Four Years and $321 Million Later, CPS Opens Tobin Montessori and Darby Vassall Upper School Complex

Cambridge Public Schools opened the new Tobin Montessori and Darby Vassall Upper Schools and Community Complex on Tuesday, following almost four years of construction and a $321 million investment from the city.

“The new Tobin Montessori and Darby Vassall Upper Schools are the culmination of a historic and profound series of investments by the people of Cambridge in our school district,” a district spokesperson wrote in a statement.

The 359,100-square-foot complex will house Tobin Montessori School, which enrolls 316 students in pre-K through fifth grade, and Darby Vassall Upper School, serving 300 students in grades six through eight. The schools, which were both built in 1971, shared their former location as well.

The complex also includes the Special Start program — which provides special education services for young children with disabilities — along with the district’s Department of Human Services Programs preschool and after school programs.

“This project is a testament to the Cambridge Public Schools’ capacity to reimagine itself to better serve students. The opening of this building, along with the four other new school communities over the last decade, represents a commitment to providing state-of-the-art facilities and a world-class education for our students,” the district spokesperson’s statement read.

The new complex includes a Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics lab, gymnasium, and library for each school, as well as an educational kitchen area in the Tobin school, and an auditorium. The district also renovated the outdoor area to include multiple fields and play areas open to the public.

Darby Vassall parent Missy E. Page said that while her child enjoys having a new building, Cambridge could have instead used its funds where there is more need.

“It just seems a little overkill to me to have something like that, especially considering what bad shape some of the other buildings are in,” Page said, adding that she still felt “lucky” to have it.

Page’s child formerly attended the Kennedy-Longfellow school, which shut down last year — in part due to facility issues. Many K-Lo parents felt that the closure reflected a lack of district attention for more than a decade.

“I think it’s great that she’s going to be in a building where they, at least for a little bit of time, won’t have to worry about a rat infestation, or the air conditioner not working, because all of those are things that she dealt with when she was a K-Lo student,” Page said.

“It’s important for all kids in the district to have the benefit of being in a beautiful space that has plenty of room and does not have rodents,” Page said. “They’ll learn that they deserve excellence and that that’s something they can achieve and aspire to. But that is something that every student should be afforded, not just the ones going to these six schools that are in these three complexes.”

Construction for the complex broke ground in December 2021. The opening also marks the renaming of the Vassal School to honor the full name of Darby Vassall, a formerly enslaved man who went on to become a prominent advocate for civil rights and educational justice. The school was previously named for the Vassal family, who owned slaves.

The complex was the third and final redesign of a 2011 Cambridge project called the Innovation Agenda, that aimed to restructure the kindergarten though eighth grade schools by building four middle schools in the district. The district previously created a new Martin Luther King Jr. and Putnam Avenue Upper Schools, as well as the King Open and Cambridge Street Upper Schools and community complex.

“Looking ahead, our priority is to ensure that the Tobin Montessori and Darby Vassall Upper Schools live up to the historic investment that the city has made in them.” the district statement read.

The district will hold an opening ceremony and celebration on October 18 to welcome members of the public to tour the complex.

—Staff writer Ayaan Ahmad can be reached at ayaan.ahmad@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @AyaanAhmad2024.

—Staff writer Mackenzie L. Boucher can be reached at mackenzie.boucher@thecrimson.com.