History

Determined to provide her children with a nurturing education focused on academic excellence and core values, Boston schoolteacher Norine D. Casey founded The Bartlett School in 1933. Twelve first-grade students met in Mrs. Casey’s Bartlett Avenue home in Arlington, Massachusetts that first year, beginning an educational success story that has flourished for 70 seventy years.

As The Bartlett School’s reputation grew, so did the number of families who wanted to provide their children with a traditional learning structure in a nurturing environment. By 1951, Mrs. Casey led a team of eight educators committed to building upon her vision of a progressive, comprehensive education for preschool to grade four (and later to grade six).

Mrs. Casey’s youngest daughter, Norine T. Casey, a member of The Bartlett School’s first class, shared her mother’s love of teaching. After graduating from Wellesley College and receiving a postgraduate degree from Radcliffe in 1952, she taught at The Bartlett School and Wellesley College before becoming Assistant to the Head of The Bartlett School. Ms. Casey continued to provide academic excellence in a nurturing, caring atmosphere as Head of The Bartlett School until she retired in 1993.

In January, 2003, the Bartlett Trustees purchased a beautiful, new, six-acre campus for the school. The building opened for students in September, 2003. The facility continues to fulfill the collective hope the community has for the Bartlett’s future in the 21st century.

Our history is extensive, our philosophy simple.