The Amigos School will move to 158 Spring St., the former site of the Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary School, for the 2028-2029 school year, Cambridge’s School Committee voted on Tuesday.
“I believe that this is absolutely in the best interest of all of our students throughout the school system,” said superintendent David Murphy, making his recommendation to the committee.
“Through the lens of student growth and both academic and social-emotional community building, this new physical space offers endless opportunities,” said Marco Curnen, assistant principal at Amigos, during public comment.
Amigos, a prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade Spanish-immersion school at 15 Upton St. outside Central Square, does not have a science lab, fields or an auditorium – all of which the Spring Street campus offers.The Amigos School has 418 students; the capacity of the current campus is only 416 students. The building in East Cambridge can hold 650, allowing The Amigos School to grow.
Amigos has been nationally recognized for its unique bilingual model and has some of the district’s highest state standardized test scores. It has the second-lowest percentage of high-needs students in the district, although 79 percent of families who chose Amigos as their top choice are high needs. Murphy said in his presentation that the move “would increase the number of available seats at one of our district’s highest-performing schools, with an opportunity to serve more high-needs students.”
The committee voted in 2024 to close the K-Lo at Murphy’s suggestion after he showed underenrollment, a disproportionate concentration of high-needs students and low performance on standardized testing. Only 30 percent of students met or exceeded expectations on the English-language arts portion of the 2025 standardized test known as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, compared with a state average of 42 percent.
Since the school closed its doors at the end of the 2024-2025 school year, the 122,000-square-foot property has remained vacant, although in February it was announced that the city would begin “targeted improvements” of around $17 million addressing “aging infrastructure and improving safety, accessibility and major systems such as HVAC, electrical, plumbing and building envelope components,” as well as classroom and playground upgrades. Ahern Field, which is used by the campus for games and recreation, is next door and getting a $7.5 million redesign and reconstruction.
In September, the committee discussed other possibilities for the space – a preschool hub or a merged junior high – but after a month of community discussion, the Amigos move won out.
“We should not underestimate the challenges that come in with this type of transition. There will be burdens and there will be challenges that are borne by the Amigos staff, students and families that will not be equally shared, even if the benefits of this move, I do think, are districtwide,” Murphy said, noting in his presentation that due to the Spanish-language requirement for upper elementary and middle school, “expansion of Amigos may need to occur in phases over a number of years.”
The future of 15 Upton St. remains up in the air, although Murphy’s presentation noted the “domino impact” that this move will have, highlighting opportunities for a new home for early childcare as well as Rindge School of Technical Arts and High School Extension Program programming.
“I hope [this move] will be seen as a really proud moment in the history of a very proud school,” Murphy said.
The committee’s vote was unanimous in favor of the move.
