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May 2003
Students, staff brainstorm for better Hope High School
Posted Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Architectural students at a weekend charette solicit opinions from Hope High faculty and students on how to transform the school's interior into a more cohesive place.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- At Hope High School, the truancy court is right next to one of Troyneissha Daniels' classes.
"You can hear everything," she says. Families' private business soon becomes fodder for a gossip mill that runs rampant through the school.
The "college room," in a rear corner on the first floor, is not open all the time, nor is it promoted enough, says senior Jerome Thompson.
He has visited it twice in four years, relying on other sources for information on higher education.
College counseling services should be connected to the guidance office, midway down the main hall, Thompson said.
And guidance should be connected with the nurse's office, in the opinion of school nurse Donna Manion, who presides over an office in yet another corner of Hope.
Thompson and Manion were among some 40 students and a dozen faculty members who spent one weekend at school earlier this year, bainstorming ideas with architectural students from the Rhode Island School of Design for renovating interior space into a multifaceted student-assistance center.
The renovated space would incorporate guidance, college counseling and more, becoming a place where students feel connected rather than disconnected, according to Thompson and several other students.
The weekend session was the first step in a process intended to shape ongoing efforts to coordinate existing student services at Hope, which Governor Carcieri has identified as Rhode Island's test case for school reform.
Research done by the University of California at Los Angeles shows that urban school reform tends to focus on the way a school is managed and the ways students are taught, but is "missing a third piece," according to Jonny Skye Njie.
She directs a mental-health initiative at Hope on behalf of the nonprofit Health and Education Leadership (HELP) in Providence, a partnership of all the colleges and hospitals in the city.
Skye Njie said effective school reform must address "barriers to learning" that occur when children grow up without a frame of reference to anything but poverty and its attendant social ills, including domestic violence and substance abuse.
"Poverty complicates learning. The urban condition complicates learning," Skye Nnjie said.
"To improve academic achievement, we have to support [students'] needs: academic, social and emotional," she said.
At Hope, Skye Njie and others working through HELP aim to show how support systems can be pulled together to allow "comprehensive problem solving, student by student."
And "if we talk about comprehensive and coordinated solutions then we need to be able to sit and operate near one another in order to be able to deliver that," she said.
It's "really effective to be able to show people what you mean," she said.
And she says the design process for a multipurpose student support center is a starting point for doing just that.
It's a "concrete way for student voices to be heard," Skye Njie said, and it can serve as a model for the way Hope and other large high schools can change their relationship with students.
So far, the voices of high school students have been scarcely heard on the topic of high school redesign, which is under way not only at Hope but at all public high schools in the city.
Jerome Thompson, Daniels and several others who participated in the weekend charette earlier this year described student life at Hope as an experience best survived by finding one's own support system.
Daniels is on the girls' track team and does "little things out of the house" to balance the stressors in her life.
Thompson and Patrick Acheampong, who grew up together in the Chad Brown housing development, rely on each other. "I'm really good in English, and he's good in math," Thompson said of Acheampong. "He knows how I feel.
"If there's a gunshot, we both hear it. We strive off each other," Thompson said.
Jean Monodestil said he "joined this group" when he met Thompson and Acheampong through the football team.
The team won just one game last fall, the three players said, but what counted was that they had a good time trying.
Chris Davis, a junior, said that when he needs support he turns to Skye Njie, who has an office in one of the far corners of the school. He said he went to the weekend charette because "most of the time you don't have an opportunity to voice your opinions."
And he said he wanted to dispel the notion that students at Hope are only interested in pulling fire alarms or setting fires, Davis said, recalling the notoriety the school received in January.
The architects were impressed.
"It turned into an incredible opportunity for the student architects to share how to think architecturally with the high school students," said Peter Taguiri, head of the architecture department at the Rhode Island School of Design. A dozen architectural students accompanied him to the session.
And the students were doubly impressed with the architectural process.
"Working with the architectural students opened me up to a whole new world I never saw before," Thompson said.
"I didn't think it was going to be that much fun," Mondestil said.
All the talk about life at Hope led to "a lot of drawing," Thompson said.
The students all received stipends of $100 each for their participation, the same as the architectural students and the Hope High staff who attended.
Skye Njie said that some people might argue the students turned out because of the money, but "what I wanted to say to the students was, 'You can be valued for your minds and your contribution to the community, instead of flipping burgers.' "
Words, photos and drawings that emerged from the meeting include several ideas for the student support center, from a hub with an inviting waiting room equipped with computer terminals to a "street" with services in various "storefronts" that lead to private spaces.
Some drawings placed the hub at the entrance of the school, also including gallery space for student art and offices for student government.
The "focus room," now a dreary windowless space in the basement, would lose the feel of in-school suspension and become a part of the support center where students can get tutoring or other help.
And in drawings of the truancy court, the judge's raised bench has been replaced by a round table, devoid of hiearchy.
Key sketches, floor plans and comments, as well as photos of the participants, have been pulled together in a 30-page booklet that summarizes the brainstorming session.
HELP officials will use the booklet to solicit funds from both public and private sources to allow the school to select one of the concepts and at least begin renovations.
"The most important thing," said Skye Njie, is to "translate" the vision of the students into "something they can see for September."
Mall Academy students will stay together
Posted Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Despite the closing of the Providence Place Academy, students say it's the nurturing environment that was most important to them. School officials say the students will be kept together at the new high school set to open in August.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Approximately 90 students of the Providence Place Academy, who say they consider themselves members of a big family, will stay together for the remainder of their high school careers.
Students, dismayed by plans to close the school, have told administrators that its biggest draw has not been the marketing and retailing program linked to Providence Place mall, but the nurturing and supportive relationships between themselves and their teachers.
Regis Shields, director of district initiatives, said the district intends to keep the students together at the new high school complex off Thurbers and Prairie Avenues that will open next August.
The building is for the Health, Science, and Technology Academy and the Providence Academy of International Studies. Those two schools and the mall school have shared temporary quarters in the last two years at the city-owned Fogarty building at 111 Fountain St.
