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January 2003
Being true to his schools
Posted Friday, January 31, 2003
Tour of Mount Pleasant begins Cicilline's pledge to visit all of the city's 53 public schools
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Even though one of their schoolmates fired a handgun at the ceiling of the cafeteria last week, a group of about 50 Mount Pleasant High School students told Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday that they believe their school is safe and that the incident was isolated.
Even so, they welcomed proposals to prevent school violence, such as creating school safety committees.
And they were pleased that Cicilline is seeking their input as a key step toward improving local schools.
The group, which met privately yesterday with the mayor for a half-hour, agreed with Cicilline's position that having metal detectors at entrances would be a bad idea that would create a false sense of security and make their school feel like a prison.
"I think that Mount Pleasant is a great school. It's a safe school; it's a school that young people really love," Cicilline said after the meeting, which included only the mayor, several of his assistants and the teens.
In addition to the meeting with students, Cicilline's 90-minute morning visit to the school included conversations with Principal Beatrice Wiggins and a tour of the building that included stops at an English class, a chemistry class and an Italian-language class.
Cicilline recently vowed to spend the next 53 weeks visiting all 53 Providence public schools in an effort to get input from students and teachers about the best ways to improve city schools. He said he believes his role as mayor includes helping to improve schools and keep them safe.
His pre-election promise to improve local schools was pushed to the forefront on Jan. 22 after a 17-year-old pupil fired a round into the Mount Pleasant cafeteria ceiling and ran away. The shooting occurred as school officials were breaking up a fight between three other boys.
Fellow students identified the shooter to the police and he was arrested at his home. He faces weapons charges and has been suspended from school.
Cicilline, who flew back to the city early from a conference of mayors in Washington, D.C. to address the shooting, called upon the police and school officials to convert the 10-member Police Department school squad to an expanded network of school resource officers. Such officers would do more than just enforce the law; they would have classroom interaction with students and have a greater presence in local schools.
Cicilline also created a confidential crime hot line -- 277-2020 -- that allows students to anonymously pass along information to the police.
In addition to working with police officials and school administrators to ensure school safety, Cicilline also suggested creating safety committees at each school to seek input from students.
"While it's important to listen to teachers, administrators and parents, we can't leave students out of the equation," Cicilline said, noting that the past tendency has been to leave students out of school improvement discussions.
Yesterday, Cicilline reiterated that as he visits local schools, his role, primarily, is to listen.
The concerns raised by Mount Pleasant students included a wide range of topics, Cicilline said.
Some worried that their school will get a bad reputation, and all agreed that steps should be taken to make sure last week's shooting incident never happens again.
Some pupils were concerned about the availability of jobs -- after graduation and for the summer -- and whether they will have access to an affordable college education.
They spoke of problems in obtaining hall passes and not having enough time between classes to go to their lockers. Cicilline advised the students that such issues would have to be taken up with school administrators because his objective is not to run, or take over, the schools.
Cicilline said he promised to check on several issues raised by the students, but declined to specify them. At meeting's end, he gave the students his e-mail address and phone numbers.
An entourage of media followed Cicilline as he visited classrooms.
He shook hands, and greeted and joked with students, in Dawn Gianfrancisco's English class, as they used a computer program to work on their family trees.
Michael Falae's chemistry class took a break from working out formulas to exchange pleasantries with the mayor. One student, who unveiled for Cicilline a watercolor painting he had done at home, was urged to contact city officials to see about displaying his artwork in City Hall.
Cicilline conversed with several students and staff in Spanish and said a few words in Italian, upon visiting one class.
"It's very useful to know another language," Cicilline told Carol Ann Baldassari's first-year Italian class, after telling the class that his high school initially did not offer Italian as an elective. The district was forced to offer the class after Cicilline and 11 other students expressed an interest in taking it; as a result, Cicilline took classes in both French and Italian, he said.
Cicilline said some students seemed "a little" surprised to have the mayor sit down with them to hear their ideas. However, he let them know that this would not be the last time they heard from him.
Hope High struggling to improve on 2 fronts
Posted Monday, January 27, 2003
Working under a state Department of Education deadline to better itself, the school is attempting to turn things around academically while, at the same time, institute better student dicipline.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Hope High School's recent troubles, in which two students were arrested and charged with arson and pulling false fire alarms about ten days ago, can be better understood in a broader context, said a high-ranking school official.
Chief of staff Susan F. Lusi viewed the recent disruptions at Hope -- a school which Governor Carcieri has called the "litmus test" of school reform in Rhode Island -- against nationwide trends.
Lusi, a former assistant commissioner at the state Department of Education, said that efforts to fix troubled high schools elsewhere in the country tend to focus on one thing at a time: discipline or academics.
But Hope, out of a sense of urgency, is being asked to do both things at once, she said, alluding to the one-year deadline the state Department of Education has given the school to reinvent itself.
In addition to working on that directive, Hope had to prepare for an accreditation visit in early November by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
And in the midst of the preparations came the unexpected influx of students in October, who were assigned more than one gym period a day because they were unable to get into the academic courses they needed.
That problem affected an estimated 100 to 150 students, according to estimates made by officials of the Providence Teachers Union.
The situation was resolved by the end of October, when eight teachers agreed to teach extra classes during their free periods.
Given all that has preoccupied the administration and faculty at Hope, Lusi said, "I'm not trying to say that what the state did was a bad thing" in its intervention.
"Because we know that if we did not have these types of time lines it would be another year before these things were implemented," she said.
Hope has a history of problems dating back more than 30 years, with a turnover in leadership, divisions among the faculty, and student discipline.
Commissioner of Education Peter McWalters stepped in last June when Hope was at the bottom of a precipitous slide in test scores. Years of plans for reform had gone nowhere.
He gave the school one more year to determine how to divide itself into three to four small, independent schools that would strengthen personal connections between teachers and students and put the spotlight on raising academic achievement.
