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April 2005
District needs classrooms for 300 students
Posted Thursday, April 28, 2005
Delays in plans to build a school off Adelaide Avenue mean the School Department has to scramble to find room to accommodate ninth graders.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Environmental concern about the site of a proposed school off Adelaide Avenue has delayed construction and left school administrators wondering where they will find seats for about 300 high school students this fall.
The fate of the proposed 450-pupil school and the environmental status of the site will be discussed Monday at a 7 p.m. public hearing at the Stop & Shop community room, 333 Adelaide Ave. The meeting is the first of two public hearings scheduled so city officials can present the results of an environmental investigation of the site and plans to clean up the contaminated soil. The site was once part of the Gorham Manufacturing complex.
City officials had hoped to break ground at the beginning of this month and have the school completed in time for the start of school in August.
But the state Department of Environmental Management has not yet given approval for using the site , which is contaminated by metals, lead and chemicals from manufacturing.
The proposed project has drawn sharp protest from Reservoir Triangle residents, who worked with city planners in connection with the construction of the Stop & Shop store on Reservoir Avenue, adjacent to the school site, and are working with them on the proposed Greater Providence YMCA building near the school site.
At recent meetings before the city Plan Commission, some residents said they were shocked to learn that the city planned to build a school there -- a move that they fear will bring traffic, noise and litter to the neighborhood.
The residents say city officials are trying to rush construction without much public input, and without sufficiently testing the site for environmental contaminants that could be harmful to students and staff.
Last week, the Plan Commission postponed a vote on whether to give the project approval until after the public hearings.
In an interview this week, Joseph T. Martella II, DEM's project manager assigned to the case, said that the city has not completed the site investigation report required by state.
The city filed a report on April 1 that said elevated levels of trichloroethylene were found. The amount of trichloroethylene found in a sample was four times higher than what is considered a potential health risk.
Martella advised city officials that, because of the history of the site, the city would need to do more thorough testing of some 17 other contaminants that were found in the groundwater. While those contaminants were found in relatively low levels, Martella said, the city would need to return to the site and find out if the level of contaminants is high enough to pose a threat and require remediation.
Martella said the DEM cannot review the city's remediation plan or consider approving it until after the site investigation report is completed.
The city has until May 6 to respond to the DEM.
Last week, Alan Sepe, acting director of the city's Department of Public Properties, alerted school officials that the school will not be ready this fall.
At a School Board meeting on Monday, he blamed the delays for the project on bad winter weather, which postponed the studies required by the DEM.
Sepe downplayed the neighbors' concerns about traffic, noise and vandalism, all of which, residents have been told, would be addressed by fencing, landscaping and relocating a school entrance to to a spot along Reservoir Avenue and through the Stop & Shop parking lot.
Sepe called the neighbors' concerns about environmental fitness of the site "unfounded."
"You're always going to get some sort of opposition," he told the School Board. "It's just a handful of people who live on [Adelaide Avenue]."
Sepe said the city hopes to break ground on the project by June 1, which means the school would not be open until January.
That news drew the wrath of Schools Supt. Melody Johnson. Johnson said the School Department has no contingency plan for placing some 300 students in other high schools. The Adelaide Avenue school was to be used as an overflow school to accommodate the city's burgeoning enrollment of ninth-grade students.
Johnson said the Harrison Street school, a former parochial school that the city has been using for two years, is unacceptable as a solution because of fire-code violations and lack of a library or gymnasium.
"This puts us in a bad position," Johnson said. "These students are in an inappropriate place."
Johnson said using Harrison Street again would mean renewing the lease and seeking another waiver from state officials on fire-code compliance.
There are 309 students at Harrison Street, school officials said.
Johnson said the School Department would be forced to consider renovating the Windmill Elementary School annex and the Springfield Middle School to make them suitable for high school classes. School officials had planned to close the Windmill annex and convert a portion of the Springfield school for ninth-grade pupils.
Johnson said they are also considering moving some ninth-graders to Nathan Bishop Middle School.
"We're out of time," Johnson said. "It's not a good situation and it shouldn't be happening. No child should have to graduate from a makeshift facility" such as Harrison Street.
School Board member Bert Crenca asked how the School Department found itself in such a quandary and questioned why school officials weren't doing more to pressure the city to create classroom space or help put such projects on a fast track.
With staff reports from Linda Borg
School budget still $13.7 million short
Posted Wednesday, April 27, 2005
More than $25 million has been cut at the School Department during the past four years.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The Providence School Department is looking at laying off 20 guidance counselors, eliminating sports and drastically reducing busing unless state and local officials restore $13.7 million to next year's budget.
"It's not clear that we can meet our legal and contractual obligations with the funds we have," said School Board President Mary McClure. "It's not just about giving up the things we should have. I don't know what we can do and still be legal."
