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November 2004
Mayor makes pitch for more aid to schools
Posted Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Improvement in test scores will be lost unless the state contributes more to city schools, Mayor David N. Cicilline says.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- While Governor Carcieri and state education officials were extolling the academic progress at the Robert L. Bailey IV Elementary School on Monday, Mayor David N. Cicilline couldn't resist the chance to remind the governor that good results don't come cheap.
Governor Carcieri, Commissioner of Education Peter J. McWalters, and other state and local education officials appeared at Bailey to announce good news -- the number of high performing schools grew about 80 percent statewide and the number of low performing schools shrank about 30 percent.
In choosing Bailey, Carcieri and McWalters wanted to highlight what can be done at an urban school in Providence, where typically half the children enter kindergarten already behind.
Last year, Bailey missed 10 academic targets, and under provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act was categorized as a school in need of improvement and making insufficient progress.
But this year, Bailey's scores rose about 19 percent and students hit all the targets, earning the designation of making progress.
Cicilline said that the improvements seen at Bailey and other schools are the result of "hard work by many, many people," but there's still "a very long way to go."
"We're still in the beginning stages of long-term comprehensive reform," Cicilline said."We'll see the gains today in jeopardy if there is no funding to continue reforms. Let's recommit ourselves to funding urban education."
When the news conference ended, Carcieri and Cicilline, both smiling broadly, shook hands and talked briefly.
Carcieri, later asked about Cicilline's comments, said Cicilline "is doing his job as mayor" in trying to get more state revenue.
The governor said he is well aware of the cost of education and will keep looking at the best ways to finance the schools.
Although state revenue is expected to increase in the next fiscal year, so will costs, especially in human services, and Carcieri is grappling with ways to avoid a potential $163 million deficit in the next fiscal year, beginning July 1.
In a brief interview, Carcieri sought to highlight another factor contributing to the recent educational success: a statewide consensus about goals and how to achieve them.
"The whole system is focusing now," he said, noting that the current budget added four math specialists at the Department of Education to help public school teachers.
The statewide tests show that Rhode Island students, while improving, are generally weaker in math than in language arts.
"Once you focus on something, you'll start to see results," Carcieri said.
In the same vein, Patrick Guida, a member of the Board of Regents who serves as the board's point man on testing and school classification, listed several common features of successful schools:
High-quality professional development, in which teachers work with other teachers in the classroom.
Instruction that differentiates among the needs of individual students within the same class.
Strong connections between adults and students.
Personal literacy plans that identify areas where each student needs work.
Common planning time that allows teachers to coordinate their lessons.
Parent involvement.
After the news conference, Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson agreed that the gains made by Bailey and other city schools require a common focus and hard work by teams of people.
But she also noted that common planning time and some of the other elements Guida listed are expensive.
Common planning time has all but disappeared from many schools in the last two years as the School Department cut drastically to balance its budgets.
In the city's middle schools, students each have individual literacy plans, Johnson said, but the School Department doesn't have enough money to pay for a special remedial reading program to classes of 15, as recommended.
Instead, she said, teachers must work with 26 students at a time on the program, called Read 180.
At Bailey, which has an enrollment of 500, principal Denise Carpenter said yesterday that the faculty has been able to maintain common planning time once a week, but that it cannot survive another budget cut.
Schools schedule common planning time for teachers of core academic subjects around the availability of teachers of elective classes who not only enrich the curriculum but free their colleagues for meetings.
In the last couple of years, Carpenter explained, the availability of art and music teachers at Bailey has been reduced from five to three days a week.
When Bailey opened four years ago on Gordon Avenue in South Providence, art and music teachers were trained to link their work to reading and writing, Carpenter said.
"We know that the arts significantly impact on student achievement," she said. "And prior to this year, we did a lot of integrating of the arts" with core academic curriculum.
Many of the strategies Bailey has used to improve test scores have come from so-called "soft money," competitive grants that will evaporate soon, Carpenter said.
For example, Bailey is in the second year of a three-year, $300,000 Comprehensive School Reform grant from the federal government that enables the school to address individual student needs as well as put a heightened focus on math and literacy.
It also pays for an after-school Faculty Think Tank, in which teachers talk about strategies for reinforcing student achievement from one grade to another.
