Massachusetts Department of Commerce and Development (May 31, 1970): 53.
Lexington Room, Cary Memorial Library. As Quoted in Derek Etkin, "Lexington's Academic Newcomers: The
Changes in Lexington's Attitude Towards its School System from 1950 to 1972," Paper for Lexington High School
Course, Investigating Lexington's History, January 1999, 3. Special Collections, Cary Memorial Library.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Construction for Team Teaching 16
The immediate cause of the establishment of the SUPRAD program in team teaching in
Lexington was the School Committee's directive in 1957 to Dr. John Blackhall Smith,
Superintendent of Schools, to "complete arrangements with SUPRAD, operating under a grant
from the Ford Foundation to initiate and carry out a five -year program of research and
development of Team Teaching. ,39 The Lexington Team Teaching Program became the largest
of eleven SUPRAD programs in the Boston Area.40
Images of Team Teaching in Lexington,
Lexington and SUPRAD, Paul A. Perry, ed. Published by SUPRAD, October 1963, page 20.
39 Medill Bair and Richard G. Woodward, Team Teaching In Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964), v-
vi.
40 Robert H. Anderson, "Three Samples of Team Teaching in Action," The Nation's Schools 65, No. 5 (May 1960):
64.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Changes to Team Teaching Over Time 17
3. Changes to Team Teaching Over Time
Team teaching was practiced at the Franklin and Estabrook Schools with great enthusiasm on the
part of people involved. For example, parent Arthur Katz said, "We thought team teaching
would change the world. A' The fact that "there was a really talented, gifted set of teachers"
involved, as David Horton said, was surely an advantage. However, team teaching did not spread
to other elementary schools in Lexington, although there were and still are programs in the junior
high schools. As Bill Terris said, "Each elementary schools had its own culture. "42 It seemed to a
parent in 1963 that "there was a tendency to have a separate school system in each school . ,A3
From the beginning, there were teachers who were not comfortable with team teaching concepts.
Team teaching was definitely not for everyone.
Even while team teaching was thriving at two elementary schools, some Lexington parents
questioned the experimentation involved in the team teaching, and supported a return to a basic
philosophy of education. In July 1963 a petition was circulated asking that the new
superintendent, to be hired after Medill Bair left, be a conservative. As reported in the Lexington
Minuteman, at a meeting of the School Committee with 250 people present, the author of the
petition stressed that the petition was "not an attempt to do away with any progress, .. [but to]
slow down, evaluate, stabilize and improve what we've already started. 44 Others requested, "A
report on what effect the advanced teaching techniques have had overall. Most voiced concern
that the program was getting out of hand.... [The petition's author said] `What can parents be
expected to think when the teacher said the children couldn't be expected to do well because he
was learning as they were. ,45 Speaking for the School Committee, Interim Superintendent
Mitchell Spiris said that the committee was already actively studying the concerns brought up at
the meeting. Another response from the School Committee was to authorize the publishing in
October 1963 of a 28 -page booklet, Lexington and SUPRAD, which was distributed to every
Lexington household, in hopes of promoting a better understanding of the collaboration with
Harvard University and the team teaching program.46
From the beginning a component of the SUPRAD team teaching program was the evaluation of
the strengths and weaknesses of the system. The chapter in Team Teaching in Action, "An
Assessment of Team Teaching," describes the various ways in which the evaluation was carried
out:
• In annual questionnaires to teachers and parents,
• In annual reports by the SUPRAD Board,
• In tests given annually to students,
• In general conclusions about pupil adjustment . 47
41 Arthur Katz, personal communication, 2010.
42 Bill Terris, interview with Anne Grady, March 9, 2012.
43 ,Parents Lash at Advanced Program in Local Schools," Lexington Minuteman, July 25, 1963.
44 Ibid.
45 ibid.
46 Lexington and SUPRAD (Published by the School and University Program for Research and Development,
October 1963).
47 Medill Bair and Richard G. Woodward, Team Teaching In Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964),
188 -199.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Changes to Team Teaching Over Time 18
Superintendent Medill Bair's cover letter to the booklet, Lexington and SUPRAD, sent to all
Lexington households, states that a final evaluation of the Lexington Team Teaching Program
with a complete statistical research report was being written and would be available in 1964.
While there were some preliminary positive conclusions about pupil creativity, growth and
performance, the final evaluation document has not been located. How much it might have
contributed to the eventual downgrading of aspects of team teaching in Lexington is unknown.
Surely the wrapping up of the SUPRAD involvement and the removal of Ford Foundation
funding through the Fund for the Advancement of Education was a blow to the Lexington Team
Teaching Program. Perhaps, also, the departure of Superintendent of the Lexington Schools,
Medill Bair, the strong believer in team teaching, may have lessened support for the program.
