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January 2006
Schools merger idea gets a mixed reaction
Posted Monday, January 30, 2006
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Reaction to Governor Carcieri's proposal to create a metropolitan school district was as muted as it was mixed.
The harshest criticism came from Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, who said the plan was ill-conceived.
Carcieri, in his State of the State speech Wednesday, suggested combining Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls into a single urban district. The consolidation, he said, could produce significant economies of scale in administration, transportation and curriculum.
A single district would make it easier for students and parents, many of whom move back and forth among the cities. A uniform curriculum would be a great benefit to these students, the governor said.
But Smith, who is also a state representative, wondered why the governor floated the idea without first consulting with the people responsible for implementing it: the teachers.
"If the governor is looking to regionalize, maybe Providence, Barrington and East Greenwich would make a nice district," Smith said. "The governor is saying, 'Let's put the three poorest school districts together and good things are going to happen. We'll just tell the teachers to work harder.' That's like telling soldiers to be braver."
Smith said it makes no sense to suggest such a sweeping change unless the details have been nailed down. Carcieri's proposal was short on specifics.
But not everyone dismissed the idea outright.
Providence School Board President Mary McClure said she was open to any suggestions that would improve student performance and use public dollars more effectively.
"It does seem that 36 little districts in a state the size of Rhode Island is very inefficient," she said. "But I think the governor's office needs to define its goals. Is it efficiency they are after? Do they think there are educational benefits?"
On Wednesday, Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, questioned whether a metropolitan district would segregate the state's poorest students under one administrative roof.
McClure shares those concerns:
"Why start with the urbans?" she said. "If we add to the complexity without clear benefits, what's the point?"
The proposal faces considerable challenges:
How to integrate three entirely different education systems
How to reconcile three separate teachers' contracts
How to make sure that each child receives the same amount of money
Meanwhile, Mayor David N. Cicilline, who is attending a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., said it's premature to discuss combining districts until it is determined what it really costs to provide an adequate education in Rhode Island.
Cicilline said that the state is continuing to reduce its share of the cost of paying for public schools, shifting the burden onto local taxpayers. Until that trend is reversed, he said that it doesn't make sense to tinker around the edges.
Cicilline also said that he was disappointed that Carcieri failed to recognize the progress Providence students have made, especially at the elementary level.
The governor, in his speech, attributed the dramatic improvements at Hope High School to the intervention by the state Department of Education.
"The progress that is occurring at Hope is occurring because the district developed a plan to do it," Cicilline said. "This is not the result of a special master and $100,000. It's the result of a lot of professional work by great teachers and principals."
Providence Supt. Donnie Evans, who arrived here less than five months ago, stayed out of the fray. He declined to comment on the proposal until more details were available and he had the opportunity to speak with Carcieri.
Carcieri also promised to extend the school day in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls, expand the teacher year to 190 days, reevaluate the effectiveness of middle schools and lift the moratorium on charter schools.
When state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters proposed lengthening the school day in 2004, the opposition was so intense that the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education scaled back the original plan from 7 hours to 5.5 hours of instruction. Most districts have until fall 2007 to implement the longer day.
Carcieri wants to schools to stay open until 5 p.m. and he wants them to offer the kinds of after-school activities that have been eliminated because of budget shortfalls.
But Cicilline said Providence is addressing the need for meaningful after-school programs through the Providence After School Alliance, which has raised $7 million in private money to offer activities to middle school children.
"If you are serious about these kinds of explorations," Cicilline said, "you have a conversation with the urban districts. That didn't happen in this case."
Smith said that a number of teachers are already working a longer day because they participate in professional training after the regular day ends.
He also said that the state needs to invest in programs like early childhood education and alternative schools for disruptive students before it tackles a longer school day.
"If you don't have adequate supplies," he said, "if you don't have guidance counselors and art and music, working longer is not the solution."
Carcieri plans to announce a number of education initiatives on Wednesday.
Superintendent focuses on student success
Posted Thursday, January 26, 2006
He says a properly structured school helps low-income students achieve.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
"I've talked to teachers who say they feel overwhelmed. I'm telling them, 'Establish your priorities. Ask what is in the best interest of your kids.' "
PROVIDENCE -- Providence Schools Supt. Donnie Evans has a theory about what makes a school successful. He borrowed the idea from a former Harvard University professor, added a few thoughts of his own, and then tried it out in Hillsborough, Fla.