The School Board on Monday voted to send a $305.4-million budget to Mayor David N. Cicilline, who will submit it to the City Council on Monday as part of his budget proposal for fiscal 2005-2006.
The proposed school budget represents an increase of 5.9 percent, or $17.2 million, over last year's budget. The deficit assumes that the only increase in revenues is the $3.1 million included in Governor Carcieri's local aid package.
What makes this year budget shortfall especially grim is that it follows several years of successive cuts. More than $11.5 million worth of positions has been eliminated during the past two years. More than $25 million has been cut during the past four years, said Mark V. Dunham, the school's chief financial officer.
School officials argue that they have little control over many of the budget busters because they are fixed costs over which they have no control.
According to Dunham, contributions to the state retirement system have increased by $4.65 million, a whopping 40 percent, and health insurance increased by $2.8 million, or 9.6 percent.
At 77 percent, teacher salaries and benefits are the largest share of the school budget -- something critics say the School Board could hold the line on.
But board members and union leaders say that the latest contract includes concessions, including contributions toward the cost of health insurance for new retirees, and mandatory teacher training.
During a recent meeting with parents, Frances Gallo, the transitional superintendent, said that Providence teacher salaries are only 2 percent above the state average and that Providence spends less per pupil on administration than many other districts in the state.
Although no decisions have been made, Dunham has targeted several areas where substantial savings could be found:
Transportation. If the district decreased the number of bus runs, it could save between $1.5 million to $2.1 million, depending on how far students had to walk to the bus stop. But this might draw strong opposition from parents concerned about their childrens' safety.
Athletics. Cutting sports would save $1.2 million. But, McClure said, sports are one of the few activities that keep students in school. Eliminating this connection could decrease attendance and increase dropout rates.
Independent schools. Providence, by state law, spends $6 million to provide busing, textbooks and certain services to nonpublic school students. School officials, however, say it is very unlikely that the General Assembly would take these benefits away from private schools.
If there is a silver lining to this year's dark budget cloud, it is that school districts across the state are feeling the pinch.
"What's different this year," McClure said, "is that other districts are feeling the budget hits. There will be statewide efforts to ask the legislature to do something about this."
McClure would like lawmakers to consider providing pension relief to local districts. She would like the legislature to lift the burden of paying for private school services. And finally, she would like the General Assembly to get serious about creating a state formula to pay for public education.
"My take on the legislature is the problem is so huge they don't know how to tackle it," she said. "The constant mantra is we spend too much on education. But they haven't looked into what it really costs.
"In many cases," she said, "it's because of mandates they have legislated. Everyone -- the legislature, the School Board, the unions, the state Department of Education -- all have a role to play in looking at the cost of education. But that conversation isn't taking place."
Steven F. Smith: Providence teachers boost schools
Posted Tuesday, April 26, 2005
WHILE the concept of education reform is gaining momentum in Rhode Island, a true and meaningful partnership has already begun in Providence. This nascent effort by the Providence Teachers Union, in collaboration with Schools Supt. Melody Johnson, the Providence School Board, the City Council, and Mayor Cicilline, is clearly already productive.
Providence teachers have also begun living the challenges of this new reality.
The early results are printed in our contract, but not on the pages of The Journal -- until now. Among the changes and issues addressed in Providence are:
Health care: This is a particularly contentious issue. Our teachers agreed to modify their existing health-care plan so as to include:
1. A co-share equal to 10 percent of the premium.
2. A co-pay for prescriptions, office visits, etc.
3. Two health-care providers, rather than one.
4. A new health-care plan for new hires.
5. An opportunity for the School Board to seek competitive bids for comparable plans from alternative providers.
All of the above negotiated changes have resulted in a $10 million saving for Providence. In comparison, other groups hoped for 10-percent co-pay, with a saving of $8 million statewide.
School days: Our contract requires 187.5 workdays. This reflects 180 days with students (state law). Then there is 1 day of teacher orientation and 39 hours of required professional time, totaling an additional 6.5 days. Professional time includes parent conferences, peer collaboration and professional development.
School hours: The average workday for elementary-school teachers is 8 hours 10 minutes to 9 hours 10 minutes; secondary-school teachers work 8 hours 40 minutes to 9 hours 40 minutes. A total of 6 hours 10 minutes and 6 hours 40 minutes a day, respectively, is spent at the work site. Teachers planning lessons, reviewing student work, and preparing various reports spend an additional 2 to 3 hours a day, on average. Thus, the schedule exceeds an 8-hour day.
Sick-leave policy: The generous sick-leave provision of 20 days a year (10 a year for 1 to 3 years of service, the balance applied to the 4th year) exists because Providence teachers are not allowed to participate in a Temporary Disability Insurance plan. (Note: Providence School Department records reflect up to 150 unused sick days for most teachers upon retirement, and there is no payout for unused sick days.) The Providence School Department aggressively monitors sick-leave abuse, and even reserves the right to have teachers examined by a board-selected physician. According to the superintendent, teacher absenteeism in Providence is very low.