Parent engagement activities, including parent-child classes on computers , arts and crafts, dance, fitness and other topics, would not be possible without the grant, Carpenter said.
She said Bailey's share of a $350,000, three-year grant from Toyota enables the school to teach English to Spanish-speaking parents so they can help their children with their schoolwork.
Money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded three summerfaculty retreats, Carpenter said.
The five-year grant from the Gates Foundation expires this year, she said.
Test scores
Posted Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Fewer schools in the Providence district are classified as needing improvement.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- In the annual rankings of Rhode Island public schools yesterday, the best news in the city was that the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School joined Classical High School as a high-performer.
There was some shift in the lineup of moderately performing schools, while the number of schools at the bottom -- those in need of improvement and making insufficient progress -- shrank from 36 to 29.
Most of the movement out of the lowest category went to the next highest -- schools in need of improvement but making progress.
Two of the lowest-performing elementary schools were making progress last year, and this year there are nine.
It was at one of these schools, the Robert Bailey Elementary School, that Governor Carcieri announced the new rankings.
Carcieri's appearance at Bailey, on the South Side, called attention to the progress made by similar urban schools in which many children enter kindergarten already behind in their development.
Bailey, where test scores rose 19 percent this year, and the 8 other schools making progress are moving fast enough to be on track for meeting the ultimate goal -- 100 percent proficiency -- under provisions of federal No Child Left Behind act in 2014, according to Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson.
The Vartan Gregorian Elementary School had reached the moderately performing category two years ago and then dipped into the bottom category last year before leapfrogging to high-performing status this year.
Classical, the only high school in the city that screens applicants, has been consistently high-performing.
The Health, Science, and Technology Academy, ranked as moderately performing with caution in 2003, is classified as moderately performing and improving this year.
The Edmund W. Flynn Elementary School moved from the lowest category to moderately performing and improving.
And the Harrison Street High School, absent from the charts last year because it was too new to be ranked, was categorized as moderately performing and sustaining this year.
Two elementary schools that had been moderately performing and improving, Lillian Feinstein at Sackett Street and William D'Abate, dropped to schools in need of improvement and making insufficient progress.
For Lillian Feinstein, the drop meant that its special-education students missed math and language arts targets, and children with limited English proficiency missed the language arts target alone.
At D'Abate, students classified as poor and those with limited English proficiency missed the language arts target.
Among the 29 schools in need of improving and making insufficient progress, there are 6 high schools and 23 elementary and middle schools that receive federal Title I Funds for disadvantaged children and are subject to sanctions under provisions of NCLB. Last year the number of sanctioned elementary and middle schools was 13.
Johnson said that even sanctioned schools improved, but not enough to meet the rigid rules of NCLB, which decrees that a school must meet 21 targets to be described as improving.
The average increase in scores this year was 9 percent each at the elementary, middle and high schools, Johnson said.
The city's high schools do not receive Title I funds and are not subject to NCLB, although they are still classified as if they were. Last year there were five high schools in need of improvement and making insufficient progress, one less than this year.
Many schools in the bottom category are one or two targets away from making progress, according to school-by-school data released by the School Department.
NCLB sets 18 academic targets in language arts and math, and 3 non-academic targets.
Any missed target means they will be tagged as making insufficient progress.
Johnson said that "when you read a child's school is making insufficient progress, the natural inclination is to think a school is not doing well."
But parents "need to be knowledgeable of how [the schools] do in each area," she said. She urged parents to call the district's parent center for detail on their children's schools.
Of the 14 elementary schools making insufficient progress, four schools missed 4 academic targets and 10 missed 3 or fewer targets.
Performance in middle schools was spottier. But even the Perry Middle School, which is under sanction by NCLB and under state intervention, met 11 of the required 18 academic targets last spring. Two years ago, it met just 2 of 18 targets.
Hope High met all targets but one -- the graduation rate, so it is still regarded as making insufficient progress.
The state commissioner of education, Peter McWalters, said yesterday that the academic improvements at Hope will be part of the record of a show-cause hearing next month in which the burden will be on the school district to persuade him not to take over the school.
