In its 40th Year, Bedford METCO Program Plots a Course for Improvement and Renewal

By Kim Siebert MacPhail

On Tuesday, October 9, Dr. Percy Napier gave the School Committee a snapshot of Bedford’s METCO program, now in its 40^th year. Napier’s list of the program’s accomplishments was impressive but, as he begins his second year as director, he also recognizes areas for improvement.

In 1972, the Bedford METCO program began with 22 students. This year, 97 Boston students are enrolled across the district: 16 students at Davis School; 17 at Lane; 26 at John Glenn Middle and 38 at Bedford High.

In FY13, the state grant for METCO in Bedford was $536,754. Most of this amount—56%–was allocated to transportation expenses; 33% to staffing; 9% to programs and services; and just 1% to professional development and operational costs.

Napier said, “Budgeting every year is always a major challenge for the program. The legislature allocates funding… and there’s always a battle regarding the amount. In years past, the program has seen substantial cuts but this year the overall program received an increase of about a half million dollars and that translated to the approximately $20,000 increase that we received [in Bedford]. However, that was almost entirely consumed by an increase in transportation costs.”

Besides the state grant money to fund METCO, very little contribution is needed from the town of Bedford to support the program, say Superintendent Jon Sills and Business Manager David Coelho.

Staffing costs are the next highest use of funding and those include the METCO director’s salary, a METCO office assistant, bus monitors, a liaison/academic advisor stipend, and a contribution to offset Bedford’s general personnel costs.

One of the items listed in Napier’s list of accomplishments—METCO’s Summer Math Academy—is funded within the 9% allocated to programs and services. The Academy is held in the first two weeks in August for High School and Middle School minority students, whether they live locally or in Boston. During the school year, METCO also has an afterschool tutorial program to support students in their study of mathematics and, simultaneously, to lessen the achievement gap between white and minority students.

“I’ve changed the METCO math program so that it’s more data-driven,” Napier said. We’re targeting students’ strengths as opposed to just looking at their homework…While challenges still remain, there are several students that have made some substantial gains.”

Last year, another initiativecalled Tenacity Challenge startedto boost student motivation and achievement. Napier described Tenacity as a competition that “engages students in rigorous study of academic concepts.” Students spend several months preparing for the competition by studying math and science for a “quiz bowl”, researching social studies topics such as historical approaches to change, and practicing writing prompts for on-the-spot essays. There is also a competitive arts component.

“The response we got from students [about the Tenacity Challenge] was absolutely tremendous,” Napier reported. “Very rarely do we hear, ‘I can’t wait to get to studying for next year.’”

Bedford METCO has also realigned its program to have a much stronger emphasis on college readiness.“[It’s] the idea that you need to be ready, to prepare yourself and be competitive for college—not only for admissions but also for [finding college] funding. As a result, I’ve facilitated some student workshops around this topic that are designed to provide students with a stronger understanding of the admissions process, to get them to understand that it’s a process that extends beyond your senior year of high school.”

Napier added that many students’ families don’t have a familiarity with college or a savvy-ness to negotiate the admissions landscape.

Besides his ongoing focus on increasing student achievement, Napier also listed improved parent satisfaction, the annual soul food dinner, and a partnership with Hanscom as other program accomplishments.

About the soul food dinner he said, “The response was literally overwhelming. So it was not only a success from the standpoint of fundraising for the parent organization but some of the conversations you have with some of the people who came in were tremendous.”

Napier related two conversations he had the evening of last year’s soul food dinner: one with a civil rights activist who had participated in voter registration drives in the south in the 60’s, another with relatives of former METCO director Irene Parker. “As I looked around the room, I [also] saw numerous conversations between Boston parents and Bedford parents interacting with one another.”

With regard to partnering with Hanscom, Napier spoke about a natural connection existing between the METCO community and the Hanscom community as two, non-Bedford outside groups who come to school here.

“The outsider experience is probably the most common similarity between the two communities. Our [METCO] students aren’t as transitory as the Hanscom population, but they do share the experience of coming in to a school system that is not in their hometown, it’s not on their base. This whole partnership started years ago, just from the observation that a lot of METCO students and Hanscom students have gravitated toward each other. The idea was to kind of facilitate those [connections].”

Finally, the goals that Napier has established for the program are:

• Expansion of the Summer Math Academy;
• Partnering with school to develop effective strategies to improve student achievement;
• Development of partnerships with the Bedford Community;
• Reinstatement of the Family Friends or “host family” program.

To rejuvenate the host family program, “a staple of METCO programs since their inception”, Napier is working with the schools’ parent organizations. BEST has appointed a Family Friends coordinator who is reaching out to the elementary school population in order to develop connections and support for the initiative. At the middle school, the co-presidents of the parent group have launched a more targeted process to identify current relationshipsthat might naturally enter into a host family partnership. At the high school level, until the program regenerates from the bottom up, no formal program will be initiated because, as Napier says, friendships and associations have already formed so it would be awkward to arrange them at that age.

The purpose of the host family program is to provide a second “home away from home” for the Boston student so that he/she can participate more fully in sports, extracurriculars, and social events. While the host family program is being re-established, Napier has put together guidelines to help families coordinate student-family connections.

However, Napier emphasized, “With the host family program, we make introductions. We don’t necessarily dictate or suggest the kinds of relationships that these families form. We provide activities and outings and those kinds of things to facilitate the relationship but we have a hands-off approach because that’s something that should be negotiated between families. ”

He added, “I  have come across many METCO alums—and even current METCO parents who were METCO students—who say that they’re still close to their host family, even until this day. Our students will really benefit from those lifelong friendships that will form in this program.”