Management rights: The current contract contains a management-rights clause, written in conjunction with the city's attorney and accepted by the membership.
Teacher volunteerism: The Providence Teachers Union contract does not prohibit teachers from working with students on their own time. In fact, most teachers volunteer regularly.
Statewide teacher-salary schedules: On this broad-based concept, cities, towns, school boards and unions alike seem opposed. Remarks have been made questioning what would be left for cities and towns to negotiate, and noting how limited their success would be.
Merit pay: We are receptive to new approaches. No one has devised an objective method of determining who receives merit pay. To date, subjective decisions have been political. National Board Certification seems to work, but it is clearly not the complete answer.
Statewide evaluation program: This is another broad-based concept that would negate some of the outstanding evaluation programs already in place. Currently, Providence has a comprehensive teacher-evaluation program, used by all teachers, both tenured and non-tenured. This evaluation model was designed mutually by management and the union. In addition, expert assistance was provided through John Nazarian, president of Rhode Island College.
Also, the Rhode Island commissioner of elementary and secondary education would rather set guidelines for teacher evaluations and let local school boards design the particulars.
Balancing the budget: This issue is as complex as it is volatile. School boards in Rhode Island are having difficulty balancing their budgets because educational funding in Rhode Island is being reduced. In fact, the State of Rhode Island has reduced its education funding to earn the state a ranking of 43 out of 50.
Note: Gary Sasse and the Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council reported the facts noted above and made recommendations that would provide property-tax relief. However, Governor Carcieri has not addressed those recommendations, and the Joint Legislative Committee on Education Funding has not met since the report was issued, last year.
Teacher contracts: The Providence Teachers Union is dynamic and evolving, as is the committed partnership that collaborated on our contract. Take a look. Mutual respect in the new approach to negotiations resulted in praise from the mayor, the superintendent, state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, and the School Board, for innovation, responsible citizenry, cutting-edge instructional practices and professional development of teachers, teacher accountability, and more.
The contract's and all other fixed costs amount to about 97 percent of the budget. But all agree, and the superintendent admits, that the amount for education is too small. Historically, the state's share has declined, and the city's share is not increasing, except occasionally. Typically, critics quickly and simply blame teacher contracts; the situation is far more complex.
Understandably, major reforms and even some subtle evolutionary changes demand intense and serious debate. Nevertheless, the clear distinction between the Providence definition of partnership and other definitions is that Providence teachers are included in the discussions and decisions about what needs to change and how it gets done. The Providence partnership includes teachers -- those who have been among the most directly affected, those who most directly affect the lives of our children.
Many issues remain to be addressed. Fortunately, the contract provisions created years ago in reaction to rampant political impropriety are less an issue today. Protocol and due process protect teachers, administrators, and many employees from unfair practices. With integrity in the process come openness, trust, and progress.
Providence has begun a partnership in education. We invite any group committed to this progressive effort to join us. The direction is clear, the initiative is critical, and a positive outcome is certain. Obviously, there is much more to do.
Former Gorham Mfg. site eyed for new high school
Posted Friday, April 15, 2005
But the $15-million project has raised concerns in the neighborhood.
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- City and school officials plan to build a 450-pupil school off Adelaide Avenue at the site of former Gorham Manufacturing complex.
But plans for the $15-million project have raised concerns among residents in the Adelaide Avenue neighborhood. Some have kept up with development of the site and only recently found out about the proposed school.
"The neighborhood is not very happy about it," said Cheryl Curt, who has lived on Adelaide Avenue for 22 years. "They're not going to be able to control the traffic and congestion that is generated by a high school."
Development of the Gorham site and the proposed school is the subject of a public hearing Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Public Safety Complex.
Curt said she recently sent a letter to Mayor David N. Cicilline predicting that the project would hurt the quality of life in the quiet neighborhood and decrease property values.
Neighbors fear that the high school will increase noise and become a potential loitering spot for students who do not live in the area and have missed their bus rides home.
Curt said the idea of a school at the site is a new concept in a development plan that has been in the works for more than five years.
When city officials began talking about development of the manufacturing site in the 1990s, they involved Adelaide Avenue residents in the discussions.
Most neighbors gave their blessing for the Super Stop & Shop store, which opened two years ago, and agreed to plans for a YMCA and a firefighters' museum at the site, she said.
But plans for the school came as news to neighbors, city councilors and state legislators who represent the Reservoir Triangle area.
"This school was originally supposed to go on another site," said Rep. Thomas Slater, whose district includes the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood. "We're not even sure its environmentally feasible" to build a school at the site.
