Benjamin G. Brown School

201 Willow Avenue

School District

Somerville
Grade

K-5
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:15
Type

public

School Map for Somerville School District

GreatSchools Rating

The school rating calculation is based on four ratings: the Student Progress Rating or Academic Progress Rating, College Readiness Rating, Equity Rating, and Test Score Rating each designed to show different facets of school success. Learn more about GreatSchools Ratings

Reviews

Submitted by parent on May 16, 2024

A great school with wonderful teachers and an excellent community. Happy my child is going here.
Submitted by parent on July 10, 2023

Small, community-centric, urban school. No frills building and playground but strong school leader and parent involvement. Only complaint: some unexpected, mid year teacher transitions.
Submitted by other on March 01, 2014

It's a great school with no problems with bullying. The downside are that there is no gym or Caffiteria, and the food tastes awful. It is a great community though. With only about 300 students, everybody knows eachother.
Submitted by parent on May 16, 2011

The Brown School is an old building, so parents who choose it do so for the academics and the sense of community, not for a fancy gym (there is none; the library fills in during bad weather) or other external factors. Parents are a mixture of people who grew up in Somerville, who immigrated here, and/or who are highly educated & thus value education. The school has a new, energetic principal who has lived in Somerville for several years and has small children; she understands the community. She's great at open lines of communication and actively seeks parents' input. She also has started a student advisory board. The students are well-behaved and interested in learning, and older and younger get along well. The teachers are mostly all excellent & well loved, tho K teachers (tho nice) aren't as outstanding. Many field trips are offered, from walking to Powderhouse Park to study rocks or taking the T to Boston to study Amer. history. The PTA is active and many parents (not just PTA members) help out w/ activities including clubs like drama, Stock Market, Zoom, or events like Harvest Fair, Tropical Family Dance, ice skating and swimming nights. I love the small school atmosphere!
Submitted by parent on February 14, 2011

Facilities looks worse than what they really are, specially from outside the school. Kids have a (not too fancy) patio where they play, and a large library/gym room inside for when it's too cold out. They have had recess in the past two month; not too often, but that was because of the harsh winter. This patio cannot be used as a parking lot because it's fenced, so that thing in the comment preceding mine is utterly false. My kid's got a fantastic, yet traditional, group of teachers. Lots of people from Somerville only, without any sense of vision? Don't think so, there are >10 languages spoken in my kid's 20-some student class, and there's plenty smart people that create a very interesting sense of community and diversity. It's a small school with a feeling of being not-really-in-the-city, yet neither-in-the-burbs. I've heard that the schools in Cambridge are much better, would like to see it to believe it, and not in subjective things, but in objective matters. In sum I like it, though I think there are things that could be improved.
Submitted by parent on February 01, 2011

Great feeling to this school despite horrible facilities. Kids are happy here but did not have an outside recess for 2 months because the only small playing area is used as a parking lot. Academically is good due to some fantastic teachers but teaching is mainly traditional and somehow dry (e.g. a field trip last year was a visit to Shaws supermarket). A lot of parent involvement and good community feeling but mainly dominated by parents that lived in Somerville all their lives and lack vision on how to make the school better.
Submitted by parent on October 08, 2009

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