Marketing and retailing classes now held at Providence Place mall will continue for existing students, but new enrollment to the marketing and retail program will be closed next fall, according to Shields.
Meanwhile, the district will hold firm to its plan to redesign the business-oriented program and transfer it to Central High School for future students.
Unlike those currently enrolled, future students will not choose the business program at the outset of their high school careers but will first focus on academics, Shields said.
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson has said that both the business and academic courses in the school-to-career program need to be strengthened.
The split locations for the school, with underclassmen in the Fogarty Building and upperclassmen in ground-floor quarters at Providence Place, does not give students the structure they need, Johnson has said.
A visiting school improvement team from the state Department of Education recently issued a report that concurs with Johnson's assessment.
Noting that Mall Academy students perform very poorly on statewide tests, the team said that "scores do not define a student's potential, but the ability to read, write and problem-solve must be your major focus now, so that your students can succeed in their future endeavors."
It said the school should align teaching practices with the district-wide philosophy of education that emphasizes effort and higher-order skills of critical thinking.
The visiting team said that the Mall Academy's "world of work" curriculum is limited.
It "shows little evidence that students are exposed to a skills sequence that would ensure development of appropriate job-search techniques or expertise in marketing and retailing," according to the report.
It said "only a small number of students participate in the work-experience component."
And "the success of the school-operated kiosk is restricted due to its limited hours of operation and a limited inventory," the resport said.
While the school has accepted students with special needs, the district has not hired the special-education teacher necessary to give them the support they need to fully participate in the program, according to the state-sponsored visiting team.
The team also said the school needs to reach out to parents, most of whom have said they didn't know what their youngsters were learning.
But the school-improvement team praised the nurturing environment of the school, saying that adult support "has changed students' attitudes and outlooks for the future."
And it said the Mall Academy was successful in integrating computer technology with the curriculum, turning out students who are "comfortable with this important work skill."
Some, not all, embrace change
Posted Monday, May 19, 2003
BY MARION DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
Kimberly Luca has taught history and psychology at Hope High School since 1995. She keeps a rock with "Hope" carved into it on her doorstep. She has always loved the school.
But late last summer, when she went to see principal Nancy A. Mullen, she was ready to quit. She was sick of the headlines, the negativity, the way teachers were blamed for everything.
"I've been through the wringer," she told Mullen. "Tell me something that's going to make me want to come back."
Mullen gave her the only honest answer she had.
"I won't fix it in one day," she told Luca. "But I will do my best. Give me that chance."
HOPE HIGH School has had it tough for decades, but 2001-02 was a real low point. Attendance was disastrous -- more than a third of the students missed more than 40 days. The dropout rate spiked.
And test scores were abysmal and dropping; only 6 percent of Hope's 10th graders, for example, met the state math-skills standard in April 2002.
Some students feared for their future.
"I was scared that if I worked hard and got good grades, I would get to my senior year and it would be worth nothing, because the school was so bad," says Misty Delgado, now the junior class president. She thought seriously about transferring.
Yet Hope should have been an exciting place.
After years of planning, the school had been divided into four "learning communities" that fall, and adopted a new schedule and new programs.
But 2001-02 was when teachers went on "work to rule" to protest the lack of a labor contract. Money was short. And by late spring, Harry Potter, the principal since 1998, was on his way out, to run a dropout-prevention program for Providence.
In June, Education Commissioner Peter McWalters stepped in. He stopped short of taking over the school, but it was still a hard blow for Hope.
McWalters ordered a leadership change, strongly urged teachers to get extra training, and gave Hope until Jan. 31 to redesign itself.
This is what Mullen, who had led Mount Pleasant High School for seven years, walked into. Known for her drive and vision, she also had ties to Hope, where she had taught for 18 years.
With two new assistant principals, Paul Nichols and Carrie E. Glenn, she would have to tame an unruly student body and motivate a team of disheartened and, in some cases, surly teachers.
"They were all pretty down," Mullen says.
NORMALLY, schools that reshape themselves as drastically as McWalters wants take years to plan and implement changes.
Revamping a working school is "very, very difficult," Schools Supt. Melody Johnson says. "You have to change the tires while the car is moving."
Yet Hope's biggest problem, as McWalters saw it -- and Mullen and Johnson agreed -- was that it had long been stuck in a "planning loop."
The urgency of Hope's situation became even clearer during an October visit by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, the regional accreditation agency.
The NEASC review found myriad problems: unchallenging and disparate teaching practices; "unsanitary" locker rooms; inadequate materials and technology; an overworked school nurse; disengaged, often truant students.
To start turning the tide, Mullen brought in three new teacher coaches to train the faculty in new methods. And she hired a young teacher, Brian Baldizar, to guide a new redesign effort.
Most teachers chose not to get involved.
Some distrusted Mullen, and felt the terms of Hope's new overhaul were being being dictated by her, Johnson and McWalters. Some just didn't have the energy to dive in. Many who had worked hard on Potter's redesign effort were upset to be starting from scratch again.
Kimberly Luca shared some of her colleagues' frustration, but she jumped right into the new effort. She had found hope in her school again.
"I don't think I've ever been as confident with the leadership of this place," she says. "And God knows we've had many leaders."
THE PLAN that emerged was to divide Hope into three "small learning communities": Arts, Leadership and Information Technology. Each would be led by a director, and there would no longer be a Hope principal, only someone to oversee building operations.
There would be a new schedule, with 95-minute periods and a 50-minute "learning center" to advise students and help them with specific problems -- mastering algebra, or polishing their writing. Teachers would work in teams, and each student would get a faculty adviser.
The faculty voted on the plan twice: just before the Jan. 31 deadline, for a preliminary OK, then again to approve departures from the teachers' contract that would give Hope extra autonomy.