The small schools must begin next September, according to McWalters' time line.
Lusi, meanwhile, said that when a decision is made to "fundamentally change everything" about a school, it typically closes and reopens with a largely new administrative and teaching staff.
"At least the adults in the school are starting fresh," she said.
In Providence, that approach has been used at Feinstein High School, which was redesigned during the spring and summer two years ago and reopened in the fall of 2001 with new leadership and new teachers, for the most part.
That move was ordered without state intervention by then-superintendent, Diana Lam.
In Hope's case, the state law that gives McWalters authority to intervene in a failing school does not allow reconstitution unless lesser interventions have been first attempted, according to a spokesman for the commissioner.
Lusi, meanwhile, described a different approach to school reform that focuses first on establishing an orderly and calm environment.
The mandate is to "clean up the school, with students behaving and kids in class," Lusi said. "It's the key focus for an entire year."
"That is typically done by bringing in new leadership and often keeping the same faculty," Lusi said.
"I would say that Hope is a hybrid approach," she said.
"Both the administration and the faculty have been asked to do both things at the same time," Lusi said.
"They've been asked to 'clean up the school' without having the advantage of having that the sole goal," Lusi said.
"And they've been asked to rethink the entire program, but without what many people see as the advantage of starting fresh," Lusi said.
Nancy Mullen, the principal, said last week that "we are meeting every single day after school" on the design of the small schools that will take shape next fall.
The meetings are publicized through school announcements and at parent meetings, she said, and "all members of the community are welcome" to participate.
Lusi suggested that more students and more adults -- "every single person" connected with Hope -- "should be involved" in the plans.
"Is that the reality? No. Does the work need to get done anyway? Yes," said Lusi.
Hope is "operating in far from an ideal world, with high expectations," she said.
Cicilline says city schools are safe
Posted Friday, January 24, 2003
Calling Wednesday's shooting at Mount Pleasant High School an isolated incident, the Providence mayor says he will ask for an expanded role for police officers assigned to the schools.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday shied away from installing metal detectors in the city schools in the wake of gunfire inside Mount Pleasant High School on Wednesday, saying the equipment fosters a "false sense of security."
Noting that the shot fired into the ceiling of the cafeteria was an "isolated incident," Cicilline said the city's schools are safe and he will do everything he can to make them safer.
At a news conference in his office, Cicilline said police and school officials will explore expanded roles for officers in schools that would enable them to build personal trust with youth.
Beginning next week, Cicilline said, he will visit one school a week to hear what students have to say about their school experiences. The first visit will be to Mount Pleasant.
"Students deserve to be listened to and heard," Cicilline said.
He said he has instructed his policy director, Carolyn Benedict-Drew, to set up a committee that will examine safety strategies for the entire school system, including a safety committee for each school building.
And Cicilline said he will ask the General Assembly to authorize the city to enact tough new gun-safety measures. He gave no details.
"There are too many guns," he said.
Meanwhile, Atty. Gen. Patrick C. Lynch issued a statement saying he will prosecute the alleged 17-year-old shooter at Mount Pleasant High "to the fullest extent of the law."
He said he wants to "send a stern prosecutorial message to the suspect that we, as a society, will not tolerate violence in our classrooms and on our playgrounds."
Lynch praised the "quick work" of the police and the conduct of school's staff and students, "whose great courage and cool heads prevailed" in a frightening situation.
"Clearly, without the help of the students who came forward," he said, "the police wouldn't have been able to track down the shooter and take a gun off the street."
Cicilline, meanwhile, announced a confidential "crime hot line" at 277-2020 intended to appeal to young people who have information for the police but want to be assured of anonymity.
Cicilline left a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., when he heard about the shooting and flew back to Providence to confer with police Chief Dean Esserman, Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson, and key advisers in his administration.
"Our schools are safe and will continue to be safe," he said.
Wednesday's incident was the first time in memory that a gun has been fired inside a school building.
The only type of gun ever confiscated inside a school has been a BB gun, according to police Lt. Paul Kennedy, director of the youth services bureau.
The only school-related gun violence in memory occurred in January 1990, when a Central High student and an out-of-town companion opened fire outside the Central campus.
In Wednesday's lunchtime incident, two boys, ages 16 and 17, picked a fight with another 17-year-old student, apparently in retaliation for an attack last Friday on the brother of one of the assailants.
While the three teenagers were being led from the cafeteria, a fourth student, a 17-year-old senior, fired a round into the ceiling and then fled.
Students identified the shooter to the police, who arrested him at his home and confiscated a weapon, according to school officials.
The boy who fired the gun faces three weapons charges and the two boys who provoked the fight have been charged with felony assault.
All three teenagers have been suspended from school. They appeared yesterday before Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah in Family Court. He ordered them held at the Training School pending probable cause hearings.
At yesterday's news conference, Esserman said the police have not yet determined where the Mount Pleasant student obtained the .22-caliber gun, or why he fired it.
"But we will," he said.
Cicilline said Esserman and Johnson will talk to their respective staffs about changing the role of the existing 10-member police "school squad" into a network of "school resource officers" who "do much more than law enforcement."
School resource officers, who teach and advise students as well as exercise police authority, have had success elsewhere in the country in curbing violence, according to Johnson.
Esserman said he planned to meet later this week with members of the school squad.
"If I hear that they need a full-time commitment in the schools," Esserman said, he is prepared to put officers in each school -- first at the high-school level and then at the middle-school level -- "not as security guards at the front door but as part of the school."
Providence has four large high schools and several smaller high-school programs, as well as 9 middle schools and 25 elementary schools.
The 10 members of the existing school squad now rotate among the schools as they are needed.
Last week school officers worked with detectives at Hope High School, where two students were arrested and charged with arson and pulling false alarms.
