The Joshua Eaton Elementary School is one of five elementary schools in Reading, Massachusetts. It is named after Sgt. Joshua Eaton, the only Reading casualty in the American Revolutionary War. The school is located at the corner of Summer Avenue and Oak Street, close to the site of Joshua Eaton's family home. In 1944, Dr. William K. Wilson, supervisor of educational planning of school buildings for the

New York State Education Department The New York State Education Department (NYSED) is the department of the New York state government responsible for the supervision for all public schools in New York and all standardized testing, as well as the production and administration o ...

, was hired to study the Reading school system. One of his observations was that an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

was needed in the area of Prescott Street, Main Street and the railroad tracks. His recommendation was that the school should plan to accommodate 500 children from kindergarten through grade six. When Joshua Eaton opened in 1949, it housed grades 1–6. Today, it houses around 450 children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The building was designed by reading architect George Sidebottom. The original building consisted of 18 classrooms, an auditorium, cafeteria and gymnasium. At that time, the school was chosen as the best-designed elementary school building in the nation (38,000 blueprints were submitted). Joshua Eaton was dedicated on Sunday, October 23, 1949.

References

* Public elementary schools in Massachusetts {{Massachusetts-school-stub