Ipswich, Massachusetts is a town with roots stretching back to the early seventeenth century. Education began with Dame Schools in 1633, and soon after, in 1650, the first schoolhouse was built, laying the foundation for education in the town.

In Ipswich’s early history, there were inequalities when it came to educational opportunities for females. As Scott Jewell, Tech Ed teacher at Ipswich Middle School, explains, “Girls in the 1820s didn’t go past elementary school; most boys went to high school.” Ipswich residents fought against inequitable education by creating the Ipswich Female Seminary, which became the first female high school in the United States.

The town’s academic buildings increased with the Manning High School, which opened in 1874. In its first year, 5 students graduated, but over the years, Manning High became the main source of education in Ipswich. However, by 1944, the school had closed, causing a new school to open in 1937, which cost $229,000 to build. A few years later, in the 1960s, Ipswich had a population boom: “When baby boomers had been in excessive faculty within the ‘60s, it was so overcrowded, they needed to have double classes—6 AM to 12 PM and 12 PM to 6 PM,” says Jewell.

By 1956, Ipswich built the Winthrop School, a brand new school with 16 classrooms. Additionally, in 1996, the town voted to approve a new middle/high school for $31.9 million. Though the building took a while, the new building, completed in 2000, became a school that would accommodate over 1,000 students and featured a Performing Arts Center.

Educational standards were also redefined over the years: “In 2000, we invented ‘Standards’—basically what teachers need to teach students,” Jewell explains. Before this, there were no established guidelines on what to learn, and the teachers just taught what they felt was necessary. Then, in 2015, the school developed “Next Generation Standards,” which moved past memorization and focused on a deeper understanding of the material.

However, changes in Ipswich have been more than just academic. The cultural and social makeup of the town has shifted over time. As Jewell recollects, “In the 70s-80s, Ipswich was a working-class town. We had three kinds of people: Greeks, Polish, and everyone else.” The town’s racial makeup became more diverse in 1975 when Ipswich had its first Black student enrolled at the high school.

Ipswich’s diversity developed all through the 1980s as well, with the emergence of Fantasies, the only gay bar on the North Shore. “Today, we’re an upper-middle-class town. We have children from all over.” Jewell comments on how the town’s makeup has developed.

Ipswich has not only witnessed the evolution of its schools but also a major cultural shift. The town’s records show effort towards improving learning and inclusion.