The state found the 17-acre site appropriate for the shopping
center and YMCA, but the standards for a school building would be different, Slater said.
Slater said residents were most upset that city officials originally intended to have the entrance to the school off Adelaide Avenue, despite an agreement that the residential street would not be used as primary entrance.
An existing agreement between residents and the Redevelopment Agency says access to the Gorham site must be from Reservoir Avenue. There is emergency-only access from Adelaide Avenue.
Prompted by protests from residents and politicians, the plan has been revised so the entrance to the YMCA and the school will be off the Super Stop & Shop parking lot.
The Redevelopment Agency owns the site, which is divided into four parcels -- one for the supermarket and a gas station, another for the school, the third for the YMCA and the fourth as a 100- to 150-foot-wide greenway around Mashapaug Pond.
Alan Sepe, the city's acting director of the Department of Public Property, made a presentation to the City Plan Commission in February that indicated that the city planned to begin construction of the school by March 15 and have the two-story building open by Sept. 1.
Construction has yet to begin.
Sepe told the plan commission that the new school would allow for the closing of the Alternate Learning Project building, a 100-pupil school several blocks away, off Elmwood Avenue.
However, Maria Tocco, a spokeswoman for the School Department, said this week that school officials do not plan to close ALP and that "ALP isn't moving anywhere."
Tocco said the new school will accommodate students who were not able to get into their first choice of high schools.
At the urging of plan commission members, Sepe said the city would put up a fence with heavy landscaping along a section of Adelaide Avenue to buffer noise from the school's main entrance and an access road.
The two-story masonry building is expected to include 32 classrooms, a gymnasium, lockerroom, cafeteria and a kitchen, all of which would be available for neighborhood use, the city said.
The public hearing is required for major development projects in the city.
With staff report from Gregory Smith
Gallo dispels school myths
Posted Thursday, April 14, 2005
Frances Gallo, transitional superintendent, challenges what she says are incorrect assumptions about Providence schools.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- When your friends from Cranston ask why so much money is being spent on the Providence public schools, tell them that four children out of five live in poverty.
Tell them that one out of three students is learning to speak English. And tell them that one child out of six receives special education services.
That was the message that Frances Gallo, transitional superintendent, delivered during last night's meeting with two dozen parents at the Parent Resource Center.
School officials organized the forum to discuss the proposed 2005-06 budget and, as Gallo put it, to dispel myths about the city's schools. But the real reason for the meeting was to urge parents to mobilize other parents, relatives and friends around the need for more aid to public schools in general and Providence in particular.
Of even greater importance, Gallo said, is the need for the General Assembly to come up with a fair and predictable system of paying for public education. The current method, she said, relies on the whims of the legislature. Typically, the governor cuts or maintains school aid at the previous level, and lawmakers restore some of the money at the 11th hour.
Providence faces a $13.7-million budget shortfall this year , and the School Department is already talking about laying off guidance counselors, cutting bus routes and possibly eliminating sports programs.
One of the biggest hurdles is the "us-versus them" mentality that pits urban schools against suburban schools, traditional public schools against charter schools and rich districts against poor ones.
"People don't care about Providence," one mother said. "That's why they live there and not here."
But another parent, Jonathan Levitz, said, "Providence isn't surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Our problem is the state's problem. Why is Rhode Island a great place to live? Because of Providence. We have to remind people of that."
Two women said they are frustrated because every spring, the schools sound the alarm about another budget crisis, yet no permanent solution is ever found.
"Here we go again," said Leslie Gell, who has two sons at Classical High School. "I feel like this conversation comes up every year."
She said school officials need to take a hard look at fixed costs such as salaries, which make up 97 percent of the school budget.
"If we can't have a dialogue about that," she said, "we might as well go home."
Her friend, Janine Schwartz, who has a daughter at Classical, said that having 33 school districts is "absurd. We need to consolidate."
Schwartz was worried that Classical might eliminate the crisis counselor, a position, she said, that is desperately needed in these stressful times.
Meanwhile, Gallo tried to dispel what she said were some commonly held misconceptions:
Providence teachers are overpaid.
Gallo said that teacher salaries are only 2 percent above the state average, adding that Providence spends less per pupil on administration than most other districts in the state.
Providence school spending is out of control.
Gallo said two independent studies by national experts have concluded that the School Department uses its money wisely.
Providence schools are bad.
Gallo said test scores are improving. In 2004, she said, 11 elementary schools met all of the targets set by the state under the federal No Child Left Behind Act; in 2002, only one elementary school met all 21 targets.
Student achievement, however, begins to fall in middle school, where only three schools met the majority of their targets.
And next year, when the state raises the bar on student performance across the board, Providence might actually lose ground, sending more schools into the needs improvement category.
