The above photo shows the old Franklin street car line in action in the early 1900s!

Above is the Stop & Shop on Main Street, Franklin, Massachusetts back around 1940.  The store is now an anchor tenant at a large shopping mall in Franklin near Exit 17 of Route 495. The mall is just part of the wonderful shopping available to Franklin residents. 

Vintage Franklin photos in new book

There are lots of Franklin facts and trivia interspersed amid a treasure trove of old photographs waiting for you in the charming new book Franklin Then and Now. 

Written by Franklin resident Alan R. Earls and published by Arcadia Publishing in 2009, Franklin Then and Now is a must-own for anyone interested in the history of Franklin, MA.  You can buy a copy directly from the publisher’s website or at Amazon.com, Borders.com and other book retailers.

Photos give context for familiar Franklin places

There are quite of number of ‘then and now’ pictures in the book.  These photos give intriguing insights into why certain instantly recognizable Franklin buildings and street scenes look the way they do now.

And you may be shocked at how different Franklin was in years gone by – it is a very eye opening experience seeing photos of long-lost Franklin buildings and forgotten businesses in settings that you drive by nearly every day. 

Lost buildings and the recently rural

Sadly, many of the photos in the book document the beautiful buildings in Franklin that have been lost to fire or demolition.

On the other hand you’ll see some surprisingly recent photos of bucolic simplicity in Franklin where now there are strip malls and office buildings.

Click here to learn more about Franklin, Massachusetts and see quite a number of photos of Franklin taken by me over the years.

The importance of public schools in Franklin, MA

Franklin has an excellent public school system.

One thing that caught my eye in Franklin Then and Now was how large and substantial some of the old public school buildings were in Franklin. 

It is instructive that these structures were gifts to the town by prominent residents.

These gifts of school buildings indicate how highly valued public education has been in Franklin in generations past. 

This should give encouragement to those today who support maintaining adequate funding for a vigorous, top-performing Franklin public school system.

Copyright ©2010 02038.com

The first day of school in Franklin got off to a great start under sparkling blue skies.

No tears were in evidence although this parent felt a bit emotional when it was time to say goodbye to his nine year old.

Franklin, Massachusetts public schools enjoy a reputation for academic excellence and offer a rich array of educational and athletic programs.

Franklin students score very well on the Commonwealth’s MCAS tests; test scores at the Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter Public School often place the school among the top 10 public schools in the entire state!

So there’s a lot to like about the public schools in Franklin, MA! 

Click the link to see 100s of homes for sale in Franklin, MA and surrounding communities.

Copyright ©2009 02038.com

Registration is open to Franklin residents and non-residents alike.  The summer program starts with pre-kindergarteners and extends its offerings to students in the high school years.

Click on image to download Franklin Public Schools' Summer Program catalog.

You can download the 35 page summer program catalog by clicking the image above.

Here’s a brief recap of the summer programs offered by the Franklin Public Schools:

•  Star

The Star program is for children getting ready to enter kindergarten through the 5th grade.

Offerings are divided into two sub-groups: Academic and Enrichment.

The academic offerings are classroom-based and serve as an introduction for students to their next grade level.

The 58 Enrichment offerings focus more fun and hands on involvement in variety of intellectual and physical activities ranging from movie making, web design, inventing, music and acting, and cooking to soccer and backyard sports.  Check out the catalog  . . . there’s a whole lot more to Star!

•  Gianormous

The Gianormous program is for children entering grades 5 – 8.

This program features a series of week-long sessions each with its own theme.  Each week’s session includes a field trip.

Themes for 2009 include Computers and Technology (“Tech Know How” with a field trip to MIT), Movie Making (“Hello to Hollywood” with a field trip to Emerson College’s television and radio studios),and Science (“Science is Everywhere” with a field trip to Georges Island in Boston Harbor).

•  The High School Experience

The High School Experience is for children entering the 9th grade.

This is a very good program covering the many aspects of the sometimes-challenging transition to high school.  Children get to meet faculty and staff and learn how to be more effective students in their new environment.

Additional summer programs feature varied and rich offerings in music, art, sports and high school academics.

Fees for all these summer programs are affordable.

Participating in the summer program offered by the Franklin Public School System is a smart way to keep your child active and mentally and physically engaged during the long summer months ahead!

Copyright ©2009 02038.com

Look at the figures in the chart below:

Per Pupil Spending by Area School Systems

You can see on that chart that, on a per-pupil basis, the Franklin, MA public school systems spends LESS than many other school systems in the region.

In FY 2007, the Franklin, MA public school system spent roughly $9,500 per pupil enrolled.  Compare that to the approximately $10,200 per pupil spent by the the Town of Bellingham, MA public school system, or the $11,100 per pupil expenditure made by the public schools in the Town of Hopkinton, MA.

So Franklin, MA taxpayers get very good value for their public education dollar, especially given the generally excellent education offered by the Franklin, MA public school system.

Franklin, MA Public School Site

The site has lots of good, detailed information about the school system; it offers deep, rich and constantly evolving content.

Blog Maintained by the Franklin School Committee

Another useful “official” school site for Franklin, MA is the blog maintained by the Franklin School Committee.

The content you’ll find on 02038.com will supplement what’s available on the official public school sites; together, these sites will give you a good working knowledge of what the Franklin,MA Public School system has to offer!

But it can be surprisingly difficult to access unbiased, reliable sources of information on public and private schools throughout Massachusetts.

You’ll find a  lot of “stealth sites” when you look for community and school information on the Web.

These stealth sites generally are created by “lead aggregators” who want to collect your contact information and sell you as a lead to home repair contractors, real estate agents and mortgage brokers.

I won’t mention any company names, but these re-sellers of personal information have created an amazing number of attractive and seemingly helpful school profile and community data sites. These sites sometimes contain garbled and out-of-date information and uniformly exist to solicit and sell your contact information and personal details!

To help you avoid becoming spammed and having your privacy invaded, here are links to some quality school sites that don’t seek to capture and peddle your personal information:

http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/

http://www.schoolmatters.com/

http://www.greatschools.net/

http://nces.ed.gov/index.asp

The links above lead to sites that provide loads of reliable data and rankings for individual schools within districts as well as data and rankings of school districts throughout the state.

So check out these sites – you’ll be pleased with how well Franklin, MA public schools compare with other school districts in Massachusetts and you won’t get spammed!

Copyright ©2009 02038.com

Franklin, MA Public Schools Rank Well

“MCAS” stands for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.  MCAS tests in Massachusetts measure student performance compared to learning standards developed by Massachusetts’ Department of Education.  All MA students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 10 take part in the testing; subject matters vary by grade.  All 10th grade students must pass MCAS tests in Math and English as a prerequisite to qualifying for graduation.  (In 2010, passing grades in science tests will be added to the 10th grade requirements.)

As you can see from the chart above, Franklin, MA public schools rank very highly in MCAS test results.  Franklin public schools perform on par with school systems in highly-regarded communities such as Newton, MA and Wellesley, MA:

The public schools in Franklin, MA are great assets to the community, help support real estate values and help make the town a very popular choice for homebuyers!