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February 2007
Providence Journal Article/Intervention
Posted Wednesday, February 28, 2007
TO: Union Members
FROM: Steven F. Smith
DATE: February 27, 2007
Enclosed is a copy of a Providence Journal article that appeared in the Metro section on February 22, 2007 (see News section for electronic copy).
As reported to you earlier, we have been working with the Commissioner’s office and Superintendent Evans to address the Commissioner’s order as well as maintaining the integrity of our contract.
The Joint School Intervention Committee is in the process of designing protocols for schools in each year of intervention. I will be meeting with the faculty of each school mentioned in the article to discuss the work of the Joint School Intervention Committee as well as to solicit feedback.
The full text of the Commissioner’s letter to Superintendent Evans is posted on our website (www.proteun.org)within the News/Updates section and a copy has been provided to executive board members and your building delegate.
As always, I will keep you informed as information becomes available. In the meantime, I urge you to call me, Paul Vorro or your field representative if you have any questions or concerns relative to this matter.
Perry Middle School to be restructured
Posted Wednesday, February 28, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — School officials told teachers at the Perry Middle School Monday that their school will be restructured this fall under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Perry is one of three middle schools, including Nathanael Greene and Roger Williams, facing some form of significant reorganization under the law, which imposes sanctions on schools that have repeatedly failed to make adequate yearly progress on state tests.
Exactly what shape the restructuring will take remains to be seen, however. Denise Carpenter, the district’s director of middle schools, said the School Department and the Providence Teachers Union have yet to work out the details. According to federal law, restructuring could include any of the following options: replacing all or most of Perry’s staff; placing the school under private or state control, reopening it as a charter school or changing the way it is organized.
School leaders plan to meet with the faculty from Nathanael Greene and Roger Williams middle schools next week.
“We met with the Perry teachers to allay their fears and to dispel rumors,” Carpenter said yesterday. “We didn’t want them to be the last to know.”
For the past two weeks, rumors have been circulating that the school might be closed or reconstituted. Actually, a recent school facilities plan commissioned by the city recommends that Perry be closed, although the consultants don’t spell out when it might happen.
Yesterday, Perry’s assistant principal, Jeremy Chiappetta, tried to put a brave face on the news: “Hopefully, this is an opportunity for us to help the kids of Providence.”
Chiappetta, who worked at newly reorganized Hope High School last year, said that there were “70 different reactions” to Monday’s announcement, referring to the number of faculty and staff at the middle school.
Supt. Donnie Evans is under the gun from the state to improve student performance at all eight of the city’s struggling middle schools. Two weeks ago, Education Commissioner Peter McWalters told Evans that he has until April 30 to come up with a detailed plan to boost achievement at more than a dozen elementary and middle schools. If the district doesn’t take drastic action, McWalters has signaled that the state will do it, just as it did with Hope High School almost three years ago.
This isn’t the first time that Evans has tried to address lackluster student performance at the middle schools. Last spring, the superintendent shook up the leadership of nearly every middle school, a move that ruffled a few feathers. In fact, a vocal group of parents repeatedly petitioned Evans to keep the principal of Roger Williams Middle School, but he refused to back down.
The fact that Evans is now taking further steps to jump-start the middle schools is not a sign that his leadership shakeup failed, according to school district spokeswoman Maria Tocco.
“That was the first step,” she said of last year’s reassignments. “Restructuring is the next step under federal law.”
For Perry, this is only the latest in a series of reforms that have failed to rescue the 850-student school in the North End. In 2004, the district sent in three new principals, each with distinct roles. By the spring of 2005, it appeared that Perry was a school on the mend. Fights and other disciplinary problems were down. Teachers and administrators seemed to be working well together. New afterschool programs were created.
While the school climate appeared brighter, test scores remained dismal, and those are the results that No Child Left Behind cares about. In the latest round of scores, fewer than 25 percent of seventh and eighth graders achieved the standard in reading and only 8 percent of eighth graders met the standard in writing. Perry students didn’t fare much better in math: only 20 percent of seventh graders and 17 percent of eighth graders met the standard.
“Perry is the only school in the city in its sixth year of corrective action,” Carpenter said, “so what we do at Perry has to be more drastic.” Under federal law, a school that hasn’t improved in at least four years faces corrective action — an increasingly punitive series of sanctions.
