By Kim Siebert MacPhail
Bedford is a member of three Special Education collaboratives: LABB [Lexington, Arlington, Burlington, Bedford, Belmont] CASE [Concord Area Special Education], and EDCO [Education Collaborative.] The third collaborative—EDCO—started in 1969 with a singular focus on Special Education services but has since broadened the ways in which it serves member districts: it now also provides professional development and training, programs like new school committee orientation, roundtable discussions, and grant funding for initiatives such as the Tenacity Challenge for students of color in which Bedford participated last year.
At last Tuesday night’s School Committee meeting, EDCO’s new executive director— Colleen Dolan— gave an overview of the organization and how it serves its seventeen member towns.
Dolan said that EDCO:
- improves education through inter-district and inter-agency collaboration;
- provides high quality education and related services to students at risk;
- enhances equity, intercultural understanding and equal opportunity in education.
Bedford pays $18,000 a year to belong to the collaborative. As the new director, Dolan said she believes that the formula for membership fees needed to be revisited and she signaled that Bedford’s cost might decrease. Additionally, she presented a fee schedule that showed how EDCO’s Special Education day program costs are well below similar programs offered by private institutions.
The new school committee orientation that EDCO provides focuses particularly on board responsibilities and roles, legal aspects of governance, and how to work with superintendents in the most effective way.
Another EDCO program is the Educator Leadership Institute, held on the campus of Endicott College. Dolan said that since 2003 when the program began, the Institute has had more than 200 graduates, many of whom have become district leaders.
EDCO also hosts roundtables on a variety of issues confronting its member towns, not all of which relate to Special Education. Dolan said that EDCO considers a wide range of topics and may host a roundtable discussion on school security given the heightened interest in the subject.
Loading ...
