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March 2003
Officials plan public forum on education
Posted Monday, March 31, 2003
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Mayor David N. Cicilline is continuing his campaign to improve the city by engaging the public at a community forum Wednesday -- this time on the subject of education.
The forum, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., will be held at Springfield Middle School, 152 Springfield St. and will be co-hosted by Cicilline, Schools Supt. Melody Johnson and Brown University President Ruth Simmons. Off-street parking and translation services will be available.
"Here's your chance to educate Mayor Cicilline, Superintendent Johnson and...President Simmons," a flyer for the Providence Youth and Education Forum states.
Cicilline said the forum is designed to "bring the community together for an important discussion about the future of our youth."
"Residents will have a chance to express their concerns and share their ideas on the best way to improve the city's public schools," Cicilline said in statement.
The School Department is facing a series of obstacles, including low test scores and a proposed budget by Governor Carcieri that keeps state aid to education for the 2003-2004 budget year at current levels.
Despite the lack of resources, the department is also facing a projected enrollment increase that calls for the opening of two new high schools this year fall, another new high school next year and yet another in two years.
School safety has also become an issue, following a January incident in the Mount Pleasant High School cafeteria, in which a student fired a gun at the ceiling. No one was injured and the student faces gun charges in Family Court.
A series of bathroom fires and false fire alarms at the high schools and the fact that 40 percent of local school buildings are in violation of the state fire code have also caused safety concerns.
Since the shooting, Cicilline has visited a different school each week -- seven buildings, so far -- to solicit input from staff and students.
Karen Southern, the mayor's press secretary, said the Youth and Education forum is part of Cicilline's continuing effort to seek ideas from people from all segments of the city's diverse community.
Marisa Quinn, director of community and government affairs at Brown University, said Simmons was invited to co-host the forum to add to the diversity of voices and because of her knowledge and interest in public schools.
Simmons, who came to Brown in 2001, has spoken about the importance of effective teachers, citing her personal experiences as a public school graduate. In her inaugural address Simmons emphasized her belief that a good teacher can make a difference not only in a child's education, but in charting the course of his or her life.
In recent weeks, Cicilline has held community forums on public safety and city finances. Future forums may focus on housing and economic development, city officials said.
School site work found in violation
Posted Monday, March 31, 2003
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- City officials violated a state statute in 1999 when they began excavating a contaminated site on Springfield Street to build the school complex without first notifying nearby residents.
The city also violated state Department of Environmental Management regulations by having contractors remove contaminated soil from the site without prior approval from the state.
Those were among the rulings issued last week by Superior Court Judge Edward Clifton, who is hearing motions in a lawsuit that challenges the city's decision to build the school complex atop a former municipal dump.
Clifton -- who made the rulings based on depositions, undisputed facts and lawyers arguments -- will continuing hearing motions on the case today, before presiding over a bench trial.
The 10-acre tract at the intersection of Hartford Avenue and Springfield Street has been the subject of environmental concern since city officials forged ahead with plans to build an elementary school and two middle schools there in early 1999.
As city officials rushed to build the schools and have them done by September 1999, some area residents questioned whether the site -- part of which was once a city dump -- would be a health hazard to students and school staff.
Some residents criticized city officials for failing to tell them what was going on, even as odors and thick dust from the excavation work blanketed the neighborhood.
In the summer of 1999, Steven Fischbach filed a lawsuit against the city, the DEM, the Providence School Board and Alan Sepe, the city's acting director of public property. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Hartford Park Tenants Association, an abutting property owner, and two parents.
Originally, the plaintiffs sought to prohibit the schools from opening until the case was resolved; they alleged that, in its haste to build the schools, the city had disregarded rules and did not extensively test the site to make sure it was safe.
But, after an emergency hearing in August 1999, Judge Michael A. Silverstein ruled that the schools would be allowed to open because the plaintiffs had failed to offer proof that the site posed an immediate danger to children.
The Anthony Carnevale Elementary School opened in the fall of 1999 and the Governor Christopher Del Sesto Middle School and Springfield Middle School opened in the 2000.
On Wednesday, Judge Clifton ruled that the tenants' association can sue the city because its members qualify as "interested parties" since Hartford Park's proximity to the site made it likely that children from the neighborhood would be assigned to go to school there.
Judge Clifton also granted a motion for summary judgement by Asst. City Solicitor Kevin McHugh, who asked that the plaintiffs claims of discrimination be dropped. The plaintiffs did not prove that the site was chosen because the majority of the district's public school students are minorities, the judge found.
On Thursday, based on stipulated facts and statements by Sepe and neighbors, Judge Clifton found that the earliest neighbors were notified of work at the site was mid-March, even though work began there in mid-February. Additionally, the DEM did not give final approval to the city's clean-up, or remediation plan for the site until early April 1999.
In February, the city conducted an environmental investigation of the site as required by DEM. However, the city failed to immediately make public the results of the study, which found elevated levels of lead, arsenic and other toxins.
Also on Thursday, a lawyer for the DEM -- which is being sued for approving the city's plans to reuse the site -- sought to distance the state from the foibles of city officials.
"DEM had no notice of this going on beforehand," DEM lawyer Scott Wagoner told the judge. "The first we got was from neighbors calling to complain about trees being bulldozed."
Lacking that knowledge, Wagoner said, the DEM had no ability to notify residents before the city's environmental investigation of and work at the site began.
Hope reform awaits approval
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2003
The school district's site-based management committee will vote Thursday on the plan, which would reorganize Hope into three small schools.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The commissioner of education yesterday received a copy of the Hope High reorganization plan endorsed by the faculty last week, but it still needs approval of the district's labor-management committee on school autonomy.
The plan responds to a directive issued last year by the commissioner, Peter McWalters, for Hope to break itself down into three small schools by September 2003.
The district's committee on school autonomy, or "site-based management," met late last week to consider the plan but deferred a vote because the proposal included no budget, according to Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson
Hope principal Nancy Mullen said yesterday that Johnson returned the plan to her last Friday. She calculated the budget and gave the plan back to the district the same day, Mullen said.
The site-based management committee, made up of representatives from the school administration and the Providence Teachers Union, will meet again Thursday, according to Regis Shields, director of district initiatives.
Mullen said the greatest additional cost would be three assistant principals for each of learning communities authorized by the plan -- nine administrators with salaries and benefits totaling slightly more than $300,000.
Hope already is spending about $1.4 million more than the city's two other large comprehensive high schools -- Central and Mount Pleasant -- to give teachers one planning period during the school day with colleagues who share the same students, Mullen said.
At Central and Mount Pleasant, only ninth grade teachers have common planning time.
Mullen said that if Hope's enrollment continues to grow -- it is now more than 1,500 -- the school will need more teachers, but she did not estimate that cost.
Governor Carcieri has included about $600,000 in his budget for reform at Hope High School, but Mullen has said the school district has not decided how to spend that money, which still needs approval from the General Assembly.
Johnson, meanwhile, emphasized that the district's site-based management committee has no problem with the substance of the plan.
It is still rather general in nature, she said.