McWalters has said he scheduled the hearing because he was concerned that the momentum of the last school year might be lost during this term. The state Department of Education intervened at the school two years ago as a result of rapidly dropping test scores.
Mount Pleasant High School, which recently received a highly critical report from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, fell short of only one academic target; the language arts score for special education students.
Johnson was asked how she would reconcile the progress at Mount Pleasant -- which missed a total of seven academic targets last year -- with the critical comments of NEASC evaluators.
She indicated that some improvements may have resulted from reorganizing the way the school operates. But the evaluators were focusing on far more difficult goals -- changing the way teachers and students interact and making academic courses more challenging.
Johnson said Mount Pleasant will not contest NEASC's recommendation that it be placed on probation.
Mount Pleasant must make a progress report in July, and Johnson said work has already begun to correct some of the deficiencies listed by the accreditation team.
Central and Feinstein high schools, as well as the Providence Academy of International Studies each made insufficient progress because of one missed academic category.
The Alternate Learning Project, with a little more than 100 students, is so small that it has only two academic targets -- one in language arts and one in math. ALP missed both.
Maintenance long overdue at schools, mayor says
Posted Monday, November 22, 2004
Mayor David N. Cicilline calls it "shameful" that the city has neglected deteriorating schools.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The physical conditions at Mount Pleasant High School cited in a highly critical accreditation report have resulted from decades of neglect because the schools are chronically shortchanged of the money needed for building maintenance, Mayor David N. Cicilline said Friday.
Because he recognized the problems at Mount Pleasant and other schools, Cicilline said, earlier this year he commissioned a study of all 55 public school buildings in the city for a master plan for long-term maintenance and renovation -- something that hasn't been done in at least 20 years.
He acknowledged that financing the recommendations of the report will be a major challenge.
"How do we, over time, plan to maintain school buildings at a high quality status and be able to afford to do it?" Cicilline asked rhetorically.
He said he visits one school a week and cannot fail to notice "a different kind of energy" in buildings that are new or newly renovated.
Most of the school buildings are more than 50 years old, Cicilline said.
"It's shameful that we've allowed these facilities to be ignored for so many decades," he said.
Cicilline said he expects that the $190,000 school facilities study by the Gilbane Building Co. to be completed by the end of next month.
The Gilbane study had already begun when an accreditation team from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges visited Mount Pleasant last spring.
The NEASC report quotes the principal, Maureen Crisafulli, as saying that the Gilbane study has put a priority on maintenance and repair at Mount Pleasant.
In part because of building deficiencies, NEASC plans to put Mount Pleasant on probation at the next meeting of its board of trustees early in January.
The voluntary regional accreditation agency has asked the school to submit a report by July 1 detailing its progress in correcting numerous problems.
Cicilline, meanwhile, said that "one of the most disturbing things" at Mount Pleasant is that "students have been in that basement a very long time."
He referred to a portion of the NEASC report that raised questions about safe entrance and exit paths around two basement classrooms, especially for one student who uses a wheelchair.
NEASC also recommended an air quality study be done in the basement classroom area.
"Nobody thinks that's acceptable," Cicilline said of the basement. He noted that both Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson and Steven F. Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, have advocated for the review of school buildings.
"These problems have persisted for a very long time," Cicilline said, and "the city didn't have the resources to make the improvements. We certainly are aware of that," he said.
The study combines the strengths of Gilbane, which has expertise in structural repairs and JAED Facilities Solutions, which specializes in long-term planning for buildings' upkeep, according to the mayor.
While the study has been under way, money has been spent on make high-priority repairs, including patching the roof, repairing stair treads, and replacing 18 sets of doors at Mount Pleasant, Cicilline said.
Other improvements have concentrated on fire safety at various schools, he said. The work includes:
Fixing entry stairs, replacing fire doors and installing a sprinkler system at the Oliver Hazard Perry Middle School
Installing a sprinkler system and replacing doors and hardware at the Nathan Bishop Middle School
Repairing sprinkler heads at the Lillian Feinstein Elementary School on Broad Street
Installing doors and sprinklers at the Windmill Street Elementary School
The School Department has allocated $3 million for repairs at Mount Pleasant during the current budget year -- a sum the NEASC evaluators said would go a long way toward correcting the brick-and-mortar problems at the school.