In that final vote, 78 percent of Hope's teachers endorsed the plan
PROTEUN - May 2003
Posted Friday, May 16, 2003
Message from the President
Current events present the Union and its membership with such a wide range of important issues that discussing them in detail would go well beyond the constraints of the PROTEUN. Layoffs and rescisions, budget cuts, the governor’s proposals to increase employees’ pension contributions and to decrease the COLA, the retirement incentive for eligible school department employees and the department’s new initiative regarding employee attendance are all issues of great significance and interest. However, it is not possible to elaborate on them in a comprehensive and factual manner at the time of this writing because each of them is in a developmental stage and even known details are subject to change.
The Union will continue to work with the Providence School Department and the city administration in a concerted effort to minimize the impact of these threats both to the membership and to the educational process in city schools. Given that future developments will likely depend as much on political considerations as on educational needs, your calls to state legislators emphasizing the necessity for increased state funding to meet the especially critical needs of Providence students may well determine the eventual future for both Providence students and for you who provide for their education.
I will strive to keep you informed of developments concerning these issues in the most timely manner possible.
Thinking About Retirement?
Members who are contemplating retirement are invited to attend a series of retirement workshops. The workshops will be held from 3:30 p.m.- 5:00 p.m. at the Governor Christopher DelSesto Middle School, 152 Springfield Street, Providence, on the following dates:
Tuesday, May 27, 2003 Employees Retirement System of RI
Wednesday, May 28, 2003 Social Security Administration
Thursday, May 29, 2003 Retiree Medical Benefits
Providence Teachers Union/
Providence School Department
Members who are interested in attending the Medical Benefits workshops (Thursday,May 29, 2003) should register by either:
1) calling the union office (421-4014).
2) registering on-line (www.proteun.org) within the Professional Development Section.
Deadline for registration is Friday, May 23, 2003.
2nd Annual PTU Family Day Picnic
PTU members and their families are invited to attend the 2nd Annual PTU Family Day Picnic on Sunday, June 22, 2003, at Goddard State Park (Sites 84, 85 & 86) from 12 noon to 3:00 p.m. The Union will supply the hamburgers, hot dogs and buns. Teachers are invited to provide side dishes, beverages and snacks as well as games and activities for adults and children. CONTACT YOUR BUILDING DELEGATE BY JUNE 13, 2003.
Layoffs
Any member who remains on layoff as of the last day of school, should contact his/her local Social Security Office and file for unemployment compensation.
In the event you are denied benefits, please refer to the instructions previously mailed to you.
PTURC Golf Tournament
The second annual PTURC golf tournament will be held on Friday, August 1, 2003 at Country View Golf Club in Harrisville. Price per golfer is $85.
Format is a scramble. Prizes will be awarded in three divisions; Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed. You may enter as a foursome, or you may enter as an individual and be placed in a foursome.
A boxed lunch will be provided after nine holes. Dinner will be served at 5:30. For directions to the golf course, please call 568-7157. Please report to the course no later than 9:30 a.m.
Respond early! The tournament is limited to the first 36 golfers who reply. If you have questions, please contact Ray Penza, 751-2111.
To register, complete the registration sheet below and return with check (payable to PTURC).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Name(s) in group: _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Your Name: _________________________ Phone: __________________
Address:_______________________________________________________
Amount enclosed: $_________for_____ players(s)
Send To: Ray Penza
65 Lyndhurst Avenue
Providence, RI 02908
PTU Forty-Week Club
The $25 winners in the monthly drawings for March, April and May are:
Anthony Fascia and Priscilla Mello (Central)
Coleen Hanley (Laurel)
Lisa Gershkoff and Helen Gannon (Williams)
Linda Valente (West)
Sharon Brown (Fortes)
Bill Duggan (Windmill)
Claire Cataldo (Laurel Annex)
Patricia Bergantini (Stuart)
Victor Guzman (Feinstein H.S.)
Brenda McBride (Bailey).
The winners of the “special” drawings announced at the Venus DeMillo are:
Nicole Broadmeadow (Bridgham Middle-$50)
Lynn Cross (Laurel Hill Elementary-$50)
Friedrika Robinson (Perry Middle-$100)
Sandra Rebello (Williams Middle-$250)
Elsa Mailloux of Perry Middle is the winner of the
$999.00 grand prize.
The winners of the “Pot of Gold” drawing that was held at the banquet are:
Moises Crisostomo of Central High ($200)
Erin Cannon-Walsh of Carnevale ($100)
Donna Perrotta of Perry ($50)
Congratulations to all of these 40-Week Club winners and sincere thanks to all of the 535 members who participated and made this a real comeback year for the Union’s student scholarship and small grants-to-teachers program.
The graduating seniors who were awarded $500 college scholarships are:
Miriam Garcia (Providence Place)
Lewis Neurell (Hope)
Cindy Leiton (Mt. Pleasant)
Raymond Palazzo (Classical)
Elisa Rivera (Central).
School Visitations
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).
Blue Cross
Teachers are reminded that a Blue Cross representative will be at the Union office from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on June 12, 2003. Those wishing to meet with the representative should call the Union office (421-4014) to make an appointment.
PTU Scholarships
Congratulations to Linda Lefebvre (Fogarty) and Crystal Swepson (Carl Lauro) on winning the $500 PTU college scholarships for their respective children:
Michael Lefebvre
Rachel Swepson
Mediation Skills Training
Become trained as a mediator! The Community Mediation Center of Rhode Island will be sponsoring two 40-Hour Mediation Skills Training Programs this summer. This training is practical and experiential, utilizing demonstrations, interactive exercises, supervised role-plays, lectures, readings and group discussions to illustrate the mediation process. Educators have found that mediation skills enhance their everyday work. The first program will take place the week of June 23-27; the second will take place the week of July 21-25. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) will be applied for.
For more information, call CMCRI at 273-9999 or e-mail djoseph@cmcri.org.
AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign
This year in South Africa, more than 1,000 teachers will die of AIDS. In Zimbabwe, more than 30 percent of the country’s teachers carry the HIV virus. Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren have lost a parent to the epidemic. Throughout Africa, the statistics tell a similar story -- teachers’ lives lost and whole education systems endangered.
The American Federation of Teachers has launched a multi-year, multi-country campaign in partnership with African teacher unions to provide resources to fight the spread of this deadly disease. Contributions to the campaign will go directly for union initiatives in Africa to provide resources for HIV/AIDS education, teaching materials and supplies. The AFT, U.S. government agencies and private foundations are providing funding for other program expenses.
In support of the AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign, there will be a PTU sponsored Dress Down Day on:
Friday, May 16, 2003
For more information as to how you can join the AFT in the fight against AIDS in Africa, please see your building delegate.
We need your help to make this campaign a success!
Schools may alter busing policy
Posted Thursday, May 15, 2003
The high rate of transience among Providence families leads school officials to consider a policy that could change school assignments for certain students.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- When the Charles N. Fortes and Alfred A. Lima elementary schools opened in August 1997, they were supposed to help cut the cost of busing.
After all, they were located in a converted mill complex in West Elmwood, between the West End and the South Side, in the midst of neighborhoods with a high density of families with young children.
School officials anticipated there would be many more walkers than riders.
But it hasn't worked out that way. A total of 81 students are bused to the Fortes and Lima schools, which have a combined population of about 1,200 children, according to James Carrington, assistant supervisor of transportation.
But about 205 children are bused out of the surrounding neighborhoods to other parts of the city, he told the School Board.
The problem is the high degree of transience among families of Providence schoolchildren, Carrington says.
On Monday, among other business, the School Board heard a proposal from Carrington and Robert A. DeRobbio, executive director of support services and business operations, to save an estimated $300,000 in transportation costs by ensuring that children attend school as close to home as possible.
The board is expected to take up the proposal at least one more time before voting.
Currently, the school district's transportation office may receive between 20 to 60 changes of address a day, according to Carrington.
Children are simply picked up from their new neighborhoods and bused to their old schools, he has told the School Board.
This practice has added 10 buses a year, or 100 busses in the decade he has worked for the School Department, Carrington said. Providence now puts 174 buses on the road every day for elementary and middle school students.
Busing elementary and middle school students is expected to cost more than $7.7 million during the next fiscal year, according to Carrington and DeRobbio.
Comparable figures for this year were not immediately available.
The proposed change in the school-choice policy would mean that, for families who have chosen their neighborhood schools, a move from one part of the city to another would trigger a change in the school assignment of their children whenever seats open up in the school closet to the new home.
Those parents who have made out-of-neighborhood choices would be allowed to keep their children in those schools, no matter where in the city the families have moved, according to the proposal.
In addition, choice would be preserved for those eligible under provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act to transfer their children out of low-performing schools into better-performing ones, the proposal said.
The proposed resolution also calls for a study during the next academic term to determine whether there should be a moratorium in the following year, 2004-2005, from a portion of the policy that allows parents to choose a limited number of seats in schools outside their neighborhoods.
The moratorium would allow the School Department to assign all children to their neighborhood schools.
In other business Monday, the School Board appointed Nkolika Onye to lead one of the three small learning communities at Hope High School, which is reorganizing under a mandate from the state Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Onye, recently graduated from the school district's "aspiring principals" program, which supplements traditional graduate-level course work necessary for administrative certification with on-the-job training.
A teacher since 1987, Onye taught in Los Angeles, Anchorage, and Columbus, Ga., before coming to Providence in 1998. For the last two years she has worked with other teachers on improving classroom practices as an instructional coach at Classical High School. Onye will make $89,766 a year.
Anthony DeAngelis was named principal of the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, succeeding Mary Brennan, who led a long-term reform effort that boosted the school from the low-performing to moderate-performing category last fall.
DeAngelis, assistant principal at Gregorian for the last three years, has been acting principal since January. DeAngelis' salary will be $82,360.
He had been working in Providence as a special-education teacher since 1991.
The School Board also appointed assistant principals at three elementary schools.
David J. Alba, a special-education teacher since 1996, will go to the Alfred Lima Elementary School. Deborah A. Bessette, a literacy coach at the Anthony A. Carnevale Elementary School, will become assistant principal at the Edmund W. Flynn Elementary School. And Deborah L. Giammarco, a special-education teacher since 1980, will go to the Windmill Street Elementary School.
Like Onye, Bessette and Giammarco are graduates of the aspiring principals' program. The elementary school assistant principals each will make $74,420.
The School Board recently appointed Janet Pichardo as a facilitator for Family and Community Partnerships at a salary of $62,400.
Pichardo will work with Kai Cameron, another facilitator, to encourage parent and community involvement in the schools. Pichardo and Cameron report to Kim S. Rose, hired earlier this year as director of governmental relations and public engagement.
Pichardo -- the wife of state Sen. Juan Pichardo, D-Providence -- has worked on urban initiatives for the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation since 1999.
She also has worked for the city's economic development corporation as a community liaison officer. She is a former mortgage loan officer for BankBoston and a former home purchase loan specialist for the Providence Plan Housing Corporation.
Pichardo has been active in a variety of community organizations, from Parents United for Alfred Lima Elementary School, to Quisqueya In Action, the Providence Public Library, and the Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy.
Schools announce list of incentives in retirement plan
Posted Monday, May 12, 2003
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Public school teachers and administrators who might be on the fence about retiring at the end of the academic year could have their heads turned by a $10,000 cash bonus and a break on retirees' health-insurance costs for their spouses.
Details of the retirement incentive, projected to save $1.3 million in salaries next year, were distributed to teachers and administrators on Friday.
Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union, said that he has invited the district's chief financial officer, Mark V. Dunham, to a meeting tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. at the Samuel Bridgham Middle School to field teachers' questions about the plan.
The retirement incentive can accommodate 125 teachers and 20 administrators, according to a memo distributed by Dunham on Friday. If the offer is oversubscribed, participants will be selected according to seniority.