The plan would waive the seniority guaranteed by the teachers' contract and would create three small learning communities focused on the arts, information technology, and leadership.
Teachers would have the option of staying or leaving Hope at the end of the school year.
If they stay, they would agree to classroom assignments made by the Hope High school improvement team, which would put the needs of students first, according to the plan.
The plan also authorizes the learning communities to work on their own proposals for self-governance that would go into effect in September 2004.
McWalters wanted self-governance for the communities by September 2003, but he has said he believes it will be more productive in the long run to build on the momentum the faculty has started rather than engage in a more intrusive form of intervention.
He will reserve detailed comments about the plan until after he has had a chance to review it, a spokesman said yesterday.
School Board asked to add more bus rides
Posted Monday, March 24, 2003
The students want free bus rides for classmates who live within 1.5 miles of their high school.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A group of high school students has given the School Board a report that supports its calls for the transportation policy to be changed to allow between 1,800 and 2,000 more pupils to ride a free busto school.
The current policy denies transportation to high school students who live within three miles of their school. Students who live beyond the three-mile limit receive free Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority bus passes each month.
A group of students has demonstrated against the policy, calling it too broad and insisting that it leaves too many pupils with no adequate way to get to school.
At a March 10 School Board meeting, the group proposed a change that would reduce the walk zone from 3 miles to 1.5 miles, making as many as 2,000 more high school students eligible for free bus passes.
Group members, organized under the auspices of Direct Action for Rights and Equality's Seeds of Change youth program, maintain that the School Department has a responsibility to get students to school if it hopes to improve the dropout rate of 40 percent to 50 percent.
The transportation issue was brought to the attention of school officials after the students held several demonstrations. Their protests led to meetings in December with Robert DeRobbio, director of transportation, and Schools Supt. Melody Johnson.
After the students found that school officials did not have figures showing how many more high school students would gain from a change in the policy, they did their own research, said Jonathan Mahone, a youth organizer for DARE. The students surveyed 500 of their peers, met with RIPTA officials, interviewed students about their transportation woes and continued to communicate with DeRobbio.
They found that few students could afford to pay $10.60 per week for a 10-pack of tokens that would get them to and from school. Many were eligible for free lunches and facing financial hardship, but could not get free bus passes or afford to buy their own.
After that, the students compiled a report called "No Education with Transportation," which supports their call for the proposed policy change.
The School Department provides bus passes to 2,900 high school students each month Students who are not eligible for passes are expected to walk to school or pay for their own transportation. (Most elementary and middle school pupils receive bus rides from First Student, the private contractor hired by the school system.)
While RIPTA bus passes are normally about $40 per month, the school system buys them at a reduced rate of $28.96.
DeRobbio said last week that school officials estimate that between 1,600 and 1,800 more students would be eligible for the bus passes if the policy change goes into affect -- at an added cost of about $450,000 per year. DeRobbio told the students that he would support their hard work and diligency on the issue by adding the walk-zone change to his transportation budget as a new initiative.
That way, DeRobbio said, the School Board and administrators will be able to consider the policy change, as it begin discussing a school budget that may be facing a $28 million shortfall.
"The (report) is significant because it represents more than one year of continued effort by students that the Providence School Department has largely turned their backs on," Mahone said. "Students (who) are struggling to find a reason to even go to school, students who are considering dropping out. This group of students worked hard for an entire year to put themselves in the position to make change with a policy that they believed hurt students."
Next year's school budget has not yet been approved by the City Council, so the youths plan to continue lobbying school and city officials for the change.
After presenting their case to the School Board meeting earlier this month, Mahone said, the students got a memo of support from School Board member Eugene K. Burns.
High hopes for Hope High
Posted Monday, March 24, 2003
Under a state mandate to improve, the school is ready to shift from planning and 'just do it'
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- More than 20 years ago, Nancy Mullen signed on to the team of teachers that created the Essential School at Hope High, a model program intended to spark the transformation of a once-proud institution already in decline.
It was only last Monday that Mullen -- now principal of Hope -- saw the sparks from the Essential School turn over the engine of change in a place that has only gotten worse in the intervening decades.
Under a state mandate to turn itself around, and with Governor Carcieri taking a personal interest, the faculty voted 4 to 1 to make Hope a self-governing school and work toward three smaller, more personalized independent schools in 2004.
The vote does not guarantee the transformation Mullen and others have sought for 20 years.
It merely gives the engine of change a little more momentum in an environment that everyone agrees has been stuck in a "planning loop" for far too long.
The Essential School might have been a catalyst for change in the 1980s, but Hope lacked the strong and consistent leadership needed to pull it off.
Instead, it became an irritant in a school already divided by the politics of race and class, the legacy of demographic changes in which the well-to-do East Siders and children of European immigrants gradually gave way to a high-poverty mix during the '60s and '70s.
While the arts program sent 22 students to the renowned Edinburgh Festival in Scotland three years ago to perform their own play, and the school's media program has won awards for original cable TV programming, academic performance has been deteriorating.
By 2001 only three percent of sophomores were achieving standards for basic reading comprehension and math skills.
Moreover, the dropout rate had skyrocketed to the point that fewer than one in two freshmen could be expected to graduate in four years. And the number of suspensions over the course of a school year was about half the total enrollment.
It was with those statistics in hand that the Commissioner of Education, Peter McWalters, launched his most direct intervention yet in a failing public school in Rhode Island.
THERE IS a yawning gap between McWalter's mandate and the plan that serves as Hope's response.
McWalters makes no apologies for setting high expectations -- three to four small schools up and running by September 2003 with self-governing operations that imply a radical departure from the traditional top-down model.
He says he asked no more than what the school has been planning to do anyway, for many years. His demand was simply to get on with it.
And yet McWalters takes a pragmatic view of the fact that the school will not deliver what he wants by September.
"I may not like where they are, but I can't say this is the teachers' fault," McWalters said.
"I understand how complex this is," he said.
"Some people think the state should do something to the school," McWalters said.
But McWalters said he doesn't have the resources to run Hope High School, and he doesn't think a takeover is the answer anyway.
As long as the state, the school district and the Providence Teachers Union continue to cooperate, he said, there is more to be gained by building on the momentum already under way at Hope rather than stepping up the level of intervention.
"Teachers have to structure this enough to own it," McWalters said.
AT HOPE TODAY, Mullen is in a better position to capitalize on the momentum of the plan than any of her predecessors.
External pressure from the state has raised the stakes. Governor Carcieri has pledged $600,000 for Hope in his budget, and others are trying to attract funds from private sources, although some teachers say they worry that the plan they voted for will still cost more than the city and state can afford. Another important element in the forward momentum is Mullen herself, who in her own career emerged from the "planning loop" with a "just do it" philosophy that has served her well as she has climbed up the administrative ladder.
As a member of the planning team of teachers that designed the Essential School at Hope, Mullen came under the wing of Theodore Sizer, then the chairman of the education department at Brown University and the founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools.
The Essential School, which opened in 1986, was supposed to reproduce itself throughout Hope by 1992, in time for the next scheduled accreditation visit of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, said Mullen.
