King School, Inc. history

Established in 1867, the School serves students in grades 8-12 and post-graduates.

In 1875, Hiram King, a Dartmouth graduate, was asked by several local families to form a private boys' school.

The School magazine, The Cantuarian, started in 1882.

In 1883, Miss Louisa Low purchased Mrs.

Opening in 1922, the Thomas School was intended to be both a day and boarding school.

1935 was the year SKS adopted Margaret Clark’s original emblem as the official school crest.

Margaret, the School’s first female faculty member, retired from Storm King in 1938 after 44 remarkable years of service.

At the same time the Memorial Court, which had been damaged by the 1942 bombing, was renovated.

The School was successful but in 1944, the heirs of Miss Louisa Low and Miss Edith Heywood sold the property on which the school was located.

And so, in September of 1953 the first students of Christ the King School assembled: a class of 27 1st-graders taught by Miss Louise Kleinrichert.

Their patience was rewarded in 1955, when a beautiful new school building finally opened its doors.

Within a month of the sale, the school relocated to Judge Lockwood’s estate on Courtland Avenue and in 1969, finally settled into the Walker estate adjacent to the King School on Newfield Avenue.

The parents called themselves The Committee to Extend Alternative Education, arguing that once the City of Cambridge undertook to provide alternative education by establishing CAPS in 1972, it had a responsibility to provide that education for all who desired it.

In 1974, the neighboring Low-Heywood and King schools began coordinating their educational and co-curricular programs in the Upper Schools.

On August 5, 1975, the Cambridge School Committee accepted a proposal for two kindergarten/first grade classrooms for the 1975/76 school year.

Both the King School and Low-Heywood Thomas School maintained individual identities until 1988, when the King & Low-Heywood Thomas School was formed as a coeducational school.

In 1997, the School therefore participated fully in the celebrations of the 1400th anniversary of the coming of St Augustine.

Thomas Jones, were on hand for the dedication of this wonderful new facility in March of 2002.

In 2012 King Open became a K-5 as part of a citywide initiative that converted all elementary schools to K-5 and created four new upper schools serving grades 6-8.