So what happened to Perry? When one of the principals took an extended sick leave, the faculty became sharply divided over a number of issues and factions formed, with certain groups loyal to a specific principal. Discipline began to slide and the number of bathroom fires — a sure sign that a building is in trouble — began to multiply.
The churning at Perry has been continual. This fall brought a new set of leaders — a principal and two assistants — and the changes have left teachers wondering what will happen next.
Asked what the mood was like yesterday, Chipetta said, “People are here. They’re teaching. They’re doing their jobs.”
Board backs superintendent’s plan to close West Broadway
Posted Wednesday, February 28, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The Providence School Board voted 6 to 2 to close the West Broadway Elementary School during the 2007-08 school year, despite the relentless opposition of parents, teachers, neighbors and state and local legislators.
Under Supt. Donnie Evans’ latest recommendation, which was approved last night, the West Broadway children and faculty will be relocated as a school to the Pell complex nearly two miles across town. Evans’ original plan called for splitting the 450 West Broadway students between two schools, Carnevale Elementary and Springfield Middle Schools. Both of those schools are part of the Pell complex on Springfield Street.
By keeping faculty and students under one roof, Evans was trying to satisfy the demands of West Broadway parents, who argued that the West End elementary school would no longer function as a successful school community if students and staff were scattered to separate sites.
In his recommendation, Evans also promised to convene a community-wide committee this spring that would make recommendations on the future of the West Broadway School, a historic building in the heart of the West End. Evans also said that he would seriously consider returning West Broadway to the neighborhood — a condition that parents and neighbors see as crucial to the school’s success.
Evans last night acknowledged that the process by which the public was informed of his decision to close West Broadway was flawed. Parents received a letter from Evans earlier this month saying that he planned to make a major announcement about their school, but rumors of the school’s closing spread before Evans had a chance to meet with faculty and parents.
Evans said he was forced to close the school because the fire marshal would no longer grant any more waivers from the state fire code. According to the district, the school doesn’t comply with the fire code, which requires that kindergarten students and first graders have a separate stairway. Parents immediately challenged that argument, however, and last night they argued that a separate stairway could be built for as little as $45,000 to $90,000 — much less than the School Department’s estimate of $500,000.
Parents have repeatedly questioned the district’s motives for relocating the West Broadway students. Last night, Evans acknowledged that the district needed to find temporary classroom space for 350 students from Central High School and Hanley Career and Technical High School while those two buildings are being renovated. According to Evans, West Broadway was the only building large enough to house the Central and Hanley students because the city’s high schools are already bursting at the seams.
At one point, it looked as if Evans might have a rebellion on his hands as several school board members peppered him with questions about his rationale for closing West Broadway. Then, School Board President Mary McClure proposed an amendment to the superintendent’s recommendation that included Evans’ talking points, specifically that a parents’ advisory committee be formed to make recommendations about West Broadway’s future.
“Do we have a commitment to return the school to this neighborhood?” said board member Robert Wise.
Evans said, “That is the commitment.”
The amendment passed unanimously.
Before the vote was taken on the school closing, several school board members expressed their discomfort with the way the matter was handled.
“I won’t support any decision that sacrifices [public] process for the sake of expediency,” said Burt Crenca.
“I’m torn,” said Robert Wise. “I’m a big believer in neighborhood schools and historic buildings.”
But Wise said that it doesn’t make sense to move the West Broadway students twice: once to make emergency fire code repairs and again to make the much larger renovations called for by a school facilities’ study.
McClure said that while she “deeply regretted that we no longer have your trust,” Evans’ solution seemed to be reasonable because it kept the school community together.
In the end, Crenca and Ronnie Young voted against Evans’ recommendation, with McClure, Wise, Jill Holloway, Maila Touray, Rosanna Castro and Grace Gonzalez voting for it.
Afterward, parents and neighbors expressed their dismay over the decision. One parent and neighborhood activist, Osiris Harrell, threatened to call for Evans’ resignation. House Finance Committee Chairman Steven Costantino, D-Providence, said he was extremely disappointed by the vote and added that the decision-making process was flawed from the start.
Meanwhile, a group of parents, neighbors and community leaders called the Save Our School Coalition has already hired two lawyers to represent them, although it wasn’t clear last night whether the coalition would take legal action.