By that time, Mullen had left Hope, but Sizer caught up with her from time to time and asked her about the progress of her reform efforts.
The insight she gained at Hope, Mullen said she told Sizer, was that sometimes you have to stop planning and "just do it."
In Sizer's eyes, she became the "just do it queen," Mullen said with a chuckle.
MULLEN TAUGHT at Hope for 18 years before she moved into the administrative ranks, first as director of the Alternate Learning Project, then as principal of the Esek Hopkins Middle School.
She ran Mount Pleasant High School from 1996 until last year, when then-Supt. Diana Lam chose her to replace Harry Potter at Hope, just ahead of McWalters's intervention.
Between the time she came to Hope as a young English teacher in 1970 and her return last summer, the school had more than 20 principals, Mullen said.
By comparison, she was only the eighth principal Mount Pleasant had had since it opened in 1938.
Each change in leadership has brought different values that are conveyed in one way or another, Mullen said.
"It can get very confusing. Hope has a very 'vote-y' faculty. There are a lot of strong personalities that have very good ideas and want to be heard," she said.
But Mullen said innovations she brought to Esek Hopkins and later to Mount Pleasant -- teacher teams sharing the same students at the middle school and academies with themes at the high school -- did not necessarily result from a democratic process.
"I never asked anybody," she said. "I just did it. "
AT HOPE, Mullen said, she has strived to make the work on the reorganization plan a collaborative affair.
But the work didn't get going until after NEASC made an accreditation visit last October -- the follow-up to the 1992 inspection -- and most of the faculty saw the plan for the first time only a few weeks ago.
They responded with a flood of questions, so many that Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson and Phiil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union, appeared jointly before the faculty in an attempt to clarify the issues. No one on either the labor or management side would predict the outcome of the vote.
"Trust is an issue," said Mullen. "The planning loop is an issue."
She likened the faculty to someone who keeps planning to quit smoking but never does.
Instead, Mullen's approach is to say, "Here it is. Now we're voting on it. Now we do it."
BEFORE THE VOTE, teachers were given the option of transferring out of Hope to another school at the end of the academic year, but none of the 100 permanent faculty eligible to cast a ballot took that option.
After more specific plans have fallen into place for September, the choice to opt out will be offered again.
Teachers who choose to stay at Hope will be asked to sign a commitment letter -- approved last Monday as part of the plan -- that calls on them to be advocates for their students, help set behavioral standards, shape the curriculum and become involved in the governance of the school.
"I want to be active in the community where I work," Mullen said. "I'm not looking for someone willing to sit back" and be on the receiving end.
And Mullen says she likes to be known as someone who means what she says and says what she means.
Among other things, she values punctuality and attention to detail, and everyone in the building knows it.
Mullen says she writes up teachers who do not submit grades on time or assign grades that are not in keeping with criteria made clear to students.
"I am communicating values all the time," she said.
McWalters says training is essential to achieve the needed changes at Hope.
WHILE THE PLAN makes training voluntary, contrary to McWalters's mandate, Mullen says she is much more interested in the results in the classroom than the number of workshops a teacher attends.
Like other principals in Providence, she has been trained in systematic methods for looking at student work as a window on teaching strategies.
Both McWalters and Mullen, however, acknowledge that top-down pressure alone will not result in enduring change.
Movement also must come from the bottom up, Mullen said, pressing her hands together from opposite directions.
"Teachers have to structure this enough to own it," McWalters said in a separate interview.
Although the reorganization has the strong support of both the administration and the Providence Teachers Union, McWalters says he knows that individuals feel someone's pushing them.
An accreditation committee of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges detected a similar sentiment last fall.
In a recent report, the team said some teachers fear that the academic reforms of the last four years have jeopardized their freedom to choose materials and instructional techniques in the best interest of their students.
Individual faculty members have been reluctant to speak publicly about the reorganization or the changes at Hope during the last week.
One teacher noted privately, however, that all the academic reforms do not address the "big elephant in the closet" -- student discipline.
The NEASC visiting committee picked up on incidents in which students behaved disrespectfully toward teachers.
And McWalters said student discipline was one of two key concerns he heard from teachers during meetings with Hope officials last May.
How do they teach, teachers asked, when they must compete with students determined to disrupt the class?
IN THE SHORT RUN, "the only way not to be overwhelmed is not to be alone," McWalters said.
The long-range solution to the problem also lies in reaching out to others -- building relationships among teachers and between faculty and parents that include mutually understood standards of behavior for everyone, McWalters said. Students will better conform to consistent expectations from adults who care for them, he said.
As a former middle school teacher who was expected to make house calls to parents in a diverse area of Rochester, McWalters said, he knows this type of work takes time and energy.
McWalters said he is simply pushing for something "we all know [is] good for kids" and has been borne out in research and practice elsewhere.
"Let's get on with it," he said.
Hope High teachers OK reforms
Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2003
The restructuring includes setting up special curricula and assigning teachers based on students' needs rather than on union seniority.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Nearly 8 out of 10 teachers at Hope High School have approved a reorganization plan to transform the large, antiquated building from a place that overwhelms to a series of small schools that can nurture students and prepare them for college.
The plan responds to a demand for improvement issued last June by Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Peter McWalters, who intervened as a result of falling test scores and an escalating dropout rate.
While Hope's plan -- approved yesterday -- would move the school toward the vision McWalters has put forward, it does not give him everything he wants on schedule.
But in a school that has suffered for two decades from inertia, the plan represents a significant step forward.
McWalters directed Hope to divide itself into three or four small, self-governing schools by September.
The plan would only go halfway toward that goal next fall.
Hope in its entirety would be self-governing next September, while the autonomous feature of the small schools would take an extra year to develop, according to the plan.
Autonomy allows individual schools to bypass the union seniority system and assign teachers on the basis of students' needs.
Teacher training, while "strongly encouraged," would be voluntary, even though McWalters has said he expects all teachers to undertake a substantial amount of professional development.
McWalters was in Washington, D.C., yesterday and could not be reached for immediate comment.
But a spokesman said McWalters is "pleased" with the vote and is less concerned with Hope strictly adhering to a timetable than with the fact that the plan represents progress.
"It's fair to say he won't reject it [the plan] outright" because it does not meet the September deadline, said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the commissioner.
"The progress is very important," Krieger said.
"He'll have to see if the progress is fast enough and if the timetable makes sense," Krieger said.
McWalters's directive to Hope last June marked the most aggressive intervention he has taken in any public school in Rhode Island under his authority to step into failing schools.
And Governor Carcieri has called Hope the "litmus test" of the state's ability to reform public education.
Although Hope is not the only large urban school with dismal scores on state assessments, other schools were holding their own or improving slightly. Hope's numbers had fallen to embarrassing depths by the time McWalters intervened last year.
The previous year, only three percent of 10th graders achieved standards in mathematical skills and in basic reading comprehension.
Furthermore, the chances that a student would graduate from Hope had fallen to 44 percent, and the number of suspensions far exceeded the district and state average.
