ISD 917 offers specialized services to nine member school districts in the areas of Special Education, Alternative Learning for secondary students, and Career and Technical Education.

Pope Design Group was engaged in 2017 to design an adaptive reuse of a vacant 56,000 sq. ft. grocery store for a new special education school. The new Concord Education Center services 144 students requiring significant support and supervision within the learning environment.

The project included site and shell modifications, as well as transforming the former grocery store interior to house group and specialized individual classrooms, life-skills space, offices, a PAES Lab, and “Café-Gym-Atorium” multi-purpose room.