page_title: Bridgewater, Massachusetts
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Bridgewater, Massachusetts / Education
caption_attribution_description: English: Bridgewater Academy building, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Built 1868.
context_page_description: Bridgewater is a city located in Plymouth County, in the state of Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the town's population was 26,563. Bridgewater is located approximately 25 miles south of Boston and approximately 35 miles east of Providence, Rhode Island.
context_section_description: Bridgewater shares its school district with neighboring Raynham, with both towns operating their own elementary and middle schools, and sending their students to a common high school.  Bridgewater has one elementary school,  George H. Mitchell Elementary School (south and west of the town center - formerly known as Bridgewater Elementary), which serves students from kindergarten through grade three. All the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders attend M.G. Williams Intermediate School, while seventh and eighth graders attend Bridgewater Middle School. The Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School is located in Bridgewater, west of the town center.  B-R's athletics teams are nicknamed the "Trojans", and their colors are red and white. The athletic teams of the Bridgewater Middle School use the "Spartans" nickname.
  In 2015, during February vacation, the roof of the Mitchell Elementary school collapsed due to heavy snow. The students at the elementary school were moved to Bridgewater Middle School, and the students at the middle school were split between the Williams Intermediate School and Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School.
  Bridgewater was formerly home to two private schools which served students from preschool (Joyful Learning) and kindergarten through sixth grade (Southbrook Academy) until their closings after the 2012-2013 school year.  There are also private schools in nearby Taunton and Brockton.
  Bridgewater was formerly the site of the well-known, influential Bridgewater Academy, a private high school formerly located on the "Town Common" (park). It was attended by many leading young men of the area in the early and mid 19th Century, including a well-known Massachusetts-born merchant/philanthropist Enoch Pratt (1808-1896), in the late 1830s, who endowed the Public Library in his hometown of North Middleborough and also set up the world-famous Enoch Pratt Free Library, one of the first free public library systems in America.
  The town is also home to Bridgewater State University, a public liberal arts university that was founded as a "normal school" (now teachers' school) in 1840.  It is the largest of the state's nine state universities outside of the University of Massachusetts system itself. As of 2015, approximately 10,000 undergraduate students and 1,800 postgraduate students are enrolled at the college.
caption: Bridgewater Academy building. Built 1868.
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