Public officers, descendants of Sarah Roberts and the college group gathered Wednesday to acknowledge the opening of a newly merged elementary faculty in Roslindale, carrying the title and legacy of one of many first champions for college integration.
“This school represents our mission to make Boston a home for everyone,” mentioned Mayor Michelle Wu, who’s sons attend the Roslindale faculty. “Sarah and her family pushed Boston to move closer to becoming that city that we are proud of, and that’s why I’m so pleased and grateful that her legacy lives on here in the school, through the generations of young people who will wear her main proudly on their T shirts.”
The brand new Sarah Roberts Elementary opened in the beginning of the 2025-26 faculty yr, welcoming about 700 pre-Okay-6 college students of the merged former Philbrick and Sumner colleges. The power was born out of a $90.9 million renovation of the previous Washington Irving Center Faculty, which closed in 2022.
Audio system heralded a variety of latest options throughout the facility, together with an expanded playground with an out of doors classroom, added media middle and extra.
“There are so many new things, new kinds of spaces for STEM and for music, beautifully renovated auditorium that preserves the old as well, cafeteria, a new gym that has an amazing seal on it, lots of kinds of learning spaces in the kindergarten areas, nurses office, all things that contribute and help young people experience a high quality education,” Superintendent Mary Skipper mentioned. “That’s what has be done in this year … and will continue, particularly because we owe it to Sarah Roberts’s namesake to fulfill that for our children.”
After a reputation choice course of, the college communities and BPS officers selected Sarah Roberts, a younger lady who’s father tried to enroll in a white faculty within the Boston district however was rejected by the Boston Faculty Committee. In 1847, her father Benjamin, together with abolitionist Charles Sumner and Robert Morris, challenged the district’s racial segregation coverage, in the end going earlier than the Massachusetts Supreme Courtroom.
“Although their first step was not successful, because the Massachusetts Supreme Court ultimately ruled against them,” Wu mentioned, “it was their advocacy, their courage, their determination and their faith in a better future that helped ignite a national conversation, sparking the advocacy and the movement that turned into the Brown v. Board of Education decision over 100 years later.”
A number of audio system famous the significance of Sarah Roberts’s legacy in opening the door for instructional alternative in Boston.
“My message to the students who walk through the doors you stand on shoulders of giants,” mentioned Claire Galloway-Jones, a descendant of Sarah Roberts. “Sarah Roberts was just five when she became part of a movement that would change history. You too have that power to change the world. You too can stand up for what is right. This school bears Sarah’s name not just to remember the past, but really to inspire the future.”
