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January 2005
State plan for Hope criticized in schools
Posted Monday, January 31, 2005
A Department of Education official disputes accusations that the state is trying to micromanage the Providence school by appointing a special master.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson says she would like adequate resources to improve the city's schools, but she doesn't count a special master at Hope High School as one of them.
Nor does she welcome the idea of additional "assistance" from the state Department of Education in the form of "turnaround teams," which the state plans to send to all Providence middle and high schools.
State Rep. Steven F. Smith, D-Providence, president of the Providence Teachers Union, had a similarly frosty reaction to the planned escalation of state intervention in Providence schools, particularly Thursday's announcement by Education Commissioner Peter McWalters that he will appoint a special master to ensure his forthcoming intervention order for Hope is carried out.
But a spokesman for the Providence Educational Excellence Coalition, which last month called on McWalters to appoint such an overseer, called the announcement a great start.
All of them said they wanted more details than the sketchy outline of the master's role that McWalters gave Thursday to members of the Board of Regents.
Those details are not expected until Friday, when McWalters plans to release his complete order on Hope High School, the culmination of a hearing last month that invited the superintendent and the union to counter McWalters' dissatisfaction with the pace of reform at Hope for the last 2 1/2 years.
McWalters told the Regents that the master will not be a "super principal" who runs the school, but will monitor implementation of the order and report back to the commissioner.
At the same time, McWalters did signal that he, acting through the master, will exercise direct decision-making authority at Hope in cases of prolonged disagreements at the school.
AT HOPE ON FRIDAY, a newspaper account of McWalters' report to the Regents was the talk of the faculty, according to Dennis Kraus, a special education teacher.
If the commissioner and the superintendent want a rigorous academic curriculum at Hope, Kraus said, "how about putting in a rigorous curriculum in the first through the eighth grade?"
Of nearly 1,200 students in the building, the vast majority "are good kids," Kraus said, but they arrive unprepared to do ninth-grade work.
"They don't know their times tables, but they're forced into algebra," he said.
At Thursday's meeting, Regent Mario Mancieri asked what chance the special master has of succeeding at Hope if the students move up from middle school unmotivated and unprepared.
In reply, Assistant Commissioner David Abbott said the state planned to send turnaround teams into other Providence secondary schools.
KRAUS, MEANWHILE, said he and other teachers view the advent of a special master as more "top-down" intervention that will have little meaning in the day-to-day life of the school.
Abbott disagreed.
"To say that this is top-down is not an accurate statement," he said. "People should wait to see what is in the order.
"What the commissioner will release next week completely comes from faculty-approved plans or the union-management plan," Abbott said.
Plans for the three existing learning communities within Hope were approved last spring by the faculties.
The superintendent refused to endorse them because of a disagreement she had with the teachers over student advisory.
But the plans were belatedly submitted to McWalters as appendices in a reform plan crafted jointly by Johnson, her top administrators and the leadership of the Providence Teachers Union.
"There's nothing new in there" in terms of what is to be done at Hope, Abbott said.
"What's different is the special master," he said.
"The commissioner is not sitting on a cloud, coming up with strange new ideas out of the blue," he said.
"He keeps saying the same things," Abbott said: small schools with student advisories, a rigorous curriculum organized around academic themes, and parent and community involvement.
BUT SMITH, the union president, said McWalters' announcement concerning the special master does nothing to support teachers. "No one has stopped the teacher bashing that quite frankly has gone on," Smith said.
"Those teachers have done yeoman's work, as do the vast majority of teachers in the city of Providence, and if anyone thinks it's easy, maybe they should give it a try," Smith said.
"I was hoping we would have a conversation with the commissioner prior to any announcement," Smith said.
Johnson concurred. "Clearly there needs to be a lot more communication between the commissioner and me directly," she said.
"I'm disappointed it came out the way it did, prior to those briefings," she said.
She said the school district has a "very sophisticated support and intervention team" that uses data to analyze specific elements of academic subjects that need attention and regularly involve central office administrators in various schools.
If another team would come in, "to what end and what purpose?" Johnson asked, referring to the state turnaround teams.
Abbott replied, "I'm a little surprised that they're surprised" about the school intervention teams.
"The really impressive thing is how far the district has come in its ability to support its schools," he said.
But where Johnson emphasized data, Abbott stressed relationships, such as the union-management cooperation exemplified by a joint school intervention team that presented a case during a show-cause hearing last month to convince McWalters to leave Hope entirely under local control.
The joint committee "is really a breath of fresh air and has the potential to become a national model to support school improvement," Abbott said.
He also singled out a youth facilitator and parent-engagement coordinators who work full-time on "strategies to get kids involved."
"We're trying to capitalize on the good things happening so far" and accelerate them, if possible, Abbott said.
State money not enough for budget shortfall
Posted Monday, January 31, 2005
The mayor and school superintendent say $4 million more in state aid is nowhere near enough to wipe out the School Department's projected defifit of $20 million to $24 million.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- City officials criticized Governor Carcieri's proposal to give the School Department a net 1.74-percent increase, or about $4 million more in state aid the next fiscal year.
Officials said the increase, which the governor announced last week in his proposed budget, is not nearly enough to make a dent in the $20-million to $24-million deficit that consultants for the city School Department are projecting for the next fiscal year.
At a news conference on Friday, Mayor David N. Cicilline said he is "extremely disappointed" with the budget plan.
The mayor said Carcieri's proposed budget for fiscal year 2006, which begins July 1, imposes a "back door tax hike" on residents in the city and statewide, who are already overburdened with property taxes.
"The governor is asking us to tighten our budget again, when local taxpayers can barely breathe . . . ," Cicilline said. "The governor talks about tax relief and then proposes a massive, back-door tax increase. The governor talks about better schools and then proposes the same broken funding system that holds Rhode Island behind so many other states."
Carcieri's budget proposes giving the school district an estimated 2.1-percent increase, which includes allocations to charter schools, which are part of the public school system but are financially independent of them.
Cicilline noted that, while Carcieri's proposal gives local schools a net 1.74-percent increase, that amount fails to keep pace with the rate of inflation and the Consumer Price Index.
In addition, the mayor said, Carcieri's budget proposes decreases in state aid to cities.
