Boards of Cooperative Educational Services

In 1948, the New York State Legislature created the Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) to provide school districts with a program of shared educational services.

BOCES owes its origin to a state legislative enactment authorizing the formation of intermediate school districts. Passed in 1948, the act was aimed at enabling small rural school districts to combine their resources to provide services that otherwise would have been uneconomical, inefficient, or unavailable.

BOCES was to be the temporary means by which careful transitions could be made to an intermediate district framework. Though its purposes were similar to those of the proposed intermediate districts, BOCES was conceived and written into the Education Law in its own separate sections (1950 and 1951). Simpler in structure and less autonomous than projected intermediate districts, the BOCES proved itself worthy of being both means and end. Not one intermediate district was ever formed, and cooperative boards proliferated rapidly, especially during the mid-1950s, reaching 82 by 1958.

In 1972 the Intermediate School District Act was repealed.Laws pertaining to BOCES, however, have remained on the books. Thus BOCES has developed from a special-purpose, interim agency into a formally recognized middle or intermediate unit in New York State's public education system. There are currently 37 BOCES incorporating all but 9 of the 697 school districts in New York State.

Moreover, other states have moved toward regional educational configurations like BOCES. At least 30 state legislatures have mandated or passed legislation, as educational service agencies study the idea.

The total area under supervision of a district superintendent is called a supervisory district.

BOCES membership is not available to the so-called Big Five city school districts: New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse.

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