The faculty balloting at Hope occurred during school hours last Friday and yesterday, resulting in 79.5 votes in favor and 20 opposed, according to Marianne West, the building delegate to the Providence Teachers Union. The votes of part-time teachers carried fractional weight.
Both Supt. Melody A. Johnson and Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union, said they were pleased with the vote to move forward.
DeCecco said he encouraged teachers to vote for the plan, because of the imperative of McWalters's directive.
It's "easier to handle the problem yourself than have someone else do it for you," he said.
"We'd rather have the faculty institute their own plan than have the commissioner come in" with a higher level of intervention, DeCecco said.
Shirley Johnson, the head guidance counselor, said the plan was "not perfect, but it's a plan we can continue to work with, as long as the needs of students are put first."
The plan also has structures encouraging parent and community involvement, which are critical in the success of any reform effort, Johnson said.
"The faculty can't do it alone," she said.
Not everyone was happy. Donna DiNucci, an art teacher, said there was "tremendous pressure" to go forward with a plan that raised more questions than it answered.
There was an element of haste to the preparation of the plan, since work on it did not begin in earnest until after an accreditation visit of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in late October.
The final plan was only a few pages longer than an outline sent to McWalters on Jan. 31, and no teacher on the faculty publicly claimed authorship.
Most teachers did not see the plan until less than two weeks ago. There were so many questions about its implications that both DeCecco and Johnson, the superintendent, appeared in person before the faculty in an attempt to reassure them.
Someone might see these sessions as "political pressure," DeCecco said, but no one from the union or the school administration approached teachers on an individual basis.
THE PLAN
fell short of meeting several specific requirements that McWalters enumerated about a month ago, but principal Nancy Mullen said it will push Hope out of a "planning loop" that the school has been stuck in for 20 years.
While professional development would not be mandatory, Mullen said she will ask teachers to sign letters pledging to implement teaching strategies that are at the core of the training sessions.
Prior to the vote, teachers were given the chance to opt out of Hope at the end of the school year, but all chose to stay. They will have another chance to leave as the next planning phase unfolds.
Mullen said her job is to support "pockets" of reform-minded teachers so that their teaching philosophies and practices reach "critical mass."
In addition, she said, she must provide the faculty with the institutional tools they need, such as a schedule that allows longer blocks of instructional time and builds in common professional development for teachers who share the same students.
The plan is expected to win approval of a district-wide union-management committee on school self-governance. The committee authorizes waivers from the contract between the city and the Providence Teachers Union as long as at least three-quarters of a faculty has first approved a reform plan.
Teachers voting on plan for new Hope
Posted Monday, March 17, 2003
The proposal divides the school into "learning communities," but does not include the teacher-training mandate the state wanted.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Today is the second and final day of balloting by Hope High School teachers on a state-mandated reorganization plan that would divide the school's 1,500 students among three learning communities.
In June, state Commissioner of Education Peter McWalters directed Hope to write its own plan for three to four self-governing schools that would be in operation by September of this year, making the high school a more personal experience for its students.
The proposal now under consideration by the teachers does not have key features that McWalters has said a plan must have to gain formal approval. For example, McWalters has said that all faculty members must commit to a "substantial" amount of professional development, but the current proposal would make faculty training voluntary.
A spokesman for McWalters has said that the commissioner will not comment on the plan until he has had a chance to review it.
State law gives McWalters the authority to provide increasing levels of support and intervention to failing schools.
Hope High was the first school where McWalters chose direct intervention, not only because the test scores were low, but because they had been getting worse.
About 102 full-time and part-time teachers are eligible to vote on the Hope plan. Substitute teachers are not eligible to vote, according to Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union.
The proposal would make Hope a self-governing school and authorize its school-improvement team to assign teachers to one of three learning communities for next fall. The plan also would usher in another year of planning, for each learning community would become a self-governing school in the fall of 2004.
A 75-percent vote in favor of the plan is necessary for Hope to become a self-governing school, under the terms of the city's contract with the Providence Teachers Union.
The results of the balloting will be known after school today, according to DeCecco.
Before the vote, the teachers were given a chance to signal that they wanted to leave Hope High at the end of the school year, but none chose that option, DeCecco said.
PROTEUN - February 2003
Posted Friday, March 14, 2003
President's Message...
Despite the possibility that February vacation is a now merely a distant memory, I hope that those teachers who were not working enjoyed their free time. I realize, however, that for the many teachers who were notified just before the break that they would be laid off, their enjoyment was tempered by their understandable concern for the future.
While we know that the vast majority of these 645 teachers will be called back, the economic realities at both the city and state levels suggest that some programs and certification areas may suffer losses. As painful as it is to contemplate this, we all have to face that possibility and to prepare as best we can.
With that in mind, I encourage all teachers, especially in those areas most threatened by cutbacks, to do whatever they can to enhance their employability. One way to do that, of course, is to broaden the range of their certification and endorsement. A perusal of the School Department's breakdown of layoffs, which has been shared with building delegates, may be instructive in that regard.
I also want to call your attention to the situation at Hope High School. The long range impact of what is currently taking place regarding restructuring and state intervention at Hope is something that I encourage all teachers, at all levels, to monitor closely. The implications are imminent and profound for all of us.
PTU FORTY-WEEK CLUB
The following were $25 winners in recent drawings:
January - Lisa Pucino (Sackett), Eydie Coro (Hopkins), Kerri Furtado (West) and Patricia Donahue (Gregorian).
February - Mary Whittaker and Dodie Conley (Perry), Caroline Gelsomino (Williams) and Maureen Fitzpatrick-Joyce (Kennedy).
There are currently 524 members in the Club, and it is not too late for others to join. If others would like to join in this charitable venture, which funds student scholarships and small grants to Providence teachers, please contact your building collector, your delegate or the Union office. IT'S NOT TOO LATE!!
JOB SHARES
Mary Ellen Raposa, currently teaching ESL (7/8) at Nathan Bishop, would like to share either her position or another next school year. She is certified/endorsed ESL K-12 and does not require medical benefits. Mary Ellen may be reached at 253-2923.
LAYOFFS
A reminder that, in accordance with RI General Law 16-13, teachers must be notified prior to March 1 if their teaching contracts will not be renewed for the following year. Each notice must contain the reason(s) for the layoff. Members are strongly encouraged to carefully read their notices and to call the Union office if there are discrepancies.
Building delegates have been issued a breakdown, by category, of layoffs as well as a list of the number of proposed staff reductions, by certification area, resulting from School Department reorganization proposals.
NOTE! While teachers whose layoffs are not rescinded prior to Job Fair are ineligible to participate, layoff rescisions may occur at any time, up to and including the School Board Meeting scheduled for July 14. For this reason, those interested in the Job Fair should still register.
JOB FAIR
The annual Job Fair will be held this year on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 at a location to be announced. The absolute deadline for registering, which must be done in-person at Human Resources, is Thursday, May 15, 2003.
PREFERENCE SHEETS
Under provisions of the current Contract, Preference Sheets for same certification, intra-school positions are to be distributed no later than March 1, 2003 and returned to principals by March 15, 2003.
