Belmont Public Schools

Belmont Public Schools is a school district that serves Belmont, Massachusetts, United States. The district is highly regarded for the excellence of Belmont High School, the emphasis on the arts, and the quality of all-around education. The district also consistently scores above state average in reports of DESE.^[1]

Belmont Public Schools
The Underwood School Administration building entrance.
Address
644 Pleasant Street Belmont, MA 02478 Belmont, Massachusetts Greater Boston Belmont , Middlesex, Massachusetts, 02478
District information
Motto	Learn, Think, Create, Serve. Respectful, Responsible, Ready to Learn.
Grades	K-12
Established	1865
Superintendent	Jill Geiser
School board	Belmont School Committee
Chair of the board	Meghan Moriarty
Governing agency	Town of Belmont
Accreditation(s)	High student achievement. Belmont High School consistently ranks among the top 15 high schools in Massachusetts. 99.7% high school graduation rate. Butler and Burbank elementary schools named National Blue Ribbon School
Schools	7
Budget	$67,000,000
NCES District ID	2502490
Affiliation(s)	Foundation for Belmont Education, Belmont Education Association
Students and staff
Students	4,378
Staff	538
District mascot	bear, whale, giraffe, cheetah, blue jay, marauder
Colors	blue, grey, maroon
Other information
Website	Belmont.k12.ma.us

Schools

There are four public elementary schools in Belmont: the Burbank, Butler, Winn Brook, and Wellington schools, with the Wellington Elementary having been rebuilt in 2011. Two other public elementary schools, Payson Park and Kendall, burned down in the 1970s and 1990s, respectively. There is one public upper elementary school that was a middle school until 2023, the Winthrop Louis Chenery Upper Elementary School (Chenery Upper Elementary School) which burned down in 1995 (when it was still a middle school) but was rebuilt later. There is one public middle school, Belmont Middle School, and one public high school, Belmont High School, they share one building, BMHS finished 2023 that is on the site of the former high school that was torn down. Belmont has had many school fires; in the town's history, four schools have been partially or completely destroyed by fire, as was one former school (the Kendall), which was being used as an arts center at the time.

The transition from upper elementary school to middle school in Belmont occurs from 6th to 7th grade, slightly later than in most communities (which transition from 5th to 6th grade). The W.L. Chenery Upper Elementary school (then a middle school), slated for demolition and rebuilding at the time, was destroyed by fire in 1995. When the new school opened in the fall of 1997, it was expanded to include the 5th grade (which had previously been housed in the town's elementary schools) in addition to grades 6 through 8. After construction of a new middle school, the 7th and 8th grades were moved, and 4th grade was moved to Chenery, now an upper elementary.

In 2023, the town of Belmont rebuilt their high school building and made it into a 7-12th grade building. Chenery became a 4th to 6th grade school, and the four elementary schools became K through 3rd grade. The new building was split into two schools, the high school (9-12), and the middle school (7-8).

The Chenery Upper Elementary School's teams are all called the "Cheetahs", the Belmont Middle School's teams are all called the "Blue Jays" and Belmont High School's teams are all called the "Marauders".^[2]

Controversies

While the district is highly regarded in education, during the construction of the BMHS campus, public backlash broke out when it was discovered that parts of the tax increase due to the project was "wasted" on heated sidewalks for ice. the project was completed just in time for the school year,^[3] with finishing touched added throughout the year. Even after the tax increase for the project, an additional override was passed to keep Burbank school open. Along with the financial criticism, one of the sidewalks added around the campus ends directly in a sidewalk of a home.

In addition, the districts branding, and web design is unclear. The district and all schools use one domain and modern website template, though it has a few issues. The mobile version only displays "Belmont" on the district home page, instead of "Belmont Public Schools". The favicons don't match the branding, many schools have their name written out in both the logo and website header, the high school logo is too big for the mobile version, so it covers the menu options, and some school colors are too bright and contrasting. The websites use multiple names for the same departments, even on the same page, while many links are broken. The only separate website is belmontschoolmenus.com, for food services. It is very outdated and unnecessarily separate, the menu viewing application is on a separate link that is hard to find, and it is also outdated.

As for branding, the elementary schools use a stylized version of their buildings (Butler and Chenery have slightly different text) except for Burbank, which uses a blocky letter B in a circle. The BMS logo is stylized text with an orange version of the district icon. The compact version of the BMS logo/orange district logo (letter B with a tail that if half-filled, with the tail being partly filled too) has a different color for the filled part of the tail that the rest of the fill, while a blue/maroon version of the same flawed logo is used as a BMHS joint logo, district logo, and BMS/BHS school logos without distinction of which one it really is because both schools and the district have their own logos (district is the same as BMS but with grey and blue, incorrect versions are in use at BMS main office and food services Facebook) while the main office of BMS uses the blue grey district logo as the BMS logo. The biggest issue with BMS branding is the mascot, the BMHS building has been color coded with blue and light blue for BHS and maroon and orange for BMS (door signage, seating, website, wall paint) and while the logos match, the mascot of BMS does not, the blue jay contains blue and grey instead. A competition was held for the mascot where teachers and students could submit designs. There were many submissions using correct colors, but they were removed before the public vote (which only contained mascot name and no design). After a push from 7th grade parents for unknown reasons, blue jay was selected even though it allegedly did not win the vote, the design was not even submitted, and was allegedly made afterward, making the whole competition false. School officials did not declare that this happened (school officials even debated on using existing copyrighted logos). This created a mini mascot scandal that was swept under the rug. BHS uses a stylized marauder logo with the district logo as a secondary one.^[4]

References

External links

• Official website
• Foundation for Belmont Education
• Belmont Education Association