Yesterday was quiet at Mount Pleasant, where police officers parked two patrol cars at the main entrance before school started and maintained a low-key presence inside.
Deadline nears for Hope High outline
Posted Friday, January 24, 2003
Due by month's end to the commissioner of education, the outline will lay out a plan to reorganize school structure and governance.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Hope High School has only eight more days to deliver an outline for a reorganization to the commissioner of education, who intervened in June to stop a free-fall in the school's test scores.
Originally, the plan was to have been completed by Jan. 31, but the deadline was extended until the end of February, according to Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union.
DeCecco said that the staff at Hope had to gear up for a once-a-decade accreditation visit by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges at the same time it was expected to work on the plan for Education Commissioner Peter McWalters.
Preparation for the accreditation visit in November "did put them a little behind," DeCecco said.
He said McWalters was aware of the accreditation visit but stuck to his Jan. 31 deadline for submission of a general outline.
The outline will cover school structure and governance, including a statement on school mission and vision, according to DeCecco.
McWalters has called on Hope to reorganize into three or four small schools, each of them independent operations.
A handful of self-governing schools in the district select teachers through an application process.
In the rest of the district, teachers bid on classroom assignments according to seniority.
McWalters' directive said Hope's plan should allow current faculty members to remain in the building on the basis of their willingness to help implement one of the new small-school programs.
Faculty members who want to teach elsewhere in Providence can leave Hope at the end of the academic year, McWalters has said.
For the current school year, he has asked each teacher to put in at least 20 hours of professional development.
The training is optional, he has said, but he will be keeping track of attendance.
A grass-roots community group, the Children's First Coalition, asked about the status of the restructuring in the wake of arrests of two Hope High students last week on charges of arson and pulling false alarms.
Regis Shields, director of district initiatives, said Hope's plan will feature three small schools: one focusing on the arts, another on leadership, and a third on computer information systems.
In the spring of 2001, nearly two thirds of the faculty voted in favor of a similar structure, with four small schools instead of three.
But the implementation, begun in the fall of 2001, fell far short of the goal. By last June, McWalters decided the decline in scores had gone too far, with no more than 4 percent of students achieving standards in any category and a dropout rate of 56 percent.
The difference in the latest planning effort is McWalters' imperative, according to DeCecco.
Hope's new principal, Nancy Mullen, shrugged off any suggestion that the school cannot turn itself around without the threat of further intervention.
She did not offer details of the plan, saying it was not for publication.
Shields, meanwhile, said the basics of the reorganization plan will be subject to a faculty vote before it is submitted to McWalters and schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson on Jan. 31.
A majority vote will be enough for faculty approval, she said, and those who do not favor the plan will be allowed to transfer out of Hope at the end of the school year.
Shields said the faculty will vote a second time in late February on self-governance in each of the three small schools.
According to the city's contract with the Providence Teachers Union, three quarters of any school faculty must favor self-governance, which gives a school greater flexibility and greater responsibility.
Each of the three small schools will be run by a director, with Mullen supervising all three, at least during their first few years of operation.
Carrie Glenn has been selected to lead the arts school, and Paul Nichols will run the leadership program, according to Shields. Both administrators are already working with Mullen at Hope.
Shields said the head of the computer information program has not yet been selected.
McWalters has made it clear that if the faculty does not launch the small schools he wants, he will use his authority under the school accountability law to get the job done.
Cicilline to consider stronger police presence in schools
Posted Friday, January 24, 2003
In the wake of a gun firing at Mount Pleasant High school yesterday, the mayor is asking for input from school officials, police and students. Meanwhile, the mood at the school was quiet this morning.
By JACK PERRY and GINA MACRIS
projo.com and Journal staff writers
PROVIDENCE / Updated 2:30 p.m. -- In the wake of a student firing a gun at a city high school yesterday, Mayor David N. Cicilline wants to consider assigning more police officers to Providence schools, but he doesn't like the idea of installing metal detectors.
Metal detectors "create a false sense of security" and send the wrong message to students, Cicilline said during a press conference this morning.
Cicilline returned early from a mayor's conference in Washington, D.C., after learning that a 17-year-old student brought a .22-caliber handgun into Mount Pleasant High School yesterday and fired it into the ceiling. Nobody was injured.
The shot was fired after an assistant principal broke up a fight with three students. Police Chief Dean Esserman said the police don't yet know why the student, who was not involved in the fight, fired the shot or where he got the gun.
The student, a juvenile, was arrested at his home and the gun was confiscated. He faces charges of possession of a firearm on school grounds, possession of a firearm without a license and firing in a compact area.
Atty. Gen. Patrick C. Lynch today said he would prosecute the shooting suspect "to the fullest extent of the law."
"Through its prosecution of this case, the department intends to send a stern prosecutorial message to the suspect that we, as a society, will not tolerate violence in our classrooms and on our playgrounds," Lynch said in a press release. "Our kids' safety and our parents' peace of mind depend on the delivery of that message."
Cicilline insisted that Providence schools are safe despite the incident yesterday. He nevertheless is soliciting input from school officials, police officers and students on ways to improve school safety.
"We will do everything in our power to ensure this doesn't happen again," Cicilline said.
Cicilline met with Esserman and Schools Supt. Melody Johnson before the press conference. Esserman and Johnson joined Cicilline in addressing the media.
Stressing the idea that the schools are safe, officials said it was only the second time in 15 years that a gun had been fired on school grounds.
Thirteen years ago, in January 1990, two young males opened fire on a group of students outside Central High School during a lunch break, missing their target but striking two bystanders. Nobody was killed. The gunmen were arrested within minutes. One was a student at Central while the other was his friend from Lowell, Mass.
School and police sources could not remember any other incidents in which handguns had been taken from students, although BB guns have been confiscated.