VACANCIES
Substitute teachers who are working in a clear vacancy or in a long-term assignment (i.e. the remainder of the second semester) for which they hold the proper certificate should contact either Maura Galvao or Don Gormley at the Union office.
JOB SHARING
Teachers interested in job sharing for 2003-2004 are reminded that new job share positions are limited to grades 4-12 and that they may job share for no more than one year unless the same partners, currently sharing the same position since 2001-2002, are approved for next year.
Additionally, applicants for job sharing are only permitted to apply for positions in the certificate/endorsement area in which they are currently working and are guaranteed to work in 2003-2004.
BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD
An updated Provider Directory has been distributed to each building delegate for the purpose of making it available to teachers in the faculty lounge of each building.
Blue Cross representative Janice Sullivan will be at the Union office on April 24,2003 from 2:30 p.m.- 4:30 p.m. Members who wish to meet with Janice should contact Michele at the Union office to schedule an appointment.
UNION WEB PAGE
The payroll schedule for the 2002 - 2003 school year is now available in the "Member Information" section of the Union website at www.proteun.org.
We have also added a new, more efficient, search engine to our home page.
ER&D
Teachers who would like to enroll in the Thinking Math II workshop and who have not yet taken Thinking Math I are asked to contact Fr. Nick at the Union office. This workshop is scheduled for Saturdays on March 8, March 22 and April 5.
PTU RELATED HEALTH SERVICES FUND
All teachers who have not yet taken advantage of the cost-free insurance benefits provided by this Union program are reminded that they may still enroll by calling the Union office to arrange for an appointment to do so. This should be of special note to newly hired probationary teachers and substitutes, who have only to return the form that was included with their initial Union mailing.
SCHOOL VISITATIONS
President Phil DeCecco and Directors of Member Services, Maura Galvao and Don Gormley, continue to visit schools in order to speak with teachers regarding their questions and concerns. Please consult the visitation schedules posted on your school's Union bulletin board for their next visit(s).
Teachers rally against jump in pension costs
Posted Friday, March 14, 2003
The governor wants public employees to pay 2 percent more toward their retirement; for teachers, that would bring their contribution to 11.5 percent.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A noisy, pumped-up crowd of 400 teachers overflowed the State House rotunda yesterday to protest Governor Carcieri's proposal to hike public employees' pension contributions.
Carrying signs that said "Axe the Tax," and "Keep the COLA," teachers listened as one union leader after another derided the governor's education budget, which freezes aid to most local communities at a time when the new federal education law is demanding more of school districts.
"We are already the highest-taxed teachers in the U.S.," said Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Allied Health Professionals. "This would push us off the charts."
Union leaders and legislators were careful not to attack Carcieri personally, saying that they appreciate the difficult economic challenges he faces.
Carcieri, in last week's budget address, said that public employees must shoulder some of their pension costs, which have exploded. In 2002, the state contribution to the public employees' pension was $31.2 million; it will jump to $56.3 million next year without the proposed hike.
The governor wants public employees to pay 2 percent more toward their retirement; for teachers, that would bring their contribution to 11.5 percent, the highest in the nation, according to the teachers' unions.
Carcieri also wants to cap cost-of-living adjustments at 3 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.
Reback, whose union represents 6,000 teachers, said the rate hike could push as many as 2,000 teachers into retirement. Approximately 3,000 are eligible to retire now, she said.
"There is no way we can supply teachers for those 2,000 slots," Reback said. "In September 2003, there will be a crisis in public education in Rhode Island."
However, Carcieri said that without the change in contribution rates, the state's share of retirement costs will increase by $12 million in fiscal 2004.
Teachers and union leaders argued yesterday that the governor was balancing the budget on the backs of state employees. They pointed out that the General Assembly raised public employee contributions by 1 percent in 1995 in what was originally billed as a one-year budget filler, but the increase was never rescinded.
"Don't give an inch," yelled Frank Montanaro, president of the AFL-CIO, Rhode Island. "In 1995, we got slaughtered. We got pushed around. It was a terrible, terrible hit then, and it's a terrible, terrible hit now."
However, Carcieri's office provided information showing that Rhode Island teachers are well paid. Teacher salaries are the seventh-highest in the United States, according to figures compiled by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.
Salaries have increased by 38.5 percent over a 10-year-period, from $34,997 in 1990-91 to $48,474 in 2001-02. Nationally, salaries rose by almost 31 percent, from $33,123 to $43,335. RIPEC drew its data from the National Teachers Association.
Rhode Island is hardly alone in targeting retirement costs as a way to curb state spending. In Massachusetts, Governor Romney is pushing to privatize the entire state pension system while Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland has proposed that state employees pay considerably more toward their retirement.
"Teachers have a lucrative retirement package," said Tim Duffy, executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees.
After 33 years, they can retire at 75 percent of their salaries; after 30 years, they can retire at 66 percent of their salaries.
But state Rep. Paul E. Moura, D-Providence, said this "tax" is hitting teachers at a time when the state and federal governments are demanding that they dramatically raise student performance, change the way they teach and devote more time to professional training.
"This sends the absolutely worst message at a time when we need teachers the most," Moura said. "It's unfair. I will not stand for it. And if this is a negotiation ploy where the governor says, 'Look, I'm dropping the rate to 1 percent,' then it's not going to work."
"You cannot say that you respect teachers and then group them in with the gambling and cigarette industry," said state Rep. Steven F. Smith, D-Providence, who is also vice president of the Providence Teachers Union.
Smith also complained that the governor's budget freezes aid to cities and towns while giving $3 million more to charter schools and $1.7 million more to the state-run Metropolitan Career and Technical Center, which the state Department of Education holds out as a national model for high school reform.
"This reminds me of this week's Springsteen concert," Smith told the crowd. "No retreat, no surrender!"
These Providence officers walk a beat in hallways
Posted Friday, March 14, 2003
School resource officers are assigned to the high schools and middle schools.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Thirteen school resource officers made their debut yesterday with a mission to build trust with the city's youth.
At a news conference in Central High School attended by Mayor David N. Cicilline, the school superintendent and several high school principals, Police Chief Dean Esserman called the new squad a "step in the right direction for community policing."
Nine of the 13 school resource officers began working fulltime yesterday in the high schools, according to Cicilline. The other four will cover the middle schools on a rotating basis.
Central High, as well as the two other large, comprehensive high schools, Hope and Mount Pleasant, each have two resource officers, and the smaller schools each will have one.
A gunshot fired inside Mount Pleasant High School in January -- the first in memory -- prompted Cicilline to float the idea of the school resource officer program for the first time.
But unlike that day at Mount Pleasant, when police focused on catching the shooter, Cicilline made it clear yesterday that the mission of the resource officers will be to become trusted counselors, mediators and teachers as an integral part of the staff.
Esserman invited police officials with school resource experience from Stamford and New Haven to Providence about two weeks ago to conduct an orientation for the new squad.
Esserman, a prosecutor-turned-law enforcement officer, has gained national recognition for community policing in Stamford, where the crime rate dropped dramatically.