"I moved here from Massachusetts and I've never in my life seen a school situation this desperate," said parent Rod Wahlers. "Our kids deserve the same education that we got in the 1970s. If I have to fight for it, I'll be a one-man army."
Maryelyn Acevedo said the school district needs to mobilize teachers, many of whom live in the suburbs: "They should be calling their senators and saying, 'Hey. I'm losing my job.' "
Parents at the Robert F. Kennedy School have organized an e-mail campaign to persuade parents and staff to speak out on behalf of the budget shortfall. A Kennedy parent said other schools should begin a similar effort.
Gallo asked parents to attend a May 11 rally at the State House at 5:30 p.m. Participants will ask the legislature to tackle the problem of school financing by studying how much it costs to provide a basic education to every child in Rhode Island.
Students demand tougher courses
Posted Wednesday, April 13, 2005
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Last week, Rich Norris, a senior at Feinstein High School, had to choose between staying after school to finish a paper or blowing off the assignment and getting to work on time.
"I almost got fired," he told a group of Providence principals recently. "But I decided to stay in school and get the education I needed."
For the past five years, Norris has helped care for his three younger siblings. His father works nights. He has no mother.
Norris doesn't begrudge his family for needing him as much as they do. But he does know one thing: "I don't want this for my kids."
"We all have our own problems," said Ivan Brooks, a junior at the Health & Science Technology High School. "School is the only place I can turn to."
Last Thursday afternoon, a small group of high school students, members of a citywide circle of 60 student government leaders, told a dozen principals that high school was too easy.
They said, Give us more challenging courses. Make "getting by" not good enough. Prepare us for college so we don't drop out when we finally get there.
The teens also presented the results of a schoolwide student survey that found that students want more access to school libraries and computers. They want schools to open earlier and close later. Most of all, they want more demanding classes, especially Advanced Placement courses.
With the exception of Classical High School, which offers 18 AP courses, the survey found that students have little opportunity to take advanced coursework. Mount Pleasant offers three honors courses and the Hope Arts Academy offers two AP classes. But seven high schools offer none, the study said.
In their report, the students said that the dropout rate is connected to how teens feel about their school. At Central High School, for example, nearly half of entering freshman don't graduate. Hope High School has a dropout rate of 52 percent.
At Classical, the city's elite examination school, only 1 percent of the students drops out. Why? According to the report, Classical offers "challenging classes and surrounds students with an open, supportive culture."
Classical senior Alexander Schwartz said he sees a correlation between the availability of AP courses and dropout rates.
"Students don't feel challenged," he told the principals, who were gathered for a daylong training program. "Kids tell me, 'My classes are watered down.' Students want to take AP courses. It's a lack of opportunity, not a lack of will."
According to the report, only 12 percent of Rhode Island students took at least one AP course during the 2003-04 year, the lowest rate in New England. At the same time, Rhode Island has the largest gap between the proportion of Latino students taking AP exams and the percentage of Latinos in the schools.
"This is unfortunate," the students wrote, "because a rigorous academic curriculum is the strongest predictor of success in college."
If the data was disturbing, the stories that the teenagers told were even more chilling.
They talked about students who are so disengaged from their schools that they figure out exactly how much work they need to do to earn a passing grade and settle for that. They described schools where students can't get into the library or the computer lab to do their homework. They talked about younger siblings who have never studied for a test because the work is so easy.
And they described teachers who, though well-meaning, don't expect that their students can do college-level work.
"I thought I was at the top of my class until I visited a different school [district]," said Elizabeth Enelcruz, a senior from Central . "They were learning things as a freshman that I was learning my senior year."
In a poem she read to the adults, Enelcruz said that her schools haven't pushed her hard enough:
"Every year, you're making it easier for me
Go ahead, they say,
You can pass
But I'm not ready."
It's no wonder so many students drop out of college because, she said, when they get there, they are ill-prepared to do the work.
"Students are ashamed," Enelcruz said.
Two students said that most adults have no appreciation for the responsibilities and pressures facing urban teenagers. That's why it's so important for students to have access to libraries and computers during the school day, because once they leave, they are pulled in so many different directions.
"Access during the school day is very important to us," said Brooks from HSTS. "I had a big paper due the other day and I asked my teacher if I could use the computer and she said, 'You should do that after school.' But I have to help my family. I don't have a computer at home."
In their report, the students said that in many schools, students are denied access to their lockers. At Mount Pleasant, Central and Hope, they said students are punished if they go to their lockers during the day. The punishment is usually detention.
"If unauthorized trips to the locker put a student on track to be suspended, the climate of the school will tend to be one based on command and control," the students wrote. "Students in the suburbs rarely run into these problems, so why should students in the Providence schools suffer such indignities?"
Anthony Pope, executive director for high schools, said Friday that most high schools allow students access to their lockers during the day -- at the start of school or during lunch -- but it might not be as often as students like.
