Page 23 - BusinessWest May 26, 2025

“These are high-
school kids who
literally get paid
to do work in
businesses. It’s
a leg up for the
kids, but it’s
also a leg up for
local businesses,
particularly
those in the STEM
fields, because
it gives them
an opportunity
to train these
students and
generate a future
workforce for
them. It’s a win for
everybody.”
coordinate what happens.”
CES does some of that too,
and also runs two programs that
provide direct services to stu-
dents: HEC Academy, a special
education school in Northampton,
and Mount Tom Academy on the
Holyoke Community College cam-
pus, which serves non-traditional
students who, for whatever rea-
son, are having difficulty succeed-
ing in a regular public school set-
ting and need more personalized
instruction and support.
“We’ve seen incredible success
for the students who attend both
of those programs,” Gazda noted.
That said, he added, the Col-
laborative for Educational Ser-
vices is much broader than that.
For one thing, it runs statewide
programs; as one example, for
the past 15 years, it has provided
all educational programming for
the Department of Youth Services
(DYS).
“So, for every youth lock-up in the state of Massachusetts, we
run the schools. We hire the teachers, we do the curriculum, and it’s
just like a regular public school setting.”
CES also provides special education in institutional settings,
from DYS to Department of Mental Health programs to county
houses of correction. Other statewide services include the Mas-
sachusetts Migrant Education Program, which connects migrant
youth and their families with services and supports, and the Special
Education Surrogate Parent Program, which connects special-edu-
cation advocates with students whose parents, for whatever reason,
aren’t in the picture.
While providing support for students in its local districts, as all
such collaboratives do, CES also runs statewide programs.
CES also does a lot of consulting and professional-development
work statewide for teachers, schools, and districts, running the
gamut from curriculum development to strategic planning.
“One of the areas that we’ve really gotten into recently is AI
— how do we support districts as they seek to kind of adapt to AI
and its use in schools and its use in instruction, and how do we
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