Winchester
Winchester is a small suburban town located 8.2 miles north of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States in Middlesex County. It is the #1 wealthiest municipality in Massachusetts and functions largely as a bedroom community for professionals who work in the greater Boston area. The population was 21,374 at the 2010 United States Census.
Education
Public schools
Winchester has five elementary schools (Ambrose, Lincoln, Lynch, Muraco, and Vinson-Owen) and one middle school, McCall Middle School. Considered one of Boston’s elite public high schools, Winchester High School was founded in 1850, at the time was part of present-day Lincoln elementary. Winchester High was rebuilt in a different area in 1972, then renovated in 2016. Winchester public schools have achieved superior performances on the MCAS exams since their inception, and the district is consistently ranked by editorial reviews such as Boston Magazine as one of the best in Massachusetts.
Private schools
Founded in the 1942, the Children’s Own School is among the earlier surviving Montessori schools in the United States. Today the school operates as a private, non-religious, Montessori school for children of ages two to six, with classes of up to 20 children. Children’s Own School is located at 86 Main Street in Winchester.
Winchester has two parent-led cooperative nursery schools: Neighborhood Cooperative Nursery School and Winchester Cooperative Nursery School. In addition, the Methodist church, Winchester Recreation Department, and Creative Corner all offer preschool classes.
St. Mary’s School is a parochial school of St. Mary’s Parish, which opened 134 years ago. The school opened in 1914 and has over 200 students in grades pre-K through 5. The school building also serves as the Sunday school for the parish during Sunday services. The church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Acera School is a small private school founded in 2010 in Melrose which moved to Winchester in 2013. It offers K-8 education in small multi-age classrooms.
Established in 2004, the Winchester School of Chinese Culture is a non-profit organization whose mission is to teach the language and traditional culture of China through classroom instructions, the arts, and cultural events. The school offers a K-8 weekend program at Lynch elementary school, after-school programs at Winchester Unitarian Church and Winchester First Congregational Church, and a summer program.
Transportation
Winchester has two “Zone 1” stops on the MBTA Commuter Rail Lowell Line: Wedgemere and Winchester Center. The stops are within easy walking distance of one another. The Lowell Line runs from Lowell to Boston’s North Station, where one can connect with the “T”, Boston’s subway system. Nearby Anderson Regional Transportation Center off I-93 (Commerce Way exit) holds a stop for Amtrak’s Downeaster train, going through New Hampshire, and terminating in Brunswick, Maine. While this train runs through Winchester, it does not stop at either of the town’s two train stations.
There are bus lines going through Winchester to nearby communities such as Medford, Arlington, and Cambridge. Bus route No. 134 runs between North Woburn and Wellington Station on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority‘s (MBTA) Orange Line in Medford. Bus route No. 350 runs from the Burlington Mall to Alewife station in Cambridge on the MBTA’s Red Line. A commuter express bus runs from Cummings Park in Woburn to Boston during rush hours. Anderson Regional Transportation Center also has the Logan Express shuttle bus service to Boston’s Logan Airport every 30 minutes, and a paid shuttle service to Manchester New Hampshire Airport (reservations required in advance)
Source: Wikipedia
Photo By Aslam Karachiwala