According to Evans, the "whole school effectiveness" model was a huge success in the Tampa area, where he previously worked. In five years, he said that the number of high-performing schools jumped from 7 to 87.
Now Evans wants to try this model in Providence. For veteran teachers who have seen reforms come and go as frequently as women's fashion, this is not meant to be another program layered upon the multitude of existing reform initiatives.
"This," Evans said, "is a change in the organic culture of a school system, with different kinds of behavior expected from students, teachers and parents."
The model has its origins in a far-ranging study done by Ronald Edmonds, then-director of the Center for Urban Studies at Harvard University. Edmonds and his colleagues set out to find schools where children from low-income families were highly successful, proving that schools can make a difference.
They compared successful schools with similar schools where students were not learning. And they discovered that there were a set of characteristics common to schools where children are high-fliers, regardless of their family background.
Working from that model, Evans and a colleague developed the nine factors of highly effective schools:
Hire a strong school leader, someone who cares deeply about teaching and learning and models good instruction.
Providence has had trouble keeping effective leaders in its schools. Principals, especially at the high school level, are constantly being shuffled from one school to another. Hope High School has undergone three turnovers in leadership in as many years.
Evans said he planned to put an end to that instability.
"Once we have a good fit," he said in an interview yesterday, "I want principals to stay there for a while to make things happen."
He wants the district to "grow" its own leaders through such programs the aspiring principals program, a mentoring program that pairs principals-in-training with veteran leaders.
Create a clear school mission. Too often, teachers and principals feel that they are juggling a bag full of initiatives with no clear understanding of what should come first.
"I've talked to teachers who say they feel overwhelmed," Evans said. "I'm telling them, 'Establish your priorities. Ask what is in the best interest of your kids.' "
If that means putting certain goals on the back burner, Evans said, so be it. He is willing to entertain thoughtful suggestions.
"In Tampa, we were saturated with initiatives," he said. "I said, 'We have to cut some of these things out,' and we did."
Set high expectations. Urban schools often suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations. Students, because of their background, are not expected to perform at the same levels as their suburban counterparts.
Evans wants to change that culture, not only for students, but for faculty and principals. He tells the following story to illustrate his point:
A parent called Evans and said that her child brought home Ds and Es on his report card. When the parent met with her child's teacher, the teacher told her not to worry and said that her child was doing fine.
"I told the parent that she should demand more from her child and her child's teacher," Evans said. "I called the principal amd he was as surprised as I was."
Monitor students' progress through regular testing. Evans wants to use the data that the district collects to identify where students aren't getting the material and where they are.
However, the district may have to work harder to get the data back to teachers in a timely manner. According to Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, the results from the first-quarter assessment have not been returned to teachers.
Evans said that the district also has to make a commitment to train teachers how to use test scores to tweak their curriculum.
Put a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. Evans said that the key predictor of student achievement is the strength of the classroom teacher.
How do you judge whether a teacher is highly qualified? The principal, Evans said, is largely responsible for determining that, with help from central administrators.
Districts often have a hard time removing ineffective teachers. But Evans says there is nothing in the contract that precludes the School Board from firing a bad teacher as long as that teacher has been given every opportunity to learn.
Create a safe, caring and orderly learning environment. The school atmosphere should be businesslike without being oppressive. Students and staff should feel safe from harm.
Reach out to parents and the community. According to Evans, parents have to be part of any effort to improve student achievement. That means schools have to make parents feel that their imput is valuable.
Evans has begun meeting with parents on a variety of topics, most recently on the reorganization of the bilingual education program.
Asked how schools can persuade harried parents to attend night meetings, he said, "Use the kids. If the children are performing, the parents will come. My daughter is a lawyer. She used to call and say, 'Can you come and watch me to do this or that.' "
Offer professional training that connects to what teachers are actually doing in the classroom.
Change the school culture so that students, teachers and parents feel valued, a culture in which everyone shares the same mission. Evans calls this a family-oriented culture.
"I set the expectations for my staff," he said. "But if I don't model these things myself, it's not going to happen."
Evans said his first order of business is meeting with the union.
"I want to develop a collaborative relationship with the union," he said. "I want them to be at the table so that we can make minor modifications together."
Evans and his staff have already begun talking about this with school-improvement teams, and they hope to train the principals during their summer leadership institute.
Evans emphasized that he wants to build on the positive work that was under way in Providence.