He said the fact that students at the Cumberland Middle School tipped off that school's resource officer about two guns hidden above ceiling tiles on Monday demonstrates the long-term benefit of community policing in the schools.
"It's not the first time the [resource officer] has been identified as someone to go to" with a problem, Esserman said.
Esserman said the work of the officers will illustrate the "kind of partnerships and relationships we want to build" in community policing in Providence.
"It's a good day for the Police Department," he said.
Patrolman Terrence Green, like 10 of the 13 school officers, comes to the job from the former "school squad," whose members responded wherever they were needed in the district.
"Even though we haven't been assigned to one school, we've been doing" the same kind of work as a school resource officer, he said. Now that work will go deeper, Green said.
Entering his 10th year as a police officer, Green said he likes the continuity of working in the schools.
Unlike patrol work, Green said, he has a chance to see the effects of his work over time.
To expand on the initial orientation sessions, school resource officers will receive a week-long intensive training during the school vacation in April.
When schools close for the summer, the police officers will work with youth in summer programs, Esserman said.
The school officers have been assigned according to the preferences of the principals. Most of the principals attended yesterday's news conference.
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson thanked Cicilline and Esserman for making the safety of the schools a priority in city government.
She said the school resource officer program would not have been possible without Esserman's cooperation.
Graphic improvements at Hope
Posted Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Brown University donates 30 new computers to the high school's graphic-design lab.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- An old-fashioned ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday at Hope High School -- the emerging test case for urban school reform -- drew the governor, the mayor, and the president of Brown University -- key players in the debate over financing public education.
The occasion was the dedication of 30 new computers that Brown donated for a graphic-design lab where students had struggled with a hodgepodge of old machines that limited their work.
The new desktops, valued at about $20,000, represent one fifth of the 150 computers available in a building that houses 1,500 students. The other machines are all more than three years old, according to principal Nancy Mullen.
The contrast between one bright spot in an old building with otherwise outdated technology served as a backdrop yesterday for the financial uncertainties clouding plans for improving urban schools such as Hope.
Governor Carcieri, who has been criticized for level-funding public education in his budget, said there simply isn't enough money to do more.
But he said he has tried to give municipalities several alternate routes for increasing school funding, including a proposal allowing them to tax nonprofit institutions or arrange cash payments in lieu of such taxes.
Carcieri's bill could have a big impact in Providence, where 40 percent of the property is tax exempt, but Mayor David N. Cicilline said taxing nonprofits is one part of a comprehensive strategy that includes cutting costs and enhancing revenue through fees and other charges.
Cicilline said he plans to conclude negotiations with nonprofits in time for the next fiscal year beginning July 1.
Ruth J. Simmons, Brown president, said it would be "wrongheaded" to tax a nonprofit institution such as Brown, which would be forced to raise tuition, already at $29,200 a year.
"It's always reasonable to say we can do more," Simmons said, referring to the computer lab -- the result of Mullen's request for assistance with technology -- as a case in point.
Simmons said she hopes Brown will be able to discuss a "sensible proposal" with the city and work through the financial issues involved "without a lot of rhetoric."
Carcieri and his wife, Sue, and other officials chatted with the graphic-design students, who were gearing up to create movies on their new screens -- something one girl said she would not have been able to do on the old computers.
Later, the Carcieris went on a quick tour of Hope, where teachers are preparing to vote on a reorganization plan resulting from intervention by the commissioner of education. The commissioner, Peter McWalters, also took the tour.
Mullen cued the Carcieris, both former teachers, on questions to ask students to determine whether they were learning.
When the Carcieris had finished in each room, Mullen asked them about the students' responses.
After a few minutes in Dina Anania's ninth-grade English class, Carcieri said one young man told him he was learning to be a better writer by reviewing an essay written by a fellow classmate.
Mullen was pleased, saying the response showed the student had gotten the point of the lesson.
Her coaching of the Carcieris mimicked the same training she and other Providence school principals have received to conduct daily "learning walks" to obtain daily impressions of the quality of interaction between teachers and students in their buildings.
Mullen, chosen last summer to lead the reorganization of Hope, has organized an intensive program of professional development for teachers this year in accordance with directives of McWalters.
And Mullen follows up on the training sessions by looking for specific kinds of student work that show the new teaching methods are being implemented.
McWalters, who intervened at Hope last June because of plummeting test scores, has called on the school to divide itself into three or four small independent schools by next fall. The goal is to make high school a more personal experience for teenagers.
The plan now before the faculty does not deliver key elements of McWalters's requirements on schedule. And it may change before a faculty vote, tentatively scheduled Friday and Monday.
Carcieri, calling Hope the test of the state's ability to improve public education, has pledged $600,000 in his budget to help Hope divide itself into smaller schools.
Yesterday he said it hasn't yet been determined how the money might be used.
The governor lingered in Hope's TV studio -- the only such facility in a public high school in Rhode Island -- looking at a 20-year-old control panel and talking with media instructor Michael Barr.
Barr couldn't help but point out that the equipment his students use to produce TV programs predates the digital age.
"Who do you talk to?" Carcieri asked Barr. Barr looked tentatively at Mullen.
"You can say me," Mullen told Barr with a laugh.
Barr has time to teach only two classes of 15 students each and must spend the rest of his day working in other buildings, he told the governor.
In contrast, Barr said, Fairfax (Va.) County public schools have 27 professionals working full-time in media education.
Carcieri mused for a while.
"What about Capitol TV?" he said, alluding to the staff that telecasts General Assembly sessions.
"I wonder what they do when they're not in session," the governor said.
South Side high schools won't open until fall
Posted Monday, March 10, 2003
Harsh winter weather created construction delays at the Providence Academy of International Studies and the Health & Science Technology schools.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- City officials have pushed back the opening date for the newest high schools, which are under construction near Thurbers Avenue and Rugby Street on the South Side.
Instead of opening in April, the schools will open on the first day of school this fall, said Alan Sepe, the city's acting director of public property.
Teachers and other staff will be able to move into the building this summer.
Officials were forced to delay the opening of the 126,000-square-foot high school complex after harsh winter weather prevented contractors from working consistently. The construction schedule was slowed by several snowstorms and by bitter cold temperatures that prevailed through much of January and February.
The three-story building will house two 400-pupil schools -- the Providence Academy of International Studies and the Health & Science Technology High School. It will also house a youth development center that will provide programs for teens when school is not in session.
More than 200 pupils who will attend the new complex are currently attending class in a makeshift school in the John Fogarty Building downtown.
Even as work on the new high schools continues, city and school officials are planning for the construction of more high school buildings, which they say are needed to accomodate an enrollment bulge. In the next five years, officials expect high school enrollment to grow by 1,500 students.
With that in mind, school officials expect to build one high school one in the fall of 2004 and one in the fall of 2005.
Mark V. Dunham, the school system's chief financial officer, said he is looking for a temporary space to house 450 high school students this fall.
City officials expect to seek bid proposals today for the temporary high schools.
Dunham said administrators do not plan to use Fogarty, a building the School Department has used for the last three years, because it might be razed or redeveloped later this year.