According to Joseph Grannis, faculty member of the Graduate School of Education and a
SUPRAD supervisor of the team teaching program in Lexington, the focus of Harvard's
collaboration with school systems shifted to the inner city in 1964.48
The schools built after Estabrook did not include much physical accommodation for team
teaching. The Bridge and Bowman Schools, built in 1964 and 1965 respectively, had a few
rooms with sliding partitions, but in general, classroom size was much more uniform. Jacqueline
Davison, member of the Standing School Building Committee said that the Bridge and Bowman
Schools "really didn't express team teaching. I think at that point, there were lots of questions
about how long we would be continuing the organizational concept of team teaching or whether
it would be modified significantly enough that the new schools could be more conventional."
Mr. Cuomo, principal of the Fiske School, wanted to start a team teaching program in the 1980s.
The Superintendent at the time looked at the budget and eliminated the team leader and senior
teacher positions because of the greater expense of their salaries. Inevitably, team teaching was
not instituted at the Fiske School . 49
Bill Terris, Principal at Estabrook School from 1970 to 1988, said that gradually many classes
reverted to those taught primarily by a single teacher in a dedicated classroom. Part of the
problem also was that when elementary schools began to close around 1980, teachers from the
closed schools were given the option of selecting a school to which they would like to be
transferred. If they did not select a school, they were assigned randomly to one where teachers
were needed. Thus some of the teachers who came to Estabrook were not committed to team
teaching, and enthusiasm for the system at the school was diluted.
Changes to team teaching over time, however, were more nuanced than the above statements
might suggest. Teacher collaboration did survive, although moving students around daily
declined. According to David Horton, former principal at the Bowman and Estabrook Schools,
joint teacher preparation of curriculum is still practiced in the Lexington school system. At first
in team teaching, students were grouped by achievement level for subjects such as math and
language arts, and teachers began to see the drawbacks of that arrangement. Horton said:
48 Joseph Grannis, interview with Anne Grady, June 16, 2012.
49 Bill Terris, interview with Anne Grady, March 9, 2012.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Changes to Team Teaching Over Time 19
It took a while, even down the road, for classes to become heterogeneous, but I think one
of the things that teachers decided was it was difficult to integrate curriculum with your
students if you were teaching three different groups of kids. If you were teaching a theme
in social studies, you might be able to carry that over into language arts and reading or
vice versa, but with three different groups of kids, you couldn't do that. I and others
began to feel that it would really be nice to have one group of children so that you could
do more integration of curriculum....
But team planning and teaming, in the sense of teachers working together and thinking
about curriculum and planning things -- that survived and persisted. Teachers did not say,
"I am going to lock my door and never see you again." And the teacher's workroom
absolutely helped with that.
When I came back [to Estabrook] as principal in 1988, I would say that some grades were
doing [team teaching] more than others. The fourth grade teachers always were teaming.
They planned their social studies and science units together, not necessarily each lesson.
They took field trips together, did a lot of lessons and major things together and a couple
of other teams did too. The fifth grade was another that did a lot of teaming together.
Even they, when I was principal would do large group instruction to kick off a unit or
something. So that collaboration among teachers, that part of teaming persisted and
survived.... [Eventually], the stipend for team leaders and senior teachers was phased
out entirely. I was very unhappy about that.
I was always promoting teaming, not so much where you would test and regroup and all
that. A lot of literature was coming out about the value of heterogeneity to both the
students who achieved at a higher level, and students who were less able. But team
collaboration is what now occurs in schools.so
David Horton and Sandra Trach, former and current principals of the Estabrook School, stress
that the most essential parts of team teaching, teacher collaboration and flexibility, have
continued to be a part of elementary education in Lexington, though often under different names.
The Open Classroom of the 1970s, Cooperative Groups of the 1990s, Flexible Education in the
early 2000s, and Professional Learning Communities in the last four years are examples.
Two initiatives from the original team teaching concept, apart from teacher collaboration, have
had a lasting impact on the Lexington schools. Before the Estabrook School, there were no
libraries in the Town's elementary schools, and there were very few in other grade schools in
New England. Books were brought to schools weekly from Cary Memorial Library and stored in
bookcases in corridors. After Estabrook, space for libraries either was found in existing schools
or built into new elementary schools. This was even before 1965 when Congress passed the
Elementary and Secondary Education that included incentives for the creation of libraries in
schools .51 The act, part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society legislation, provided funds for library
50 David Horton, interview with Anne Grady, March 29, 2012.
51 http: / /en. wikipedia. org /wiki/ Elementary _and_Secondary_Education Act
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Changes to Team Teaching Over Time 20
materials if schools would find space for libraries and hire librarians. This encouraged the
inclusion of libraries in many schools.52
Teacher aides became a standard feature of Lexington schools. Aides were first proposed in the
team teaching structure as means of freeing up teachers from clerical and administrative tasks
that could be handled by aides, so that teachers would have more time to teach.
GL 0.515 ROOM ILI SLN EN N
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Plan of the Estabrook School and partial Plot Plan.
From The Proposed New Elementary School on Grove Street,
The Standing School Building Committee, Town of Lexington, March 1960.