"There are good things happening here," he said. "When I visted Fortes Elementary School, the principal said that her teachers bring their children to this school. There isn't a higher compliment than that."
Bus attacks baffle middle school leaders
Posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006
The principal of Bishop Middle School, whose bus was hit with rocks last week, says youngsters don't have enough healthy options after school.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- School officials are baffled by the recent spate of attacks on middle school buses by other students -- most recently youths from Esek Hopkins Middle School.
"There's no rhyme nor reason," said Earnest Cox, principal of Nathan Bishop Middle School, on the East Side. "We will continue talking to our kids until we figure out what's going on."
The most recent incident occurred Thursday afternoon, when a half-dozen Hopkins students tried to force their way onto a bus from Bishop as it was bringing students home. When they couldn't board the bus, the Hopkins students pelted it with rocks.
All of the incidents have taken place at or near the intersection of Branch Avenue and Hawkins Street, in the North End, where students often congregate after school.
Yesterday, the street corner was quiet as First Student buses whisked children home from Hopkins, which is a block away.
"It's a strange phenomenon," said Hopkins assistant principal Shirley Kinsey. "Most of the kids don't know that there's anything going on. We haven't said a whole lot.
"The sense we get is that the kids on the [Bishop] bus are yelling out to our kids and our kids are reacting," she said. "That's what our kids are saying."
Kinsey said the six Hopkins students involved in Thursday's incident and their parents will meet with members of the student affairs office tomorrow. That hearing will determine whether the students will be suspended or expelled.
Thursday's attack was the third such incident in two weeks. On Jan. 9, several students forcibly boarded a bus carrying youngsters from Nathanael Greene Middle School, in Elmhurst, at the same intersection. The following day, a large group of youths pounded on the same bus with their fists. Adult monitors have been temporarily assigned to ride those two buses from Greene and Bishop.
Meanwhile, Cox and Kinsey wonder if students would be turning on each other if the schools offered a meaningful outlet for the students' energies.
"Our children are longing to belong and we don't provide that," Cox said yesterday. "At this most critical time in their development, we have no way to channel this. Music, arts, sports -- they've taken all this away from them.
"What a wonderful idea -- we let all these kids out at once, they converge at the same place and they have nothing to do."
Kinsey sounded a similar theme.
"We have no afterschool options," she said. "That's the right way to go, to get them involved in activities that are healthy and enriching."
Kinsey said recent budget cuts have hurt. Hopkins had two assistant principals; now it has one. The 600-student school has two guidance counselors, down from three, and it has lost its only police officer.
Meanwhile, Providence police Lt. Michael Correia said that the latest incident represents continuing fallout from the earlier attacks. According to Correia, a girl who had been expelled from Greene and Hopkins convinced some of her friends to attack the Greene bus because she had a dispute with the bus driver.
Contrary to earlier reports, the police have not increased patrols in the area, but officers have been apprised of the situation.
"It's on our radar screen," Correia said. "The men are aware of the problem."
Correia confirmed that one student had been arrested following Thursday's incident.
Hopkins is looking at a number of options to quell the violence, including bringing in the Institute for the Study and Practice of Non-Violence, a community group that works closely with area teens.
"We're looking to get whatever help we can," Kinsey said. "We want our kids to be successful."
Hope encourages parents to share their impressions
Posted Thursday, January 19, 2006
The goal is to increase what has been paltry participation in an important school survey.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Hope High School's principals and staff cooked up an Italian feast Tuesday night as part of their campaign to encourage more parents to complete the state's annual SALT survey.
SALT stands for School Accountability for Teaching and Learning. The survey measures many of the intangible qualities that make schools safe, welcoming and successful.
Everyone -- teachers, students, parents and administrators -- is expected to fill out an elaborate questionnaire, which covers such topics as school safety, drug use, parent engagement and teacher satisfaction.
In years past, the response from Hope's parents has been pitiful, according to principal Scott Sutherland, who heads the high school's Arts Academy. In 2004-05, only 76 out of more than 1,200 parents of Hope students completed the survey. This year, the school hopes to boost the number of parent participants to 750.
But by 4 p.m. yesterday, the unofficial submission deadline, only 260 parents had returned the surveys. The staff and student response was much higher: out of 100 teachers, 93 had completed the survey; and 914 students -- 75 percent -- had returned the questionnaires.
Jeremy Chiappetta, the school's chief operating officer, said late yesterday that he was optimistic that more surveys would be submitted over the next few days.