Cicilline said those aspects of the proposal come as a blow to city officials, who have cut spending by reducing the city workforce by 10 percent, negotiating cost-cutting contracts with unions, reorganizing departments and introducing technology to make city government more efficient.
"We've done our part. Now it's time for the state to do theirs," Cicilline said.
The mayor noted that with the exception of Hawaii, Rhode Island is the state most heavily reliant on property tax to finance education.
He said taxpayers can no longer afford to shoulder that burden.
School officials also took issue with the proposed budget. Supt. Melody Johnson called it "a very sorry state of affairs."
Over the last two years, the city has been forced to lay off 280 school employees, in addition to cutting music, arts, social services and other programs.
School administrators tonight will give the School Committee another reduction plan that could permanently lay off about 100 teachers, saving the district about $4 million.
The district sent out about 350 layoff notices. Typically, after the budget has been finalized, most of those positions are restored.
However, this year, union officials say a projected $20-million to $24-million gap for the next school year could make the layoffs permanent.
"I have the same reaction that I had last year," Johnson said. "It falls far, far short of operationalizing the governor's stated priorities when he ran for office. Among them, that education was his top priority."
Johnson echoed Cicilline's sentiments, noting that the current method for funding education "is way too reliant on the property tax."
Johnson said it is unfair and unrealistic for state and federal officials to expect significant improvements in schools without providing enough money.
"It's the same sad story," Johnson said. "It's grossly inadequate. We need a predictable, adequate and an equitable funding formula. Our schools have been cut to the bone."
Cicilline and Johnson noted the inconsistancy and incongruity of the current system for doling out state aid, pointing out that Central Falls -- which ia facing similiar challenges and growing enrollment -- would receive an 8-percent increase in state aid under Carcieri's plan.
"If I had an 8-percent increase, I could close the [projected] funding gap," Johnson said.
"If we were getting an 8-percent increase, we wouldn't be here," Cicilline said.
"I wondering how we're going to open the doors -- literally," School Committee president Mary McClure said.
Even with $4 million in state aid and $4 million that could be gleaned from the proposed layoffs, the system would still face at least a $16-million shortfall.
McClure also questioned the rationale behind giving Providence a 2-percent increase while giving another urban district an 8-percent increase.
"Whatever we do [to try to cut spending] is going to be ugly and devastating to the children in our system," McClure said.
Hope High getting a special master
Posted Friday, January 28, 2005
The position will not be a "super principal" but rather an independent observer who will monitor progress and report to the state commissioner.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The commissioner of education plans to appoint an independent master to monitor implementation of his not-yet-released order on Hope High School.
But adding a new watchdog will not rise to the level of a state takeover, Commissioner Peter McWalters said yesterday.
He gave members of the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education a preliminary briefing on the much-anticipated order, which McWalters said he expects to release in its entirety next Friday.
The meeting also yielded signs that McWalters' order on Hope will be just the beginning of a broader escalation in state intervention in Providence public schools.
McWalters, focusing most of his remarks on Hope, said that one of the highest priorities of his order is to invite students, parents and the community to the decision-making table at Hope -- an element of participation that has been absent so far.
McWalters said he is much encouraged by community partners -- especially the Rhode Island School of Design and Rhode Island College -- who have assured him they are eager to participate in developing a rigorous curriculum at Hope.
For students in the visual arts, RISD's active involvement at Hope would include the possibility of an all-expenses-paid, four-year scholarship to the prestigious art and design school.
About 18 months ago, RISD pledged two such scholarships a year. But for RISD to make any awards, Hope must adopt a rigorous curriculum that nurtures young talent, according to Paul Sproll, director of art and design education for RISD.
McWalters described the role of the special master in the context of the state law authorizing him to provide a progressive degree of intervention in failing public schools.
With five years of intervention in Providence -- including three years focused on Hope -- "we're going to get more specific than just issue guidelines," McWalters said.
The special master will have a presence at Hope perhaps three or four days a week, monitoring progress and reporting to McWalters.
But if the school has exhausted discussion on any particular issue and still can't make a decision, McWalters said, he will decide and the special master will see to it that his decision is carried out.
At the same time, the special master will not be a "super principal" who actually runs the school, McWalters said.
He said that if he wanted to take over Hope -- which he does not -- he could turn out the entire faculty and staff the school himself.
But he said he will still hold Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson and the Providence Teachers Union accountable for screening teachers to determine who will stay at Hope next fall, among other things.
Labor and management can work together through a joint school intervention team chaired by Johnson and Steven F. Smith, the union president, McWalters said.
While the special master will be an "instrumental player to make it happen, with a direct line of authority" from the commissioner's office, "we're still in the business of working with our partners in positioning them to do it," McWalters said.
He said he wants to help put the city in a "position to succeed, and that is not about taking away authority."
McWalters said that in the Hope faculty, "we have a whole lot of great people" -- although not all -- "who have given their lives to make this work."
"The last thing we need to do is act like this is all about the staff at Hope High School," he said.
Rather, he said, the positive energy at Hope "needs to be pushed along."
Steven Fischbach, a longtime critic of the Providence public schools and a member of the Children's First Coalition, told McWalters that the advocacy group has concluded that the state's entire school-intervention effort in Providence violates federal civil-rights law because it does not include Providence public school parents and students, most of whom are people of color.
And Fischbach described McWalters' approach to intervention as "haphazard and focused on one high school" when the Department of Education has made findings "that all the city's high schools are substandard and fail to meet the needs of adolescents."
"In any other district this would be front page news," Fischbach said.
Later in the meeting, regent Mario Mancieri asked what chance of success Hope has if its students move up from middle school unmotivated and unprepared.
"What happens at the middle level?" Mancieri asked.
McWalters said the Department of Education, now entering its fifth year of intervention in Providence, will introduce "another whole conversation" about the quality of all the city's secondary schools.
Assistant Commissioner David Abbot said that much of the education department's intervention budget in the next fiscal year will be used to hire "turnaround teams" for Providence middle and high schools.
"They'll be very targeted; very directed," he said.
The main issue, Abbot said, is "getting these kids ready for urban high schools."
Students chime in on plan for Hope
Posted Thursday, January 27, 2005
Senior Lawanda McCombs gives the commissioner of education a list of recommendations developed by student leaders.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Student leaders from Hope High School have developed a broad criteria that teachers should meet to stay at their school next fall -- including a good grasp of their subject matter, the ability to present it in different ways and a desire to get to know their students.
