General Information

John Barry Elementary School, named for the Revolutionary War hero and first Commodore of the American Navy John Barry, is located at the gateway to Meriden, in the shadows of Interstate Highway 691. Recently expanded and completely remodeled, the oldest portion of this school was built around 1927. Appropriately, John Barry School has witnessed the change in urban culture over the past 60 years and serves as an example of how truly excellent a school can be, capitalizing on the diversity of its population, the unsurpassed talent and dedication of its staff, and the willingness of parents and the local community to create an atmosphere of continuous improvement and success. Thus, with roots reaching back to the Great Depression, this beautiful, modern, technologically advanced elementary school is poised to serve Meriden's neediest population in preparing our children for the challenges of life in the 21st Century.

John Barry School serves the educational needs of children from birth through Grade 5. Programming includes a fully integrated Family Resource Center and 30 classes ranging from PK through grade 5. Our current student population averages around 640 and we are rewarded with wonderful diversity of which other schools can only dream. Socioeconomically the neediest of Meriden's eight elementary schools, approximately 80% of John Barry School's students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Daily, our children and their parents enter a school community which is bright, beautiful, exciting, print-rich and success-oriented. Supported by a generous and hard working Parent Teacher Association, a school-business partnership of unparalleled commitment with MidState Medical Center, and a new after school program in cooperation with the Meriden Boy's and Girl's Club, every single child who attends this school comes to understand that he or she is part of a community of learning where everyone is expected to work hard, cooperate with others and achieve individually and collectively.

We attribute the success of our school to a number of factors including an ongoing schedule of parent and family workshops, an in-home training program entitled "Literacy Door to Door", a dedicated Parent Teacher Association, a fully functional Family Resource Center, and an array of instructional and enrichment programs to meet the needs of every child not just every school day, but beyond the school day and beyond the school year. Additionally, we have a state of the art, highly integrated curriculum, designed to foster and advance high levels of literacy for every child through relevant, interesting explorations into the world of reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing. Accommodating learners as individuals in small, flexible groups or as entire classes, our outstanding curriculum enables teachers to capitalize on the learning strengths of all students and to work toward common and individual learning. The John Barry staff is a delightful collage of professional educators. We are diverse in age, ethnic background, years of experience, and geographical points of origin; but we are, each and every one of us, passionately committed to every child's right to equal educational opportunity, to the maintenance of high standards for the children and ourselves, and to the premise that John Barry School is a place where failure cannot exist.