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Our guest on Monday was a familiar face at Cohasset Schools. Aleisa Gittens-Carle, METCO Coordinator for the Cohasset Public Schools cane to speak about the student program with students from Boston becoming a part of the Cohasset School District.
Ms. Gittens-Charle graduated as a METCO student from Scituate High School. Went on to Tufts U, then Simmons for an MSW and Master's of Education. She is also a pastor and holds a certificate as a principal for a middle-high school.
Aleisa is in her 18th year w/ METCO, which started in 1966 as an off-shoot of another program called the "Exodus Project" in Boston. METCO began connecting Boston students w/ suburban school districts 50 years ago!
Participants must be a resident of Boston. Each is placed only when seating is available in one of the 32 districts so that it doesn't impact the budget of the community. Cohasset has a capacity of 50 students and they share transportation costs and routes with the Hingham students living in Boston.
Ms. Gittens-Carle would like to see the Host Program get started up again as well as the Diversity Committee of which there is interest in Cohasset. The Host Program, which disintegrated in 2008 due to the need for double incomes during the economic downturn, pairs Cohasset students living locally with Cohasset students living in Boston. There is a desire in Cohasset to reinstate the program to have partnered students build a more meaningful relationship with each other’s families.
Aleisa recently started a "Diversity Club" at high schools. The goal is to give kids a forum to understand each other and promote friendship and inclusion not only for students of color but to include discussions about religion, learning style... anything that makes a child feel like one of the ‘others’. She would like this committee to spread outside the school walls, and spoke about this goal at the 2018 MLK Breakfast, receiving a page full of volunteer names.