52 I am indebted to Betty Clark for information about this act.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Historical Significance 21
B. Historical Significance of the Estabrook School
The Estabrook School was the first elementary school in the country designed to accommodate
and facilitate a well- established team teaching program. The Lexington Team Teaching Program
(LTTP) began at the Franklin School in 1957. That program was described as "the first elaborate
and highly organized team teaching project involving an entire school. "53 As the idea of team
teaching took off nationally, as one effort to address the need for improving the nation's schools
and reducing teacher shortage, several other elementary school buildings, built just before the
Estabrook School, were designed with flexible space of one kind or another.54 Though they were
characterized as allowing for various kinds of experimentation with grouping and teacher
deployment, none was built to house a successful pre - existing program. It is that distinction that
makes the Estabrook School so important in the history of education and gives the school its
national significance. As a Lexington High School student wrote, "While the rest of the nation
reformed their educational system, Lexington helped to define educational reform. 05
Medill Bair and Robert Woodward said that the LTTP as embodied in the Franklin and
Estabrook Schools was "perhaps the program that did the most to make Team Teaching
famous. 06 Information about the Estabrook School was widely published by people directly
involved in its establishment and by those who were leaders in the field of education. Visitors
came from all over the world to observe the program. Teachers from across the country applied
to work at Estabrook.
The LTTP, at the Estabrook and Franklin Schools, represented a successful collaboration
between a school system and a university. At a time in the 1950s and 1960s when there was a
national movement to improve education in response to Sputnik and other pressures, a number of
universities across the country were taking an active role in promoting collaboration with the
nation's schools. School and university collaboration was perhaps at a high point in the years
after 1957 when the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University established the School
and University Program for Research and Development (SUPRAD). The program provided
resident research staff to work with school systems. As SUPRAD's largest program, among the
eleven that it sponsored with area schools, the Lexington program is an important example of a
national trend of school/university collaboration.
The LTTP was the beneficiary of the two significant post World War II funding initiatives, the
Ford Foundation's Fund for the Advancement of Education established in 1951 and, indirectly,
53 Evans Clinchy, Schools for Team Teaching (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratory, 1961), 38. Text
available at http : / /www.eric.ed.gov /ERICWebPortal /detail ?accno— ED031034
54 See Evans Clinchy, Schools for Team Teaching (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratory, 1961), 13 -24, for
a description of Englewood Elementary School in Englewood. Florida and the Carson City Elementary School in
Carson City, Michigan.
55 Derek Etkin, "Lexington's Academic Newcomers: The Changes in Lexington's Attitude Towards its School
System from 1950 to 1972," Paper for Lexington High School Course, Investigating Lexington's History, January
1999, 21. Special Collections, Cary Memorial Library.
56 Medill Bair and Robert Woodward, Team Teaching in Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1964),
15.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Historical Significance 22
the National Defense Education Act of 1958. As such, the Estabrook School reflects the nation's
monetary support of innovative educational programs in the period.
The Estabrook School represents a moment in time when forces converged to bring to fruition an
innovative educational system -- to the inspiration and exhilaration of those involved. Frank
Lyman said, "It was the greatest American school for me, and I have been in a hundred of
them.... It was a crucible for learning for everyone." Bill Terris said, "It was a school born of
ideas.... We worked together as a team. It was a very exciting time. People had to learn how to
work together." David Horton said, "It was like the heavens opened up."
The Estabrook School played a seminal role demonstrating team teaching in action, and as such
had a significant effect on the future history of education in the US. All the people interviewed
for this report agreed that team teaching concepts continue in use in schools of today, even if not
in the comprehensive organizational way that they existed at the Franklin and Estabrook Schools.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Design Derivation 23
III. Architectural Analysis
A. Architectural History and Design Influences
1. Design Derivation
Architects Howard Clinch and Frank Crimp no doubt drew upon their vast experience in
planning elementary schools for specific features of the Estabrook School, but they also must
have been aware of new trends in school design, especially those that were intended to foster
team teaching. These new trends were codified in the influential Trump Report of 1956.57 More
immediately, the architects must have known of the Wayland High School, designed for a
secondary school team teaching program, which opened in 1960. The same firm, Kargman,
Mitchell and Sargent, served as educational consultants for the Wayland and Estabrook schools.
The Wayland school, designed by the Architects Collaborative with John Harkness and Herbert
K. Gallagher as partners in charge, was called during its construction in 1958- 1959 "the nation's
closest approach to a Trump School," even though the program for the Wayland High School
was worked out before the Trump Report was finalized . 51
The Wayland High School was widely published and presented as an example of innovative
school design .59 Dr. Donald Mitchell, of the educational consultants, worked with the
superintendent of the Wayland Schools to plan the program for the high school for six months
before the architects were hired. John Harkness would later collaborate with Dr. Mitchell,
Superintendent Anderson of the Wayland Schools, and others in articles on school design and the
Wayland High School in particular. What they wrote about the Wayland school seems to apply
equally to the Estabrook School. It is highly likely that Donald Mitchell promoted similar
architectural choices for the Estabrook School to the Standing Building Committee. Member
Jacqueline Davison remembers that Mitchell played an active part in the planning sessions of the
Standing School Building Committee, which met weekly for many months.60
In Portraits of Significant Schools: The Wayland High School (1960), a description of the
Architectural Approach stated:
The aim of the architects was not just to slip a sheath around Wayland's program, nor
merely to provide a school which would not obstruct the program's operation. What the
Wayland people wanted and what the architects sought to provide was a school which
57 Trump, Images of the Future (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, 1956), a publication authorized by
the National Association of Secondary School Principals Commission on the Experimental Study and Utilization of
Staff in the Secondary School, 1959. As Associate Director of the National Association of Secondary School
Principals, Dr. Trump was a leading advocate for change and innovation in education in this and other publications.