But only $1 million of the $3 million has been available to the school because of other school construction demands, and a delay in floating bond money caused by a legislative change in the way the state reimburses municipalities for school construction.
The law, enacted in 2003, requires that school bond issues go through the Rhode Island Helath and Education Building Corporation.
But the corporation discovered its charter did not allow it to handle the school bond issues, and it had to amend the charter before it could act as the bonding agent for school districts, according to Mark V. Dunham, the School Department's chief financial officer.
In the meantime, the city had to borrow from bond money earmarked for building repairs to pay for new school construction, Dunham has said.
School accreditators criticize Mt. Pleasant
Posted Friday, November 19, 2004
The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, citing "significant deficiencies," wants to put the school on probation.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Mount Pleasant High School has received a scathing evaluation from the prestigious New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which has found fault with undemanding classes, teachers and students unclear about academic expectations, a decided lack of parent involvement, and a building in serious disrepair.
The accreditation agency has notified school principal Maureen Crisafulli that it plans to ask its board of trustees to put Mount Pleasant, the city's second largest high school, with 1,461 students, on probation at its meetings Jan. 9 and 10, on the basis of "significant deficiencies."
The probation would be for an indefinite period. NEASC would have the option of ending the school's accreditation if improvements weren't made to its satisfaction.
NEASC three years ago ended the accreditation of the city's largest high school, Central, after the administration was unsuccessful in its attempt to have the process postponed because a school redesign project was under way. The adverse evaluation does not affect Mount Pleasant's ability to grant diplomas, which is authorized by the state Department of Education.
NEASC's opinion, however, carries a lot of weight in education circles and can tarnish the image of the school and the district, which is known nationwide for its emphasis on school reform.
Mount Pleasant can contest the recommendation that it be placed on probation. Neither Crisafulli nor Johnson would say whether they plan to do that by today's deadline.
Roughly half the conclusion of the report, obtained by The Providence Journal, concerns the disrepair of the 66-year-old building and raises questions about whether money is available for repairs and the day-to-day costs of running the school.
"The school site, plant and equipment are not maintained to ensure an environment that is healthy and safe for all occupants," according to visiting educators who wrote the evaluation for NEASC.
Noting that Mount Pleasant has undergone a series of budget cuts and funding freezes in the last few years, the report said "it is unclear if the community and the district's governing body can ensure an adequate and dependable source of revenue" to support academic programs and other components necessary for education.
Crisafullip declined to release the full report yesterday or to comment on its contents, except to say that the she and the faculty are "looking forward to addressing the issues. "
She said that under rules outlined by NEASC, she has until Dec. 13 to make it public.
In a statement, Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson said, "I can't responsibly comment until I have studied the report and discussed it with everyone who is affected by its finding, including the students, faculty and union. We are already aware problems exist at Mount Pleasant, and we will continue to work as a team toward solving them."
School Board President Mary E. McClure said she has not seen the report, but earlier this week she received a copy of an Oct. 29 letter notifying Crisafulli that NEASC intended to put Mount Pleasant on probation.
McClure noted that the contents of the letter placed a great deal of emphasis on the poor state of the building.
"We know we have facilities issues," she said.
The school district has allocated $3 million for repairs to Mount Pleasant during the current school year, but it could not be determined yesterday how much of it will be used.
In the past few years, city has "had to use a fair amount of bond money to build new schools, and repairs have taken a back seat," McClure said.
"There's not enough to go around, and we're trying to take care of emergencies," she said.
The accreditation team, which visited Mount Pleasant last apring, found the roof in "major disrepair, with numerous leaks and concrete capstones breaking away."
The report said many window are inoperable, the boilers need constant service and repair, and there are structural cracks in staircases leading to a top-floor greenhouse. "The marginal condition of the greenhouse, which is used daily by a small contingent of special education students, presents a possible safety issue," according to the report.
The accreditation team other safety issues:
Water leaks and gas leaks, particularly in science labs.
A stairway to a basement classroom that is clogged with equipment
A ramp leading from another basement classroom that is accessible to a student in a wheelchair only through a set of locked doors
The accreditation team noted that teachers and administrators have both cited questionable air quality in basement classrooms and recommended an air quality study be conducted.
