METCO Family Friends

What is the METCO Program?

METCO stands for Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity. Founded in 1966 in Boston, the program is the longest continuously running voluntary desegregation program in the country. The METCO Program provides the opportunity for an integrated public school education for children of color from racially imbalanced schools in Boston by placing them in suburban schools. The METCO Program provides a new learning experience for suburban children and a closer understanding and cooperation between urban and suburban parents in the Boston Metro area.

How are students selected for METCO?

METCO students and their parents volunteer to participate. Students are chosen on a first come, first serve basis, thereby ensuring a fair cross-section of applicants. There is a waiting list every year of families who would like to participate in the program.

METCO Family Friends

What is their role?

Boston and Concord families have the opportunity to work together to build family friends relationships where the spirit of the relationships is more of a “cooperating and sharing” than of guest and host. Relationships between paired families usually develop slowly. Each relationship is unique and sometimes friendship is one of the rewards, along with deepened insights and broadened horizons. The type and intensity of the relationship varies from family to family. There are many ways that this relationship can work, but it is particularly important that students from both communities understand that as cooperating partners they will be taking on an obligation of friendliness and helpfulness, not of mandated friendship.

Some things that Concord Family Friends can do:

• Provide a Boston family with a reference point in the new community that their child is entering.

• Help to communicate and amplify information regarding school programs and schedules.

• Become familiar faces at school meetings and social events.

• Offer “playdates” or get togethers with the Boston child and/or family.

• Could provide transportation to an after school activity or offer to keep a Boston student after school so a Boston parent can attend a meeting.

• Can serve as an emergency contact.

• Get to know a Boston student and their family.

The METCO Family Friends Committee at Alcott

Questions and suggestions: Kristen Ferguson, kristen.hagerty@gmail.com

Grade-level liaisons

• K - Liv Woods

• 1 - Sarah Sabatino

• 2 - Meredith Atkins

• 3 - Liv Woods

• 4 - Liz Cobss

• 5 - Kristen Hagerty

For more METCO information, please visit: www.concordps.org/metco.