This highly influential book was a report of the Trump Commission, composed primarily school principals, which
attempted "to envisage what the educational form of American secondary school of tomorrow may be like." Quota-
tion from New Schools for New Education (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, Inc., 1961), 6.
58 New Schools for New Education (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, Inc., 1961), 26.
59 Ibid.; and Clinchy, Evans. Profiles of Significant Schools: Wayland Senior High School, Wayland Massachusetts.
New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, Inc., January 1960; Architectural Forum 113 (November 1960): 94-
113; Architectural Record 126 (August 1959): 153 -176.
60 Jaqueline Davison, interview with Anne Grady, March 30, 2012.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Design Derivation 24
would actively assist the program, a school which would, in a sense, insist that there be
more individual teaching and learning. Wayland Senior High School is an attempt to
reverse the effect of the conventional aggregation of uniform classrooms which by their
very nature urge uniform class size and work against the intimate cooperation of teacher
and student. This liberation of the program is accomplished in part, the architects believe,
by breaking up the school into smaller, mainly one - story, units and thus providing more
quiet and intimate, less institutional and congested, surroundings. The provision of several
large -group rooms, many small group rooms, and only a few medium group rooms
naturally tends to force the breaking up of class size. It does not force teachers and students
to talk to each other or to use seminars and individual instruction. The teachers could
remain remote and could abuse the alluring conveniences of large group instruction. But
the smaller, intimate spaces invite use. The architects also wished to provide a school
which students might enjoy.... There was an earnest attempt to make the school as
appealing as possible -- within price limitations, by providing a central courtyard, glass
walls, attractive plantings, and the vista of woods and rolling fields.61
The program for the Estabrook School was also worked out carefully in advance of construction.
It was based on the experience gained in the first two years of the team teaching at the Franklin
School and an understanding of the limitations of the running such a program in a conventional
school building of self - contained classrooms. Ethel Bears, Principal of the Franklin School, said,
"The architects spent several days observing the uses of space in our team teaching program.
The school and university research and development staffs discussed needed space with those
who would design the new school. ,62 The educational consultants made significant contributions
to the planning process. They were, like their colleagues who were running the SUPRAD
program at the Franklin School, members of the faculty of the Harvard University Graduate
School of Education. All of these people were praised by the Building Committee as having
"given time and effort `beyond the call of duty' to the development of the Grove Street
School . „63
At the time, educators and architects across the country were experimenting with building plans
for schools dedicated to team teaching. Three different plan options emerged: the Open Plan, the
Loft Plan and Planned Variability.
The open plan provided for a building interior that was completely open or in which there are a
series of open spaces, so that use of spaces was malleable. This provided maximum flexibility
for students and teachers to move around and regroup at will. John Harkness, however, pointed
out that the open plan was in some sense an abdication on the part of teachers and administrators
of the responsibility to define a team teaching program in advance.64 In the loft plan, a series of
61 Evans Clinchy, Portraits of Significant Schools: Wayland Senior High School, Wayland, Massachusetts (New
York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, Inc., January 1960), 22.
62 Ethel Bears, "Team Teaching at the Franklin School,” June 1969, 7. Typescript in the Special Collections, Cary
Memorial Library.
63 "Grove St. School Plan Wins State `Go- Ahead "' Lexington Minuteman, October 29, 1959, 1.
64 John (Chip) Harkness, cited in New Schools for New Education (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratory,
Inc., 1960), 25.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Design Derivation 25
modular open spaces are built in which partitions can be put up or taken down at will to
accommodate different sizes of groups. Part of the problem with this approach was that partitions
available were expensive and did not provide a sufficient noise barrier. Also heating and
ventilating became difficult when the size of spaces changed. In planned variability, the need for
spaces of different sizes was carefully estimated before construction, so that there were a number
of fixed walls in a building and some sliding partitions to change the size of spaces. This option
was chosen for the Estabrook School.
For all of the above plans, noise was an issue, though most so in the open plan, slightly less so in
the loft plan and even less in a building designed for planned variability. Solutions suggested
range from ignoring the noise (though it is unknown how noise would affect children in the long
term), to more soundproofing of partitions. At the Estabrook School, according to Bill Terris,
music was played in the corridors to counterbalance other noise.65
Another characteristic of team teaching schools is that bells do not ring to indicate the length of a
learning period, as these periods are expected to vary. According to Mr. Terris and others,
children learn to adapt and move without bells quite easily.66
Estabrook School is an example of architecture of the mid - century modern movement. The
horizontal orientation of the building, bands of large windows, lack of ornament, and flat or low
pitch roofs relate the building to other examples of the movement in Lexington, in particular the
developments of modern (also known as contemporary) houses in such neighborhoods at the
nearby Turning Mill area.
