Peekskill Adds Special Education, Career Programs

A Special Education Program and a pilot Career and Technical Education Program are the newest additions to the Peekskill school district’s growing partnership with the Putnam/Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES).

Contracts for both programs, to be based at Peekskill Middle School, were approved Aug. 21 by the Board of Education.

The Special Education Program will involve middle-school-age students classified with autism and will focus on communication, language, academic and social skills, according to a BOCES memo. Two of the six youngsters scheduled to participate are from Peekskill, said Joseph Mosey, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. BOCES will pay Peekskill $23,070 for use of the classroom space in the middle school.

The Career and Technical Education Program will offer a semester of Medical Assisting/EMS/CPR (fall 2012) and Environmental Discovery (spring 2013) to as many as 20 eighth-graders. The program will include field trips to the BOCES Tech Center in Yorktown, according to page three of the memo. Mosey and Superintendent of Schools James Willis voiced hope that the pilot will be a prototype for five-year (instead of the current two-year) technical and career programs in various fields, in which students participate in Peekskill in grades 8-10 and at the Tech Center in grades 11-12.

Mosey said Peekskill was the first district to work with BOCES on such a program.