Terms & Sessions

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Massachusetts state law required that students attend thirty weeks of school during the year (provided “the schools are kept open that length of time”). While Middleborough complied with this law, the number of weeks it offered varied from year to year, largely based upon finances. For instance, in 1878, the school committee was forced to shorten the school year for want of money. “We did this with regret, for we think that thirty-six weeks of school, per year, is little enough.” Conversely, certain years were lengthened. In 1892, the school year was extended to forty weeks, “thus placing our schools on a par with those of the large towns in the Commonwealth”. In 1895, the school year was reduced to 38 weeks and remained so until 1902 when a reduction in school appropriations forced a temporary reduction to 36 weeks, much against the view of the school committee which recognized that the reduction would lower standards.

Regardless of the number of weeks, the school year commenced each September and was complete by June. Initially, this year was divided into three terms: a fall term lasting from September through December, a winter term from January through late March or early April, and a spring term from April to June. In early 1911, Superintendent Bates recommended the adoption of a four-term academic year commencing in fall 1911 in order to provide more frequent rest periods by reorganizing the winter and spring terms into three separate terms. In fact, the suburban schools adopted a five-term year “so that there will be less tendency for stale work as is often the case in long terms of schools,” with two terms in the fall and three terms in the winter and spring. This experiment, however, was short-lived and by 1917 these schools were back to a four-term year with a single fall term and three winter and spring terms.

The school day, itself, was broken into two sessions – a morning and afternoon session interrupted by lunch. At the Green, these sessions ran from 9 a. m. until noon, and from 1 p .m. through 3 p. m. By 1904, the afternoon session had been extended until 3.30 p. m. from November through March and until 4 p. m. in the remaining months. For the 1910-11 school year, the end time of the afternoon session was set at 3:30 irrespective of the time of year.
Undoubtedly to the dismay of Green School students, Superintendent Bates in 1923 recommended a longer day for the Green and the other large suburban schools “to meet more successfully the requirements of school work”, particularly so that more time could be devoted to the special studies of drawing, music and physical education. Bates also urged that arrangement be made to enable the supervisors of these courses of study to be able to visit the suburban schools more frequently.

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