Frederick's final bell: Boston shutters its last middle school

Boston Globe

25-06-2025

'Our friend group, everyone's going to go their own way,' said Honesty Graham, as she spun a hot pink fidget toy around her hand. 'Everyone's being split up.'
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The district marked the Frederick for closure at the end of the school year as part of its broader effort to address declines in enrollment in the 48,000-student district and shift students to schools that house grades 7-12.
Eighth-graders Alexis Pierre and Cyrus Dorzelma arrived for the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School promotion ceremony as they move on to high school on June 18.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Seventh-grader Anyel Pimentel played with an inflatable ball while waiting for dismissal at the Frederick on June 20. It's an early release day and with only one day of school left, the year was all but over.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
When plans were first announced in 2018 to phase out middle school over five years, more than a hundred students, teachers, and parents
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Across the country, many districts have phased out standalone middle schools over the last couple of decades, as education experts tried to determine how best to serve young adolescents.
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Sixty years ago, education scholars believed middle schools could tailor
education to that age group. More recently,
By 2024, middle grades had been added to a half dozen Boston high schools, while other middle schools had already closed or merged with high schools. With closure on the horizon, the Frederick community made some demands about the building's future, including retaining the name of Lilla G. Frederick on the elementary school that will open there. They then sought to make the last year count.
As staff member
Andrew Brown put it last summer, 'People talk about auspicious beginnings but never inspiring endings.'
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When the Frederick opened in 2003 as New Boston Pilot Middle School, it was a hard-fought victory and rare investment for Grove Hall.
and the area had seen decades of underinvestment. Even the site of the school, a vacant lot on Columbia Road, was so infamous for drugs and crime that Mayor Thomas Menino called the National Guard to help clean it in 1996.
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Seventh-grader Isaiyah Marquez passed the welcoming faculty and staff as he arrived for the first day of school at Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School on Sept. 5, 2024.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
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Seventh-grader Erntz François read "Monster," a novel by Walter Dean Myers, during English Language Arts class on May 20.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Erntz sat for his school picture on Dec. 11.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Project R.I.G.H.T., a community organization formed to address violence in the neighborhood, campaigned for a new middle school to serve as a community hub, said Michael Kozu, co-director of the organization and the original board chair of the school. Lilla G. Frederick, one of Project R.I.G.H.T.'s founders, led the process of getting neighbors onboard. It would be a semi-autonomous pilot school with multiple board seats for community members.
'It was a major investment that kind of reversed the legacy of disinvestment,' Kozu said. 'It's made such a big difference in terms of stability and increasing opportunities.'
It lived up to
its mission as a community, housing at various times a church, a basketball league, a polling place, and even a support group for the previously incarcerated.
When Frederick passed away in 2005, the school was renamed in her honor.
Speaking to the School Committee in 2024, board chair Emmanuel Tikili asked the district to continue to honor her commitment to the neighborhood, including by keeping her name on the building.
Members of the 4 Star Dance Studio entertained the crowd during 'Groovin' in the Grove' outside the middle school on May 30. The final, annual celebration included food and entertainment for students and their families as well as alumni and community members.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
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Seventh-grader Donnay Burton walked the red carpet in a dress she created for the fashion show at 'Groovin' in the Grove.'
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Eighth-grader Cris Santiago helped to decorate for the event.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
The school's commitment to the community manifested itself in various ways throughout the years. It had a one-to-one laptop program years before it became a norm. It attracted national attention for not only sending children home with personal computers but teaching parents to use them. For years the school had many Somali refugee students, and
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Susan Lovett, a social worker at the school in its early years, said even her position was innovative at the time. The district now has social workers in every school. The Frederick was also a model for the district in bringing in partners, Lovett said,
previewing today's community hub schools that host organizations like the YMCA.
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'We wanted the school to be as resourced as some of the schools in Boston's wealthiest suburbs are,' Lovett said.