Estabrook School was not the first school building in Lexington to be built in the modern style.
Other examples are the Fiske School designed in 1949 with an addition of 1954, both by Clinch
and Crimp when their firm included Adden and Parker; the Maria Hastings School, designed by
Charles Cole in 1955; and the Diamond Junior High School designed by Charles Cole in 1958.
These buildings have similar lines and features and all were constructed with reinforced
concrete, cinderblock walls, structural ceramic tile, concrete slab roofs, asphalt tile floors, and
metal window frames. These materials, widely used in institutional buildings of the period, were
economical and fireproof.
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The Standing Schopl Boildirg Commrrtee
Lexington" MalS ChUMNHS March, 1460
Reproduced from the cover of the Grove Street School proposal, published by the building committee.
65 Bill Terris Interview with Anne Grady, March 9, 2012.
66 Ibid.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Architects 26
2. The Architects: Clinch, Crimp, Brown and Fisher
The architects of the Estabrook School were partners in the firm of Adden, Parker, Clinch and
Crimp from 1929 until 1958. By the time that they designed the Estabrook School the firm's
name had become Clinch, Crimp, Brown and Fisher. Clinch and Crimp each worked for Adden
and Parker for a few years before becoming partners in the firm.
Both men served in World Wars I and II and they contributed their architectural expertise to their
profession and civic organizations during their careers .67 Howard Clinch (1889 -1966) grew up in
New York City and graduated from the Columbia University School of Architecture in 1912. He
served the Boston Society of Architects as Secretary and Treasurer at different times, was the
director of the Massachusetts Association of Architects, and for a period was the director of the
Boston Architectural Center. He also served on the City of Boston Art Commission.
Frank Crimp (1899 -1990) grew up in London, England and graduated from the Beaufoye
Technical Institute in London. In 1923 he became a naturalized US citizen. Crimp lectured at
Harvard University and MIT .68 He was on the planning commission for the new Boston City
Hall. According to James MacInnes, Assistant Superintendent of the Lexington Schools for
Business Affairs, who worked with Crimp on the Bridge and Bowman Schools, "Frank Crimp
was very thorough. He knew where every nut and bolt was.... [He was] very particular, very
precise. He took care of all the record keeping for assistance from the State. He had a mind like a
steel trap. ,69 For school buildings in which Crimp was not involved, MacInnes himself had to do
the record keeping.
After World War II, the firm of Adden, Parker, Clinch and Crimp specialized in public school
buildings, designing sixteen elementary schools and four high schools .70 Though not known for
the architectural distinction of their school designs, Clinch and Crimp and their partners were
recognized for their expertise in school construction. Among the architects' designs for school
buildings, the Estabrook School stands out as the most creative. It is as though they too were
inspired by the innovative educational system the building was to house. They apparently agreed
with John Harkness of TAC that schools should be appealing, be of one story with separate
wings for separate functions, and have such features as walls of glass, outdoor patios with
plantings, and views of fields and woods.
67 Biographical information about Clinch and Crimp comes from "Questionnaire for Architects" Roster and /or
register of Architects Qualified for Federal Public Works. AIA Archives:
http:// www. aia .org /about/history /AIAS076705.
68 Obituary, "Frank W. Crimp, 90, lecturer at Harvard University and MIT," The Boston Globe (January 9, 1990).
69 James MacInnes, personal communication, March 30, 2012.
70 Elementary Schools: Braintree, 1950; North Andover, 1950; West Bridgewater, 1951; Milton, 1951; Wakefield,
1952; Wellesley, 1952; Wellesley, 1952; Rockport, 1952; Whitman, 1952; Fiske School, Lexington, 1949 and 1954;
Estabrook School, Lexington, 1961; Bridge School, Lexington, 1964; Bowman School, Lexington, 1965; high
schools in Reading, Hingham, North Andover, and Wakefield. Op cit., AIA Archive.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report
i�
F
Architects 27
1�
Pupils working in the outdoor patio as envisioned by the architect Frank Crimp.
Lexington and SUPRAD, Paul A. Perry, ed. Published by SUPRAD, October 1963, page 2.
Anne Andrus Grade June 2012
. " %_':'• 7t.,;.t...r . .. -. _.
.. .-fig,
-
.`;2 � � r �-�s , .r .'_.�..:.
.. - '
y
,.
•.iii_'•:_„ _ -° -.
' `��' ` -" Y..:• ~ -� .Y
- .. .: is
-
�, .
Pupils working in the outdoor patio as envisioned by the architect Frank Crimp.
Lexington and SUPRAD, Paul A. Perry, ed. Published by SUPRAD, October 1963, page 2.