Leveling off aid to public schools creates problems
Posted Friday, March 7, 2003
The Providence district needs a 10-percent increase in state aid in order to stay afloat, school officials say.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Republican Governor Carcieri's plan to level-fund state aid to city schools simply makes it impossible for the district to keep the doors open, says Rep. Paul E. Moura, senior deputy majority leader of the House.
Carcieri's budget proposal, which adds only $235,000 to the current $171 million in aid to city schools, "will not stand" in the General Assembly, Moura, D-Providence, said yesterday.
"I do not think you can level-fund education, no matter what the economy," Moura said, alluding to depressed state revenues, one of the results of a financial climate clouded by fears of a war with Iraq.
The schools need a $28-million increase -- about a 10-percent hike over a current state and local allocation of about $269 million -- simply to meet legal obligations during the next fiscal year.
John C. Simmons, acting director of administration, said that Carcieri's plan would raise a projected municipal deficit of about $33 million for the next fiscal year to about $48 million.
Moura said he and his colleagues in the General Assembly were hopeful that the city would have a "better starting point on education" with "even a modest increase over last year."
"I don't see that and that concerns me," he said.
Susan F. Lusi, chief of staff to Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson, said the $28 million is needed for basic services for at least 450 new high school students whose arrival could not be anticipated last year, as well as other increases that are contractually binding.
Those items include raises for more than 3,000 school employees, as well as increased payments for private vendors providing bus transportation and building maintenance.
Moura said the governor's proposal would derail desperately needed school reform in the city.
"With the money he is giving us, we can go to Home Depot and buy the locks" for the schools, he said.
Moura said the governor "wants to create jobs, but to create jobs you need to have good schools," Moura said. "Certainly you won't create jobs in the city of Providence" with Carcieri's budget proposal, Moura said.
Lusi noted that businesses take into account the qualifications of the workforce in a city before they decide to relocate.
In that light, "education is an investment in the future," she said.
In a similar analogy, she described education as a "preventive medicine for some of the costs wee see further down the line," such as the budget for the Department of Corrections.
Carcieri has proposed a $17-million hike, a 13-percent increase, to keep up with a burgeoning prison population.
A lack of education -- specifically a low level of literacy and a failure to complete high school -- makes it more likely that someone will be incarcerated, Lusi said.
Carcieri has proposed legislation that would allow Providence and other municipalities to generate more revenue by taxing nonprofit institutions.
But Simmons, for one, said it is not clear that Carcieri's proposal would enable the city to make up its revenue gap in the next budget year.
About 40 percent of the land in the city pays no taxes, Simmons said, but a lot of that is property owned by the federal or state governments, which probably do not expect tax bills.
Moura, meanwhile, said other parts of Carcieri's budget raised questions about equity in distribution of the education dollar.
For example, the governor would give $3 million for expanding existing charter schools, but the achievement of their students is not necessarily any better than that of the district's school children.
While Providence would get about $2 million more from state payments in lieu of taxes, according to Carcieri's budget, the raise should be much higher, Moura said.
The cities and towns would be helped by a proposal to increase teachers' contributions to their retirement from 9 percent to 11 percent, Moura said, but Rhode Island's state retirement system already has one of the highest employee contribution rates in the country. Another raise would put an unfair burden on teachers, he said.
City schools continue to violate fire codes
Posted Friday, March 7, 2003
After a Journal report that 40 percent of the city's schools have fire-code violations, Fire Department inspection reports show that 20 of the 55 schools still have not corrected the problems.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Three months after The Journal reported that 40 percent of the city's public schools had fire-code violations, the violations remain at all but one of the buildings.
Fire doors are still in need of repair. Dozens of exit signs remain broken and paths to exits remain cluttered. Some door-closing mechanisms and emergency power generators still need to be fixed or replaced.
City officials say they are continuing to make the repairs. And they maintain that the schools are not unsafe.
"The schools have sprinkler systems, state-of-the-art fire-alarm systems and they're brick and mortar -- they're not wood structures," said Alan Sepe, the city's acting director of public property. Sepe noted that Fire Chief James Rattigan has said that the overall safety of the schools is good.
Still, Sepe said, "every violation is important and we are addressing them."
Sepe said the city has fixed three of the 10 emergency generators that were reported inoperable by the Fire Department last fall.
Since November, city and school officials have worked with Fire Department inspectors to come up with a schedule for repairs, Sepe said.
Fire inspectors have assessed the status of repair work; some schools have been inspected three or four times in recent months.
Fire Department inspection reports show that 20 of the 55 schools still have violations of the state fire code. Only one school, the Vartan Gregorian School at Fox Point, has been moved off the list of violators since December.
The list of schools with violations still includes 11 elementary schools, all six middle schools and three high schools.
The problem of fire-code violations was so pervasive that one Fire Department school inspector recommended that the city be taken to court for failing to bring two buildings, Oliver Hazard Perry Middle School and Central High School, into compliance with the code.
In a report in October, Lt. Charles Lawrence noted that the violations at Central and Perry have continued for more than two years.
At Central, the violations include a faulty emergency generator, empty fire extinguishers, a blocked exit in the auditorium, chained doors in the cafeteria and broken or missing door-closing fixtures.
Perry has a faulty emergency generator, broken fire doors, broken exit signs, a blocked stairway and missing or empty extinguishers, according to the inspection report.
Sepe said city officials and school maintenance staffs are working to correct the violations.
However, Sepe said he received an extension from the state Safety Code Board of Appeal and Review on repairs at Central and Perry. He said city officials were given until August to complete repairs of those buildings.
City officials sought the extension at Central because the city's largest high school is slated to undergo renovations later this year. Sepe said officials were reluctant to install new equipment that might have to be taken out in several months.
What impact is the cost of the repairs having on the pace of the repair work?
"A lot," Sepe said.
At Perry alone, city officials expect the cost of repairs to total about $150,000, he said. Some of the costs will be covered by a repair bond issue that was tied into a proposal to build two new high schools on the South Side.
Sepe said the city only recently got approval to sell bonds of between $1.5 million and $2 million to make some of the major repairs.
He said school maintenance workers are doing the minor repairs.
State Fire Marshal Irving J. Owens said in December that it was not surprising that a large school system would have many buildings -- especially older ones -- with code violations.
But others, including parents and teachers, say they are amazed that the violations have not yet been corrected after so long.
But such assessments come as little consolation to the teachers who work in the schools, said Fredrick Suzman, chairman of the Faculty Committee at Mount Pleasant High School.
Suzman, who has long been an advocate for safe schools, said he was told by a fellow teacher that the school's fire-alarm system was not functioning in one section of the building.
After Suzman brought up that issue at a meeting of the City Council's Education Commission on Feb. 25, he believes school officials responded to the report.
Last Tuesday, when a fire alarm was triggered by an incident in a girl's bathroom, the teacher said she was able to hear the fire alarm, Suzman said.
Adding schools comes at high cost
Posted Thursday, March 6, 2003
It's possible the Providence district will not be able to afford the $122 million in badly needed renovations and construction of three high schools over the next five years.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- In December, school officials got their first peek at new enrollment projections that called for an influx of 1,500 new high school students over the next five years.
