Schools
School Committee Picks Sides in Collaborative after New Law Forces Split
New state law has changed oversight regarding educational collaboratives
Superintendent Kathleen Bodie led the through a decision making process Thursday night after a new state law has changed oversight regarding educational collaboratives. Currently, Arlington Public School's receive professional development, transport, legal advice and other services from a collaborative between the Education Collaborative for Greater Boston Inc. (ECGB) and the EDCO Collaborative (EDCO). ECGB is labeled as a private entity where EDCO is public.
New legislation on this issue says public and private entities can no longer be joined as one collaborative. Further more, it requires that all collaboratives have completely separate operations from related not-for-profit. Since ECGB and EDCO share governance and administration, they are being forced to separate.
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As part of this dual-collaboration, the Arlington School Committee must pick which side of this collaboration best suits their needs as the new legislation restricts them from being part of both (as is the current implementation).
Although they could have waited until May 10 to make this decision, the School Committee saw that EDCO provides them with better programs when compared to ECGB.
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The decision came as elementary to the School Committee as factors such as higher overall staffing numbers (85-148), a bigger budget ($3.4 million compared to $10.8 million) and more elaborate and engaging professional development, youth, special member, transportation, special education and other programs all fell in favor of EDCO.
“What makes the most sense going forward,” explained Superintendent Bodie, “is that private is dissolved and everything is moved into a public domain.”
Committee Member Joseph A. Curro Jr. agreed with Bodie. “Our EDCO collaboration is incredibly important and we should do whatever we can to keep using their services.”
The School Committee voted to continue to use EDCO which means they will no longer seek the programs offered by the other side of the collaborative, ECGB.