Anne Andrus Grade June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report
B. Original Building and Changes Over Time
1. Project Data 71
Superintendent of Schools: Medill Bair
Director of Instructional Services: Paul F. Poehler
Director of Administrative Services: Mitchell J. Spiris
School Committee:
Sanborn C. Brown, Chairman
Dan Fenn, Jr. (resigned)
Donald T. Clark
Gordon E. Steel
Mildred B. Marek
Standing School Building Committee:
Austin W. Fisher, Jr., Chairman
William G. Potter
Jacqueline Davison
Stephen Russian
Frederic K. Johnson
Robert B. Kent
Alvin W. Davis
School Sites Committee:
Gordon E. Steele, Chairman
Charles T. Abbott
Richard R. Harding
Ruth Morey
Roland Greeley (resigned)
Project Data 28
71 The information in this section and a plan of the school were included in the program for the dedication of the
Estabrook School on October 8, 1961. "Collection of Articles, Brochures, Reports, Handbooks, etc. Recording the
History of the Lexington Schools," 1961 -1969. Special Collections, Cary Memorial Library.
Anne Andrus Grade June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Project Data
Total Appropriation: $1,220,000.00
Per pupil cost (650 occupancy): 1,877.00
Building Construction
(excluding equipment): 982,929.98
Cost per square foot: 16.92
Site Improvement: 25,753.30
Equipment: 77,168.61
The balance of the appropriation included money for planning, supervision of
construction, insurance, advertising, and other miscellaneous costs and contingencies.
Architects:
Educational Consultants
Structural Engineers:
Mechanical Engineers:
Landscape Architects:
General Contractor:
Clinch, Crimp, Brown & Fisher
Kargman, Mitchell & Sargent
Cleverdon, Varney & Pike
Hubbard, Tracy & Blakeley
Moriece & Gary
C. R. Burns & Son
29
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report
2. Timeline
Timeline 30
1959, March Town Meeting directs the Standing School Building Committee to develop a
design for the new school on Grove Street.
1959, April Clinch, Crimp, Brown and Fisher selected as architects for the Grove Street
School.
1959, July Educational planning started, with consideration of a tentative statement of
`Educational Specifications" prepared by teachers and Administrators.72
1959, Oct. 22 State School Building Assistance Program grants tentative approval of the
floor plan and the proposed educational program at the Grove Street School . 73
1960, Feb. 12 Architects submit contract drawings for the Grove Street School. "Working
drawings and specifications are completed after a careful analysis of design,
selection of materials, mechanical systems, utilities and utilization of the site, and
weighing initial costs against long term maintenance operations. ,74
1960, March Bids for construction are received and the Standing School Building Committee
publishes "The Proposed New Elementary School on Grove Street" that describes
the architecture that was designed to facilitate team teaching.75
1960, Apr. 21 Contract signed with C. R. Burns and Son, General Contractors.
1960, May 1 Site excavation was underway.
1961, Mar. 2 Alan Schuler, sixth grade student at the Parker School, wins the essay contest for
his recommendation that the Grove Street School be named for Lexington's first
school master, Joseph Estabrook.
1961, July The building was substantially completed and made operational for the summer
session conducted at that time.
1961, Sept. 7 Estabrook School opens.
72 Information and plan included in the program for the dedication of the Estabrook School, October 8, 1961.
"Collection of Articles, Brochures, Reports, Handbooks, etc. Recording the History of the Lexington Schools,"
1961 -1969. Special Collections, Cary Memorial Library.
73 "Grove St. School Plan Wins State 'Go- Ahead, "' Lexington Minuteman, Oct. 29, 1959.
74 Contract Drawings, Public Facilities Department, Town of Lexington; and two pages of information about the
Estabrook School including a plan. "Collection of Articles, Brochures, Reports, Handbooks, etc. Recording the
History of the Lexington Schools," 1961 -1969. Special Collections, Cary Memorial Library.
75 Ibid., and the Standing School Building Committee, The Proposed New Elementary School on Grove Street,
March 1960.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Timeline 31
1987 Two classrooms are added to the southeast end of the school, consistent in design
with the original building.
C. 1990 Three modular classrooms added to the south end of the school.
1999 Greenhouse, designed by Craig Allen Humphrey, civil engineer, is built.76
2009 Natural gas replaces oil as the fuel that fired the cast iron steam boilers. "The
underground oil tank was removed and a new gas service was installed. ,77
2010, Aug. 9 Tests reveal that the Estabrook School has concentrations of PCBs that exceed
EPA Guidelines. The window caulk contaminated with PCBs was also found to
contain asbestos.
2010, Fall Mitigation measures to limit exposure of people in the building to PCBs and
asbestos are undertaken.
2011, April Town Meeting votes to appropriate $1,050,000 for a feasibility study for
construction of a new Estabrook School.
2012, Jan. Town vote in a special election approves the expenditure to build the new
Estabrook School.
2012, Mar 12 Massachusetts School Building Authority grants approval for a new Estabrook
School.
2012, Apr. 2 Special Town Meeting approves an expenditure for the construction of a new
Estabrook School . 78
76 See plans for the greenhouse in the Archive at the Estabrook School.
77 Lexington Public School District, Application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for replacement of
the Estabrook School. November 5, 2010, 4.
