Belmont High School (Massachusetts)

The school administration consists of the principal, Mr. Isaac Taylor; three assistant principals, Allie Ruane, Michael Bruno, and Daniel O'Brien; and a support assistant principal, Tom Brow.[6] In recent years, the school administration has experienced frequent changes.

In June 2004, the school's long-time principal, Foster Wright, retired. Jonathan Landman was hired to replace him, but the school department did not renew Landman's contract for the 2006–2007 school year. Michael Harvey, who had been among the candidates for principal in 2004, was selected as an "interim principal" for the 2006–2007 school year, and, on January 10, 2007, was approved by the town as principal. He had been the director of social studies during the previous school year. In addition, one of the school's two assistant principals has left the system in June 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, and 2011. In 2012, when Harvey left to become superintendent of the Hamilton-Wenham schools, former-assistant-principal Daniel Richards took his place. Richards had spent his last year as the Principal of Melrose High and had been replaced by David Smokler. When Richards returned, Smokler kept his position temporarily before being permanently replaced by the Head of Guidance, Jim Brown.[7]

The school has eight academic departments: Mathematics, English, Foreign Language, Social Studies, Science, Fine and Performing Arts, and Athletics. Each department consists of a department head, along with the teachers of the courses the department offers. The Guidance Department is responsible for the mental well-being of students, schedule composition, and college planning. Each student is assigned to a guidance counselor.

School is in session each day between 8:00 am and 2:25 pm except for Wednesdays, which conclude at 1:30 pm.

Belmont High School operates on a non-traditional module-based schedule. There are 15 modules ("mods") each day, each of which is approximately 25 minutes long.[8] There are also blocks of "pass time" between most mods, which are usually 3 minutes in length, and are meant to give students time to walk from one class to another.

Each mod is named with a letter and a number. The letter corresponds the time of the mod (A is the earliest and spans 7:35 am – 7:59 am. O is the latest, and spans 2:00 pm – 2:25 pm). The number corresponds to the day, with Monday being 1 and Friday being 5. Thus, for example, C3 is the time period 8:27 am – 8:52 am on Wednesdays.

Most classes meet four times per week for three 2-mod sessions (a "double") and one 3-mod session (a "triple"). The day that the class does not meet is called a "drop". On Wednesdays, school is dismissed at 1:30 pm for most students, meaning that only 13 mods are held, with the last two mods of the day being "free" for teacher meetings. Additionally, all classes are shortened by a few minutes to compensate for the fact that the mod usually ends at 1:33 pm, not 1:30 pm.

As a result of this mod schedule, each student's schedule is unique to the classes he or she is taking. Students who do not have a class assigned during a mod are "free". Seniors are permitted, by school policy, to leave campus during this time if they have met the required criteria for the privilege. Juniors also have access to this policy. While no classes are scheduled for only one mod, it is possible to have only one mod free. A student who takes six classes will have 20 free mods per week, while those who take Wellness I or Positive Decision Making will have 16 free mods per week.

A student's schedule is based on a master schedule, which states when certain mods have triples, drops, etc. As a result, it is fairly easy to describe one's schedule using a list of variations from the master schedule.[9]

The school requires that all students complete:

• 4 years of English
• 4 years of Mathematics
• 4 years of Science
• 3 years of Social Studies
• 2 years of Foreign Language
• 1 year of Fine and Performing Arts
• 4 years of Physical Education and Health

A number of Advanced Placement (AP), or college-level class are offered to prepare the students for the AP exams in May. Based on the results of its AP exams, Belmont High School is, as of December 2008, on the U.S. News & World Report list of the top 100 high schools in the United States. It occupies the lofty #100 position on that list, and holds the second-highest ranking of any Massachusetts school on the list, behind the Boston Latin School, the oldest public school in the nation, and the highest ranking of any Massachusetts school that does not require an entrance exam.[10]

According to Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education annual statistics, for the 2019-2020 academic year, the demographic enrollment distributions for race, gender and grade level at Belmont High School (Massachusetts) are as follows:

Total number of enrolled students: 1,318
Total number of full-time equivalent educators: 78.5
Therefore, the student to teacher ratio for this school is 16.8:1

* Number of enrolled pupils calculated based on total number of students in district and reported percentage, rounded to nearest whole student.

* SP = Special Education Beyond Grade 12[12]

The Lexington Chinese School (LCS; 勒星頓中文學校) holds its classes at Belmont High.[15] In 2003 over 400 students attended classes at LCS, held on Sundays.[16]

• Emily Cook, U.S. Olympian - 2002, 2006, and 2010.[17]
• Robert F. Foley, Retired United States Army lieutenant general. Medal of Honor recipient.
• Robbie Guertin, guitarist, tambourinist, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.[18]
• Michael Bivins, singer, Bell Biv Devoe, New Edition.[19]
• Masako Owada, Empress of Japan (class of 1981).[20]
• Mike Palm, MLB pitcher.[21]
• Becca Pizzi, marathon runner.[22]
• Patty Shea, champion field hockey player and coach, member of the US Olympic team in 1988 and 1996. (class of 1980) [23]
• Wilbur Wood, MLB pitcher.[24]

• Official website
• 2019–2020 Program of Studies (PDF)
• 2018–2019 Student Handbook