“This is a serious decision that affects all of our lives,” said Janet Keller, president of the West Broadway Neighborhood Association. “We’ll give it every consideration it needs. How can you base your decision on a flawed process? They were not forthcoming, yet a decision was made anyway.”
In more than six standing-room-only public meetings, parents and teachers pleaded with the superintendent to keep the school open. They described a school that nurtured children of all backgrounds and that welcomed parents into the building. They praised faculty members who worked as a team, and who had a total more than 300 years of teaching experience.
Neighbors described how West Broadway, a handsome turn-of-the-century brick building, was the heart and soul of this diverse neighborhood, an eclectic mix of artists, young professionals and working-class families. Parents asked over and over, “With so many public schools failing to offer a quality education, why tamper with one of the few schools that works?”
Before leaving last night’s meeting, West Broadway supporters made it clear that this wasn’t the final chapter in the story.
Deadline set for plan for low-performing schools
Posted Monday, February 26, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The School Department has until April 30 to develop a plan that details how to improve schools that have been low-performing in standardized tests for four, and, in some cases, six years.
“Far too many students in our urban schools — including those in Providence — do not develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed upon graduation,” said Peter McWalters, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education. “Our expectation is that, at the end of the planning process, Providence will have an agreed-upon set of concrete processes in place that will directly and powerfully improve the learning environments of students in these schools.”
McWalters sent a letter to Supt. Donnie Evans last week that outlined what he expects the district to do to bring these schools out of corrective action, which, under the federal No Child Left Behind law, suggests specific sanctions for schools that haven’t hit their academic performances targets for four consecutive years.
The plan must ensure that schools have highly qualified teachers, strong professional development, excellent leadership and rigorous programs, along with using data to guide what goes on in the classroom. McWalters made it clear that any procedure, including union contracts, that gets in the way of improving student achievement will not be tolerated.
The district’s corrective action plan must include two sections: one that outlines how each school will be reorganized, and another that specifies what the central administration must do to boost its ability to support the schools in their work.
According to McWalters, the district also has the discretion to add schools to the list of schools in need of corrective action if they have not made adequate yearly progress for more than two years in a row.
McWalters emphasized that his office will work collaboratively with the district to craft a corrective action plan, even though he has the authority under state and federal law to intervene and take over a failing school. The commissioner’s office and the superintendent will meet monthly to discuss how the plan is going and to identify issues that need collaborative solutions.
A joint school improvement team composed of union and district leaders will work together to find ways to make the improvements without resorting to union grievances and other contract disputes.
“As this letter makes clear, the corrective action and restructuring process is very likely to impact teacher working conditions,” McWalters wrote. The state Department of Education “sees this team as a proactive effort to ensure that corrective action and restructuring occurs in the most cooperative fashion possible.”
Three middle schools, Nathanael Greene, Perry and Roger Williams, face restructuring under federal law, which means the district has the authority to re-open them as a charter school, replace the staff, reorganize the school and place the school under private or state control. Five high schools fall into the same category, including Hope Arts, Hope Technology, Hope Leadership, Mount Pleasant and Feinstein High School. These schools haven’t made adequate improvement for at least five consecutive years.
Three elementary schools, Alfred Lima, George J. West and Veazie Street, are in corrective action, which means the district has the power to restructure the schools, replace the curriculum or part of the staff, extend the school day or year and appoint an outside advisor to the school. Five middle schools also face these sanctions, including Esek Hopkins, Gilbert Stuart, Nathan Bishop, Samuel Bridgham and Springfield.
This means that Evans will have to develop sweeping reforms for each of the city’s middle schools at a time when the city is grappling with deciding which middle schools to keep and which to replace, recommendations spelled out by the consultants DeJONG Inc. in the company’s far-ranging school facilities plan outlined last month. DeJONG, for example, recommends that Perry Middle School be closed.
The state Department of Education expects that the district will actively engage parents, school board members, community leaders and representatives from the Providence Teachers Union in the planning process.
“As these plans are developed,” McWalters wrote, “we believe that an open, inclusive process is needed to ensure community engagement.”
In addition to the April 30 deadline, the district has until June 1 to put together a plan that shows how it will improve the way the central office helps school improve their performance.
Teachers get annual notice of layoffs
Posted Tuesday, February 20, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Almost 700 of the city’s public school teachers last week received layoff notices in the mail, hardly the kind of hearts-and-flowers missive that employees expect around Valentine’s Day.