In the wake of the shooting, Cicilline said his office is creating a committee to examine school safety across the school system. Each school will also create its own safety committee, seeking input from faculty, administrators and students.
Officials will consider putting police officers full time in the city's nine high schools and nine middle schools, according to Cicilline. He said the police officers would act more as resource officers than security guards.
Ten Providence police officers are currently assigned to a school squad, but they drop into the schools at different times and are not assigned to any school on a full-time basis.
Cicilline also announced a confidential hotline has been established for students to report guns or threats or other safety issues. Students can call (401) 277-2020 to reach the hotline.
Cicilline also plans to visit one school a week, starting next week with Mount Pleasant.
At Mount Pleasant early this morning, police maintained a low-key presence as students spilled out of cars and buses that stopped in front of the school for what looked like the beginning of a routine day.
Two empty patrol cars flanked the main entrance, and a third police car, with an officer visible at the wheel, idled in a driveway at a distance from the building.
Inside, two officers waited in the office of Assistant Principal John Craig in case they were needed.
School administrators walked the halls to help teachers, who questioned any students left in the halls after the tardy bell rang and hurried them along to their destination.
Johnson, city schools superintendent, and Mount Pleasant Principal Beatrice Wiggins each addressed the student body over the loudspeaker system, saying they were proud of the way they had behaved during the crisis yesterday.
"They were fearful, but they were able to listen and stop and behave calmly,'' Wiggins told a reporter. "I couldn't have asked for a better response."
She said there were some calls from parents, but not as many as she had expected. One parent came to see her and offered his support and time during the school day, Wiggins said.
She said she wished more parents and community people would volunteer, not only at Mount Pleasant but in other schools.
The every-day presence of parents and others would send a message that more people than the staff care about the youngsters in a particular school, Wiggins said.
Nathan Bishop classroom closed again by officials
Posted Friday, January 24, 2003
Room 303 was closed last month when chipped paint fell from the ceiling. This week, more problems with the middle school's heating system force closure of the same room.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A middle school classroom that was closed last month by state Health and Safety officials after chipping paint began falling from the ceiling was closed for a second time this week.
Room 303 at Nathan Bishop Middle School was closed on Dec. 19, after a faulty heating system emitted excess steam and caused chipped paint to fall to the desks below. At least one student became ill and several others might have been affected.
The Occupational Safety and Health Division of the state Department of Labor inspected the room and ordered the classroom closed after the matter was brought to its attention by a parent in mid-December.
The agency instructed the School Department to fix the heating system, scrape the chipped paint from the ceiling and repaint it.
School officials had their maintenance contractor, Sodexho Marriott, repair the leak in the heating system and repaint the ceiling, said Maria J. Tocco, acting communications facilitator for the Providence School Department.
Students returned to the classroom on Jan. 6, after the holiday break.
However, just two weeks later, more problems with the heating system have forced school officials to close the classroom again, Tocco said.
The teacher noticed the problem Tuesday morning, finding it steamy and discovering that the windows were frozen with condensation, Tocco said.
The nearly 90 students who typically take math classes in Room 303 were moved to Room 103 on Tuesday, school officials said.
Boiler room technicians worked yesterday to search for radiator leaks that might have caused the excess steam, Tocco said.
While school officials identified the chipping paint as being calcimite-based -- rather than lead-based -- the news did not appease parents, who were not initially told of the poor condition of the classroom.
Laura Atkinson found out about the chipping paint after being called to the school to pick up her child, who developed a rash after coming in contact with the paint chips.
"I was appalled to see the condition of this classroom," Atkinson wrote in a December letter to school principal Earnest Cox and his assistant, Richard Bensusan.
Atkinson was also concerned that parents were not notified of the potential hazards in Room 303, even though school officials had known about it for at least three weeks. Just as troubling, Atkinson noted, was that school officials had not moved swiftly to eliminate the problem or move the students out of the room. One child with asthma was pulled from the classroom as a precaution.
Concerned parents notified OSHA and the state Department of Health, which led state officials to inspect and close the classroom.
James Larisa, a supervisor in the Occupational Safety and Health Division, said state inspectors have checked to see if the repairs had been made.
Yesterday they were told of another possible leak in the heating system and of the decision to close the classroom without state intervention, Larisa said.
School officials are waiting for contractors to repair the heating system before re-addressing the problem of chipping paint.
2 teachers offer blueprint for after class
Posted Tuesday, January 21, 2003
After-school programs can help keep children away from crime, substance abuse and sex, say two aspiring principals.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- As public school teachers, Renee Walker and Alicia Marandola Jones have their students' attention for less than six hours a day.
But it's the time the children are out of sight that Jones and Walker worry about.
The most dangerous time of day for children and adolescents comes after school, when they are more likely to be involved in crime, substance abuse and sexual activity, according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice.
Jones said some view teaching as "only a nine-to-three job."
"But you read the newspaper," Walker said, "and you can only say it's not your fault for so long."
Jones is a fourth grade teacher at the Asa Messer Elementary School, and Walker teaches science and English at the Esek Hopkins Middle School.
Together, they have designed a blueprint for after-school programs as their final project in the district's Aspiring Principals program, which gives teachers on-the-job training to complement the academic study they need to qualify for administrative positions in the public schools.
A third aspiring principal will also present a plan for after-school programs; an indication that the quality of the time children spend after school is becoming a high priority among educators.
After-school programs elsewhere in the country have been shown effective in curbing crime and promoting academic achievement.
In Providence, Mayor David N. Cicilline has pledged to establish a network of "community schools" that will remain open into the evening and on weekends.
Next Monday, Cicilline, school officials, and the United Way of Rhode Island will unveil a report on the relationship between the social and emotional development of the city's children and the way they spend their out-of-school time.
Most schools in Providence offer no after-school programs, although Messer, where Jones works, and Hopkins, where Walker teaches, are among the dozen or so that do.
