The Group School was as an alternative high school in Cambridge in the 1970s that operated under democratic educational ideals. The school was established in order to serve students from low-income families. The institution worked to help the youth of working-class backgrounds develop a sense of pride and appreciation for their families' backgrounds, since founders believed traditional educational institutions encouraged students to disavow or undervalue neighborhood ties and real-life experiences in the course of education.
Cambridge Alternative Public School was founded in 1971, but did not open until 1972 in the vacated Putnam School. The school served children with special learning needs by providing open classrooms, individual instruction and paced learning and activities. The school also worked to involve parents more actively in students' education.
In the 1970s, the school only admitted students in kindergarten through grade four. In 1974, the school moved to the St. Mary's Grammar School on Essex Street. The following decade, the school merged with the Webster School and was renamed the Graham and Parks School, which still exists today.
The Shady Hill School was founded in 1915 as The Cooperative Open Air School. It opened on the back porch of Ernest and Agnes Hocking at 16 Quincy Street. The Hockings, along with several certified educators, joined together to form a small, independent, co-educational school for children. The school later moved and operated in a building on the corner of Scott Street and Holden Street in an area known as Shady Hill Square, for which the institution was later named.
In the 1970s, the school was directed by Joseph C. Segar. He continued the school's progressive founding ideals by regarding the arts and music as integral subjects of learning and by allowing students more freedom to design their own curricula.
The Cambridge Rindge and Latin School was founded in 1977 through the merger of Cambridge Latin High School and Rindge Technical School. The institution, which still exists by the same name today, was designed to provide high school students with a modern, comprehensive high school education that included a state-of-the-art vocational and technical arts program. Cambridge Rindge and Latin School prepares students for postsecondary schooling or for careers in the professional arts. The school strongly emphasizes fine arts, dance and theater as integral subjects in the curricula.