BURGESS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PROFILE

            On June 10, 1963, the citizens of Sturbridge voted to rename their school Burgess Elementary School in honor of former Superintendent of Schools, Joseph R. Burgess, who served Sturbridge with distinction for over twenty-five years.

            Burgess Elementary School in Sturbridge, Massachusetts is the largest of five Union 61 elementary schools with approximately 885 students educated in grades PreK-6.  The five towns served within Union 61 are Sturbridge, Brimfield, Brookfield, Holland and Wales.  Students from each of these towns move on to the Tantasqua Regional Junior High School for grades 7 and 8 and Tantasqua Regional Senior High School for grades 9-12, a new building dedicated in 2002.

            Burgess Elementary School employs approximately 85 professional staff, which include classroom teachers, specialists, special education teachers and school psychologists, and approximately 50 additional full and part-time staff who serve as teacher assistants, office staff, custodians and cafeteria workers.  One principal and two assistant principals administer the building.

            The town is classified as a Growth Community by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, and has experienced a flush of new house construction and increase in population.  The school population has grown moderately over the past 20 years.  Nevertheless, class size of less than 20 students per class in grades K-1, less than 21 students per class in grades 2-3, and less than 22 students per class in grades 4-6 continues to be encouraged.

            Burgess is truly a sprawling, one-story building.  The older section contains grades 4-6 and Kindergarten in traditional, single-classroom spaces.  The primary grades and the Library Media Center are housed within the open classroom space.  Partitions and bookshelves carve the carpeted, warehouse-sized space into teaching areas.  The Media Center occupies the central space.  A multi-purpose cafeteria also provides ample performance space for school based music programs and many cultural arts programs.  There are two gymnasiums, located at opposite ends of the building, one containing a rock climbing wall, which serves the needs of all students and the community.

            All regular classes are grouped heterogeneously with an emphasis on cooperative learning and the school committee and administration strives to maintain small class sizes.  Special education is provided both within the classroom and in pullout classes.  The school offers small group remedial reading and math instruction, a Wilson Reading Program, speech and language programs and a focused program for several students with multiple disabilities.  An enrichment program serves all students in grades 1-6 with identified gifted and talented students in grades 4-6 receiving additional small group instruction.  All students K-6 have regularly scheduled physical education, art, music, health, computer technology and library media classes.  A foreign languages program in Spanish for K-6 students is also part of the curriculum. The Burgess Extended Day Program enables students to arrive at school as early as 7:00 a.m. and stay at school until 6:00 p.m. to assist working parents.

            Burgess recognizes that an active partnership among the school, the family and the community is vital to the success of our educational system.  We are proud of the home school connection at Burgess.  The Parent/Teacher Organization provides the school with volunteers and funds for special cultural events throughout the school year.   

            The school supports two iMac computer labs for individual whole class instruction and a 20-computer iMac lab in the Media Center.  The Media Center catalog is fully automated and networked and accessible from classrooms.  All classrooms are connected to both the Internet and the local cable television station.  The P.T.O. provides the school with volunteers and funds for special cultural events throughout the school year.  Finally, the school is used for numerous after-school district-wide professional development classes and for many evening community events and meetings.