Margaret Gifford

Shortly after her retirement as the Director of the Dearborn School in Cambridge (the “laboratory school” for Lesley College), Margaret Gifford founded The Gifford School in 1964. Margaret used her own funds and was 65 years old when she first opened the doors to Gifford in a nondescript, three-story house on the corner of Hancock and Broadway, outside of Central Square in Cambridge. She spent numerous hours at the State House lobbying to qualify Gifford as a special education program authorized to provide services in the Commonwealth.

The School started with a staff of eight teachers (Margaret included), one social worker, a part time psychologist, two part time consulting psychiatrists, an administrative assistant, and an elderly gentleman in his 80s who was the School’s first janitor.

The School remained in Cambridge until 1971 when it relocated to its present Weston campus. Margaret passed away soon thereafter, but without question, she made an indelible mark as an educator in the field of special education and children’s services with the creation of the School that bears her name.