But that doesn’t mean that these teachers will actually lose their jobs. In fact, most of them will receive another letter in May or June telling them that their layoff notices have been rescinded. So what gives? State law requires that public school teachers be notified no later than March 1 that their positions might be eliminated.
This year, however, the number of layoff notices is larger than usual because the School Department didn’t send out enough pink slips during the previous two years, according to school officials and the Providence Teachers Union.
“We should have laid off more people in previous years,” said Tomas Ramirez, assistant superintendent for human resources.
Union leaders have told members not to panic, and veterans know that this is an annual rite, as commonplace as the robin’s springtime return:
“What we’re telling people is we have 2,100 teachers today and we will have 2,100 teachers next year,” said Paul Vorro, the executive director of the teachers’ union.
No matter how many assurances the union offers, however, many teachers feel anxious, if not downright panicked. This year, because the notices reach deep into the teaching ranks, even faculty members with eight years of experience are getting pink slips.
“It has a severe effect on morale,” said union president Steve Smith. “No matter how much we tell them that there will be no reduction in staff, I still have a layoff notice in my hand.”
Ramirez agrees that the process is demoralizing, but he said the district has no choice:
“We don’t know the level of funding from the state or local government in February,” he said. “We have to prepare for a worse-case scenario.”
If the School Department doesn’t send enough layoff letters, the district can’t, by law, cut those positions. Some of the layoffs, however, are pink slips in name only. Approximately 250 of last week’s notices went to long-term substitute teachers and coaches because they have one-year contracts. Typically, Smith said, these teachers are rehired in June.
Several factors, however, are contributing to an unusual level of uncertainty this year. Approximately 75 literacy coaches, who work primarily in elementary schools, are being reorganized this year. Unhappy with the district’s reading performance, Supt. Donnie Evans is shifting the coaches’ responsibilities from helping teachers to working more directly with students who are reading below grade level.
Although most of the coaches will be recalled because they have seniority, about 15 coaching positions will be eliminated, Ramirez said.
What’s troubling about the layoff process is that it leaves the coaches in limbo for several months. Because their job descriptions have changed, they will have to re-apply for their “old” jobs. If, however, the coaches lack certification for their new duties, they can bump, or displace less senior teachers out of their jobs.
On another front, union leaders said that the district will need fewer biology teachers next year because the department is introducing Physics First, a science program championed by Governor Carcieri. Starting in September, ninth-graders will take physics during instead of biology. Physics First, which was piloted in five districts this fall, is part of a larger state effort to improve math and science education. According to Vorro, the curriculum will require a change in the way biology teachers are trained and certified, which means more layoff notices for the current biology staff.
“This affects nearly every science program in the city or about 25 to 30 positions,” Vorro said. “It’s disrupting sciences in the schools.” Although the district has agreed to provide training for the physics program later this winter, the union said it should have been done before the layoff notices went out.
Like ripples in a stream, the bumping process can affect the lives of any number of teachers. In some cases, bumping can wreak havoc on a school, which might have spent years developing esprit d’corps among staff or a considerable amount of time and money on professional training.
Even if the district wanted to make deep cuts this year, it is unlikely that the state would allow Providence to do so because further reductions would violate the department’s basic education plan. Peter McWalters, state education commissioner, has already ordered the district to restore music and art teachers whose positions were eliminated three years ago.
Meanwhile, union leaders said they have been in daily communication with Ramirez and other district leaders this year, adding that the department is “working hard to get it right.”
“We’re hoping that if we do it right this year,” Vorro said, “we won’t have the same problem next year.”
School plan draws public outcry
Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The tempest over the closing of the West Broadway Elementary School is threatening to derail the city’s attempts to get feedback on a $792-million plan to renovate or replace the majority of the district’s school buildings.
Last night, an educational consultant tried to get the audience to respond to the broad contours of the report, which outlines which schools should be renovated, which should be closed and the approximate costs, but the crowd had only one thing on its mind: the West Broadway school. The public forum, the third in a series of four, was held at Brigham Middle School in the West End.
State Sen. Paul Jabour wound up shouting at DeJONG consultant Frank Locker when Locker refused to turn the meeting into a referendum on the fate of West Broadway.
“You’re not respecting the community with that kind of attitude,” Jabour said. “You put a study together and they are not going to swallow it. I want you to listen to the people!”
