Cavazos Celebrates School’s 350th Year
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BOSTON — Education Secretary Lauro F. Cavazos joined gray-haired alumni and fifth-graders in Pilgrim outfits Friday to mark the 350th anniversary of the nation’s oldest free school--made new for its birthday by an infusion of renovation funds.
Cavazos said the refurbishing of Mather School, where morale had sagged as graffiti and other scars multiplied in the past decade, “speaks to the way our nation is getting together to address our education deficit.”
The school was founded in 1639 as a one-room boys’ school with a grass roof. It flourished, moving five times to accommodate its growing enrollment. But in 1974, federal orders to desegregate Boston schools through busing contributed to a middle-class exodus to the suburbs, and the school’s condition deteriorated.
It took a new principal and the looming anniversary to get the $1.2-million renovation under way.
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