Scituate CORSE Foundation

The Scituate C.O.R.S.E. Foundation (Community of Resources for Special Education) is a 501(c)(3) which was established by a group of dedicated parents and educators to raise funds to enhance and provide the highest quality educational experience so that students with special needs can reach their full potential. Through fundraising events and activities, the Foundation is able to allocate funds for a wide range of supplemental resources that will benefit students, parents and educators within our community. The Foundation cannot fund basic staffing and services required by state and federal education laws. However, with alternative funding, enhanced programming such as after-school programs, recreational activities, technology and training can have a profound impact on those whose needs are greatest.

Our volunteer board and member council (215+) represents parents of children with special needs as well as typically developing children, teachers and administrators of Scituate Public Schools, and interested community members. Our board has a representative from every school in the district as well as a seat for the Director of Special Education.

CORSE provides supplemental educational and recreational resources through two channels: (1) Our internal 'RFP' process is funded by our community fundraising events. One-two times each year, our board will accept proposal requests from Scituate school faculty and associated community organizations. Requests funded thus far address a wide variety of supplemental needs including: after school academic and social skills programs, music therapy, technology, adaptive equipment, professional staff development, therapeutic horseback riding and the 'All Stars' recreation sports programs and summer camp. (2) Through our Philanthropic Programs Initiative, we coordinate grant submissions to other corporate and non-profit organizations that will sponsor special needs supplemental programming that allows for the continuation and expansion of successful CORSE programming. When we receive philanthropic monies that are specifically targeted for these highly regarded programs, the Board is able to redirect our internal funds for program expansion to more age groups or new grants to address unmet supplemental needs.

In March 2008, CORSE was honored by receiving the Massachusetts Community Partnership Award from the Federation for Children with Special Needs at their annual conference where over 1,000 attendees participated. This award was in recognition of the outstanding efforts of the Foundation in support of opportunities for inclusion of people with disabilities in the community.

The reality is that our special education population is on the rise. With more children being diagnosed with disabilities, there has been tremendous national attention focused on this issue. Much of the spotlight is focused on identifying and researching the cause. However, it is recently becoming further publicized that there are not enough resources in town, state or federal budgets to provide sufficient resources to assist these children now to receive the necessary services and skills within the school systems and their communities to help them succeed. CORSE is a model that can be adapted to communities throughout the nation as an example of how parents, educators and community members can come together to develop the necessary resources to better serve this population.