Besides the $10,000 bonus, the school district will allow those who retire in June to delay paying premiums on health insurance for their spouses until their spouses need the coverage.
Currently, the deferral is available only when both members of the couple are Providence teachers, DeCecco said.
Otherwise, teachers and administrators must decide when they retire whether they will buy their partners' health insurance, whether or not the coverage is needed immediately, he said.
Dunham said the out-of-pocket cost to retirees for health insurance and prescription coverage for spouses is about $310 a month.
He said the school district hopes to offer the deferral partners' health insurance premiums to all retiring teachers and administrators in their next contracts.
To apply for the incentive, teachers and administrators must have worked in Providence a minimum of 10 years and otherwise qualify for retirement.
They may be any age as long as they've worked 28 years in the state retirement system. They also qualify if they are at least 60 years old and have worked a minimum of 10 years in the state system.
A teacher in the latter category will receive 17 percent of the average of his or her three highest years' earnings, according to DeCecco. With the maximum teacher's salary at $59,252, that pension would amount to roughly $10,000 a year.
Someone with 28 years' service would receive an annual pension amounting to 60 percent of the average taken from the three highest years' of earnings. That pension figure might be about $35,000.
Confusion lingers over school job cuts
Posted Thursday, May 8, 2003
Because of seniority and other contractual provisions, just which employees stand to lose their jobs is not readily known.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Last week, the city's teachers received a run-down from their union on the 128 administrative, teaching, and clerical positions slated for elimination at the end of the school year to save more than $6 million in the next budget.
Next week, the list might look a little different.
Only one thing is certain; that 128 positions will be cut.
The exact list is a "work-in-progress," according to Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union.
"We were told that . . . the positions could change," DeCecco said.
Uncertainty and confusion over the path that will be cut by the job cuts, and the resulting layoffs, has affected morale among teachers, DeCecco said.
Seniority provisions in labor contracts between the School Department and its unions allow experienced workers to "bump" junior employees.
That means that the person holding a position which has been eliminated may keep a job in the same category at the expense of a junior worker, who would be laid off.
To further complicate matters, the district will offer a retirement incentive to eligible teachers and administrators, those who have at least 28 years of service in the state pension system.
At least 150 people are eligible for retirement, according to Mark V. Dunham, chief financial officer of the school district.
Eligible candidates will have to make a retirement decision by "early June," Dunham said.
DeCecco, meanwhile, said that retirement decisions could enable younger employees to escape layoffs, but he could not say how the "domino" effect would play out.
He also said that the latest job consolidation list contains generic descriptions for administrative positions that are not easily correlated with actual administrators.
The school administration has refused to identify those who might face layoffs until the list has been approved by its legal counsel.
The district's labor lawyer, Jeffrey W. Kasle, said yesterday that everyone who stands to be "bumped" must be notified. In addition, he said, he must determine that all the job consolidations and eventual layoffs meet contractual obligations. Kasle could not say when the layoff list might be made public.
The job-elimination list distributed to teachers last week included the position of a middle school principal, likely to come from the Springfield Street complex, where two schools are housed under one roof.
The position of the principal of the Providence Place Mall Academy also will be eliminated as that high school's marketing and retailing program is folded into the school-to-career arm of Central High School,
Recently, Donald Pastine, principal of the mall academy, said he intends to retire, either in June or in December.
Another high school principal's position will be eliminated, according to the latest list, but the position was not further identified.
In all, the latest list of job cuts calls for 4 central office administrators and 16 clerks, 7 school-based administrators, 11 music teachers, 10 social workers and 12 school counselors. In addition, the list contains 33 secondary teachers and 23 elementary teachers, most of them outside core academic areas.
School, city leaders prepare to rally for aid
Posted Tuesday, May 6, 2003
A rally is set for today in the State House rotunda, with Mayor David N. Cicilline and Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson leading a call for the legislature to boost state aid to education.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- How bad is next year's fiscal outlook for the city schools?
If Mayor David N. Cicilline and the city's delegation to the General Assembly can't raise any more money, the district won't be able to pay teachers and other employees for the full school year.
About 35 people listened yesterday as top school officials described the impact of an $18-million revenue gap in a proposed school budget of $289 million.
The briefing was intended as a dress rehearsal for a rally today at 5:30 p.m. in the State House rotunda, with Cicilline and Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson leading a call for the legislature to boost state aid to education.
Governor Carcieri has proposed level-funding state aid, currently at about $174.9 million, or about two-thirds of the existing budget of $269 million.
But Carcieri's plan doesn't take into account an increase of 500 high school students in an enrollment of about 27,000, nor pay raises and spiraling hikes in employee benefits that make up about twothirds the $18-million revenue gap.
Mary Sylvia Harrison, executive director of the Rhode Island Children's Crusade, called the governor's "level"-funding a "smoke-and-mirrors characterization of a real cut."
" 'Level' would account for the extra teachers" for new students and would cover contractual obligations, she said.
" ' No harm done' means level," she said. "One thing we need to rally around is to hold people accountable to use words that are really true."
Yesterday, the schools' chief financial officer, Mark V. Dunham, said that of the entire $289 million, less than $10 million is discretionary. If all that money were cut, there would still be a revenue gap of more than $8 million, he said.
Cicilline has asked all the city unions -- including its 2,200 teachers -- to to help balance the budget. Non-union employees will have wage freezes imposed on them and be required to pay part of their insurance premium for the first time next year.
But the teachers' union says its response to any requests from Cicilline will depend on whether the General Assembly goes along with Governor Carcieri's proposal to raise teachers' contributions to the state retirement system and cap cost-of living increases in retirees' pensions.
Johnson told yeterday's gathering, which included parents, representatives of community organizations, and teachers, that "we have thought of creative solutions" to the budget problems but most of them would require reopening contracts.
For example, she said, the schools could run on a four-day week, with longer school days. That kind of move would save transportation costs but create child-care problems for parents, Johnson said.