After the presentation, several principals praised the students for their hard work, eloquence and passion.
"I'm overjoyed to hear you," said Nkoli Onye, a principal at one of Hope's three learning academies . "We absolutely agree with you."
"When you speak, people listen," said Luke Driver, dean of discipline at Perry Middle School. "You need to rally the younger kids. How can you galvanize the middle school kids to make them more passionate?"
Central High School Principal Elaine Almagno said the report wasn't accurate because several high schools, although they don't offer AP classes, have agreements with colleges that allow high school students to earn college credit. She also said that Central will offer an AP calculus class this fall, partly because students are entering high school with stronger math skills.
Wobberson Torchon, the principal of E3 Academy, said the district needs to do a better job of preparing middle schools students to tackle demanding work in high school,; otherwise, they won't be capable of taking on AP-level work in high school.
Elvis Pena, a junior from E3 Academy, said high schools don't do a good job of publicizing their honors and AP courses.
"If funding is available, then why shouldn't schools inform students about the programs instead of acting like the CIA and making college preparatory classes a classified government secret . . . right up there with the invasion of aliens?" the report says. "Students should be informed formally instead of by word of mouth."
When a principal complained he couldn't offer AP classes because of budget constraints, Pena had this to say:
"We are aware that you have limitations and we're willing to take this fight as far as we have to. We're willing to talk to parents, students, public officials. We have our hearts set on this."
Michael Sorum, the district's chief academic officer, said later that 30 teachers will receive training from The College Board this summer to prepare them to teach AP classes.
"We're doing it because it's the right thing to do," Sorum said.
This winter, 60 teenagers spent three days at the Alton Jones Campus of the University of Rhode Island in West Greenwich,talking about what it would take to make high schools work. The teenagers are part of a district-wide student government that was formed last year with money from the Carnegie Foundation. The goal is to teach young people become advocates for their needs and, ultimately, to become leaders in the community.
At the end of Thursday's forum, Central's Enelcruz said she is afraid of what will happen when all of the adults "have died out."
"It scares me," she said. "I see the attitudes out there. I can't picture one of these kids as the next mayor or the next senator.
"We do feel that school is our second home," she said. "That's a big deal. A second home is a loving environment, a place where we feel safe. Keep these second homes open for us."
Master brings hope to city school
Posted Monday, April 11, 2005
Abysmal test scores and student retention rates at Hope High School are some of the challenges facing newly appointed special master Nicholas C. Donohue.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The first thing that Hope High School needs to do is heal.
"This school has been under the spotlight," said Nicholas C. Donohue, the school's special master. "People are raw from all of the attention. The healing needs to go on."
In an experiment new to Rhode Island, Donohue will try to steer the troubled high school through uncharted territory.
Under direct orders from state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, Hope has to complete its transformation from a large, factory-model high school into three independent learning communities, each organized around a particular theme.
More importantly, the city's third largest high school has to figure out a way of keeping students from dropping out. In recent years, the dropout rate has climbed as high as 52 percent. Among the school staff's many challenges: making students feel that adults care about their education and their well-being.
McWalters zeroed in on Hope three years ago because the school's state test scores were abysmal and its student retention rate wasn't improving. In February, he decided to have a direct hand in its operation because the changes he wanted weren't happening fast enough.
After considering a state takeover, McWalters issued his order for change --with a timeline -- and appointed the special master to make sure those orders were carried out.
Donohue has an easier time explaining what he isn't than what he is. He is not a super-principal. He is not the commissioner's spy.
"I'm the human element between the legal document [McWalters' order] and a dynamic school community," he said . "If I'm doing my job, going to Peter will be a last resort."
Donohue sees himself as turning the 40-page ruling and order into a living document. The school, for example, has to create advisories next year. Each teacher will meet with 15 students once a week for 40 minutes each.
But the faculty will have to do a lot more than meet the letter of McWalters' law. It has to fulfill the spirit, too. That means teachers have to get to know their students as people. It means they have to build relationships not only with other teachers, but with the students' parents.
Donohue will not only monitor that effort but make sure that it's real.
"The point is to create a sense of belonging," he said. "I'll be helping people think about what it means to do advisories right."
Other key points of the order include courses and student schedules based on student need, involvement of families, students and community partners involved in decision-making and increased teacher training and staff planning time.
Donohue, 46, comes to the job from an unusual vantage point: he was commissioner of education in New Hampshire for the past four years and before that, he was the assistant commissioner for three years.
He has never been a principal or a superintendent, and he hasn't taught in the classroom since the beginning of his career.
What he has done is work as an educational consultant in both Boston and New Hampshire, helping schools decide how to take more control over such things as hiring and firing. He is also familiar with educational research, including how test scores relate to student performance.