In addition to air quality, upgrading the electric system and ensuring safety in the science classrooms "remain as outstanding issues needing immediate attention," the report said, although "overall, fire, health and safety are not the major facility problems."
Regarding education at Mount Pleasant, NEASC's evaluators found many shortcomings, ranging from little parent and student involvement in the school to a lack of cohesion among the faculty about what they should be teaching and how they should teach it.
Mount Pleasant is part of a five-year, $8-million high school redesign effort financed by the Carnegie Corp. and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
As part of this effort, the central administration has favored reorganizing large high schools into smaller learning communities and has required teachers to adhere to curriculum guides that link specific classroom activities and curriculum content to standards -- broad statements of the skills and knowledge students should acquire at each grade level.
But at Mount Pleasant, the NEASC team found inadequacies in the curriculum and in the way it is taught.
The faculty is not using the required curriculum guides because of teachers' concerns that the guides make the curriculum inflexible, the evaluators concluded.
What is taught emphasizes breadth of knowledge over depth of understanding, and students do not have adequate opportunity to apply their knowledge, according to the visiting educators.
They found a lack of resources for reviewing and evaluating the curriculum, and a lack of teacher training on improving classroom delivery.
There was an "inordinate use of class time for completion of homework assignments" and "low faculty expectations for student learning."
The NEASC report said parents complained that the only formal opportunity they have to become involved with their children's education is at parent night at the end of the first quarter. The actual time they have to speak to their children's teachers is limited, the parents told the NEASC team.
The evaluators found that parents:
Often don't see their children's quarterly grades, except for at parent night. Report cards are given to the students, not mailed home to parents.
Are not informed when their children cut classes.
Don't learn their children may be failing until the end of the quarter.
Do not receive notice of their children's course selections for the next school year.
Can not communicate effectively with school officials if they know little English because there are no translators.
The report noted an absence of long-term planning at Mount Pleasant because of "administrative upheavals" of the past few years.
Long-time principal Nancy Mullen was tapped to lead the reorganization of Hope High School in June 2002, and Beatrice Wiggins was named to succeed her.
A year later, Wiggins was removed abruptly, and Crisafulli took over. This is Crisafulli's second year at Mount Pleasant.
The NEASC report said Crisafulli has created a parent advisory council and was "beginning to identify critical areas" needing attention last spring, although the financial crunch facing the school district as a whole was "likely to impede discussions about planning" for the future.
NEASC asked Crisafulli to submit a progress report by July 1 addressing nearly 20 recommendations for corrective action related to the safety and repair of the building, the curriculum and other education matters, and parent and student involvement in the school.
NEASC is an accreditation agency with voluntary school membership. It is oldest and most prestigious of several regional accreditation agencies around the country.
After the school administration decided not to have a NEASC evaluation team tour Central in 2001, the school's membership in the organization lapsed. Central was eligible to reapply for membership a year later. It is not listed among NEASC's current member schools.
Central has an enrollment of 1,688 students.
Hearing set on possible school takeover
Posted Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Under a state mandate to improve student performance, Education Commissioner Peter J. McWalters sets a Dec. 7 hearing date to hear testimony on whether Hope High School should be taken over by the state Department of Education.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The state Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education says time is running out for the School Department to make the educational improvements he wants at Hope High School.
Peter J. McWalters has scheduled a show-cause hearing that puts the burden on the School Department to show why the state should not take over Hope. For 20 years, the troubled school has pursued the elusive goal of providing a first-rate, nurturing education.
McWalters says he is concerned that the momentum for reform will be lost at Hope unless he steps in to break an impasse between Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson and the Providence Teachers Union. They have been unable for months to reach agreement on the way the school should be run.
Beginning Dec. 7, McWalters will take testimony in a proceeding that will be conducted very much like a trial, with lawyers for the state Department of Education and for the School Department each presenting witnesses.
Since last June, the faculty at Hope and the School Department administration have been unable to agree on what McWalters describes as the "mechanics" of achieving the goals he has spelled out for the school.
The commissioner has not taken sides in the dispute. His chief legal counsel, Jennifer Wood, has said he needs to hear all the relevant information as an impartial hearing officer before making any ruling.
