Foxborough’s METCO Director Jesenia Castro spoke with cable access host Bob Hickey, alongside METCO, Inc. CEO Milly Arbaje-Thomas. Their conversation ranged from the benefits and struggles experienced by Boston families who take the bus out and back, to a call for the town to get involved and support the students and cherish the impact of the historic program. As Milly put is:

“If you are in the METCO community, you have to be better than every other community out there, because of what we are part of: something so unique, something so historical, something so deep. I mean, we’re one of seven school desegregation programs still alive in the entire United States today, and we’re the largest. So if school committees are signing on the dotted line that they’re going to be a METCO community, that’s step number one: accept these students into our towns. And then what’s next? What can we do in deeper and more intentional ways? We have to be better about teacher diversity. We have to be better by integrating our students in all the entire experience of a school. We have to figure out ways to bring our families together, look at curriculum bias, our instruction, teacher diversity. There are so many things. The lens that you should have is, how can I be better?”