Yesterday, senior Lawanda McCombs gave the list to Peter McWalters, the commissioner of education, who has promised to announce a decision by Monday on the next step for Hope, the first school in Rhode Island to undergo state intervention.
McCombs asked McWalters to ensure that Hope has a stable teaching force, not the constantly changing faculty that now exists.
She said she has had three English teachers and three math teachers this school year alone.
The presentation to McWalters, in a conference room in the Shepard Building, represented the brainstorming of 15 student leaders over three meetings held under the auspices of the Providence Educational Excellence Coalition.
PEEC, which includes 18 community and faith organizations serving youth, has called on McWalters to take over Hope, saying an independent master should be appointed to guide planning for a new school in September.
McWalters intervened at Hope more than two years ago to stop plummeting test scores and a rising dropout rate, ordering that it reorganize into small, independent schools, each with the authority to select its own faculty.
Concerned that the momentum for reform might be lost unless he took more direct action, McWalters last summer put the school on notice that he would take it over unless the district could convince him otherwise.
McWalters is now in the final deliberations over the testimony of a hearing on the school that lasted several days last month.
He thanked McCombs for the students' recommendations, saying that the matter of deciding which teachers should remain at Hope is a pertinent issue; one that has been recognized by the administration of Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson and the Providence Teachers Union.
Even though conditions at Hope are now "chaotic," McCombs said, she has had good teachers in her four years at Hope.
"We want to make sure the good teachers at Hope still have a place" there next year, she said.
"Years of experience doesn't necessarily mean a teacher is good," McCombs said.
"If students are constantly evaluated on their work, why not teachers?" she said.
Among other things, the students want teachers who:
Are available for extra help during the day and before and after school
Make learning fun
Make it clear what they expect in class
Ask questions that challenge students' knowledge
Address all learning styles and all levels of learning
Have a good command of the English language
Know how to relate to adolescents
Are supportive, dependable, energetic, and inspiring
A spokeswoman for the PEEC said that yesterday's presentation was intended to add a formal student voice to the record of the hearing, which revolved around a plan for Hope that was developed by Johnson and the Providence Teachers Union.
Even though the labor-management plan contains "some good pieces that need not be reinvented," said Mary Sylvia Harrison, "that plan was crafted without any community input.
Harrison, executive director of the Rhode Island Children's Crusade, said that students who testified during the hearing indicated that "these young people are crying out for some serious attention."
Their testimony focused on concerns about keeping the good teachers at Hope, Harrison said. And she said students also talked about the "coming and going of [substitute teachers]" and "the excessive use of emergency certificates" in filling teaching positions.
All in all, she said, "we are remiss in not having a more public discussion about the teacher selection process."
The Rev. David Mitchell, pastor of the Congdon Street Baptist Church, a member organization of PEEC, said it is "wise and prudent" to invite students to the decision-making table.
"If they are not invited to participate they will continue to be frustrated and disruptive," he said.
"They will be heard, one way or another," he said.
Mitchell said, "Many citizens believe the culture in our schools must change."
"We need to stimulate [students] and, in some cases, radically change their behavior," he said.
"Everybody's watching to see what you're going to do," Mitchell told McWalters.
Absences, accident mark return to school
Posted Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Providence's first day back was less than perfect. Classes in East Providence resume today.
BY RICHARD C. DUJARDIN
Journal Staff Writer
High absenteeism affected most of Providence's schools yesterday, the first day of class since a weekend blizzard dumped 23 inches of snow on the area.
School officials said they could not provide the number of students who were absent because six schools had not reported absences. School spokeswoman Maria Tocco said absenteeism was higher than the usual absenteeism of 6 percent to 7 percent in elementary schools, 10 percent in middle schools and 20 percent in high schools.
Other than student no-shows, the school district's biggest headache revolved around a tractor-trailer accident on Route 95 that closed the Broad Street overpass and delayed 25 school buses by more than 15 minutes. Problems with heating systems also disrupted classes in some schools.
In East Providence, schools were closed for a second day to give the School Departmentmore time to clear huge snow drifts from some of the school parking lots, to give city crews time to clear snow piles at street corners, and to give residents more time to clear their sidewalks so that children could get to school safely.
Classes resume today.
East Providence City Manager William J. Fazioli said crews worked yesterday to push back snow from areas where school buses would have to turn and which had been judged as too narrow.
However, the city's public works director, Stephen Coutu, suggested that most, if not all, of the streets would have been ready for a fleet of school buses yesterday, noting that trucks appeared to have no problem getting around town.
Coutu reminded residents that trash collection is delayed one day all week.
In Providence, a two-hour delay in the start of school yesterday did not prevent a large number of buses from arriving late.
While 85 percent of the 164 school buses in Providence were on time or less than 15 minutes late, about 24 buses in the South Providence area experienced major delays because of the truck accident that caused a fire.
Tocco said students at the Mary Fogarty Elementary School were delayed when their bus was involved in a minor accident at Wilson and Gilmore streets.
Among the other problems:
The cafeteria at Pleasant View Elementary School and a classroom at the Reservoir Elementary School had no heat.
Students in four classrooms at the George West Elementary School were moved to other rooms because of heat registers that froze.
A leak in a steam pipe on Fricker Street caused steam to rise from underneath a stairwell in Central High School. Crews roped off the area and planned to shut off heat in the school at the end of the day so the pipe could be fixed.
At Classical High School, steam leaked in the gymnasium, kitchen and guidance office.
Cold spell hampers heat in schools
Posted Friday, January 21, 2005
Several aging school buildings had heating troubles this week and, in one case, students were moved to other schools.
BY GINA MACRIS
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
PROVIDENCE -- This week's snap of frigid weather has caused casualties in school boilers and radiators, forcing teachers and students to change classrooms in several buildings, and in the case of Perry Middle School, to move the entire student body out.
More than 800 students at Perry were moved at midmorning Tuesday to Classical High School and Nathanael Greene Middle School after Perry's lone functional boiler failed.
The School Department did not give public notice of the evacuation at the time.
Heat at Perry was restored in time for classes Wednesday morning, according to Stephen Tremblay, the School Department's director of facilities.