The hearing will be used to identify the barriers to reform at Hope, she said, and McWalters will decide how those barriers can be overcome.
McWalters has said he will rule by Dec. 31 on a plan for the school year beginning in September to give the school time to make any necessary preparations.
If he decides to take over the school, it would mark the first time he has exercised that authority under terms of a school accountability law enacted by the General Assembly in 1997. Teachers would receive layoff notices effective in June and would have to reapply for their jobs for September.
Paul Vorro, executive director of the Providence Teachers Union, said yesterday that McWalters "may have the authority" to take over the school under terms of the 1997 law. "But it's never been tested." He said the union would register its objections to any takeover attempt and would have its lawyers thoroughly review the matter.
The only previous state takeover was when the Board of Regents in the early 1990s intervened in Central Falls to prevent the city from closing schools for lack of funds. That action did not involve teacher layoffs. The 1997 law says that the Board of Regents has the authority to restructure a school's "governance, budget, program, [and] personnel, " and may make decisions "regarding the continued operation of the school."
For the last several months, Johnson and the teachers' union have been trying to reach consensus on a plan for Hope to stave off a possible takeover. In a statement, Johnson said she hopes that by reaching consensus, the two sides can satisfy McWalters' requirements without violating the teachers' contract or increasing spending.
Vorro, meanwhile, said union officials hope to preserve the "opportunity to have the school have a say in what's going on rather than having something dictated by the commissioner."
"I'm not sure we're going to have success," union president Steve Smith said in a recent interview.
"But it won't be for lack of trying," Vorro said.
The chief issue separating the two sides is the length and frequency of an advisory period for students. Other differences involve the number of different courses for which teachers must must prepare, the maximum number of students on each teachers' caseload, and whether the small learning communities should continue to include academic department heads.
McWalters has said he will not make a decision "in the context of a contract."
"It is not my intent ever to go around breaking a contract," he has said.
"If your current contract is a barrier . . . you get a chance to reopen to change it," McWalters said, referring to the timeline for his decision, which will allow the School Department the first eight months of next year to prepare for the changes.
McWalters said he will not make any orders without bringing enough money to the table to do the job.
He said he still has $600,000 which Governor Carcieri earmarked for Hope that has been held in abeyance since Johnson failed in August to turn in a operation plan for Hope during the current school year.
In addition, McWalters said, he has at his disposal $1 million for intervention purposes that could be used to solve problems at Hope.
Beyond that, McWalters said, he has the authority to redirect money already in the Providence school budget toward Hope, which Carcieri identified as the litmus test of the state's ability to turn around the public schools.
But McWalters would not help Hope at the expense of other Providence schools, which are also suffering from a budget squeeze, according to spokesman Elliot Krieger.
McWalters has made it clear to all involved what he wants at Hope: three self-governing small learning communities, each with the authority to select its own teachers and assign them on the basis of student needs.
The student body of about 1,500 is divided into three academies -- one which emphasizes the arts, another focused on information technology, and a third stressing leadership.
But each learning community does not now have the authority to hire and assign its own teachers.
McWalters has further stipulated that he wants to see changes across the board in teaching strategies during the current academic year.
In various interviews, he has suggested that he wants to see teachers moving away from traditional top-down interaction with students, the type embodied in the lecture format.
Instead, McWalters has indicated, he wants teachers to become guides who spark the intellectual curiousity of young people, for example, by leading a conversation peppered with thought-provoking questions.
He also has said that teachers must focus on imparting the skills and knowledge embodied in state academic standards, which spell out in each grade what children should know and be able to do.
Some of the teaching at Hope already meets McWalters' criteria, but it is the exception rather than the norm, he has said.
McWalters has spelled out additional requirements for reform at Hope:
Students must have instructional programs beyond the traditional school day.
Students must each have an adviser and time to meet with the adviser according to regulations adopted by the state Board of Regents.
Each of the learning communities must invite active participation by parents and the community.
Teachers must have professional development and time with colleagues to plan lessons that goes beyond training and planning time offered district-wide.
Teachers must commit to each of the specified elements as a condition of staying at Hope.