Hoping for a strong turnout Tuesday, Hope High School tapped various community groups to volunteer their services, including Volunteers in Providence Schools, the Children's Crusade, Rhode Island College and the School Department's parent engagement center. Whole Foods donated the pasta and the sauce, and Winn Residential, which operates Wiggins Village, gave $500.
Staff were available to help parents fill out the surveys, which were provided in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Laotian and Khmer. Unfortunately, the volunteers and staff outnumbered the two dozen families who turned out for the dinner.
But Hope's principals didn't stop there. Students who return their parents' questionnaire will be eligible for a raffle for Providence Place mall gift cards. Teachers whose advisory students return 75 percent of the parent surveys will be eligible for gift cards to restaurants. Advisories are part of Hope's plan to connect students with teachers and make learning more personal, by assigning small groups of students to meet weekly with individual teachers.
The reward for administrators who complete their surveys?
"Continued employment," according to a PowerPoint presentation.
In addition, the principals set aside time for teachers and students to fill out the surveys during the school day.
Yesterday, Chiappetta explained why the SALT surveys are so important.
"This is one of three ways in which we evaluate what's going on at Hope High School. The others are testing and [New England Association of Schools and Colleges] accreditation. If we don't have adequate participation, then we don't have reliable data."
Information gleaned from the questionnaires will help the school's leaders determine whether they are on the right path. Do students feel safe? Do they feel comfortable talking to at least one adult in the building? Do teachers feel they are supported by the administration? Do they feel that they are getting enough training? Do parents feel welcome in the building? Do they feel that their students are getting a quality education?
Sutherland said these responses are used to change curriculum and teacher training. The data is also used to identify weaknesses in school policies. Perhaps the building needs to do more to get students to attend school on time. Maybe it needs to tweak its discipline policy to keep students in class rather than kicking them out.
As Sutherland said, "The SALT surveys are one measure of success that provides meaningful data around the school's climate and culture."
Evans: Bilingual programs staying
Posted Friday, January 13, 2006
The superintendent denies rumors that the bilingual education program is being abolished, and responds to concerns from teachers and parents.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Vivianne DeSimone teaches math at Del Sesto High School, and she wants to know why she has 10 students who can't speak English and a bilingual assistant who isn't certified to teach math.
"My concern is being able to reach these children," she said. "We need help at the school level. We need limited English proficiency teachers to teach limited English proficiency students."
DeSimone was one of many parents and teachers to speak at last night's public forum on changes in the bilingual education program. The forum was sponsored by School Supt. Donnie Evans and held at the Providence Academy of International Studies, on Thurbers Avenue.
Some members of the Latino community had expressed concern that the School Department was abolishing the bilingual education program.
Evans quickly dismissed that rumor, saying that the school district wanted to beef up services to Spanish-speaking students and their parents.
Evans said he had reorganized the bilingual language department so that those services are now part of general education. The bilingual education staff answers directly to the directors of high schools, middle schools and elementary schools. In fact, the district has added a position in bilingual education.
"Sixteen thousand of our students live in homes where a language other than English is spoken," Evans said. "We're not going to relegate them to treatment as a minority. That's the wrong answer."
Evans said that the district has created a call center where Spanish-speaking parents can get their questions answered. The department is also working on expanding the number of interpreters at the schools and at meetings like this one, where the discussion was translated into Spanish.
Evans acknowledged that the school district has a problem recruiting and retaining bilingual teachers, an issue that he promised to address by year's end.
Meanwhile, parents and teachers expressed frustration with a system that they said seems either unable or unwilling to address their needs.
Quiana Potter said she wants to pull her daughter out of public school because the school has turned a deaf ear to her child's learning disorder.
"I don't have any public confidence in the schools," she told Evans. "I'm black and I can't get any help. Nothing has been done. You hear about the law, No Child Left Behind. Well, I see a lot of kids who are left behind on a daily basis."
Evans told her, "I want to talk to you tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with your child's capacity to learn. Our job is to create the circumstances where that can happen."
Another parent, Osiris Harrell, complained that children are being short-changed by the curriculum, which he said ignores the basics in favor of creativity.
"These children are writing stories but they aren't learning what a predicate is," he said. "The old way worked for us. It worked for Einstein. Why isn't it good enough for our children? I feel like there's a conspiracy to make our kids dumber."