As a new governor was about to take office in January, Donohue decided it was time to rethink his future.
"I woke up one day and decided I needed to do something different," he said. "I wanted to get back closer to the action, closer to young people."
So when McWalters called him about the special master's job, he jumped at the opportunity. His new position taps his strengths as a leader, a communicator and a researcher, he said.
"There are three things that are important to me," he said, "Having an impact on young people, maintaining my integrity and being challenged."
Hope High School is an example of what urban districts are facing across the country, he said.
Donohue, who is commuting between Providence and Concord, N.H., said he is still feeling his way around the school, adding that he spends his time "listening, learning and watching."
He is being paid by the state $900 daily as a consultant and is expected to work an average of three days each week. The plan is for him to stay from 18 months to two years.
On any given day, he might meet with outgoing Supt. Melody Johnson, observe a couple of classes at Hope, then meet with the principals of the learning communities. On another day, he might get together with one of the school's community partners, such as the Rhode Island School of Design, which will develop arts programs for one of the learning communities.
He said he sees his job as that of cheerleader and provocateur: applauding teachers when they get it right and pushing them to think about Hope in new ways.
Donahue is supposed to report to McWalters on the school's progress every two months. Although the commissioner has invested him with considerable authority, Donohue said that the hard work of school reform must be done by the principals and staff.
"I don't have all of this figured out," he said.
He even admits to having mixed feelings about the title. He said he understands the discomfort that the name "master" conjures up for African-Americans.
A self-described optimist, Donohue is more comfortable talking about Hope's strengths than its weaknesses. He said Hope has gotten a bad rap. There are teachers who want to make a difference, just as there are students who want to learn.
"When I talk to students here, they don't talk about trivial issues," he said. "They talk about the importance of building better relationships between teachers and students."
At first blush, it seems that the school, with some 1,175 students, has a rather unwieldy bureaucracy. In addition to the three principals, the building will have a chief operating officer, who will take care of nuts-and-bolts matters such as the library.
"There are a lot of players," Donohue said. "I'll have to play air traffic controller to keep people focused."
Under McWalters' orders, Hope High School has a lot to accomplish in a short time. By the end of the school year, the student advisory period has to be in place and some 20 teachers must be hired to replace educators who opted out of Hope rather than abide by McWalter's rules.
But before Hope begins to tackle systemic changes, Donohue said it has to take care of several pressing issues:
"You start by being concrete," he said. "Do I still have a job? If I do, what's my schedule? We are building this airplane while it's flying."
Donohue says his own childhood was particularly instructive. He was born into a life of privilege in New York City's Upper East Side, where he attended public schools. But by the time he started sixth grade, his family's fortunes had turned and he found himself fending off phone calls from his parents' creditors. He wound up attending an elite private school on a scholarship.
"I know what it's like to have and not to have," he said. "But I don't presume to know what it's like to grow up" poor and black in one of the America's inner-city neighborhoods.
Donohue understands that McWalters is asking a lot from Hope. He realizes that change won't come easily and that the school may have to take one step back for every two steps forward.
"I'm not gong to institute a culture of change," he said. "I'm more interested in them doing well over the longterm."
Reservists say thanks to young pen pals
Posted Wednesday, April 6, 2005
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Third- and fourth-grade students at West Broadway Elementary School received a lesson of a different sort yesterday as they sat on the floor of the library.
They learned about flak jackets and canteens, administering CPR and donning a gas mask, and vingettes of what it was like living for months in a war zone.
Their "teachers" were 11 Marine reservists, most of whom served two seven-month tours of duty in Iraq in a unit that delivers supplies to soldiers on the frontline.
The reservists, all Rhode Island and Massachusetts residents, who returned from Iraq on March 2, were pen pals to the West Broadway students since before Thanksgiving.
Yesterday was the first time that they met to share hugs, high-fives and thank you's.
"It means so much to us to receive [your] letters of encouragement," Lance Cpl. Garry Crum told the students. "We received so much support from everyone."
The project started because the school's reading coordinator, Milou Rodrigues, had two friends who were deployed to Iraq. Rodrigues worked, a for a time, with Crum and Sgt. Francisco "Tito" Guerra at Jovan's Multiplex nightclub. Crum and Guerra are both bouncers at the club when they are not on duty with the reserves.
She contacted their unit, matched the students with marines and coordinated a project that involved the sending of holiday packages and letters.
The goal was to encourage the students to read, write and improve their literacy skills in the process, Rodrigues said.
This week is Reading Week at elementary schools throughout the region.
Yesterday's lessons went beyond literacy.
The students learned about the poncho , which looks like a blanket but can be used to shade a marine from the sweltering sun and temperatures that hovered around 120 degrees. It can be used as a pillow or a stretcher, if someone got hurt, or as a room divider.