Armed with the DeJONG report, parents, neighbors and friends of the school made every effort to poke holes in the study, which calls for building 19 new schools and replacing the sprawling Mount Pleasant High School with two smaller schools on the same site.
Residents peppered Locker with questions: How much previous experience in the field of educational planning has the firm had? How was DeJONG hired? How much was the company was paid? (The answer is $500,000). They were particularly interested in how the consultants solicited public feedback during the planning stages of the school facilities study.
Locker acknowledged that finding new school sites would be challenging in a city as densely developed as Providence. He also said that the estimated costs for new construction did not include estimates for land acquisition.
“That scares the hell out of me,” one man said.
Several members of the audience vented their anger at Mayor David N. Cicilline, who was the driving force behind the sweeping study of district’s 42 aging school buildings. Many residents voiced suspicions about the entire DeJONG plan because they felt blindsided by the district’s unexpected announcement that West Broadway was closing this summer.
“There is a hidden agenda,” John Zayas said. “We want some answers from [Supt. Donnie] Evans and we want them today.”
“We don’t appreciate you coming in here and declaring war on our children,” said Osiris Harris. “We are not going to stand for this nonsense. We haven’t seen the mayor once. How many parents want to take it to the mayor?”
According to Janet Keller, president of the West Broadway Neighborhood Association, consultants often ignore hidden costs like land acquisition and environmental clean-up when they call for new construction over renovation.
But Bill Bryan, a project manager with Gilbane construction, said that the city of New Haven spent an average of $400 per square foot on their schools because they focused on renovation, not new construction. That would put Providence well over the square footage costs permitted by the state Department of Education.
Evans sticks to plan to close W. Broadway
Posted Tuesday, February 13, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Supt. Donnie Evans last night refused to back away from his decision to close West Broadway Elementary School, despite repeated pleas from parents, students and members of an East Side parents’ organization to keep it open. Evans’ recommendation now goes to the School Board, which will vote on the matter Feb. 26.
“These are not easy decisions,” Evans said to a standing-room-only crowd of 75 people at a School Board meeting. “This decision is not about the adults. It’s about what is in the best interest of the children.”
Evans was interrupted by booing before School Board President Mary McClure called for decorum. Evans continued, calling for the creation of a neighborhood committee to study what should be done with the 450 children from West Broadway. Under his current plan, the West Broadway students would be bused across town, with the younger students attending Carnevale Elementary School while the older ones would attend Springfield Middle School, which is part of the same complex.
Next year, West Broadway would house students from Central High School and the Hanley Career and Technical Center while major renovations get under way at those schools.
Evans said last month he was forced to close West Broadway because the school didn’t meet the fire code and the fire marshal had refused to grant any more variances. Later, he alluded to the DeJONG school facilities plan, which recommends that West Broadway be closed because it is more than 100 years old and no longer meets the latest school specifications.
But parents and neighbors were not buying the superintendent’s explanations last night.
“The fire code thing is a red herring for something bigger,” said Charles Penning. “We should revere these older buildings, not trash them.”
For 90 minutes, one parent after another described how much the West End school has meant to their children. One mother said her 6-year-old son could barely speak before he came to West Broadway. Others talked of the school’s nurturing environment, where students of all backgrounds are treated with respect.
“What can you say about a school that has an attendance rate above 90 percent?” said Martha Brunzos. “What can you say about a school where the 40 staff has a total of 360 years of experience? These teachers chose to stay at West Broadway.”
Residents were particularly upset that the decision to shutter West Broadway was made without first asking their opinions. Evans announced that he would hold a public meeting on the West Broadway school on Feb. 20, but he agreed to change the date after parents complained that the forum would fall during school vacation.
“Where is the community dialogue?” said Bryan Principe. “How can parents be engaged when decisions have been made without parental engagement?”
Several leaders of the East Side Public Education Coalition, which formed to fight the closing of Nathan Bishop Middle School, also spoke out against the plan to shut down West Broadway. They were joined by state Rep. Steven Costantino, D-Providence, who represents the West End, and City Council members Josephine DiRuzzo and John Lombardi.
“This is a hallmark building in a glorious, historic neighborhood,” Costantino said. “Ultimately, it is whether there is a willingness to deviate from the consultants’ plan, which emphasizes new construction over renovation.”