Smith and Vorro say that teachers have done everything they can to comply with McWalters' order, including participating in professional development, lesson-planning activities, signing letters of commitment, and inviting parent and community involvement at the school.
Last spring, the teachers had also produced plans for self-governance that addressed all of McWalters' requirements, Smith has said.
The plans all received approval from a labor-management committee of which both Smith and Johnson are members, with the condition that the district receive enough money to implement them.
Later, Johnson vetoed the plans, replacing a daily advisory period of 86 minutes with academic instruction.
She said that in too many classrooms, the 86-minute advisory period was used as a study hall. Students needed the added instructional time more than the advisory, Johnson said.
In addition, Johnson has explained, fiscal restraints have forced her to cut about a dozen teachers at Hope, and the remaining staff has been needed to pick up additional teaching duties to fill in the gaps.
She has twice asked teachers at Hope to approve plans with once-a-week advisory periods of 30 minutes, and the faculty has twice rebuffed her.
For one thing, Vorro has said, Johnson's proposal would require teachers to prepare content for four different classes or courses, including the advisory, while established practice has limited these preparations to a maximum of three.
Under the current schedule at Hope, teachers do not advise students but teach an extra class instead.
With about a dozen teaching positions cut, some teachers have been given student caseloads greater than 130, the maximum acceptable under the contract, Vorro said.
Johnson said that the large caseloads have "not necessarily" resulted from a reduction in the teaching staff, which was cut from about 100 to about 88.
She said the some students were temporarily assigned to the wrong classes because of scheduling problems, not unusual at the start of a school year.
But Vorro said the union was informed that scheduling changes affecting teachers and students had continued into the first week of this month.
Such changes "shouldn't be happening in November," when the first quarter of the school year is almost over, he said.
Johnson said yesterday that adjustments have been made to ensure that teachers each have no more than 130 students.
Proposal asks parents to request school choice
Posted Tuesday, November 16, 2004
In the past, the School Department offered a choice to parents of kindergarteners entering first grade.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A relatively little-used choice option in the school district's student assignment plan would be eliminated, according to a proposal before the School Board, although school officials say the change would not constrain parents' right to request any school they want for their children.
The option now allows parents to choose a school for their elementary-agehildren for kindergarten and first grade.
Eliminating choice for children entering first grade would not take away parents' right to seek a transfer, according to school officials.
But the change in policy would shift the burden. Instead of the School Department offering choice to parents of kindergarteners entering first grade, the responsibility would be on parents to seek a transfer.
Other parts of the student assignment plan offer school choice to parents when a child enters the entry-level grades for elementary, middle and high schools.
A child who goes attends kindergarten benefits from the continuity of returning to the same building for later grades, according to Gary Moroch, executive director of elementary education.
When the student assignment plan was adopted early in 2000, some kindergarteners attended school only half a day. Moroch agreed that continuity might have been less an issue for half-day students, who would not necessarily feel as much attachment to a particular place as full-day kindergarteners.
But today, the district has only full-day kindergartens, which are generally credited with better reinforcing basic skills, especially where children's development is compromised by poverty and other disadvantages.
In the 2003-2004 school year, there were 1,313 kindergarten students. Of that total, parents applicd for a first-grade transfer for only 9 percent, or 117 students.
In presenting the proposed change to the School Board recently, school officials said the district would save money on transportation associated with school choice and the expense of notifying parents that the option was available.
Moroch said financial considerations were strictly secondary.
Whenever parents choose a school, they are not guaranteed that they will get their choice.
If parents exercise their right to ask for a transfer during one of the school years not covered by the student assignment plan, there is often a waiting list at the receiving school, according to school officials.
Most elementary and middle schools tend to run near capacity as a result of a surge in the city's school-age population during the last 14 years, which has risen from 21,000 to more than 27,000.
The biggest squeeze on space, however, is in high schools.
Mary McClure, president of the School Board, recalled that the student assignment plan was designed to accommodate two conflicting tendencies, particularly at elementary schools.
On one hand, many parents have said they want to send their children to their neighborhood school. At the same time, parents have said they want the right to choose schools anywhere in the city if they best met the needs of particular students.
McClure said she believes that an intensive drive to improve education throughout the district has resulted in greater satisfaction of neighborhood elementary schools.
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