78 ,Recapping the Estabrook School Building Project Timeline," LexingtonPatch, April 3, 2012.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Construction and Exterior Appearance 32
3. Construction and Exterior Appearance79
The long low profile of the Estabrook School, interrupted by two higher gabled roof portions,
reflects the decision to have all instruction on a single floor while providing greater ceiling
heights for the gym and lecture hall.
A major change to the exterior appearance of the school occurred in the 1980s when the Transitc
panels above and below the windows were painted green. Originally, according to Susan Ward,
the panels were blue and salmon color. Those colors picked up colors used in mosaic mural. The
use of rectangles of bright colors in modern buildings of the period was influenced by the
paintings of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. The steel posts and beams that support the roof over
the patio were painted the same blue originally. The blue color is still present on the exposed
metal framing on the interior.
Foundation
Continuous reinforced concrete foundations and footings support the exterior walls. Square
concrete posts in the crawl space, spaced at intervals and resting on footings, support the
concrete floors above.
Framing
A steel frame supports the floor, walls and roof of the school. Exposed steel posts next to the
exterior walls on the interior, do the actual work of supporting roof structure above. On the
sloping ceilings of the two gabled- roofed portions of the building the structural steel is visible,
though covered with concrete for fire protection.
Exterior walls
Except where there are window assemblages, exterior walls are composed of concrete block
faced with brick on the outside and plaster in most places on the interior. In the lobby the west
wall is faced with brick on the interior. The walls are not insulated. A waterproofing membrane
is built into the walls.
Windows
Large portions of the exterior walls are composed of single -pane windows set in aluminum
frames with Transite panels, originally blue and salmon colored and now painted green, below
and above them.80 At the time, the Superintendent of Schools, Medill Bair, who suggested the
panels, was criticized for using a material what was supposedly more expensive than brick. In
fact, the panels were cheaper than brick would have been.81 The caulk used in the windows was
the source of the PCB contamination in the building. Windows in the two additions described
below are similar, but not identical to the original windows.
79 Much of the information in this section and the following section on the interiors of the school comes from the
description of the building in The Proposed New Elementary School on Grove Street published by the Standing
School Building Committee in March 1960; and Contract Drawings of the building of Feb. 12, 1960 in the Public
Facilities Department, Town of Lexington. Specifications for the building have not been located.
80 A notation in the Archives at the Estabrook School indicates that the panels are made of Transite.
81 Bill Terris, Interview with Anne Grady, March 9, 2012.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Construction and Exterior Appearance 33
Roofs
The roof is composed of structural steel framing with decking of pre -cast concrete slabs covered
originally with four -ply composition and gravel. By 2012, the roof on the building was
composed of rubber topped with gravel. 82 About twenty years ago, EPDM rubber roofing was
placed on two sections of the flat roof comprising 6,700 square feet in all .83 There are no gutters.
Water drains from the roof through interior drains. The roof contains twelve large and three
small bubble skylights called "skydomes" in the north wing of the building. One or two of them
have been painted over to reduce glare from sunlight.
Chimney
A chimney serves the heating equipment in the boiler room in the cellar.
Doors
Exterior doors are aluminum in the lobby and wood for the most part elsewhere. In the lobby,
aluminum entry doors on the west have glass panels top and bottom. On the east side, aluminum
bottom panels are substituted for glass.
Interior doors are solid core birch veneered doors for the most part. A few doors are
"underwriter's label" doors. Some doors have tall narrow lights above the doorknob that provide
a view into the rooms. All doorframes are pressed steel, painted blue that match accent color in
the structural glazed tile walls in the hallways and bathrooms.
82 Joe McLaughlin, custodian at the Estabrook School, personal communication.
83 Lexington Public School District, Application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for replacement of
the Estabook School, November 5, 2010, 4.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Construction and Exterior Appearance 34
Floors
The original floors were described as being covered with "resilient flooring" of unknown
character. In 2012 vinyl tile covers the floors, except in the lobby, where the floor is of
flagstones.
Ceilings
Ceilings are of acoustical tile, except in the lecture hall, where the ceiling is covered with hard
acoustical plaster.
Utilities
"Most of the [current] systems, including plumbing systems and fixtures, heating and ventilating
distribution and terminal units, .. are original to the building- ,14
Heating was by low- pressure steam distributed from a central oil -fired cast iron boiler. In 2009,
"the boilers were converted from oil to natural gas. The underground oil tank was removed. ,85
HVAC units are found below many of the windows.
Paint and Interior Walls
Walls in the rooms, where plastered, are generally painted white. Walls in the corridors are
ceramic tile with permanently glazed surfaces in yellow or blue. Exposed steel framing on the
interior is painted blue. In the lecture hall walls are covered with painted pegboard with areas of
wood paneling and painted cinderblock.
Hardware
Doorknobs of brushed aluminum are presumably part
of the original hardware in the building.
Lighting
Most lighting fixtures in the building are fluorescent
lights set above translucent panels in the aluminum
grid that supports the acoustical tile ceilings. There are
a few directional spotlights in the lobby and recessed
down lights in the ceiling of Room 8. In the areas with
high ceilings outside the gymnasium and the music
and art rooms, fixtures are decorative plastic globe that
are orange on the top and white on the bottom
84 Lexington Public School District, Application to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for replacement of
the Estabrook School. November 5, 2010, 5.