Meanwhile, two lawyers from the firm of Taylor, Duane, Barton & Gilman said they have been retained by the coalition to save the West Broadway school. The lawyers, however, would not say what they planned to do, nor would they say if they had been hired or were volunteering their services.
Fox Point school draws national recognition
Posted Tuesday, February 6, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
Kahlin Watkins, left, and Dymell Sharp, first graders at Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, work on a puzzle in class. The school is being commended for closing learning gaps between groups of students.
The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski
PROVIDENCE — The Vartan Gregorian Elementary School in Fox Point is one of two schools in Rhode Island to receive an award for being a distinguished school by the National Association of Title I Administrators.
The school is being recognized for its success in closing achievement gaps between groups of students — white students and minority students, general education students and special education students, low-income students and more affluent children.
“This didn’t happen overnight,” Principal Anthony DeAngelis said yesterday. “We have a great group of new and veteran teachers. We don’t have all of the answers but we’re always looking for ways to stay one step ahead.”
Old County School in Smithfield was the other winner from Rhode Island.
In the latest round of test scores, Vartan Gregorian met all 19 of its academic targets in English and math, despite formidable odds. Three-quarters of the school’s 340 students come from families who live at or near the poverty line.
In 2002, state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters chose Gregorian to announce the annual state rankings because the school proved that poverty is no excuse for low achievement. At the time, Gregorian was the only school in the state to meet every one of its English and math targets for two consecutive years. Between 1988 and 2002, the proportion of students who met or exceeded the state standards in reading, writing and math doubled at Gregorian.
During the latest round of state testing, in the fall of 2005, Gregorian’s fourth-graders outperformed the state averages in reading and math, according to DeAngelis.
Why has Gregorian succeeded when so many other urban schools have failed? Because the school has had a series of dynamic leaders, teachers who work together and use test data to improve instruction and an environment where every student is held to a high standard.
The school has been relentless in its commitment to upgrading teachers’ skills. During the 1990s, then-Principal Mary Brennan adopted a plan for reform, tapping private money to pay for continuous teacher training.
“Teachers are here from 7:30 a.m. until 7 p.m.,” DeAngelis said. “This place is safe. There is respect.”
Gregorian also made a concerted effort to reach out to parents. Today, it is not unusual to have 20 to 30 parents turn out for a PTO meeting and the school is constantly holding events to draw families into the building. The PTO puts out a monthly newsletter and runs fundraising drives. Every Thursday, DeAngelis runs a tour for prospective parents.
“I tell my teachers, ‘Take 15 minutes every morning and have a conversation with your kids,’ DeAngelis said. “We’re so programmed now, with No Child Left Behind, it’s nice to have a break in the routine.”
Gregorian will be 1 of 65 schools to be honored Friday during the National Title I Conference in Long Beach, Calif. Schools are honored for exceptional student performance or for closing achievement gaps between groups of students. The winners will receive a banner and a plaque. Their success stories will be included in a book published by the Title I administrators’ association.
School’s focus on small things pays off big
Posted Friday, February 2, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
Gabriel Elby, a sixth-grader at the Robert F. Kennedy Elementary School, does some independent reading. The school improved significantly on state test scores over the year.
The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski
PROVIDENCE — Sometimes it’s the little things, not the revolutionary changes, that make one school successful while another fails.
That seems to be the case with Robert F. Kennedy Elementary School in Elmhurst. Kennedy has one of the highest scores in the district, second only to the much-touted Vartan Gregorian Elementary School in Fox Point, on the state’s latest round of math and English achievement tests, released this week.
The percentage of students reading at or above the proficiency level jumped from 54 percent to 65 percent in one year. In math, the scores rose to56 percent proficient from 41 percent. Kennedy students even showed progress on the state writing test at a time when writing scores declined across the state.
Kennedy’s progress is an example of the district writ small. Nearly every one of the city’s public schools made gains in student achievement on the statewide assessments taken by children in grades 3 through 8.
Kennedy principal Gina Picard attributes her school’s success to a number of ingredients: getting children to feel more comfortable with the test, analyzing previous test data to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses and getting parents more involved in their child’s learning.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks, she said, had little to do with instruction.
“Our students,” she said, “were nervous about taking the test.”