Chief Financial Officer Mark V. Dunham said he thought at the time that the figures "were a little high."
Then in January, enrollment started climbing at the rate of about 50 students a week, most of them in the upper grades.
Those numbers caught Dunham's attention.
Dunham is making short-term plans to accommodate an unexpected influx of about 450 students next fall -- enough for one small high school -- by leasing about 35,000 to 40,000 square feet of space.
And he has pulled together a facilities plan that calls for completion of one high school every year -- three in all -- through the fall of 2005.
The three schools, one of which is well under way in South Providence, will cost a total of about $64 to $72 million to build.
At the same time, the continuing effort to break down the city's exisiting large high schools into smaller, more inviting places for students will carry a heavy price tag in terms of bricks and mortar.
For Central, Mount Pleasant, Hope and Classical High Schools, the overall modernization and remodeling cost is estimated at $58.4 million, Dunham said. Central would get $23.4 million, Mount Pleasant and Hope would each receive $14 million, and Classical, the newest and smallest of the four, would be allocated $7 million, according to Dunham's facilities plan.
The renovations and new construction combined would raise the overall cost of modernizing high school facilities to more than $122 million over five years.
The state would eventually reimburse 70 percent of that cost to the city.
But Dunham acknowledges that there's a "real possibility" the school district will not be able to get all the bond money it needs to renovate the old buildings and add new high school seats in the next five years.
The renovations, which all agree are badly needed, needed to maintain aging buildings and aid program changes, would have to take a back seat to expansion, Dunham said.
Financial uncertainties have already forced the city to back off -- at least temporarily -- from longstanding plans of former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. to build a high school downtown for the performing arts.
And the renovation schedule for Central has been slowed at least once because the School Department couldn't get the bond money, Dunham said. Originally a two-year project that was to have been well under way by now, it has not even started.
And the time line has been stretched from two to four years, with an initial $3 million to be spent in the first year. The actual renovations are expected to begin next summer, Dunham said.
Of all the high school redesign plans in the city, Central's are the most developed.
Central, including the Hanley Career and Technical Center, will become three smaller schools, each with a distinct theme.
One will focus on school-to-career opportunities, another will revolve around law enforcement and paralegal studies, and a third will concentrate on banking and advertising, said Debra DeCarlo, Central's principal.
Of the remaining $35 million for high school redesign, $5 million would be spent in each of the first three years of the five-year capital program and $10 million would be spent in the fourth year and again in the fifth year, Dunham said.
He could not say exactly when each high school would get its share of the money.
For the last five years, Dunham has revised his long-range capital plan on the basis of demographic projections made by the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University.
The initial $75,000 project, financed by a collection of public and private organizations in 1997, collected data about schoolchildren dating back a decade -- to 1987.
The data documented a 19-percent growth in enrollment between 1992 and 1997, from about 21,000 to 25,000, due largely to the arrival of Hispanic families who found Providence a more attractive and affordable place to raise children than New York and other large cities.
With most of the influx initially concentrated in early grades, the city was barely able to add enough elementary school classrooms to keep pace with the demand.
Nine elementary schools with 4,000 seats have been built during the last seven years, and eight schools have received additions that hold a total of more than 1,600 students, according to Dunham.
As the population bulge aged and the children moved into the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, the city built two middle schools and converted two other buildings to middle schools.
Since 1991, the city has sold more than $120 million in bonds to build, renovate or repair city schools, most of it since 1996.
Roger Avery, a faculty member at the Population Studies and Training Center, said projections say the space crunch is about to hit the high school level, even as the overall rate of growth is slowing. The enrollment expanded by 8 percent from 1997 to 2002, reaching 26,953 last Oct. 1.
He projects another 6 percent increase by 2007, adding 1,600 students, all but about 100 of them at the high school level. An additional 3-percent increase is expected by 2011, when the student population would rise to 29,401.
The demographic projections do not take into consideration any new wave of migration such as the one that began in the early 1990s, failing to explain the spike in new enrollments that Dunham noticed in January and February.
As close as he can tell, he said, the new arrivals are coming from New York City, where they have been priced out of the skyrocketing housing market. And the new families are bringing older children, Dunham said.
Resource officers assigned to beats at high schools
Posted Wednesday, March 5, 2003
Gunfire at Mount Pleasant High school prompted Police Chief Dean Esserman to expand the program here.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Orientation is under way for 14 school resource police officers -- the 10 veterans of the "school squad" that has covered the entire school district -- and 4 newcomers.
Lt. Paul Kennedy, director of the Youth Services Bureau, said school resource officers will begin working in the high schools during the next 10 days, perhaps as early as today.
Five of the 14 officers will be assigned to different middle schools during the next couple of weeks, he said, but those matches have not yet been made.
Last week, 12 of the 14 officers heard John Geter, assistant police chief in Stamford, Conn., talk about their roles in the schools as part of the orientation.
"They're pretty much there to build a relationship with students and carry themselves as role models and blend in with the staff," Geter said in a telephone interview.
A resource officer subordinates the traditional law-enforcement role of police work to two other jobs: teaching and counseling, Geter said
Resource officers can expect to be called on to make classroom presentations on a variety of topics, drawing from their personal and professional lives, he said.
Kennedy said one school resource officer is also a music teacher and hopes to be able to share his skills in his school.
Geter, who has extensive experience working in the schools in Stamford, said resource officers will be called on to mediate conflicts.
For example, two school resource officers who have been assigned to Hope High School might be asked to work with one or more of 22 peer mediators sworn in by Mayor David N. Cicilline last week.
Peer mediators, now in seven schools, are specially trained students who attempt to reach peaceful resolution of conflicts between classmates that otherwise might escalate into disruptive behavior.
Meanwhile, Geter believes school resource officers will also be sought after by community organizations.
He envisioned Providence Place mall officials calling on school resource officers for help in solving problems related to teenage behavior. And he said school resource officers might be invited to serve on the boards of community agencies.
"That's why they call them resource officers," said Geter, who started a resource officer program in Stamford in 1996 and now supervises the family and youth services bureau of the police department.
Geter's program in Stamford helped inspire Police Chief Dean Esserman to introduce resource officers here after an incident at Mount Pleasant High School in late January in which a student fired a gun into the ceiling. No one was injured.
Esserman has said he has had positive experiences with resource officers in Stamford, where he was chief, and in New Haven, where he served as deputy chief.
Members of the existing school squad, who rove among the schools, have indicated they will welcome the time to focus on a single building.
Kennedy said two resource officers will be assigned to each of the large high schools: Hope, Central, and Mount Pleasant.
Feinstein High School, the Alternate Learning Project, and the Fogarty building downtown will each be assigned one officer.
Fogarty serves as temporary quarters for students from three different high school programs; one focusing on international studies, another on health, science and technology, and a third encompassing part of the business-oriented Providence Place Academy.
The nine school resource officers have been assigned on the basis of interviews with the high school principals, Kennedy said.
"The relationship with the principal is the key thing in making this work," Geter said. "An officer has to understand that this is the principal's domain."
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