Since temperaturs plunged at the beginning of the week, heating problems have dogged not only Perry but Bridgham Middle School, and Pleasant View, Carl Lauro, William D'Abate, and Edmund Flynn elementary schools.
Yesterday and Wednesday, Lauro and Pleasant View occupied much of the time of the School Department's heating contractor, Johnson Controls.
In each school, a lack of heat forced students and teachers in about a dozen classrooms to relocate to warmer sections of the building, according to Tremblay and officials of the Providence Teachers Union.
At Lauro, the third floor was the coldest -- the farthest from the boiler. The boiler was working, Tremblay said, but there were problems getting the heat to the third floor. A pipe in one third-floor classroom had a steam leak, he said.
Workers for Johnson Controls alternated their efforts between Lauro and Pleasant View yesterday.
Paul Vorro, the union's executive director, said class was still being held yesterday in one room at Pleasant View, where the temperature registered about 52 degrees.
It was staffed by a substitute teacher, he said, because the regular teacher had become ill working in cold conditions earlier in the week.
Steve Smith, the union's president, said that an oil smell permeated Pleasant View yesterday as workers tried to repair the heating system.
Tremblay said the primary problem at Pleasant View, as well as at Bridgham earlier in the week, stemmed from a failure in heating coils in the radiators of rooms on the perimeters of the buildings.
At Bridgham on Tuesday, the cold conditions were exacerbated by windows that do not close tightly, letting in drafts, according to Tremblay and Smith.
Smith said that some teachers at Bridgham have resorted to duct tape to seal windows in winter.
Meanwhile, at D'Abate on Tuesday, the loss of heat in a few classrooms was caused by a faulty hot-water circulating pump, Tremblay said.
Because of a lack of heat Tuesday in a school annex owned by the Urban League, children were moved to the main building of Edmund Flynn Elementary School in the middle of the morning, Tremblay said.
He said he asked the Urban League to notify the School Department of any heating delays or problems early in the morning, in time for school officials to relocate children at the start of the school day rather than after classes had already begun.
The department's policy requires the heating or maintenance contractor to call Tremblay by 5:45 a.m. if there are any heating problems.
That was not done at Perry on Tuesday, Tremblay acknowledged. By the time he learned there was a heating problem there, shortly after 7 in the morning, students were already on buses on their way to school.
Smith said classes should have been canceled at Perry on Tuesday.
"If the heat's not on, the immediate solution is [to] not have kids come to school," he said. "If you're moving the kids, there's no learning taking place," Smith said.
He said Perry's eighth grade was moved to Classical, and the sixth and seventh grades went to Nathanael Greene.
Tremblay said he understood that workers for the heating contractor, Johnson Controls, and the maintenance contractor, Sodexho, missed the 5:45-a.m. deadline for notifying him because they thought they could have solved a boiler-related electrical problem in time to get heat up for the start of school.
The early notification policy was adopted last winter, when the frailties of the school heating systems were exposed by bitterly cold temperatures that hit as early as November and continued intermittently through February.
By comparison, Tremblay said, the schools have been relatively fortunate this winter, since this week marked the "first round of heating calls as severe as this is."
He said that both Sodexho and Johnson Controls were doing "rather well, with the age of the facilities."
Union officials, however, had a different opinion. Vorro and Smith said the workers for the heating contractor had a difficult time yesterday keeping up with the demands at both Pleasant View and Lauro.
Smith said that the heating problems result from delayed maintenance, caused by financing cuts over the last several years.
He said he expected that heating systems would be an issue in every school building in a study of School Department facilities that Gilbane Construction is finishing for Mayor David N. Cicilline.
"I applaud the mayor for conducting the study," which began early last year, Smith said.
"I imagine there will be a huge price tag" for fixing brick-and-mortar problems, Smith said, "but it has to be met."
Students and teachers should not be expected to work and study while wearing their coats indoors, he said. "This is totally unacceptable."
Students forgo ice cream for tsunami aid
Posted Thursday, January 20, 2005
Anthony Carnevale Elementary School is not the only public school to take up a collection for tsunami relief.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Ariana Wheeler and her kindergarten classmates at Anthony Carnevale Elementary School have something in common with George Clooney, Sandra Bullock and other Hollywood celebrities.
Touched by the devastation and death that the Asian tsunami unleashed upon Indonesia, nearby islands and coastlines, all have come forward to donate money and participate in fundraising to help the survivors.
What sets Ariana and her classmates apart, however, is their willingness to sacrifice the little comforts of their everyday lives -- including their ice-cream money -- to help families and children.
"Although you can turn on almost any news station or newspaper to find endless stories and photos about what took place . . . it is still difficult to imagine the destruction of the land and the loss of lives of more than 150,000 people," said Jennifer Cafferty, who recently worked as a substitute teacher for the Carnevale kindergarten class. "Now pretend that you're 5 years old."
Cafferty said many of Carnevale's 500 students, including the kindergarteners, already knew a bit about the Dec. 26 tsunami tragedy by the time they returned to school from winter break on Jan. 3.
"They talked about big waves and a lot of people dying," said Cafferty, who was among the teachers who were asked to discuss the incident with students earlier this month. "They didn't fully understand that amount of people [who] had died . . . You don't want to tell that to a child."
By the end of the discussion, the students were told the entire school would be raising money to help survivors and "that just a small amount, even . . . one day's [20 or 25 cents] ice-cream money, could help a great deal," Cafferty said.
Many students contributed their ice-cream money and some have continued to do so, school officials said.
The next day, Ariana came to school carrying a big can containing all her savings to Lucille Bernabe's kindergarten classroom, Cafferty said. Her mother explained that Ariana wanted to give both her savings and her $1 worth of ice-cream money to the relief effort in order to bring safety and comfort to the devastated families.
"Since there [were] so many children [affected by this tragedy], we thought this would be a great opportunity for the kids," said principal Frances Rotella. "Our children are very conscious about helping other people out."
Rotella said school administrators had initially intended to continue the fundraising efforts for one week. But, the response to the drive was so "phenomenal" that they have decided to continue the effort through the month of February. She said the school recognized February as national "heart month," a time when helping others is emphasized.
To that end, this year the proceeds from the school's annual Jump-A-Thon, which takes place in respective gym classes, will go to the tsunami survivors, Rotella said.
Carnevale is not the only public school to take up a collection for tsunami relief.