That meant everything from a program with the Boston Ballet to a wrestling team. And opportunities like those continued into the school's final year, with partners like the Becoming a Man group counseling program, the combination tennis and tutoring club Tenacity, and
This school year, students focused not on the school's closure but on all the fun they had, culminating in a field trip to Six Flags.
'It was fun while it lasted,' said Alieshaa Felix, a graduating eighth-grade student.
Seventh-graders Jaziah Sylvert, Donnay Burton, and Arianna Lang took in the scene inside a mobile planetarium at the school gymnasium on Dec. 11, 2024.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
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Anyel Pimentel held onto an interception in a flag football game during the BAM (Becoming a Man) program field day.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Students circled together at the end of the BAM program.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Over its two-plus decades, the school has changed with the neighborhood.
The
school was never as successful academically as leaders hoped, with
trailing both the state and district across most subgroups.
Two principals were pushed out in 2012 and 2013, the first over 'questionable use of technology' and the second after being
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But it's remained a hub of the community, said Gloria West, a former parent at the school. It's a place where staff notice when a student got caught in the rain walking to school and offer them dry socks,
where students insist as part of a 'week of joy' on helping organize their teachers' offices, and where many students and families wish they could stay longer.
Eighth-grader Bendu Sanoe joined her classmates before the Frederick's promotion ceremony at the Albert D. Holland High School of Technology in Boston on June 18.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Eighth-grader Isa Gomez posed with a mask she completed during the Craftpreneurs afterschool program at the on May 21.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
'I really wished there were more grades,' said
Sinaika François, who attended the school from 2013 to 2016. 'I didn't want to leave.'
François' younger brother Erntz was the third member of the family to attend the school but will complete eighth grade at East Boston High School next year. Their little sister can't follow in their footsteps at all, François lamented.
Instead, the Frederick will become the home for a new elementary school, a
In the new, middle school-less era, the district will have to take on the challenge of educating students in new ways.
It's a challenge that has bedeviled educators for a century, said Penny Bishop, dean of Boston University's school of education and an expert on the middle grades. Young adolescents have intense need for belonging but also demand independence, she said, which calls for more structure than traditional high schools but less than elementary schools.
Seventh-graders Honesty Graham, Aaliyah Figueroa, and Jaylani Latorre researched a social studies project with teacher Taylor Roberts (right) on June 4. The students were working on a presentation about immigration and were watching a news report regarding Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts PhD student detained by immigration authorities.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
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English Language Arts teacher Kaylah Mack congratulated the seventh grade class after they finished reading "Monster," a novel by Walter Dean Myers on May 20.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Seventh-grader Janneliz Reyes (left) joked with classmate Arianna Lang between classes on Dec. 11.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Bishop said there's nothing essential about the separate buildings, but middle grade students need supports they often miss in schools dominated by younger or older students. At the Frederick, for example, students are grouped into teams to help build community, and given agency whenever possible, even in seemingly minor matters like planning spirit weeks.
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For Honesty, the Frederick met all the conditions of a good school: 'A good community, teachers you can count on, good environment where you can feel safe and feel welcome and learn … and you can still have fun.'
But going into next year, Honesty is considering leaving the district entirely, for Dedham. Her classmates are scattering across the city. So are the staff, many of whom have been at the Frederick longer than Honesty has been alive.
Last Wednesday, the school community gathered at the nearby Albert D. Holland School of Technology, for the city's last middle school promotion ceremony — graduating the final Frederick eighth grade class. Families bearing balloons and flowers filled the auditorium, and students in three-piece suits, crisp white sneakers, gowns, and party dresses cheered as staff handed out awards and certificates of completion. Principal Meghan McGoldrick set the tone of celebrating the final year.
'We promised ourselves and each other that this final year will be one of our very best years ever together,' the principal said. 'We have kept that promise.'
Student Shari Martinez David, who gave a speech at the promotion ceremony, kept the focus on their shared future.
'We made it, and we're ready for whatever's coming ahead,' she said. 'This isn't the end of the story.'
Eighth-grader Gabriel Fernando De Leon Ortiz stood for a selfie with his parents, Ferleon De Leon and Lesix Ortiz, following the Frederick's promotional ceremony at the Albert D. Holland High School of Technology in Boston on June 18.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Christopher Huffaker can be reached at