The concept of the modern day Chinese community school dates back to 1908, when the Chinese imperial government sent envoy Liang Qinggui to encourage North American Chinese communities to establish educational institutions to help maintain the Chinese heritage among overseas Chinese. Among the earliest of these schools, the Kwong Kow Chinese School (KKCS) was founded in 1916 by the Chinese Merchants Association. Seeking to ensure the sustainability of the School as a community resource, a group of parents and community leaders sought and received a 501c3 designation for KKCS in 1981.
Since its founding, KKCS has provided Chinese language and cultural education, academic support, and recreational programs for more than 20,000 children of Chinese immigrants in the Greater Boston area. Operating after school, on Saturdays and Sundays, and during the summer, KKCS fills a critical need for quality out-of-school programming for more than 600 children, from Kindergarten through Grade 9, each year.
2008-2009 will mark the most significant transition and challenging stage in the lifecycle of the 92 year old KKCS. In late October 2007, KKCS moved into its own building for the first time in the school's long history. Now, KKCS has to transition itself from a primarily volunteer-run school with part-time staff along with very informal budgeting and operating processes to one that has formal policies and processes.