The soldiers told the students that their experience was not all about bombings and bullets and death and destruction.
For them, it was also about trying to make a better future for third- and fourth-grade students in Iraq, who live in poverty, are unable to go to school and don't even have shoes.
The pupils smiled when the soldiers told them that "chocolate" was one word that is universally understood, and desired, by children they met.
In answer to a question about whether civilian women in Iraq were mean to American troops, the soliders noted that distinguishing friend from foe is a difficult task.
What helped them make it through difficult months away from their families was the letters from home and from students, and the comraderie they developed as a unit, the reservists said.
"We love each other. We're like brothers and most of us enjoy doing this," Crum said.
Even thought their unit was not on the frontline, Guerra told the students, the soldiers were constantly "a main target" of insurgents because they were delivering food, water, equipment to the frontline, much like an artery sends blood to the heart.
"It feels good to be a Marine," Guerra told the students. "It feels good to do this for our country."
3 schools to launch K-12 experiment
Posted Friday, April 1, 2005
"The philosophy is to create a community where children enter in pre-K and leave [14] years later," says Principal Fran Rotella.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Three west side schools are about to embark on a first-of-its kind experiment -- to create an urban campus where children enter as 4-year-olds and graduate 14 years later.
The schools, which share a campus on Springfield Street in the Hartford neighborhood, are the Anthony Carnevale Elementary School and the Springfield and DelSesto middle schools, which share a building. Each middle school has 450 students in grades 6 through 8.
This fall, the sixth grade will move to Carnevale, grades 7 and 8 will move to Springfield Middle School and DelSesto will host its first class of ninth-graders. Grades 10 through 12 will be added in successive years.
With the exception of Block Island, where enrollment is too small for anything else, the Times2 Academy, a charter school on Fillmore Street, is the only public school with a K-12 campus.
The impetus for the shift was demographic: the bulge in middle and high school enrollment. But Carnevale Principal Fran Rotella saw this as an opportunity to try something new.
"The philosophy is to create a community where children enter in pre-K and leave [14] years later," said Rotella. "The hope is that we can create the same kind of warm relationships in middle and high school that we have here."
Nationally, the move to create smaller, more personal learning environments has taken off in recent years, but it has focused mostly on breaking sprawling, factory-like high schools into more manageable pieces.
A more popular model than K-12 is the K-8 school, something that is gaining popularity in Chicago, Cleveland and New York. Although the research is scant, a couple of studies have suggested that K-8 schools improve academic performance, reduce discipline problems and enhance parent involvement.
But the trend has its share of skeptics, including Kathy Christie, vice president of the Education Commission of the States Clearinghouse, a national research organization based in Denver.
"The evidence isn't strong to warrant moving to a K-8 model," she said. "The major reason districts are doing this is because they're frustrated with middle school performance."
Middle school performance has been a particularly stubborn problem in Providence, where all of the nine middle schools are classified by the state as low-performing, non-improving schools.
Schools have been struggling to figure out how to help students bridge the gap between cozy elementary schools, where children spend the entire day with one teacher, and large, often impersonal middle schools, where students switch classes every 50 minutes. The K-12 model may be one way to smooth that often rocky transition.
Why ask children to change schools at a time when they are going through the considerable physical and emotional upheaval associated with puberty?
Rotella said she has seen how intimidating it is for sixth-graders to share the hallways with their much bigger schoolmates. It's not uncommon, she said, for one of her former students to rush back into the building because an older student is bothering him.
"In sixth grade, they're still little kids," she said. "We'd like to keep these kids under our wing a little longer. They need it."
Although the principals and staff haven't figured out all of the details, Rotella envisions a seamless system in which teachers from each grade level routinely collaborate on everything from curriculum to assessments. She can imagine offering workshops in, for example, adolescent psychology, for teachers in middle and high school.
And during a period of diminished resources, Rotella hopes that this model will enable all three "schools" to share guidance counselors and art and music teachers.
A K-12 campus, she said, will give older students a chance to mentor their younger schoolmates. High school students might be asked to read to younger students after school. Building relationships between younger and older students might be a way to reduce the teasing that takes place between sixth-graders and eighth-graders.
The new configuration will also prompt principals and staff to rethink how schools are run.
"Do we need one principal or three?" Rotella said. "Can we start tecahing across grades?"
Currently, Carnevale is organized around longer blocks of time: 90 minutes of literacy followed by 60 minutes of math. It might make sense to structure middle schools around longer periods of instruction instead of 50-minute periods.
Another plus is that the high school will grow slowly. Next year, the new ninth-grade class will have no more than 135 students.
"They'll be getting some major TLC," Rotella said.
The new complex is still a work in progress and all of these ideas are up for grabs.
"Right now," Rotella said, "we're all about getting bodies into seats."
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