Madeline Alvarez complained that it is impossible to reach the superintendent: "There is no way to get in touch with you," she told Evans. "I have to make 24 calls and the problems are never taken care of."
Evans listened attentively and agreed with many of the concerns raised. He promised that the district would not continue to offer any program unless it could prove that it was improving student achievement.
And he promised to hold more gatherings with different members of the Providence community.
Expert: Gorham site needs cleanup
Posted Wednesday, January 11, 2006
A consultant for a residents' group opposes the construction of a high school on Adelaide Avenue.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- An environmental scientist at the University of Connecticut has concluded that the city should not build a high school on the former Gorham manufacturing site without first cleaning up the land around Mashapaug Pond.
Kevin P. Hood, a consultant with the Environmental Research Institute at the university, reviewed 5,000 pages of documents submitted by the city and state regarding the contamination of the Gorham property, the former site of the large silver manufacturer. Hood was hired by Robert Dorr, who leads a group called the Mashapaug Pond Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which opposes use of the school site.
The mission of the Environmental Research Institute is to help residents understand and participate in decisions involving hazardous wastes. The group reviews data and puts complex technical issues into plain English.
In a Dec. 29 letter to the city, Hood said that his firm disagrees with any remediation plans that do not include cleaning up the property around Mashapaug Pond.
"Having walked the site the day before Thanksgiving, it is blatantly apparent that the water's edge will be very attractive to students looking for a place to hang out," Hood wrote. "There is fencing and signage in place now [but] it has been breached in several places and not repaired. If anything, fencing can be its own attraction."
The city says there is no need to remediate the pond because it would be fenced off from the Adelaide Avenue school site. The city's remediation proposal calls for covering the contaminated soil on the school site with clean fill and then venting any potentially hazardous fumes from beneath the school to the outdoors.
But Reservoir Triangle residents have repeatedly asked that experts study and remediate the entire 37-acre site, land that was recently owned by Textron. The residents have cited original DEM documents that say that the land should be used only for commercial or industrial purposes.
The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management has similar concerns about the impact of the pond on the school site. In a Nov. 17 letter to James Ryan, the city's lawyer, Brian Wagner wrote that while the school site and Mashapaug Pond might be separate, "neither can be viewed in a vacuum."
"The city, which owns both parcels, cannot separate the risks associated with the pond from the sensitive public use that it has proposed for [the school site] simply by subdividing its own property," Wagner, the DEM's chief deputy legal counsel, wrote.
"Given the ability of teenagers to ignore warnings, signs and fences," he said, "the risk presented by the adjacent pond/cove area must be evaluated before the appropriateness of the remedy for [the school site] can be determined."
The city, however, contends that the site has been exensively studied since the late 1980s, when Textron acquired the property, and that those studies found that cancer risks are equal to or below the acceptable limits set by the DEM.
The only scenario in which the individual cancer risk was greater than the DEM limit was for a worst-case scenario in which a child spent all of his time at the location where the highest concentrations of the most carcinogenic chemical were found.
According to the city's lawyers, there is no reason for the DEM to delay approval of a remediation plan based on a lack of data about the pond.
In a letter to Wagner, Ryan wrote, "Unfortunately, it seems apparent that the DEM has chosen to succumb to adverse publicity and simply delay a resolution of this matter."
Although the city claims that the site has been exhaustively analyzed, Wagner said that pond sediment samples taken by a local resident showed concentrations of arsenic at 100 times the allowable limit.
The public's concerns must be addressed, Wagner wrote.
In response to neighbors' concerns, the DEM recently hired a consultant to take soil samples from around the cove and beneath the pond and water samples from the pond. The lab results should be available next week. And last month, Textron also agreed to take test samples of the cove and pond.
Now that the public comment period is over, the city must respond to the public's comments. The DEM will review the city's response, which is expected to arrive next week, and it can do one of three things: accept them, ask the city to revise its response or do a little of both.
The DEM will decide whether to issue a remediation decision letter, which gives the city permission to go forward with the project and prepare a detailed remediation plan.
Evans to explain why he ended bilingual
Posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy fears that the superintendent's reorganization will dilute services to Spanish-speaking students.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Schools Supt. Donnie Evans will discuss his reasons for dismantling the department of language and culture at a public meeting Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Providence Academy for International Studies on Thurbers Avenue.
Evans, as part of a reorganization, announced in the fall that he was abolishing the department and assigned responsibility for English-language learners to the directors of the elementary, middle and high schools. The department of language serves 5,000 students.