In a weeklong drive at Classical High School, rasied about $660 for the effort, according to school officials.
Helping Hand, a student organization, coordinated the fundraiser by collecting donations from fellow students and faculty in the cafeteria during lunch periods.
And, students at the Veazie Street Elementary School have also launched a fundraising campaign and have plans to present the proceeds to the American Red Cross at the school's community-resources fair on Feb. 8.
The elementary schools have not yet tabulated how much money they have raised, school officials said. But, the proceeds from all of the iniatives will go to the American Red Cross' tsunami-relief effort.
Mt. Pleasant accepts probation from accreditors
Posted Tuesday, January 18, 2005
The school will report by July 1 on what is has done to meet recommendations of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges .
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The New England Association of Schools and Colleges has placed Mount Pleasant High School on probation as promised.
The school did not contest last fall's highly critical accreditation report.
School principal Maureen Crisafulli said the school decided to focus on correcting the deficiencies cited in the accreditation report rather than challenging probationary status. An accreditation team that visited the school last spring recommended the school be put on probation.
NEASC, a private regional accreditation agency with voluntary membership, has asked Mount Pleasant to make a progress report by July 1 on steps it has taken to meet a lengthy list of recommendations.
The accreditation team found fault with the curriculum and the mission statement that is supposed to guide it, a lack of parent and community involvement in the school, and the condition of the building, which dates from 1938, and needs a new roof, among other improvements.
The building repairs, which will cost millions of dollars, are beyond the direct control of the school, Crisafulli said, because the city will need to borrow money to pay for them.
But she said the faculty has begun working on issues involving the curriculum, the mission statement, and parent involvement.
The NEASC team found a curriculum generally lacking academic challenge.
Some teachers told the team that they didn't believe the students were able to handle more difficult work, reflecting an image of inner-city students that the administration of Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson has worked hard to combat.
Low expectations, Johnson and others have said repeatedly, become self-fulfilling prophecies.
The NEASC team reported that students capable of advanced classes in mathematics and other subjects are not well served.
On the other hand, the accreditation report said many students don't have the prerequisite knowledge necessary for work spelled out in the district's curriculum guides, with the result that teachers tend not to use them.
Nor are there any alternative curriculum guides bringing consistency and coherence to the curriculum, according to the NEASC report.
Standardized scores from tests administered in last spring bear out the disparity between the curriculum guides and the students' academic preparedness.
For example, they show that 27 percent of Mount Pleasant juniors met or exceeded the standard for language arts. While that is a 12-point jump in proficiency over 2003 scores, the test that year was administered to sophomores, who have had a year less school.
In mathematics in 2004, 12 percent of juniors met or exceeded the state standard, triple the 4 percent of sophomores that showed proficiency in 2003.
NEASC reported that there is a 50-percent failure rate in Algebra 1, a required course for freshmen. The accreditation report said that the school needs to offer other options for students not prepared for Algebra I.
Failing ninth and tenth graders who lose hope of catching up are the ones most likely to drop out, educators say, with much of thyat occurring before the spring of the sophomore year, when state tests historically have been administered.
The dropout rate for Mount Pleasant is about 37 percent, slightly better than the 38-percent rate for the district.
Mount Pleasant has lost the Teachers' Academy and other themed academies that were once its hallmark, and it has yet to benefit from a planned reorganization into small learning communities that might be organized around particular student career interests.
The NEASC report said that the loss of the academies has diminished students' ability to relate classroom work to careers and the real world and described the school reorganization as being "on hold."
In 2001, Mount Pleasant and other city high schools were awarded a total of $8 million a year from the Carnegie Corporation to re-invent themselves as smaller learning units that would engage students and give them the personal attention they need to stay in school and aspire to college or other training after high school.
Since the grant was announced, Mount Pleasant has had two new principals. Nancy Mullen, who had been at Mount Pleasant for about 7 years, went to Hope High School in June 2002. She was succeeded by Beatrice Wiggins, who was removed after a year and replaced with Crisafulli.
Crisafulli had less than a year's experience when the NEASC team visited, but the team wrote in its report that in time, it expected her to be a force in the school-wide reorganization.
Crisafulli said last week the reorganization has established ninth-grade teams, allowing groups of teachers to share the same students for core subjects.
The teacher-teams get time to meet and coordinate lesson plans, as well as discuss the needs of individual students.
Crisafulli said that teachers are addressing their concerns about the district's curriculum guides in some of the 30 hours of professional development that each one must log during the academic year.
The new contract ushered in mandatory teacher training, with this year's 30 hours expanding to 36 hours in the 2005-2006 school year.
Crisafulli said that half of this year's 30-hour teacher training requirement addresses district issues and the other half is individualized at each school.
At Mount Pleasant, she said, some of the biggest areas of concern are methods for including special education students in the regular classroom and strategies for tailoring lessons to different levels of ability in the same classroom.
Mount Pleasant is running several workshops on those topics as well as on ways to incorporate technology in the classroom, she said. NEASC found technology generally deficient, with students having limited access to computers and teachers generally lacking the expertise to incorporate it into academic work. The school also has problems getting computers repaired on a timely basis, according to the accreditation report.
Crisafulli said 5 of the 15 hours of school-based professional development is reserved for parent engagement, another area found lacking by the accreditation team, which said parents do not even participate in decisions about their children's course selections.
Crisafulli said coffee hours will be used draw parents into the conversation.
All schools must have five hours of teacher training devoted to parent-teacher activities.
That requirement came under criticism recently during Hope High School's hearing before the Education Commissioner Peter McWalters. McWalters and the Board of Regents will decide by the end of the month whether to take over Hope in an effort to improve student performance.
During the hearing, McWalters said the five hours of parent-teacher activities are inadequate for forming continuing school-home relationships.
Crisafulli said that all 30 hours of professional development are being scheduled.
The workshops do not guarantee that teachers will incorporate what they learned in the classroom, she said, but she is hoping the new ideas will carry over.
Last spring, before the city and the Providence Teachers Union signed a new contract, the NEASC team noted sparse attendance at voluntary professional development activities held after school and little carry-over into the classroom.
The NEASC report said that Mount Pleasant needs a "vision statement," or statement of purpose, that is specific enough to guide school reform.
Crisafulli said the vision statement will be changed to include interim benchmarks that can be measured as indicators the school is working toward its goals.