Walker and Jones are involved in after-school programming, which they said is hamstrung by limited funds.
Consistent funding is necessary to pay for staff and for bus transportation for children who live too far away to walk home after school, they said.
The two aspiring principals figured it would cost $2.5 million for staffing, buses, and other expenses for after-school programs three days a week targeting children in grades four through eight in the city's 9 middle schools and 25 elementary schools.
Children in those grades, spanning the pre-teen and early teenage years, run the greatest risk of getting into trouble when they are unsupervised, Jones said.
She and Walker said research has found that that students who did not engage in after-school activities are 49 percent more likely to use drugs, 37 percent more likely to become teen parents, and three times more likely to skip classes.
Walker and Jones also said the statistics indicate this group also is more likely to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and have sex.
The disadvantaged backgrounds of most students in the city's public schools, combined with poor academic achievement and a 36 percent drop-out rate -- twice the state average -- suggest that after-school programs would be a boon here, Walker and Jones said.
Studies conducted after after-school programs started showed: In Michigan, the rate of teen crime dropped by about 40 percent.
In Baltimore, there was a 44-percent decrease in students becoming victims of crime. Arrests of juveniles fell 10 percent.
In California, Chicago, North Carolina, and Hawaii, gains were reported on reading and math scores.
Jones and Walker warned that after-school programs focusing solely on tutoring have a high attrition rate.
"By the end of the term, there's no one left," Walker said. "The kids need the extra help, but they are all tapped out" by the end of the school day.
Tutoring is more successful if it is one component of a comprehensive program, Jones and Walker said.
Their ideal after-school program would start with a snack. Then students would receive a half-hour of homework help, followed by a half-hour of exercise.
In the final hour, students would be able to choose among sports, academic reinforcement through tutoring, debate, writing, or technology clubs, career development activities or community service, or talent development through photography and other activities involving the visual or performing arts.
The reality of the after-school programs in which Walker and Jones participate falls far short of the ideal.
At Esek Hopkins, Walker is one of three teachers who volunteer their time. The program is devoted to physical fitness because the school gym is free, Walker says.
The program is limited to students who walk to and from Esek Hopkins, on Charles Street, because there is no money for bus transportation, she said.
And the program must end at 4 p.m., at least during the short days of winter, because "you can't morally send kids out in the dark," Walker said.
At Asa Messer, a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pays for a partnership with the Trinity Repertory Company, Jones said.
Other activities, such as drama and writing clubs, depend on volunteers, she said.
But Asa Messer's after-school program does not provide busing. And Jones requires parents or other designated adults to pick them up.
Many parents either don't have cars or work schedules flexible enough to allow them to pick up their children late in the afternoon, Jones and Walker said.
"If you want to open up the school to the community, we need the buses," Walker said.
Boy, 17, charged with arson in Hope High fires
Posted Friday, January 17, 2003
projo.com staff
PROVIDENCE / 1:15 p.m. -- A 17-year-old male has been charged with setting two fires that disrupted classes at Hope High School yesterdday, according to the Providence Police Department.
The youth, whose name was not released because of his age, was charged with first-degree arson and ordered held at the Rhode Island Training School.
Police and firefighters responded to two minor fires at the school yesterday morning. They forced the school's more than 1,500 students to evacuate the building twice within three and a half hours.
The first fire was reported at 8:21 a.m. in the boys' bathroom. A roll of toilet paper and its dispenser had been set on fire, setting off a fire alarm.
The second fire was reported at 11:31 a.m. Clothes had been set on fire in the boys' locker room.
The School Department has scheduled a press conference on the fires this afternoon.
Arson, rumors fuel problems at Hope High
Posted Friday, January 17, 2003
A series of false fire alarms before the December school break is followed by an arson fire Monday, a fight on Wednesday and two arson fires yesterday.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Two minor fires were set deliberately at Hope High School yesterday morning, forcing school officials to disrupt classes by pulling alarms and evacuating the building of more than 1,500 students twice within three and a half hours.
The fires came after a fight in the cafeteria Wednesday in which a 17-year-old boy was arrested. On Monday, another small fire was set.
And in the week leading up to the December holiday break, there was one false alarm each day until the final day of classes, when someone set a roll of toilet paper on fire in a first floor boys' bathroom.
The latest fires, coupled with a rumor that forecast impending violence and heightened anxiety, prompted the chiefs of the police, fire, and school departments to give Hope their personal attention throughout the day.
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson and Police Chief Dean Esserman addressed the faculty after school yesterday to reassure them they were safe and to ask them to work with each other and with administrators to check on rumors without inadvertently spreading them.
School and police officials plan to have similar meetings with students today.
Fire Chief James Rattigan, as well as Maj. Dennis Simoneau, the patrol commander for the Police Department, assisted in investigating the fires and rumors.
Lt. Paul Kelly, chief of the youth services bureau, said that determining who set the fires and pulled the false alarms is his priority.
And Mayor David N. Cicilline sent his policy director, Carolyn Benedict-Drew, to the meeting with teachers to offer assistance and to report back to him.
Johnson said she would normally monitor a report of a minor incident involving police or fire officials, but she recognized that yesterday's fires formed part of a pattern that required immediate attention.
And the incidents were accompanied by wildly escalating rumors of impending violence that made intervention even more important, Johnson said.
"It's so important that everything else becomes secondary," said Johnson.
She said she called Esserman and he gave the situation his personal attention.
"It was great to have that kind of response from the new leadership in the Police Department," Johnson said.
"That's what leadership is about; it's about showing up when you need to and showing the people on the front lines your support. When they need you, they need you. That's your job to be there."
"The rumor mill just fed this, and people needed reassurance," Johnson said.
"Adolescents perpetuate rumors anyway, and when you get 1,500 adolescents in one place, you need to de-escalate the rumor mill," she said.
Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union, said "four administrators can't control the building. They need the assistance of all the teachers."
In his 34 years of teaching, DeCecco said, he had never seen a Providence police chief respond to a school in crisis. And he said he was equally impressed that Johnson dropped everything -- she happened to be meeting with DeCecco at the time -- to rush to Hope.
"I don't think they lost control," DeCecco said, but officials "still need to bring the school back to what it should be."
DeCecco, who taught at Hope in the 1970s, said the school has had a "checkered history of problems, and they're all community related," involving tensions between neighborhoods that inevitably spill over into the schools.
Hope has had a long downhill slide, reaching the point when academic performance was so poor that the state commissioner of education intervened last June, ordering reorganization of the building in a year's time and stepped-up teacher training.
Less than two weeks ago, Governor Carcieri said he would have his eye on Hope High School as the "litmus test" of high-priority plans to improve low-performing schools throughout Rhode Island.
Yesterday's first fire alarm sounded at about 8:10, prompting the first evacuation. Someone had ignited a roll of toilet paper in its holder in a bathroom stall, according to a statement from the School Department.
The second fire, about 11:45 a.m., was set in a bookbag full of clothes in the boys' locker room. A teacher put out the fire by turning on the shower, according to a school official.
Wednesday, a 17-year-old boy was arrested for disorderly conduct after he allegedly struck a youth with a bottle, according to police and school officials. The victim did not require medical attention, according to a School Department spokeswoman.
Rattigan said there was a fire in a wastepaper basket on Dec. 20 and a very minor fire on a window ledge Dec. 4 that might have been caused by a cigarette that was carelessly discarded.
Talented students waiting for an answer
Posted Thursday, January 16, 2003
Though school officials initially said they would inform families by Feb. 1 if applicants to the gifted students program at Nathaneal Greene Middle School were accepted, that date has been postponed.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- More than 200 applications -- double the number of seats available -- have been submitted for the gifted students program at the Nathanael Greene Middle School.
The high level of interest bodes well for expanding the program to a second site, a goal of the administration of Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson.
But the timing of acceptance letters could affect the rate of acceptance, depending on whether those admitted to Greene's program also got into another school with an earlier deadline.
Last year, the school district sent letters of acceptance in mid-April, long after non-public schools had accepted students for September.
Some parents chose to pay hefty tuition at a private school rather than let go of a reserved seat and take a chance on their child getting into Greene's program.
This time, the deadline was Nov. 1. Decisions are expected about Feb. 28.
That's a "dramatic, dramatic improvement," said Harlan Rich, the father of a student in the special program at Greene.
But the date is still four weeks later than the Feb. 1 deadline that had been posted on the school's Web site until last week.
Because of an oversight, the date remained on the Web site long after school officials had changed it, according to a spokeswoman for Johnson.
It was unclear yesterday whether the Feb. 28 deadline would have a significant effect on the rate of acceptance.
"Depending on the situation" of a particular family, "it might be early enough or not early enough," Rich said.
The Feb. 28 deadline coincides with the deadline of private independent schools such as Moses Brown and Wheeler, which are expected to mail decision letters in early March.
But Rich said he understands that other schools have earlier deadlines and that some families face decisions this month.
Last year, Rich said, he and his family had just moved from New York when he had to decide on middle school for his son.
Rich said the move temporarily tied up cash, and as a result, he asked a private school that had accepted his son for an extension of its deadline for a tuition deposit.
As he was about to make the payment, he learned that his son had been accepted at Greene, where he now attends the sixth grade.
The date the district mails decision letters is a matter of concern not only for applicants and their families but for those who are already in the program at Greene, Rich said.
Families of gifted students "want the program to be valued and to have a constituency," he said.
In the past, "the late decision drives people to the private school," leaving "fewer people to use this program and less of a constituency."
"It was recognized on all sides that [the decision date] was a necessary part of the debate" of the task force, Rich said.
Susan F. Lusi, chief of staff to Johnson, said the decision date turned out to be later in February rather than earlier because of an extremely successful recruiting effort.
Four testing sessions were held in November to accommodate all the applicants, she said, and the extended testing meant a delay in the original time frame for the screening process.
With several key staff changes occurring since last spring -- including the elevation of Johnson from deputy superintendent to superintendent and the addition of Cheryl King as a key figure in academic reform -- no one remembered to remove the Feb. 1 deadline from the Web site, Lusi said.
The discrepancy was brought to King's attention late last week. Maria Tocco, the district's Web master, said she removed reference to Feb. 1 on Saturday.
Teachers upset at new test schedule
Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Elementary schools will administer the state assessments in math, English and writing more than a month earlier than in the past.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Teachers are distraught over a federal law that is forcing Rhode Island public elementary schools to test students five to seven weeks earlier than they have in previous years.
Because it was challenging the regulation, the Rhode Island Department of Education didn't notify schools of the new testing schedule until right before Christmas, which left teachers scrambling to revise their curriculums.
When teachers at Charles Fortes School in Providence were told of the change, they responded with a collective, "Oh, no. They can't do this to us!"
"It's frustrating," said Fortes principal Tori Hughes. "We want to be successful. And yet you get the feeling that they are setting us up to fail."
Rhode Island elementary schools have always administered the statewide assessments in math, English and writing from late April through early May. The tests are given to students in grades 3 and 4.
But this year, the federal No Child Left Behind law is requiring schools to report test results during the same school year to allow nonimproving schools to offer school choice or after-school tutoring in the fall.
Because it takes time for the publishers to correct the tests, Rhode Island was forced to give the assessments in March and early April. Middle and high school schedules remain the same.
The Rhode Island Department of Education has put pressure on Harcourt Brace, the publishers of the New Standards Reference Exams, to get the results back to the districts more quickly -- this year, by early July.
But at least one elementary school principal from Aquidneck Island -- who did want to be named -- said the Rhode Island Education Department should have notified schools sooner.
