About Us

History

Good Shepherd School is an independent Catholic preschool for children aged 20 months to 5 years old. GSS was formed through the leadership of the pastor, Father James J. Ronan Ph.D., along with a Board of parents, citizens, and friends who saw a great need for a Catholic preschool in the neighborhood. GSS officially opened its doors in October of 2009.

Misson

Good Shepherd School prepares its students for a life of joy by growing in the love of Jesus. We seek to integrate this belief into all aspects of our educational programs.

Vision

Excellence in Catholic Preschool Education:

- We serve families in the Greater Charlestown community
- We provide a safe and nurturing environment
- We encourage inquiry, independence, and self-discovery
- We develop spiritual and emotional well-being, and respect for all
- We employ faculty who are highly trained Early Childhood Educators
- We prepare our students for Kindergarten by the use of a variety of academic enrichment programs across all domains

Philosophy

Students at Good Shepherd School:

- Receive a faith based Catholic education and begin to understand the value of a life of faith, justice, and service to others – especially the less fortunate
- Experience a learning environment that emphasizes curiosity, fun, discovery, independence and supports developmentally appropriate practices enhancing each child’s preparedness for Kindergarten
- Engage in a blend of purposeful play that supports a child's curiosity to explore math, science, language arts, and social studies following the educational frameworks of the Commonwealth
- Develop an understanding of and respect for others, especially for classmates and peers whose background and perspectives are different from their own
- Participate in and benefit from a dynamic school community evidenced by collaboration and mutual support

Schedule

We run on a School Year schedule, starting after Labor Day and ending in early June. We are open Monday-Friday 8am-5:30pm.

Each family will chose their schedule for the year, which we are always able to extend at any time or to add a Friday if they attend M-Th. We are also able to mix and match schedules, for instance if you wanted to attend until 12pm on two days and 3pm on three days, we can accommodate and make accurate tuition adjustments.

We also have a 24-hour notice drop in for an extra fee, if you have something coming up or unexpected and you need your children to stay longer on any given day, just let us know and we will try our best to accommodate.

Along with our holiday closures, there are two Fridays with no school for our Parent/Teacher Conferences, in December and May, and three Staff Development Days with and early release day in October & January and no school on a Friday in March. We follow BPS for any weather cancellations.

Here is our current 24-25 School Year Calendar, so have an idea of what our school years commonly look like.

2024-2025 Calendar.pdf

Faith Formation

We provide children the opportunity to learn about the Catholic religion and faith through regular lessons, prayers, and rituals in the chapel and classroom. We visit our Chapel every other week, led by Miss Michelle. Lighting the candles because "Jesus is the light of the world" we come together to share our joy of having Jesus in our hearts. All of our children have a chance to read the prayers of the faithful at the lectern during Chapel, each classroom sends one representative for their turn.

Community

At the Good Shepherd School, we are so blessed to be surrounded by rich history, great green spaces and parks, and a supportive community. We visit the area parks and explore our neighborhood.

We also give back and support our community. Some of our community service includes collecting toys for the Charlestown Community at Christmas, donating food to Harvest on Vine each month throughout the year, and supporting our students and teachers in their specific community building projects.

Our school is a community in itself. A large part of our curriculum includes learning how to live as Jesus wants us to live. We learn to be kind, thoughtful, forgiving and a positive part of our school community.

We have many school community events such as our Back to School Night for our parents to welcome them to our school community each year, our Halloween Parade, and our Tot Trot in the spring to name a few. Our spring fundraiser, Taste of Charlestown, a fun evening event for parents with food from our neighborhood restaurants, exciting silent auction items, and a live auction of classroom art, which all helps to support our school.

We also offer in-house Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy from Back Back Speech & Occupational Therapy. They provide free screenings to all of our students each fall, and rescreenings as needed throughout the year. Should your child benefit from such services, the sessions will happen right here at school during their school day.

Our Classrooms and Teachers

Manatees - Must be 20 months in September

A nurturing start to education.

Our Manatee program supports and early love of learning through hands-on exploration and promotes independence. Through the guidance of their teachers, the children are exposed to learning experiences that foster self-confidence, social skills and an engaging curriculum. Our purposeful play incorporates music, art, cooking, science projects, dancing and dramatic play to achieve each child’s developmentally appropriate goals.

Purple Manatees

Our Purple Manatee classrooms consists of two separate classes. One 2-day class happens on Tuesdays & Thursdays and our 3-day class happens on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Michelle Mady, M.Ed.

Brittany Grant, A.S.

Zineb Drisi

Young Preschool - Under 3 years old

The building blocks to learning.

Our Young Preschool program is a stepping stone between Toddler and Preschool. In the Dolphin classroom we pave the way for cognitive development with exposure to a variety of learning areas. With a smaller class size, we introduce children to a school environment, including pre-reading, pre-math, science and language development. We actively support our young preschoolers' self-esteem, self-help skills, gross motor skills, and creativity, while fostering opportunites for verbal self-expression, social skills, and fine motor development.

Gray Dolphins

This classroom runs all five days but we offer a 4-day schedule of M-Th.

Stephanie Krebs, B.S.

Bailey Flynn, B.S.

Preschool - 3 year olds

School readiness at it's best!

Our Preschool program continues our students on their path to school success! We focus on routines, school readiness, social and emotional growth, self-confidence, and independence. In the Whale and Dolphin classrooms, our students learn how to be active learners and members of the classroom community! We start our academic work with Handwriting without Tears, a school readiness and pre-writing curriculum. Our teachers create specific lessons that are geared to engage and excite. Our students will have many different experiences in Science, Math, Language Arts, Sensory, and Dramatic play.