Welcome

About Ashby Evergreen

A community-led effort to bring a new kind of public school to Ashby, Townsend, Pepperell, and Fitchburg. Planned opening Fall 2027.

How we got here

Our Story

Ashby Elementary School served our town for more than seventy years. In June 2025, after a closely divided vote by the North Middlesex Regional School Committee, the building closed its doors. Families across Ashby and the surrounding towns suddenly found themselves looking further from home for the kind of close-knit, community-based education a small town used to provide.
But a building with seventy years of learning in its walls is not easily quieted. A group of neighbors — librarians, parents, educators, and longtime community members — began asking a simple question: what if we brought a school back?
Not the same school. Something new. Something built for how children actually learn — with time outdoors, room to play, and pacing that respects each child as an individual. Something inspired by the proven success of Finnish education, where well-being and academic excellence go hand in hand.
That question became a plan. The plan became a charter application. And the charter application is becoming Ashby Evergreen Charter School.
We are not looking backward at what was lost. We are looking forward to what comes next. There is a Finnish word for that kind of forward motion in the face of setbacks: sisu. Quiet determination. The decision to keep building, together.

Why we exist

Our Mission.

Ashby Evergreen Charter School exists to give children in our community a place to learn that meets them where they are. We believe young students thrive when they have room to move, time to play, and the freedom to learn at their own pace. Drawing inspiration from the Finnish education model, we are building a tuition-free public school grounded in well-being, curiosity, and the quiet determination Finns call sisu.

At a glance.

Opening Fall 2027

Pending charter approval from the Massachusetts DESE.

K–4 to start

Expanding through Grade 8 over time.

Four towns served

Ashby, Townsend, Pepperell, and Fitchburg.

Tuition-free

A public charter school, open to all eligible families.

A different kind of public school.

Caharter schools are public schools — tuition-free, open to all, and accountable to the same state academic standards as district schools. What charter schools have that district schools often don’t is the freedom to design how learning happens.

Ashby Evergreen is using that freedom deliberately. We are building a school where time outdoors is part of the day, where young children learn through play, where each student progresses at their own pace, and where well-being comes before test scores. These are not radical ideas — they are simply what works. They are also, in many American public schools, the first things to be cut.

We think it’s time to put them back at the center.

Who we are.

The people behind it

Ashby Evergreen is being founded by a group of community members — librarians, parents, educators, and longtime residents of Ashby and the surrounding towns. We are working alongside legal advisors, education consultants, and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to bring this school to life.
As our founding team and board of directors take shape, we will introduce them here.

Our parent organization

Build it with us.

Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, a neighbor, or simply someone who believes in what we’re doing — there is a place for you in this work.