Eliminating professional development days also is an option, as well as asking employees to make a co-pay on health insurance, Johnson said.
Of the overall $19.6-million increase in the proposed budget, $12.5 million comes from 5-percent raises in salaries and an 18-percent leap in the cost of health insurance and other benefits, according to a fact sheet Dunham distributed.
Asata Tigrai, executive director of Project Basic, an advocacy organization, emphasized that Providence is different from other Rhode Island communities, all of which are also pressing for more state aid to education.
The city has the largest concentration of children living in poverty, as well as the greatest number of immigrant students learning English as a Second Language.
Susan F. Lusi, chief of staff for the school district, said at least 80 percent of the enrollment comes from low-income families. And half of all students in Rhode Island taking English as a Second Language live in Providence, she said.
Johnson, the superintendent, said, "When you cut education funding, it's different than cutting any other area."
"In an urban system, the needs of our students are overwhelming," Johnson said.
The $289-million budget the School Board sent to the mayor's office last month had first been slashed by $10.3 million -- including $6.4 million realized with 128 layoffs.
From all directions, groups set to push for more state aid
Posted Monday, May 5, 2003
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Even before Mayor David N. Cicilline presented his budget to the city council, announcing cutbacks and layoffs in a Thursday night budget address, the troops had begun to mobilize.
So, when Cicilline used his address to issue a call to action, urging residents to join him in a campaign to levy more money in state aid and voluntary payments from city-based, tax-exempt colleges and universities, the troops where ready to heed that call.
Several local groups have joined forces to lead a campaign called "Save Our Schools," lobbying for an increase in state aid to education.
City staffers have circulated flyers encouraging residents to write letters to state legislators, contact colleges and universities, call talk shows, and write newspaper letters to the editor in support of more funding for the city.
And union leaders have vowed to be well-represented at a city-led rally at the State House tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.
The multi-pronged campaign has caught such fire that it has taken its own name: "Providence We Can!"
School officials will hold an informational meeting at 3 p.m. today to outline school budget cuts and the resulting deficiencies in programs. The meeting will be held in the basement cafeteria of the Central Administration building, 797 Westminster St. The meeting will detail cuts in the education program, repeating the same information that was given at school-board budget hearings last month.
Cicilline maintains that drastic measures must be taken to deal with a projected $59-million shortfall in the city budget. With that, he brought forward a budget that slashed $6.5 million from the School Department and $8 million from other city departments.
Officials have said the cutbacks -- which include laying off 25 city managers and the elimination of 128 teaching, support and administrative positions -- will have a devastating effect on how the city and schools operate.
"The state of Rhode Island needs to maintain the quality of life in Providence, and certainly that includes education," said Donald Ianazzi, president of Local 1033, which represents non-managerial municipal employees and some non-teaching school employees. Thursday "was a sad day for the city of Providence . . . Twenty-five career professionals have lost their jobs, no, their vocations. When they left, they took years of institutional knowledge with them."
Ianazzi said the union "absolutely" supports the "Providence We Can!" campaign to coax more money from the state.
He said the additional state funding is necessary to "allow the capital city to survive and to be able to provide essential services to its unique population."
Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union, agrees.
The union faces the elimination of 94 teaching positions, 65 of them involving electives such as instrumental music, vocal music, foreign language and some art programs. Other cuts will be made to the ranks of school counselors and social workers.
The budget cuts also allows no extra money for books, supplies and materials, according to a Save Our Schools coalition flyer.
DeCecco said the union feels no teaching position is more expendable than another. But, given the city's diverse, multilingual student population and the fact that a large percentage of youths come from low-income families, Providence Public School pupils could be severely impacted by cuts in support staff and elective teaching programs.
"The goal, basically, is to get money restored back into the budget for education -- particularly at the state level," said Teri Adelman, executive director of Volunteers In Providence Schools (VIPS).
Adelman noted that many students learn with the help of hands-on activities, such as music and arts, and that it would be devistating if such programs were no longer offered.
VIPS is leading the Save Our Schools campaign, along with the Rhode Island Children's Crusade and the Urban League of Rhode Island.
"The goal is to seriously look at the economic defiencies of the Providence school system and see what we can do to raise the consciousness of the community as well as the funders, to see what we can do for our young people," said Dennis Langley, executive director of the Urban League.
Langley likened the coalition's charge to "a drowning man looking for something to keep afloat."
Coalition members are aware that their quest for more state aid may be an uphill battle -- while local legislators have, in the past, supported education budget increases, Governor Carcieri has said the state budget does not allow for them this year.
Langely said the solution does not rest entirely with increased state aid. He said the school system could find some relief if "academic institutions" are willing to come in to provide resources, such as volunteer substitutes.
"The question is how do we fill the void?" Langley said.
Essential school founder offers basic advice for Hope
Posted Thursday, May 1, 2003
But the faculty remains concerned that the smaller schools still won't be small enough.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Theodore Sizer, the father of the Essential School at Hope High, returned to familiar turf yesterday to advise the Hope faculty on the task they face in the months and years ahead.
Hope, under orders from the state commissioner of education, will reorganize next fall into three small learning communities, all patterned after the Essential School, which opened in 1986 under Sizer's tutelage.
Sizer founded the Coalition of Essential Schools, which holds that it is better to gain depth in a few key subjects than to have a superficial grasp of many.
"Keep it simple," Sizer advised an audience of about 30 at a seminar of sorts in Sayles Hall at Brown University, where he chaired the education department until 1996.
The teachers, meanwhile, worried about the school climate and a bulging enrollment that already threatens the notion of "small" schools.
Paul Nichols, who will direct one of the three small schools, said that the first step Hope must take is to "change the culture."
"The school has to be safe, and students have to be self-disciplined," he said.
But "if I'm reading at a second- or third-grade level," Nichols said, putting himself in the place of a student, "how motivated am I to study biology, or chemistry, or physics . . .? "
"Their issue is dealing with fundamentals," reading, writing and arithmetic, Nichols said, to "get at the students who are lost."
