St. Stephen School, no longer in operation, was a private Catholic day school in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was located at 25 Clinton St. in Framingham and included grades 1 through 8. Approximately three hundred students attended the school. For many years beginning in the 1930s, instruction was provided exclusively by nuns who lived nearby.
History
Local residents indicate the school was in operation around 1935, possibly earlier. As late as 1964 the school's classrooms still utilized steel-framed desk units fastened to hardwood flooring and wooden desktops with circular cutouts to hold containers of ink used in earlier days for fountain pens. Since there was no cafeteria, students ate lunch at their desks.
The school consisted of two classrooms for each grade. The West side of the building was known as the "A" side and the East side of the building was known as the "B" side. A student who began 1st grade on the "A" side would progress through all the grades using classrooms on the "A" side of the building.
Catechism lessons and regular prayer were part of the daily classroom activities. Once a week, the entire school would attend church services at the nearby church building located on Concord Street. Periodically, priests from the parish would visit each classroom and discuss various religious topics with the students.
The nuns who provided instruction lived in a two-story convent directly across from the school on Concord St. By the 1960s, a separate, modern building for physical education was available nearby on Clinton Street.