85 Ibid., 4.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Plan, Room Use and changes Over Time 35
4. Building Plan, Room Use and Changes Over Time
The interior of the building was laid out after intense assessment of the requirements for a
building devoted to team teaching by: the SUPRAD staff, the Educational Consultants,
Kargman, Mitchell and Sargent; the Architects Clinch, Crimp, Brown and Fisher; and the
Standing School Building Committee.
The description of the building, presented in the Standing School Building Committee's proposal
for the Grove Street School, gives an overview of their planning decisions:
In the final form of the building all instructional areas of the building are on one
level. The boiler room and a large storage room are located in the pipe space, which
extends under the entire structure. At first glance the exterior view and floor plan do not
differ greatly from those of the typical modern elementary school and it could, in fact, be
readily converted for a conventional educational program with 23 standard classrooms of
about 900 square feet each. Some spaces are fixed in size with permanent walls, while
others may be changed by the use of movable partitions.
The floor plan shows three general groupings of rooms, corresponding approximately to
the three teams of teachers around which the educational program has been developed.
The focal point is the large auditorium — actually a lecture hall — which seats 150 in
normal use and over 200 for special functions. The two wings adjacent to the auditorium
have a number of rooms for small and medium sized groups.
The third wing is based on larger group activities and includes the kitchen and
administrative area. [Two large rooms, with central partitions] ... will serve for
instruction ... The library is considered part of the instructional space. The playroom is
similar to those in our other elementary schools....
Since teachers meet together frequently as teams and sub - teams, and since they do not
have permanent classroom stations, this program requires a larger teacher's work area
than a conventional school. 86
Drawings of the rooms in use and their location in the plan were a feature of several publications
in the early 1960s. The following illustrations are reproduced from Robert H. Anderson and
Donald P. Mitchell, "Team Teaching, New Learning Concepts Demand Changes in School Plant
Design," The Nation's Schools 65 (Spring 1960): 78 -79.
86 The Standing School Building Committee, The Proposed New Elementary School on Grove Street, March 1960,
9.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012
Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Plan, Room Use and changes Over Time 36
ri
rl rl�!11
lip
TYPE d large group
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floors, fables and
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FIG. 4. Floor plait shows clernenlary
school, [hove Street. Lexington,
Mass. Arrows paint la specialized
arees far large group inslrsl[ lion.
IIA
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i A loft
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Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report
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Plan, Room Use and changes Over Time 37
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TYPE C small group
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Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Plan, Room Use and changes Over Time 38
The building's T- shaped plan, allowed each of the three two -grade teams to occupy a separate
wing: the Kappa team, composed of fifth and six graders, occupied the base of the T; the Delta
team of third and fourth graders and Phi team of first and second graders occupied respectively
the east and west wings that formed the angled cross bar at the top of the T.
As an example of "planned variability," the Estabrook School was laid out to include spaces of
different sizes to accommodate different components of the team teaching program. A unique
feature of the plan was the entrance lobby that links the three wings and adjoins landscaped and
flag- stoned patios east and west of the lobby. Many of the spaces were described and illustrated
in Schools for Team Teaching, published in 1961 by the Educational Facilities Laboratories, Inc.,
another program funded by the Ford Foundation's Fund for the Advancement of Education. 87
There was no cafeteria in the plan for the school. Cafeterias in an elementary school were
thought by the school's planners to be uncomfortably noisy for some children and were also
deemed a waste of space for most of the day. The planners decided to omit a cafeteria as a
cost - saving measure and in hopes that children could eat in more congenial spaces. The initial
plan to have children eat at desks in the large classrooms proved to be too messy. Spillage ruined
many a project belonging to the owners of the desks.$$ A child returning to his desk might slip on
ravioli on the floor.89 As Jacqueline Davison of the Standing School Building Committee said,
"in trying to solve one problem, we created another. "90 For a number of years, students ate lunch
on folding tables set up in the Play Room (gymnasium). The eventual solution was to have
children eat at tables in the lobby. In 2012, custodians still set up folding picnic tables in time for
lunch and stack them against the walls after lunch.
Finish materials chosen for the interior of the original building were durable and utilitarian for
the most part. However, the upper walls adjacent to Room 8 and the Play Room above the
cubbies in the corridors were covered with narrow clear- coated vertical redwood sheathing
boards. The east wall of the Play Room was finished with large squares of wooden paneling.
87 "Educational Facilities Laboratories, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation established by the Ford Foundation in 1958,
with an appropriation of 4.5 million dollars, to help American schools and colleges with their physical problems by
the encouragement of research and experimentation and the dissemination of knowledge regarding educational
facilities." From the introduction to Evans Clinch, Schools for Team Teaching (New York: Educational Facilities
Laboratories, Inc., 1961).
88 Bill Terris, interview with Anne Grady, March 9, 2012.
89 Dick Barnes, interview with Anne Grady, March 16, 2012.
90 Jacqueline Davison, interview with Anne Grady, March 30, 2012.
Anne Andrus Grady June 2012