Sizer said that the process of breaking down into smaller learning communities will generate more civil relationships.
Sizer's wife, Nancy, who with her husband served as co-principal of a charter school in central Massachusetts for several years, said that "when you get the numbers down, sometimes you can become a civil community almost without tears."
And Sizer cited one of the fundamental tenets of Essential Schools; a teacher must first know a student well in order to teach him or her well.
Teachers from Hope worried aloud, directly or indirectly, that the "small" learning communities may already be planned too big for every student to get the personal attention he or she needs.
With Hope's enrollment bulging at 1,500, each of the three small learning communities is to have about 500 students.
That figure is about 200 more than the maximum Sizer said he would want in a small high school.
Asked how he would deal with that disparity, Sizer was silent for a few seconds and then said, "It's perfectly conceivable that one school could divide itself into two smaller schools."
Nichols, meanwhile, reminded the audience of about 30 that the "students at some point have to be brought into the process" of reorganization.
"We rise or fall on their shoulders," he said.
Sizer strongly advised each of the small schools to identify a "handful of kids" who would "join you in the summer" to help plan for the reorganization in the fall.
"Bring them in on the ground floor," he said.
The commissioner of education, Peter McWalters, has faulted Hope for failing to involve large numbers of students, as well as parents and the community, in the reorganization plans so far.
Brian Baldizar, Hope's instructional facilitator, said one of the biggest failures in the redesign process has been a lack of trust.
Among teachers, he said, "we're battling that [distrust] every day" to gain simple acceptance among faculty members, let alone the enthusiasm to take an idea and make it a reality.
Distrust also makes it difficult to engage students, parents and the community, Baldizar said.
Sizer said it takes time to break down distrust .
"Looking at student work is a marvelous way to bring people together," he said. Many times adults with different perspectives can find common ground in the way they view students' work, Sizer said.
The conversation with Sizer was arranged by the Education Alliance at Brown University at the behest of Nancy Mullen, Hope's principal, as part of the faculty's professional development.
The Education Alliance, which helps public schools implement reform measures, also will assist Hope faculty with professional development during the summer.
Union leaders, lawmakers protest pension changes
Posted Thursday, May 1, 2003
Governor Carcieri proposes to increase the amount that state employees contribute to their pensions, which pay up to 80 percent of a worker's three-year-salary average at retirement.
BY KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House Bureau
PROVIDENCE -- Leaders of the state's public employee unions went to the State House, in force, yesterday to denounce Governor Carcieri's attempt to increase the amount that state workers and public schoolteachers contribute to their pensions in order to save state taxpayers a projected $18.5 million next year and local taxpayers another $9.5 million.
Carcieri is seeking to raise the employee contribution rates -- already among the highest in the nation -- by 2 percentage points, and cap the guaranteed, annual 3-percent compounded cost-of-living increases for new retirees.
In his defense, Carcieri's budget advisers told lawmakers what they have been told before: that Rhode Island taxpayers are paying through the nose for public employees to have richer benefits than many of their counterparts in the public and private sectors.
The union leaders howled. They labled the proposed pension contribution hike "unfair." They harpooned the governor for singling state workers and public schoolteachers out for "a pay cut." They warned of a "teacher crisis" if thousands retire at once to avert the potential cost-of-living cuts.
They also told the House Finance Committee that the increase Carcieri is seeking would make teachers and state employees here pay "the highest" employee-contribution rates in the nation.
"I'll be as crisp as fried chicken. We're against it. That's it," said John Lynch, speaking for Local 400 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.
At times yesterday, it appeared the union leaders were preaching to the choir. The Carcieri team was challenged repeatedly by House Finance Committee members. Among them: Representatives Carol Mumford, a retired teacher; John Shanley, a retired probation and parole supervisor; and Robert Jacquard, a retired Cranston police officer.
"If you are in favor of this budget, you are not in favor of education," declared state Rep. Steven Smith, a longtime Providence school employee.
State workers currently pay 8.75 percent of their pay -- and teachers, 9.5 percent -- toward pensions that pay up to 80 percent of a worker's three-year-salary average at retirement, with guaranteed 3-percent annual cost-of-living increases.
Carcieri is seeking to raise the employee contribution rates by 2 percentage points. If lawmakers go along, the average first-year teacher -- making $31,527 a year, would have to contribute an additional $630; the average top-step teacher, making $57,873-a-year, would have to contribute an additional $1,157.
"If you add to this, the governor's proposal to negotiate health-care premium copayments, if successful, state employees would have to see a significant salary increase just to break even," said Larry Purtill, president of the National Education Association of Rhode Island.
The governor is also seeking to cap the cost-of-living adjustments, for those who retire after Jan. 1, 2004, at 3 percent or the consumer price index -- whichever is lower. (The annual CPI has only hit 3 percent -- or more -- three times in the last decade, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.)
If Carcieri wanted to reduce the state budget, Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, said "offering a golden parachute . . . [to] those very highly paid individuals who, in the governor's opinion, are no longer required to serve in state government . . . would have been a more fair and compassionate way than to affect all of us who are eligible now to retire."
State budget officer Rosemary Gallogly -- and other key advisers to the governor -- explained some of the financial pressures that precipitated the proposals, including the potential for a $174.4-million deficit unless something was done to stem the rising cost of employee benefits.
Stock-market losses and low-ball estimates of the actual cost of the retirement benefits Rhode Island gives its public employees forced the state Retirement Board to raise the "employer contribution" for state employees from 5.59 percent of payroll last year, to 7.68 percent this year, to 9.6 percent during the year that begins July 1.
In dollars, that was expected to raise the state's pension tab over a two-year period from $29.6 million to $54.9 million.
State and local contributions to teacher pensions were raised at the same time from 9.95 percent of payroll last year, to 11.97 percent this year, to 13.72 percent during the year that begins July 1.