Leaders call for overhaul of education financing
Posted Friday, January 14, 2005
Mayor David N. Cicilline and others are expected to sponsor legislation calling for an adequate and equitable education for all Rhode Island schoolchildren.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A fair state funding formula for public education must take into account the cost of dealing with disadvantages that children bring to school with them, Mayor David N. Cicilline said yesterday.
Along with Rhode Island Kids Count and the Providence Plan, Cicilline hosted a policy forum on education for some 70 city and state officials and representatives of social service, mental health and other agencies that have an interest in Providence schoolchildren.
The mayor drew his conclusion from data that made it clear that children attending the city's public schools often come from different worlds than those who attend private schools, or those whose families can afford to move to suburban communities that have a reputation for effective public schools.
The data formed a look at the relationship between diminished educational prospects and factors related to poverty and immigration.
Cicilline said that it is feasible to conduct a study this year that would show the extra costs of overcoming disadvantages and form the basis for calculating an equitable funding formula for public education that can be applied statewide.
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson said that according to studies done in the country, it generally costs about 40 percent more to provide a quality education to children living in poverty than it does for students from middle-class homes.
Cicilline and others are expected to sponsor during the current session of the General Assembly the re-introduction of legislation that would provide an amendment to the state constitution calling for an adequate and equitable education for all Rhode Island schoolchildren.
Sen. Juan Pichardo, D-Providence, said that the effects of poverty on the schools has become a "crisis" in the South Side and West End neighborhoods he represents, a crisis that the governor and the General Assembly do not recognize.
He told Cicilline that Governor Carcieri and lawmakers need to be informed of this "crisis" so that they "get it right" the next time.
And Cicilline replied that they'll "get it right if they listen to me."
In Providence, the number of children increased from 37,972 to 45,255 between 1990 and 2000 because of an influx of Hispanic families. Many parents speaklittle or no English.
There were 20,350 Hispanic children in Providence at the time of the 2000 U.S. Census. They now account for 44 percent of all city residents under age 18, according to Kids Count.
Along with the influx of new families, the incidence of children living in poverty rose from 35 percent to 40 percent between 1990 and 2000, Kids Count figures show.
And about 1 in 5 of the 27,481 children in the public schools needs help in learning English, according to data provided by the School Department.
Pichardo said the influx of Hispanic families from New York, New Jersey, and other metropolitan areas that is responsible for the shift in demographics is "not going to stop."
"We should be very alarmed at what is happening," he said.
"Our district is in a crisis," he said. The South Side and the West End have the city's highest concentration of school-age children and the most poverty.
"My concern is the dropout rate," Pichardo said.
Kat Keenan, policy analyst for Kids Count, presented figures for 2001 through 2003 that she said showed the dropout rate as fairly constant, between 34 percent and 35 percent.
But more recent figures from the state Department of Education indicate that nearly 38 percent of city students who were high school freshmen in the fall of 2000 did not make it to graduation day in June, 2004.
That figure is about double the 18 percent average dropout rate for the state for 2004.
One of the most arresting charts presented yesterday had to do with the mobility of students, a factor that causes disruption in children's education and increases the likelihood that they will have to repeat a grade, according to data compiled by the Providence Plan.
Of 1,977 children who entered first grade in Providence in 1990, only 307 of them remained in 12th grade in 2002, the chart showed.
Another Providence Plan table indicated that, depending on the number of moves made by their families, city children are two to five times more likely to have to repeat a grade than those who don't move.
At the root of the mobility problem is a shrinking pool of affordable housing. Families are often evicted because they cannot pay the rent, according to Hillary Salmons, who represented the Providence After-School Alliance.
Kids Count data on housing indicated that the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Providence rose about 44 percent in four years, from about $715 in 2000 to $1,032 in 2003.
To afford a rent of $1,032, a single worker would have to earn $19.85 an hour for forty hours a week -- a pay rate nearly triple the state's minimim wage of $6.75 an hour.
Salmons said Providence needs legislation providing rent-controlled housing for low-income families so they can have a stable living situation and their children can have continuity in their education.
Richard Godfrey, executive director of the Rhode Island Housing & Mortgage Finance Corporation, said it is "such a landlord's market" that "they are discriminating more against all categories" of renters, including families with children.
Pichardo said that without rent control, average families will be priced out of the housing market and "the diversity will not be there" in 10 or 15 years, he said.
The forum touched on programs that help mitigate the disadvantages of poverty, such as all-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds. Johnson said it cost $6 million to make all-day kindergarten universally available in 2002, but "What is the cost later?" she asked rhetorically.
Ideally, she said, every public school in the city should have a pre-school program. Johnson did not offer an estimate for that cost.
Dennis DeJesus, executive director of Federal Hill House, said intervention is necessary as early as the prenatal stage when a family has problems with mental health or substance abuse. He said he has seen pre-school children from such families who are already showing delays in development.
Terri Adelman, executive director of Volunteers in Providence Schools, said that she participated in drafting legislation for guaranteed student entitlement in 1993 that was intended to raise enough money to compensate for the disadvantages of urban students.
The following year, the bill failed the General Assembly, in part because it was too costly, Adelman said.
It would have added $260 million to state education aid.
Since then, Adelman says, she understands that the state has added just as much if not more money to education, but the money has not been wisely spent.
Art teacher takes new role with youngsters
Posted Monday, January 10, 2005
Bert Crenca is a new member of the Providence School Board.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- For Bert Crenca, a born outsider working his way toward the center, public service as a member of the School Board seems like a natural progression.
Crenca, who was sworn in last week with newcomer Robyn Frye and veteran Mary McClure, will attend his first meeting Monday.
"I've had the luxury working on the fringe," said Crenca, an artist and the founder of the nonprofit arts collaborative AS220, a fixture downtown since 1985.
But now, he says, given his experience and his age -- 54 -- he believes it is time for him to try to solve problems from inside the system.
Crenca's advocacy for the arts -- and for youth -- is embedded in his experience and in his work for AS220; an uncensored, unjuried collaborative that encourages artists to exhibit and perform and provides affordable living and work space.
As a youth, Crenca's view of school was not too different from many of the youngsters who drop out today, although he managed to avoid that pitfall.