Evans said he wanted to make bilingual education more of an integral part of the regular education program, adding that it had too often been left out of districtwide reforms.
"This department operated in a parallel world," said Jose Gonzalez, the department of language's former executive director who nows runs the parent engagement office. "There is a greater sense of ownership if each of the directors becomes responsible for English-language learners."
But members of the Latino community were upset by the realignment, worrying that it would dilute services to Spanish-speaking students, about 58 percent of the enrollment. On Nov. 15, members of the Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy met with Evans to express their concerns.
But Miguel Sanchez-Hartwein, CHISPA's executive director, said his board wasn't satisfied with the answers given by school administrators and requested another meeting.
In a letter to the School Department, CHISPA asked how eliminating the department would address problems associated with the education of English-language learners and will the bilingual and English as a Second Language programs have the same level of funding.
Sanchez-Hartwein said his agency has received numerous phone calls from parents and teachers about the future of bilingual programs in Providence. The city is the only district in the state to offer bilingual education for Spanish-speaking students, allowing them to take their core subjects in Spanish while they learn English. Most districts offer only English as a Second Language, in which students are immersed in English.
In his letter, Sanchez-Hartwein wrote, "Many [parents] see the department of language and culture as equivalent to the Office of Civil Rights for Latino children and their families within the Providence public school district."
A second meeting on the subject will be held Jan. 24 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Bridgham Middle School, 1655 Westminister St. Translators will be available at both forums.
High school chief takes Conn. post
Posted Friday, January 6, 2006
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The city's director of high schools has been hired by the Stamford, Conn., school district as an assistant superintendent.
Anthony Pope confirmed that he was leaving Providence in two weeks to become assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, a job that pays $140,000 a year. Pope will be responsible for curriculum development, special education, and research and assessment. He was appointed Tuesday and will begin Jan. 17.
Pope will be one of four assistant superintendents who will answer to the new superintendent of schools, Joshua Starr, who is reorganizing the administration.
Although the Stamford district is smaller than Providence, with 15,500 students, compared with the city's 27,000, it has many of the same challenges, Pope said. The city has great wealth, but it also has small but serious pockets of poverty, according to school spokeswoman Sarah Arnold, and minority students make up 55 percent of the student body.
"One of the biggest issues that all districts face," Pope said, "is [to] maintain high standards for all students, rich and poor."
Pope, who lives in Massachusetts and has three young children, was the director of school development for The Big Picture Co. for one year before moving to the Providence district about 18 months ago. Big Picture is run by Dennis Littky, who founded the Met School, a small, alternative high school in Providence.
Before that, Pope worked in Boston public schools as the senior program coordinator for high school reform.
"Anthony is an intelligent and impressive up-and-coming leader in education," Starr said in a statement. "He has a wealth of experience in many different aspects of education and will be a great benefit to the district and to the community."
School Board members take office
Posted Thursday, January 5, 2006
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Four new Providence School Board members were sworn in yesterday by Mayor David N. Cicilline during a ceremony at City Hall.
Joining the School Board are Rosanna Castro, Jill W. Holloway, Katherine F. McKenzie and Ronnie M. Young. The four were among nine finalists interviewed by the School Board Nominating Commission from a larger pool of applicants.
Castro is a graduate of the Providence public schools and Brown University, where she earned a degree in public policy. She works as a family-planning coordinator for the Rhode Island Department of Health and teaches English as a second language at the International Institute.
Holloway has a master's degree in education from Keene State College in New Hampshire and is enrolled in the doctoral program of educational leadership at Johnson & Wales University. She is the director of outreach and admission of Year Up, a youth program, and headed the guidance department at the Met School in Providence from 1996 to 2004.
McKenzie is group executive vice president and head of human resources for Citizens Financial Group. She graduated from Lenoir Rhyne College in Hickory, N.C., with a degree in secondary education. She has spent her career in financial services, working her way up from bank teller.
Young is a graduate of Classical High School and a senior at Roger Williams University, where he is studying criminal justice and public administration and is a member of the honor society. He works for Greater Elmwood Neighborhood Services as a community planner. He serves on the Community Prep School Alumni Relations Committee.
Castro, Holloway and McKenzie will replace three board members whose terms expired: Adeloa Oredola, Dilania Inoa and Dr. Milton Hamolsky. Young will complete the unexpired term of Robyn Frye, who moved from Providence.
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