Estimates were that the state's share of $30.4 million last year would climb to $45.5 million in the year that begins July 1, and the communities' share from $41.4 million to $63.4 million over the same period.
For this, Gallogly told the lawmakers, Rhode Island pensioners are getting much richer benefits than they would as public employees in neighboring states.
Among Purtill's counterarguments: in "many" other states, retirees do not have to wait three years, as they do here, to get their first cost-of-living increases; in some states, including Massachusetts, public employee pensions are exempt from taxation.
But Rhode Island is also one of a handful of states that do not reduce the benefits paid relatively young retirees, who start collecting their pensions years before they reach a "normal retirement age."
In all, the state is paying benefits to 9,225 retired state workers or their beneficiaries and 6,875 retired teachers or their benficiaries. A large number -- 6,158 -- are below age 65, according to state retirement director Frank Karpinski.
The result: a Rhode Island state worker who retires at age 55, after 28 years of work would immediately qualify for a pension that paid 60 percent of his or her highest three-year salary average; a similarly situated retiree in Connecticut would get 56 percent, and in Massachusetts, 42 percent, according to a benefits survey.
The benefits survey conducted by Hewitt Associates for the Carcieri administration at a cost of $20,000, highlighted other ways in which public employee salaries and benefits here are "out of line":
While workers in some other sectors faced layoffs and wage freezes, state employees got 4.5-percent raises over the last year along with other "incentives" -- including longevity pay -- that boosted their salaries by another 1.7 percent, on average.
The average state worker's salary was $41,803 in fiscal year 2001, compared to an average $33,871 in private-sector jobs in the Providence-Fall River-Warwick area.
Top-step teacher salaries are the second-highest in New England, sixth-highest in the nation -- and substantially higher than the $31,210 average paid private school teachers.
Twenty-one of 29 surveyed states make their employees work 40-hour weeks; Rhode Island -- with a 35-hour work week for most state workers -- was in a minority.
The average employee in the Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts area pays $896 in health-insurance premiums, with their employer paying the other 87 percent of the cost, or $5,856. For state workers in Rhode Island, the state pays an average $8,300; the employee, zero.
The utilization of outpatient services by state workers was 13.3 percent higher -- and their prescription purchases, 11.8 percent higher -- than other Blue Cross & Blue Shield enrollees.
Thirty of Rhode Island's 39 cities and towns require their municipal employees to share the premium costsas do 19 of 36 school districts.
The union leaders called some of the findings "skewed."
As deficit looms, mayor to unveil budget
Posted Thursday, May 1, 2003
With the budget gap said to be $59 million, Council President John J. Lombardi says he doesn't see how a tax increase can be avoided.
BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Today the public begins to get an idea of how Mayor David N. Cicilline intends to slay his dragon.
It's a $59-million beast-of-a-budget problem, a gap between what he says are the built-in revenues and expenditures expected for the 2003-2004 fiscal year that begins July 1.
By built-in, he refers to the inflation in municipal costs caused by previously settled contracts for labor and services, health care, scheduled increases in debt repayments, and contributions to the retirement fund, among others.
On the revenue side, the gap is calculated based on projected increases and decreases in various categories of revenue but especially the projected increase in what the city expects to get from taxpayers without raising local taxes.
There is no additional state aid for Providence promised in the state budget submitted to the General Assembly by Governor Carcieri.
Cicilline is scheduled to present his 2002-2003 budget to the City Council at 5:30 p.m. today in a public meeting in the council chambers at City Hall.
In effect, today's budget proposal is only Cicilline's first stab at the beast because he does not know if the Assembly will appropriate money for Providence that the governor did not offer.
When state aid is settled in the coming weeks, he is free to do what his predecessors have done, and that is to submit a revised budget.
Recalling former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., Councilman Luis A. Aponte said yesterday, "Buddy Cianci used to put in an artificially high number for state school aid" when he submitted his initial budget each year.
Then he would dispatch Providence's Assembly members to fight for as much state aid as they could get, Aponte remembered. When the fight was concluded, then the mayor would have the budget reworked to account for whatever aid was obtained.
If Cicilline proposed an increase in the local tax rate in his initial budget proposal, it could be seen as diminishing the argument for more state aid, the councilman said.
The budget is subject to council approval. If the council disapproves certain parts of it, the mayor has the power to veto their decision. Then the council gets the last word by either overriding the veto or allowing it to stand.
"The numbers are fluid and they're viewed as a starting point," Aponte said of the budget to be unveiled today. But its submission, he said, allows the council to begin to digest the details of the proposal department by department.
Council members are scheduled to get an advance peek at the proposal in unannounced meetings with mayoral staff members this morning.
Two private sessions were set up to allow alternate times for small groups of councilors to meet and to avoid a violation of the state Open Meetings Law, Aponte said.
Asked what the Cicilline administration has told council members so far about the fiscal situation, Aponte replied, "What is being shared with us is that it's all bad."
The budget beast does appear to be a bit tamer now than it was last week. About $28 million of the $59-million budget gap is attributable to a looming imbalance in school revenues and spending.
Since then the School Board adopted a $289 million budget.
Given that the asserted size of the gap has been $59 million, council President John J. Lombardi has said that it appears that a local property tax increase is inevitable. The city would not be able to get enough new state aid to close a gap so large, Lombardi said.
Recently, Cicilline pointed out that other cities and towns are preparing for local tax increases in the range of 8 percent to 10 percent.
The current residential tax rate is $35.94 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, although homeowners effectively pay a lower rate thanks to the homestead exemption -- a discount that benefits people who occupy the houses they own.
The current tax rate on business inventories is $46.06; on business furnishings, fixtures and equipment, $49.35; and on motor vehicles, $76.78.
Cicilline has said that a local tax rate increase would be a last resort. Aponte echoed that approach.
"You've got to put the house in order and try to collect what has heretofore been the uncollectibles," such as delinquent property taxes, substantial payments from tax-exempt private colleges and universities and other revenues before seeking a local tax hike, Aponte said.
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