METCO head credits Weston schooling for success

Weston alum Kandice Sumner is now at the helm of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), bringing with her a three-generation family history of fighting for educational equity.

METCO has worked toward integrating Massachusetts schools since its inception in the 1960s. Today, more than 3,000 students are enrolled in suburban districts to expand educational opportunities and reduce racial isolation in suburban towns. For Sumner, who assumed the role of president and CEO last October, this means giving students access to what every American child should have.

“To be in America is about having the freedom to choose and the right to as many opportunities as possible,” Sumner said. “That freedom to choose your path should not be limited by factors you can’t control – where you were born, the color of your skin. I can’t do anything about that, so it should not be a limiting factor in my destiny.”

METCO has been part of Sumner’s family since its inception. Her grandfather, Carnell Eaton, whose name is inscribed at the foot of the statue “The Embrace” in Boston in recognition of his civil rights work, was an organizing parent for Operation Exodus. Operation Exodus was a volunteer busing program that preceded METCO. Sumner’s mother was in one of the first METCO classes in Lexington and enrolled her three children in the program as well.

“Fighting for educational equity has been my entire family’s lifelong journey, from my grandfather to both my parents to me,” Sumner said.

She attended Weston Public Schools from kindergarten through senior year of high school.

In Weston today, there are 148 METCO students, according to Theresa Dryden, the district’s METCO program director.

“It’s been a partnership that’s been going on for two generations. It’s kind of remarkable,” she said. “It’s essential to the fabric of the Weston public schools and the town and the community.”

Dryden said she is excited to see a homegrown METCO alum assume the role of president and CEO. Dryden has known Sumner since before she entered kindergarten.

“It was clear from a young age that she had leadership skills and she was able to connect with a lot of different people,” Dryden said. “I’m very lucky to have seen her journey and how she parallels with other kids who went through the program.”

Sumner has been a voice for METCO since she was a student. In high school, she appeared in the documentary “Far From Home.” The film showcased her family’s experience with the program, as well as the highs and lows of her experience. One scene depicts a United States history teacher telling their class to make a case against reparations. Sumner said dealing with challenging classroom experiences like that inspired the programming she wants to add for METCO students to help them better navigate uncomfortable situations at school.

“That is an example of the student-facing programming I want to add to the mix,” Sumner said. “Something happens on a Tuesday at 7 in the morning, your parents are 30 minutes away, your friends don’t know what to do. How do you navigate this?”

During Sumner’s time in Weston, she wrote for the high school paper, the Wildcat Tracks, and served as student council president. To her knowledge, she was the first Black female student to hold the position. She also spent the night at friends’ houses, ziplined in their backyard and went to her first Shabbat dinner. Sumner said that her time in Weston taught her to advocate for herself and to be comfortable in her skin, no matter what room she was in.

“Especially as a little Black girl, whiteness can get stereotyped for you, what white people are and how they should be,” she said. “Weston taught me, ‘No, we love you too … That doesn’t mean we’ll get it right every time, but you’re important to us, and you’re a part of our story as well.’”

After Sumner graduated from Weston High School in 2004, she attended Spelman College, a historically Black women’s school. There, she said she felt community and cultural empowerment she had not experienced elsewhere.

“Both [Weston and Spelman] completed the picture for me,” she said.

Her time at Spelman inspired the programming she wants to start for METCO students, focused on social-emotional learning, leadership and cultural-empowerment skills that she was able to explore in college.

“Being a METCO student is a unique, specific experience, and therefore the student programming should be tailored to the METCO experience,” she said.

Sumner became a teacher and went on to get her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where her thesis explored her experience as a METCO student through an academic framework. She worked as a teacher in the Boston area for several years, seeing more educational inequity firsthand, before applying to become the leader of METCO.

As an alum, Sumner has seen firsthand the impact the program has on students from Boston and the suburban communities alike. She said that an education cannot be considered complete if it is done in a silo.

“The public perception is that METCO is about Black and brown kids from Boston, and that is true,” Sumner said. “But we are a value-add to the suburban communities.”

Sumner said that the current state of the world has only further proved how necessary the Program is.

“I’m really grateful that I am a student of history, because if I wasn’t, I’d be terrified. I know almost [every] hook, line and sinker; every play that’s being played is not new,” she said. “Thank you for putting an exclamation mark on why METCO still needs to exist…I am reminded why we started in 1966 and why we are still standing strong in 2026.”