His family sent him to Catholic schools, and he discovered his interest in art in the sixth grade, when a nun challenged him to enlarge some Christmas elves she needed for decorations.
But art was not something that was taken seriously in his Italian-Portuguese immigrant family. A disinterested reader, he says he relied on Cliffs Notes to help him get through high school at La Salle Academy.
Crenca said he reconnected with art when he worked with Marathon House, the substance-abuse treatment center. And he became known as an artist at work, in the print shop at Fleet Bank, then Industrial National.
One day the personnel director told him he should go back to school and get a degree in art.
Rhode Island College has an "excellent" art department, says Crenca. It took him 13 years and a lot of persistence, but he graduated with a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1981.
Four years later, AS220 was born as an egalitarian incubator for the arts. AS220 has hosted at least two organizations that have spun off on their own -- the Providence Black Repertory Company and Youth in Action, whose assistant director, Adeola Aredola, also serves on the School Board.
Crenca's interest in working with youth grew from contact from the community and conversations at AS220.
Crenca said that the demographics of AS220 did not reflect "the changing demographics of the city," most pronounced by a huge influx of residents with Caribbean, Central American, and South American ancestry.
"How could we stay vital and current if we were not reflecting the demographics?" Crenca asked rhetorically.
One way of bringing diversity to AS220 turned out to be encouraging younsters, particularly the ones that don't fit in easily, -- in the arts.
Today, AS220's work with youth has two focal points -- the Rhode Island Training School and the Broad Street Studio, with workspace at 790 Broad St.
Crenca has been teaching art at the training school once a week for at five 5 years, an experience that began with a call from the state child welfare agency about an arts grant for the corrections facility that never came to pass.
But the Rhode Island Council on the Arts did finance a one-year study that concluded that the critical need for access to the arts came after youngsters left the training school and tried to restart their lives.
Out of that report emerged The Broad Street Studio, now about five years old. It is open to all youth, but it reaches out to teenagers fresh from the training school and others who are in state custody because they have been neglected or abused, Crenca said.
In four years, the budget of the Broad Street Studio has grown a hundred-fold, from about $4,000 to about $400,000, Crenca said.
Among other things, it has employed youth to create an anti-smoking ad campaign for the Rhode Island Department of Health, he said.
Teenage artists at Broad Street Studio also market a line of T-shirts and hats, most of them with a message, at the Web site www.bss220.com.
Crenca says he's learned many things from working with youngsters at the training school and at Broad Street Studio.
The vast majority of young people who end up behind bars have learning disabilities, disadvantages that are compounded by the effects of poverty, and in many cases, the language barrier of recent immigration.
"Their experiences in academia have not been good, and they don't want to fail again," Crenca said.
"It's not true that they don't have an appetite for learning, but as soon as it looks like something they failed at," they become resistant, he said.
In art, however, "everybody can succeed," Crenca said.
AS220 tries to send the message that "we believe in what your experiences are. We believe in your story. We need to help provide you with the tools to express a valid perception of the world we live in," Crenca said.
A positive experience with art can begin to rebuild self-esteem and give young people the courage to take risks and try new things, Crenca said.
In the meantime, Crenca has come to ponder the overall needs of the young artists that AS220 has drawn into its fold, and raise bigger and bigger questions, many of them about public education.
Human beings are born with a "huge appetite for learning," he said, "but somehow we're not maintaining that vigor" throughout childhood and adolescence.
Given the research that's been done on the ways people learn, he said, "How do we take it and integrate it into the school system and reinvigorate the appetite for learning?" he asked.
What if the curriculum in the ninth grade, when schools tote up much of their dropout rate, were entirely about sports and games? Crenca asked.
"You could teach the history of sports," he said. "Sports have been integrated into culture all through history." And technology could become a way to create and design games, Crenca said.
What if every young person were to learn about teamwork and sportsmanship by participating in a game or sport at school, with choices such as Ping-Pong and chess? Crenca asked.
His idea, in fact, is not too far away from the kind of curriculum considered the most progressive today -- English, math, social studies and science focused on a common content with a theme.
At E3 Academy, for example, the theme during the first semester has been new beginnings, focusing on immigration and the electoral process.
At Feinstein High School, one team of teachers has focused on the changing land of New England, incorporating history, literature, science and math.
Cliff Wood, the city's director of arts, culture and tourism, asked him to apply for the School Board last fall, saying the arts needed a voice, Crenca said.
Crenca said he "checked with my staff to make sure they were comfortable with it. They saw it as relevant to the work we do."
"I don't want to create the impression I'm underestimating the challenge" of serving on the School Board, Crenca said, running off a short list of barriers, including a lack of money and federal and state mandates.
"The public school system is a very old model" where change does not come easily or fast, he said, suggesting that the public schools might need some sort of "shock treatment."
He said he didn't know enough about Hope High School to have an opinion on the "shock treatment" of a state takeover, something the state commissioner of education has under consideration.
Crenca said he looked forward to hearing about School Board President Mary McClure's experiences when she was the mother of middle school students advocating for reform during the 1980s and '90s.
But he also said that "it's sometimes better when I throw myself into things headfirst. I don't necessarily want to hear all the negative things. Let me breathe a little."
School program finds success on Saturdays
Posted Thursday, January 6, 2005
Volunteers in Providence Schools keeps students hooked on learning with an over-subscribed Saturday-morning program that includes meals and involves parents in transportation to classes.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Volunteers in Providence Schools, approved by the state as a provider of supplemental services through the federal No Child Left Behind Act, is taking a different approach from private for-profit educational companies, which have monopolized the field in the past.
Attendance at after-school sessions run by these companies has been problematic, so VIPS decided to "step up to the plate" by launching a small Saturday-morning program designed to retain students by providing lots of personal attention, both to them and their parents, according to Susan Greenfield, a program coordinator at VIPS.
There are already signs that the Saturday Academy, designed for a maximum of 30 students, may be oversubscribed, according to VIPS' executive director Terri Adelman.
An orientation program held the Saturday before Christmas drew 20 middle school students and their parents, but 10 more families called to say they were interested, even if they couldn't attend the orientation, Adelman said.
With the first of 10 full-fledged tutoring sessions scheduled in two days, the registration has climbed, from 30, to 35, she said.
Each Saturday Academy, running from 9 a.m. to noon and featuring such perks as breakfast and snacks, will provide one adult for every five children, counting an overall staff of three certified teachers and at least three VIPS volunteers.
