Outgoing METCO head stands behind the program despite recent attacks on DEI

Mark Herz: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. It was announced in March that METCO president Milly Arbaje-Thomas will step down at the end of this month after leading the program for seven years. Arbaje-Thomas joins us this morning to discuss her experience and work at the helm of the decades long voluntary school integration program. Good morning, Milly.

Milly Abarje-Thomas: Good morning, Mark.

Herz: Thank you for coming in. We know that METCO has been around since 1966 and is described as America’s largest voluntary school integration program. Really, it’s been a national model for a long time now. Tell us about where you’ve taken the organization in your tenure.

Abarje-Thomas: Thank you for having me here. I am so proud of the work that METCO does and will continue to do. What I’ve loved about the METCO program since I’ve been here is the voluntary nature of it and the fact that we are working with 33 school communities that want to have the METCO program there. That has been really helpful for me coming on board and actually trying to take the organization to its next phase.

When I got there, we did not have an admissions policy in writing. So we worked very close with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to ensure that we had a policy in place. Throughout the last couple of years, that policy has evolved.

Right before the pandemic, luckily, we had just transitioned to being fully online. If we didn’t do that, we wouldn’t have been able to get through the pandemic and have any applicants — because back in the day, it used to be in person only, in one office, and people had to come when they were just born. So the first change that I worked on was ensuring that people apply only when they’re school age. We went from a wait list that was when you were 0 years old out of the hospital — and by the way, that is absolutely true, because I applied for METCO out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. [It was] my first thought, before I went home to show my baby to my mother. So there’s a lot of people that are like me that have done that since they were born. So the first thing we did is remove that.

And then more recently, we actually did parent choice. So back in the days, you would have to be lucky enough to get into the program. Wherever you got out of 33 communities in the North Shore, South Shore, Metro West, you had to just take it. Now, parents have up to three choices. So we’ve done a lot in the last seven years, just on the admissions policy alone.

Herz: Let’s dig into the impacts that this has on families and the kids’ lives that go to these 33 communities that you were mentioning, because it really does make a big difference. There was a Tufts study recently that undergirded this. So really take us into these people’s lives and what it means.

Abarje-Thomas: Even for me, who’s a METCO parent, its the first thing that I looked at when I went into this program — and I just got this job seven years ago, my daughter’s already in college, so I was a mother way before I was a leader of the program. The things that we enjoy about it as a parent is all the extracurricular activities that our children have access to.

For example, my daughter was already taking Spanish in kindergarten. They were studying the flute, the ukulele, that guitar. You know, they were in school plays. We have METCO students who are on the swim team and on the track team, and they’re number one, Mark. Our student was the captain in the Wellesley swimming team that took them to the state championship. Our student in Concord-Carlisle was actually the fastest runner in the state. So these are the kinds of opportunities that we have in addition to amazing academic rigor. We actually really take it to heart the fact that we can have those competitive courses, have AP class work. Your career can go anywhere in terms of exploration as a high schooler. Those are things that I just really enjoyed.

And then there’s preparation for the real world, which is not Black or white or brown, it’s a diverse workforce. [Its important] not only for our suburban students to be exposed to our diversity and what we bring in, but for us to be exposed to primarily white spaces so that when we go to those careers later on, we don’t feel like we don’t belong there. We feel confident walking into these spaces and that’s what you hear many of our alumni say, the confidence that they have built into the program to walk into board rooms, to work in high level positions and feel like they are worthy of being there. So those are a few of the things that I have actually seen. Then there’s the college going, you would hear many times a saying from a METCO student, it’s not if they’re gonna go to college, it’s where they’re going to go to college.

Herz: I’ve been hearing this program for a few years now that I have been in Massachusetts. Why isn’t it even bigger than it is? Tell me about how this can be expanded, and now that you’re leaving, where you think the organization should be headed.

Abarje-Thomas: Great question and that is something that I had hoped to actually tackle while I was in this job. And there’s a few barriers to that. When I started here, we were a $21 million organization. We are now $29.9 [million], so our funding has increased about $9 million since I’ve been there and we started a new initiative called METCO 2.0 that the legislators have funded to implement anti-racist programs, a METCO blueprint for a school integration model. It also funds districts to do equity work.

In terms of the expansion, we have a list of districts internally now that are part of the program, that have available seats to have opened up, and they wanna fill those seats with METCO students. In addition to that, after George Floyd was killed, 11 districts in Massachusetts reached out to me saying that they wanted to be part of the METCO program; they wanted to actually respond and be a welcoming community.

So we would have to have a conversation with our legislators and say, "X town wants 100 students more" or "This community wants to join METCO," and they would have to advocate to say, "Are you guys willing for us to up the METCO grant to $50 million," for example, with the caveat that it’s only for expansion. We have to follow the law, and the line item is the law. If it doesn’t say this money can be used for expansion, we can’t use it for expansion.

Herz: We’re in a very challenging environment. The Trump administration has a really negative stance towards DEI and what they see as inappropriate wokeness. So as you’re leaving this organization that’s so rooted in some of these concepts, how do you see things now?

Abarje-Thomas: It is pretty appalling to see what’s happening at the federal level. The fact that we’re even looking to dismantle words that are positive, yet when people say there’s freedom of speech and people can say racist words and you have to take it, but yet three words that mean something positive — that our children are growing up in a world that is diverse, that has equity, that is inclusive — to just be able to dismantle these words. It’s appalling that our government is doing something like this. In addition to that, even the Department of Education might be dismantled as well, pieces of it at a federal level that protects what’s happening in states. It’s just really something that I can’t even fathom. For me, it is sad that I am leaving at this moment. It was completely coincidental that when I gave my notice to the board, it was at the end of January.

Luckily, we are fully state-funded and the state legislators are fully behind the Metco program. We just had an advocacy there at the State House and every person, the chair of education, both at the House and at the Senate, said, "We are for this program. We will not dismantle DEI." So at least in Massachusetts, we have that backing. And I don’t know if you know this, but the METCO program actually is backed up by the Racial Imbalance Law of 1965 in Massachusetts. So we have a state law that protects our program and that was part of the Brown v Board in 1954. Massachusetts then came up with its way of doing it in Massachusetts in 1965, and METCO has been the only solution since then.

Herz: Outgoing METCO President Milly Abarje-Thomas. Thank you for joining us, Milly.

Abarje-Thomas: Thank you.

Herz: You're listening to GBH.