"I think someone dropped the ball on this big time," he said, "and the schools will wind up with egg on their faces. This should have been picked up on way back in the summer."
Mary Ann Snider, the state Education Department's director of assessment, said state officials are as frustrated as local educators.
"Everyone is feeling the tension," she said. "I certainly appreciate the challenge this is for them."
Snider said Rhode Island Education Commissioner Peter McWalters tried to persuade the federal government that moving up the testing schedule would be unfair to students and to schools. McWalters didn't prevail, however.
"It got to a point before Christmas where we needed to make a decision," Snider said. "It was clear that we weren't going to be able to change our testing schedule."
Meanwhile, teachers are under enormous pressure to improve student scores because so much is riding on the state assessments. Both state and federal law now require that the tests be used to rank schools. Schools with predominately poor students must offer a series of options, from school choice to additional tutoring, if they fail to improve for two to three years.
With the new schedule, third- and fourth-grade teachers must jam six weeks of instruction into a much smaller time frame.
"It's an impossible situation," said Jenny Loats, who teaches grades 3 and 4 at Fortes. "You just have to prioritize."
Other teachers complained that the math assessments do not measure what is taught in the classroom.
Providence, as a district, recently moved from the traditional skill-and-drill math curriculum to one that focuses more on real-life applications. But teachers say the state tests require children to have mastered specific skills, such as long division, which haven't been taught in the classroom.
"I'm going to have to teach two math curriculums simultaneously," Loats said. "I have to ask myself, 'This month, do I focus on the math test or the math curriculum?' "
Teachers at Fortes also said that they are constantly in conflict between state and federal expectations, as symbolized by the state assessments, and the needs of the children in their classrooms who do not start school with the same skills.
"That tension is constant," Loats said. "You are expected to be judged by X, Y and Z standards. We're always being asked to do one more thing. (No Child Left Behind) just magnifies the tension."
The new federal law, which took effect last January, has also changed the rules on children enrolled in bilingual education. Under the state law, students with less than one year in the United States did not have to take the state assessments because it was assumed that their English was too limited.
Now, under federal law, all children have to take the tests either in English or in their native language. This provision will pose a big challenge to urban school districts such as Providence, where 80 languages are spoken.
"New Jersey is struggling with the same concerns," Snider said. "We hope we'll be able to reach a compromise [with the federal government]. We don't want to traumatize these children."
Bilingual education teachers are already struggling to teach students whose English language abilities vary widely -- from those who speak English with little difficulty to those who barely speak it all.
Yvonne Vasquez, who teaches bilingual education at Fortes, said only half of her fourth-graders can read and write at grade level and a quarter have no English skills at all.
"It's horribly frustrating," she said. "It's all we talk about . . . the test, the test. I'm teaching them division and my kids can't multiply."
Vasquez is so concerned about making up for lost time that she is offering an after-school program to prep students for the tests.
Teachers and principals are also worried that test scores will drop because of the early testing dates, wiping out any gains that their schools have made, and, in some cases, dropping them into the low-performing category.
Because Rhode Island measures progress by looking at three-year averages rather than year-to-year scores, schools should not have to worry about dropping in the state rankings, according to Assistant Commissioner David Abbott.
New administrator will remain at Classical for now
Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2003
John Short will help the new acting principal become oriented to Classical High School before moving to the central administration.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- John Short, named Monday as chief operating officer for the public schools, will not assume his new duties until an acting principal has become oriented to Classical High School, where Short has been in charge for two years.
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson said yesterday that "the school has to come first."
She said she planned to meet with Short late yesterday to discuss the needs at Classical and planned to name an acting principal in the next day or two.
When Short and the acting principal feel the school is ready, Short will begin his new post, Johnson said. She put no time frame on the transition or on the selection of a successor to Short.
Short, who will make $112,000 a year, will oversee human resources, student discipline and the student registration center and will address parents' complaints.
He has spent his 32-year career in Providence, where he served as principal of the Nathanael Greene Middle School for seven years before moving to Classical.
School principals in Providence have received intensive professional development on a monthly basis for the last three years, but Short has been one of a small group who have participated in more intensive study through the Institute for Learning at the University of Pittsburgh.
The institute has spelled out principles of learning based on research and has worked extensively with teachers and administrators in Providence to bridge the gap between those academic findings and daily education practice in the schools.
Short has participated in a national "think tank" for school principals at the invitation of Lauren Resnick, founder of the Institute for Learning, and has helped train teachers enrolled in an on-the-job program for aspiring principals, according to Johnson, who called him the "quintessential educational leader."
Schools look to offer tutoring
Posted Tuesday, January 14, 2003
The move comes as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, but could siphon resources from other areas.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Up to $2.9 million of the School Department's $14.5-million federal allocation for disadvantaged students might be redirected soon to tutoring and other supplemental services for students attending failing schools -- nearly half the public schools in the city. .
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson told the School Board last night that she is concerned that the sanctions, imposed by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, do not ensure that children will get high quality supplemental services.
Among those in the audience was Mayor David N. Cicilline, who took office a week ago and fulfilled a campaign pledge to attend board meetings as one way of learning more about the schools.
Johnson explained that a private school could offer tutoring services and "we don't know if they are a high-performing school" in line with the same criteria used to evaluate the public schools.
There are also no assurances that organizations would provide services aligned with the academic standards adopted by the school district, Johnson said.
The state Department of Education last week sought bids from organizations to provide tutoring and other services.
After the meeting, Johnson said it is not clear whether the school district can submit a proposal for providing its own tutoring services for after-school reinforcement of the curriculum taught during the school day.
Ken Fish, a state Department of Education official, said that the state is still seeking clarification from federal officials.
He said he believes that the district can provide the supplemental services, as long as it does not use teachers in any of the targeted schools.