The Saturday program differs from weekday supplemental services in that it does not provide transportation, putting the burden on parents to get their children to VIPS' headquarters, on Westminster Street.
Although the initial response to the Saturday Academy has been promising, Greenfield and Adelman each said they were aware that the lack of assured transportation could hurt attendance in the long run.
So they are taking steps toturn a potential problem into a way to draw parents closer to their children's education, they said.
"We had a breakfast for the parents" at the orientation session December 18 so the parents could meet each other and we could explain to them what is required," Adelman said.
The School Department must set aside part of its federal Title I grant for disadvantaged students to finance supplemental services under terms of NCLB. Any children who miss more than two sessions will be dropped from the program, Adelman said.
To keep parents engaged, a bilingual VIPS staffer will make phone calls each week reminding parents of the next Saturday Academy, Greenfield said.
And Adelman said that the parents would be offered a menu of VIPS' existing parent education workshops at times convenient to them.
Good attendance will also translate into gift certificates for parents to clothing stores or supermarkets, and tickets for students that are redeemable for prizes, according to Adelman and Greenfield.
"We hope to communicate with them well enough and frequently enough" so there will be a "parental buy-in" that translates into good attendance, Adelman said.
The head teacher for the Saturday Academy is Cathy DiPietro, a science teacher at the Nathanael Greene Middle School with 30 years of experience.
Initially, DiPietro and her colleagues, Maribeth Calabro and Judy Andreozzi, are investing four hours of planning in each three-hour Saturday session, Greenfield said.
Working with test data for each of the children enrolled, the teachers will be able to tailor math and literacy work to individual needs, particularly with a computerized tutoring program that "remembers" each child's past performance.
The computer program, called PLATO, is intended to supplement classroom instruction by enabling students to practice skills independently.
While Nathanael Greene and other public schools use PLATO, the Saturday Academy will have the luxury of making the program accessible to individual students for longer periods than the schools.
DiPietro said that the tutoring in math, reading and writing will adhere to state standards for what children are expected to know and be able to perform at each grade level.
Hands-on science experiments will be another feature used to engage students, according to Adelman and Greenfield.
According to NCLB, students in all the city's nine middle schools are eligible for services because the schools receive Title 1 funds for disadvantaged children and rank at the bottom of the state's public school categories -- in need of improvement and making insufficient progress.
VIPS' name and the fact that it would offer tutoring on Saturday was sent to parents of all middle school students along with the names of other service providers, Adelman said.
She and Greenfield said VIPS picked a Saturday morning schedule because it offered an alternative to weekday after-school sessions.
"There's not much for kids on Saturday," she said. And Greenfield said VIPS is betting that children will be perkier and do better with tutoring offered at the beginning of the day rather than after school.
If the Saturday Academy shows good attendance and improved academic results, it could lead to improvements in all supplemental services, Adelman said.
High school gains three classrooms, reclaims library
Posted Tuesday, January 4, 2005
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Yesterday, for the first time since the city's newest high school opened in a converted jewelry manufacturing plant at Branch Avenue and Veazie Street, the 367 students attending E3 Academy were able to have lunch in a real cafeteria.
This change in the daily routine is no small matter to students who have been eating lunch in their classrooms every day since the school year began.
The cafeteria, with high ceilings and lights as bright as daylight, is about 2,100 square feet -- as large as a small house -- in an addition that is nearing completion.
And today or tomorrow, lunch workers are expected to serve up hot food cooked on the premises in a sparkling new kitchen, rather than trucking it in and handing it out in the hallway near the principal's office.
The school is also gaining three classrooms, which will free the library and a computerized math lab that were pressed into service for special-education and foreign language classes respectively, according to Wobberson Torchon, the principal. A gymnasium, also part of the addition, is not expected to be ready until about March 1.
Torchon was at work as usual late last week during the holiday break, along with construction workers racing to get the cafeteria, kitchen and classrooms in order.
To connect the addition with the rest of the building, workers removed part of what was once an outside wall facing Branch Avenue, extending one of two long hallways past the cafeteria on one side and the two new classrooms on the other side.
In the hallway, two men guided a hand truck loaded with a three-door refrigerator that was headed for the kitchen. They had to take the doors off the refrigerator to get it into the cafeteria.
Alan Sepe, the city's acting director of public property, said the construction crew would work through the New Year's weekend to get the kitchen, cafeteria, and classrooms in shape.
Torchon said one of the new classrooms would be a special-education classroom for 20 students who have been using the school library for much of the semester.
They were to have used both new classrooms, Torchon said, but enough of them have been integrated into regular classrooms that only one special-education room is needed.
These students have two teachers, three teacher assistants, a behavior coach, and a part-time pychologist and social worker, he said.
At any given time, one special-education teacher works with as many a five students in a regular classroom while a teacher assistant helps as many as four students in another class, Torchon said.
With the special-education program in the library, Torchon said, an effort was made to bring more library resources to classrooms. He said the library should be open for business, with books and computers, in about two weeks.
Because of a shortage of space until now, Torchon said, a computer lab designed to enable students to practice math skills has been pressed into service as a classroom for Spanish and health.
Those classes will move to the second new classroom, he said, where students will have conventional desks instead of workstations full of computer equipment.
The computer lab will be open to students needing extra work on math, Torchon said.
In the absence of a gymnasium, Torchon said, some gym classes have been held outside when the weather has cooperated.
Torchon said the gym will enable the school to build on its sense of community by providing a place to hold the monthly celebrations that are part of the design of E3 Academy.
Each month, he said, different classes are asked to prepare performances that take their cue from the theme of the school-wide curriculum, which in the first semester has been keyed to the new beginnings inherent in immigration and the electoral process.
Immigration, for example, lends itself to any number of cultural presentations reflecting the diverse heritage of the students, Torchon said.
The gym will also serve the parent action committee, which has 125 members, nearly a third of the families with children in the school, Torchon said. The committee wants to sponsor events but has had a difficult time finding suitable locations, the principal said.
The level of participation at E3 Academy is impressive in Providence, where many schools do not have much parent involvement, especially in high schools.
Torchon said that encouraging parents to become active in the school is in keeping with his overall aim to educate "the whole child," rather than serving academic needs alone.
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