Dear Visitor,

Welcome to gifford.org, The Gifford School's home on the web.

Gifford is an evolving school community committed to providing its students and faculty with an environment that encourages and nourishes individuality, diversity, and personal and professional growth.

Please take a moment to find out about recent news and highlights from the Gifford campus by clicking on the links to the right. For information about our program, services, and calendar of events, choose from the links above. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments.

April Events

Safety

Safety is at the foundation of The Gifford School program. We work very hard to make sure that all members of our community, be they adults, young adults or children, are safe at every level. We invest a great deal of time and energy to ensure that our staff is trained to respond to the emotional, psychological and/or physical needs of our students. That is why on Thursday, April 3rd, we scheduled a day when the students stayed home from school and our seventy-plus staff spent the day with a group of certified professionals who trained them in CPR, First Aid, and defibrillator use. For some of the staff, being trained in CPR was a newly acquired skill; for many of the Gifford staff, this was an opportunity to be recertified. Regardless of staff’s previous CPR training experience, this day was set aside to focus on physical safety at Gifford, and it also happened to reinforce another element that is essential to Gifford—team building! I believe that we were able to cover a lot of ground on the 3rd and that the time that we spent together in our training will have a much larger impact on and benefit to the Gifford community.

January Events

It is my pleasure to let you know about a recent event that occurred at The Gifford
School. On January 25th, in a joint effort with MAAPS (Massachusetts Association
of 766 Approved Private Schools), Gifford hosted a Legislative Forum. The day began with Geline Williams, the President of Gifford’s Board, welcoming a dozen state legislators and representatives, in addition to a number of leaders of special education schools. I gave an overview of The Gifford School, and three former Gifford students captivated the audience with the stories of how they came to Gifford, what they did when they were here, and what they have been doing since leaving the school. The morning ended with Jim Major,the Executive Director of MAAPS, emphasizing how important it is to continue to develop relationships with all of the people who influence special education in Massachusetts.
I am thrilled that so many legislators, representatives, and leaders of special education schools were able to join us and make the day such a success.

Michael J. Bassichis
Executive Director