Coyle & Cassidy High School and Middle School (formerly St. Mary's High School, Monsignor Coyle High School, and Coyle and Cassidy High School) was a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

, Catholic Diocesan school located in

Taunton, Massachusetts Taunton is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the seat of Bristol County. Taunton is situated on the Taunton River which winds its way through the city on its way to Mount Hope Bay, to the south. At the 2020 cen ...

, United States. The school had been a co-education middle and high school facility from 2014 until its 2020 closure. Coyle served students living within and beyond the

Greater Taunton Area 200px, A map of the Greater Taunton Area The Greater Taunton Area is the suburban area surrounding the city of Taunton, in northeastern Bristol County, Massachusetts. It comprises various present-day municipalities that were once under the jurisdi ...

History

The school's history dates back to 1911, when Monsignor James Coyle, pastor of Saint Mary's Church, established Saint Mary's High School. The high school grew, and by the early 1930s the need for a larger school was apparent. In 1933, shortly after Monsignor Coyle's death, Monsignor Coyle High School opened on Summer Street, staffed by the Brothers of the Holy Cross. The boys' population transferred to Coyle, and the girls' population stayed at Saint Mary's under the guidance of the

Holy Union Sisters The Holy Union Sisters, officially known as the Sisters of La Sainte Union Des Sacrés-Coeurs (the Holy Union of the Sacred Hearts), are a religious congregation of the Roman Catholic Church founded at Douai Douai (, , ,; pcd, Doï; nl, Dowaa ...

. In 1963, a new high school for girls was opened on the corner of Hamilton Street and Adams Street, named for Bishop

James Edwin Cassidy James Edwin Cassidy (August 1, 1869 – May 17, 1951) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Fall River in Massachusetts from 1934 until his death in 1951. Biography Early life James C ...

. However, given the economics of the time, the aging of the old Coyle High School building, and the lack of ordained staff for each school, it was decided in 1971 that the two schools would merge into Coyle-Cassidy High School in the Bishop Cassidy site. The former Monsignor Coyle High School building became known as the Taunton Catholic Middle School, and served the diocese until the 2014. In February 2014, the school announced that it would begin to host grades 6–8 in a new "Middle School Division", while grades 9-12 would be known as the "High School Division". This was in response to the shutting down of Taunton Catholic Middle School, which had hosted grades 5–8 in a previous Coyle location. The full name of the school was modified to include both divisions. In the 2014–2015 school year the school had 147 in the middle school level, and this increased to 159 in the 2015–2016 school year; Mary Pat Tranter, the president of the school, stated that she favored the middle school addition. In 2018 the 5th grade was added to Coyle and Cassidy as a result of grade realignments in Taunton; at the time a Catholic elementary there had closed. In 2020 Coyle and Cassidy merged into

Bishop Connolly High School Bishop Connolly High School is a co-educational Catholic high school in Fall River, Massachusetts Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The City of Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States ...

in the wake of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, but Connolly did not take Coyle and Cassidy's middle school students, who were instead directed to Our Lady of Lourdes School in Taunton.

Academics and School Campus

Coyle-Cassidy has been located at 2 Hamilton Street since 1971. In 1983, an athletic wing was added onto the existing academic wing. In 1997, a theater, tech center, new library, and two classrooms were added onto the academic wing. In 2006, the third floor of the building was remodeled into a state-of-the-art music and fine arts center. Also in 2013, Coyle-Cassidy received ownership of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Parish, a Catholic church that is located about .25 miles away from Coyle on 80 Bay St. The parish center of the church is currently being used as an annex of Coyle-Cassidy. The school places a heavy emphasis on technology, with most schoolwork done digitally. The school maintains two computer technology centers. Coyle-Cassidy also maintains three science labs: a physics lab, a chemistry lab, and a biology lab. The school planned to add a fourth lab, for biology, in the summer of 2013. This new lab would take the place of a former classroom. During each subsequent summer, the school was scheduled to renovate each of the three labs already in existence, as part of an effort to bolster its science program. However, with the transition to a grades 6-12 concept, major renovations took place during the summer of 2014 to update the new middle school area. This postponed each of the final three science lab projects by one year. The school has three portable electronics carts: one for laptops, one for

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...

s, and one for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

netbooks. This enables entire classes to be connected wirelessly. Students are also allowed and encouraged to use their own laptops,

s, or other tablets for this purpose. Beginning in the 2012–13 school year, one class in each department is conducted using iPads remotely in conjunction with the teacher and an overhead projector screen. Beginning with the 2013–2014 school year, every student at Coyle must have an iPad to use for note-taking, virtual textbooks, and other academic uses. While the gymnasium itself was renovated in 2007, much of the athletic wing dates to its construction in 1983. The weight room was renovated in 2013 into a state-of-the-art fitness center for student athletes. Incoming freshmen take a DFRCEC placement test. This, along with recommendations from middle school teachers, determines grade 9 class placement.

Athletics

Coyle's athletic program is sanctioned by the

Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) is an organization that sponsors activities in thirty-three sports, comprising 374 public and private high schools in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The MIAA is a member of the Nat ...

(MIAA) and all of the school's teams compete in the

Eastern Athletic Conference Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

(EAC). Coyle's athletic teams play under the nickname "

Warrior A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, class, or caste. History Warriors seem to have be ...

s". The school has a long, cross-city

rivalry A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant ...

with the Taunton High School "

Tigers The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on un ...

". Currently, the school supports varsity teams in 16 different sports:

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

, cross country,

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

indoor track Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping event ...

, soccer,

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

and

weightlifting Weightlifting generally refers to activities in which people lift weights, often in the form of dumbbells or barbells. People lift various kinds of weights for a variety of different reasons. These may include various types of competition; promo ...

. Most sports also consist of freshman and

junior varsity Junior varsity (often called "JV") players are the members of a team who are not the main players in a competition (such as any football, basketball, or baseball game), usually at the high school level–– and formerly at the collegiate level� ...

teams.

References

External links

Coyle and Cassidy High School's official home pageTaunton Public Schools' home page
*https://web.archive.org/web/20070118210530/http://www.coylecassidy.com/athletics.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Coyle And Cassidy High School Buildings and structures in Taunton, Massachusetts Schools in Bristol County, Massachusetts Greater Taunton Area Educational institutions established in 1907 Educational institutions disestablished in 2020 Catholic secondary schools in Massachusetts 1907 establishments in Massachusetts 2020 disestablishments in Massachusetts