Supplemental services will be provided in the spring, when the state awards the contracts.
Parents also are to have the choice of transferring children in sanctioned schools to better-performing ones, but the ramifications of choice are murkier than the unanswered questions concerning supplemental services, Fish and Johnson said.
Johnson said she understands that a lack of space in better schools is not an acceptable excuse for failing to provide choice, in the view of the federal government.
"I don't know what that means," said Johnson.
Providence and many other urban school districts across the country would not be able to accommodate large numbers of requests for transfers.
Cicilline, meanwhile, shook hands with well-wishers as he entered the School Board room and took a seat in the second row.
He had already been on the job more than 12 hours yesterday.
The School Board made two high-level administrative appointments that solidify Johnson's cabinet of advisers and give permanence to the human resources office for the first time in 4 1/2 years.
The board named John Short, principal at Classical High School, to the cabinet-level post of chief operating officer at a salary of $112,000.
Short will have overall responsibility for personnel, while Donald Zimmerman was named senior executive director of Human Resources. Zimmerman will make $110,000.
Zimmerman, a career human resources professional with 25 years of experience, has worked as a consultant to the School Department for about a year, serving as acting director since July. He will report to Short.
Short, meanwhile, has broader responsibilities, including the student registration center and student discipline -- areas that have not had high-level administrative oversight since June, when Thomas Mezzanotte retired.
Short joins Susan F. Lusi, Johnson's chief of staff, chief financial officer Mark V. Dunham, and chief academic officer Cheryl King as a member of Johnson's cabinet of top-level administrators.
Short, has worked his entire 32-year career in Providence, the last nine as a school principal. Before Classical, he headed the Nathanael Greene Middle School for seven years.
Johnson sees new mayor as friend to schools
Posted Thursday, January 9, 2003
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson says of Mayor David N. Cicilline, "He's one of those rare people who not only says that education is a priority but follows up on it."
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson picked up on the fact that new mayor David N. Cicilline began talking about education within 10 minutes of taking the oath of office on Monday.
She had been having regular conversations with Cicilline since the November election about the state of the public schools and ways the schools can serve children and their families.
"He has gone out of his way to educate himself on the needs of the youth and the needs of the school system," she said.
"He's one of those rare people who not only says that education is a priority but follows up on it," she said.
"He demonstrated that in his inaugural address," Johnson said, when he reaffirmed his commitment to education in the first 10 minutes of the speech.
Johnson, who has warned that there are no quick fixes to the problems of failing urban schools, said she is gratified that Cicilline is "realistic about the amount of work and the amount of time it's going to take" to improve the prospects of the city's schoolchildren.
She said she and Cicilline are "very much on the same page" in their thinking about the importance of using statistics to set priorities in public policy.
In a city of people who are young and poor, where the majority identify themselves as black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American -- but not white -- the numbers logically lead to a conclusion that education is a way out.
And Cicilline peppered his inaugural speech with the numbers.
He acknowledged that one out of three of his constituents are children and teenagers; more than 56,000 young people in a city of 174,000.
Two out of every five youngsters live below the federal poverty line. And among children who speak Spanish at home, the incidence of poverty is even greater -- one in two, or 50 percent.
Latino children make up more than half the public school enrollment of more than 27,0000.
The schools are "the most important thing we do," Cicilline said in a brief conversation just before the inauguration.
His inaugural address indicated an understanding of key issues that educators say should shape a high-quality urban education:
A good start in early childhood that will prepare children for formal schooling
Small, intimate high school programs that will engage youngsters who now feel ignored -- and then disappear before they have a chance to graduate.
Complementing academics by addressing children's social and emotional development.
Involving the community in the schools.
Cicilline offered a vision of "community schools," revisiting a campaign pledge to keep school buildings open afternoons, evenings, and weekends as hubs for activities intended to nurture schoolchildren and their families in a variety of ways. Johnson indicated that a concrete step toward establishing community schools might be announced by the end of the month.
The public schools must address children's after-school needs, academically and socially, particularly because the school day ends at 2:30 for some children, Johnson said.
She outlined an approach to the services that might be offered in a community school:
Academic support such as tutoring, homework clubs and student-to-student mentoring
Services to address youngsters' physical, mental and emotional health
Social activities for children interested in dance, drama, chess, intramural sports, and other pursuits.
Johnson conjured up the image of an arm of a community center taking up residence in a school.
The needs of the children are so urgent, and the financial challenges so daunting, that all the agencies in the city offering services must work together, she said.
Research shows that services for children and youth are most effective for those in the fourth through eighth grades, Johnson said.
Edmund Miley, director of leadership, support and development for the school district, added some historical perspective.
For children needing structure and supervision, the mid-to late-afternoon hours, from 2 to 6 p.m., used to be covered by family or neighborhoods, Miley said.
"But now, there's not that many people in the neighborhoods," he said. "Everyone's out working."
Providing an after-school focus is extremely important in preventing substance abuse, sexual experimentation, and delinquent or criminal activity, he said.
Johnson, who was recruited to Providence by former Schools Supt. Diana Lam, received an unqualified pledge of support from Cicilline in the inaugural speech.
She said it is "always important to the superintendent to have enlightened, committed leadership at the city level."
She became acting superintendent in late August, when Lam departed abruptly for a dream job as chief academic officer in the New York City schools -- the largest district in the nation.
Lam tried to recruit Johnson to follow her to New York, but Johnson said publicly at the time she had too many commitments here -- and too much unfinished work -- to leave.
The School Board hired Johnson for a three-year term in late September, about two weeks after Cicilline handily defeated three other opponents in the Democratic primary.
Johnson was asked whether Cicilline's win in the primary -- coupled with the likelihood he would sweep the polls in November -- played a role in her decision to stay in Providence.
"It sure didn't hurt," Johnson said with a laugh earlier this week.
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