The state testing takes place over two weeks and each segment lasts 90 minutes. That, Picard said, puts a lot of pressure on children who are 6, 7 and 8 years old. So Picard and her staff came up with some ideas to make testing less of a burden. They held a pep rally and offered incentives, from Frisbees to longer recess periods, if children made a real effort on the assessments. Any class with a perfect attendance during the testing period was rewarded with an ice cream party.
Kennedy faculty worked hard to get students familiar with the test questions. Students who were performing below grade level in reading and math were offered after-school tutoring for five weeks this fall. Teachers also spent time in class preparing students for the types of questions they would receive on the tests.
“We did a lot of test preparation to relieve anxiety,” said Maria Laurenzo, a sixth grade teacher. “The kids seemed to take the test more seriously this year.”
“The whole idea is to beat the test-makers,” said a third grade teacher, Kendra Haggerty. ‘I tell my kids, ‘You can do it.’ ”
Asked if this amounted to “teaching to the test,” which is a common criticism of schools with high-stakes exit exams, Picard said no.
“If we’re not teaching what we’re assessing, then what are we doing?”
Teachers gave students sample examples of the writing prompt, which asks children to respond to a specific question about a short piece of literature. Staff also familiarized students with vocabulary the children might encounter on test questions.
But Picard and her faculty drilled deeper than that. Last year was the first time that Rhode Island used the New England Common Assessment Program, a test developed in partnership with New Hampshire and Vermont. The beauty of this test, Kennedy said, is that it gives teachers information on how individual students did on specific questions. Kennedy’s faculty used that data to identify weaknesses in their curriculum. Where do we need to do more work? Is it phonemic awareness? Reading analysis? Sentence structure?
Kennedy faculty also took a close look at student behavior. Deputy Supt. Frances Gallo, who left the district last month, developed guidelines last year showing schools how they could reinforce positive behavior. Picard and her staff selected four goals and drove home their importance in meetings with students and parents. Those behaviors, by the way, are respect, responsibility, achievement and safety. The school also implemented a program that rewards students for good behavior, called the “helping hands” cards.
“[Supt. Donnie] Evans has talked about creating safe, caring, orderly schools that have positive cultures,” Picard said. “That’s what we are trying to do.”
No school, however, can be truly effective unless it involves parents, and Picard is trying to do just that. Kennedy held an open house at the beginning of the school year at which teachers explained their classroom expectations. The faculty also told parents what they could do at home to further their child’s reading and writing skills. Meanwhile, the school’s math and literacy coaches are training parents to work with students in the classroom on phonemic awareness and other basic reading skills.
Kennedy has also been fortunate in creating a profitable relationship with Providence College, which sends young adults to student-teach at the school.
“These are our kids,” Picard said. “Every teacher feels responsible for every child in the building.”
Judge rules in schools contamination case
Posted Thursday, February 1, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A Superior Court judge has ordered the city to routinely notify parents and school employees about any contamination found at two public schools built on top of a former dump.
Judge Edward C. Clifton last week ordered that letters be sent to the parents and school employees of the Pell school complex on Springfield Street about “the nature and extent of contamination found at the site, the design and purpose of measures undertaken to remediate the site and a description of the quarterly monitoring measures” used to determine the safety of the schools. The notice must be sent in English and Spanish to new students and employees every year.
Carnevale Elementary School and Del Sesto Middle School were built on top of a former city landfill despite residents’ concerns about the long-term safety of students and employees at the schools, according to Rhode Island Legal Services, which provides free advice to low-income clients and represented the plaintiffs.
Clifton’s order provides a number of ways for the public to know more about environmental conditions at the schools and requires the city to comply with environmental laws when building new schools. The city, for example, must send electronic copies of documents to the state Department of Environmental Management, which will be posted on the DEM’s Web site. The city must also distribute notices at the schools when the DEM schedules community meetings about the environmental conditions about the site.
“Judge Clifton’s ruling is a small step toward assuring the safety of the schools for our children and our neighbors’ children,” said Gilberta Taylor, president of the Hartford Park Residents Association. The association, a neighbor of Taylor’s and two parents brought the suit in 1999 to stop the schools from opening. “We hope Judge Clifton’s order forces the city to repair the sinkholes around the school and to take extra care to protect children from landfill gases and other contaminants at the school site.”
In October 2005, Clifton ruled that the city and the DEM broke state environmental laws because of the way in which the schools were sited and approved. Last April, the judge ordered the DEM to establish a committee to develop better rules for public involvement in the cleanup of contaminated sites.
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