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June 2003
School budget reviewed
Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2003
The City Council wants to exercise greater control over how school money is spent.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The chairman of the City Council Finance Committee, presiding over the council's first long look at the proposed $289-million school budget for the next fiscal year, obviously had some unfinished business from last year's talks.
Councilman Kevin Jackson, D-Ward 3, indicated that he believes the council has the final say on the way the school budget is spent.
Mark V. Dunham, the School Department's chief financial officer, said he believes that once the council has set a bottom line, school officials have the discretion to spend the money as they see fit.
Jackson said that the School Department and the City Council had an agreement last year on the cuts that were to be made in the school budget to divert $2.8 million to pay the retroactive raise for teachers and administrators that the School Board had negotiated months earlier.
But the School Department didn't hold to the agreement, Jackson said, taking much needed federal dropout prevention money to help balance the budget while restoring cuts the Finance Committee had made to some School Board members' "pet" programs.
The programs restored included the Public Education Fund and Volunteers in Providence Schools.
Schools Supt. Melody A Johnson replied, "I know you felt like we did not honor that agreement."
But she said the cuts were restored with extra federal revenue that did not materialize until after the conclusion of the budget talks between the School Department and the City Council.
After the last night's Finance Committee meeting, Jackson said he believes the City Council can direct spending by ordinance.
And no department can transfer more than $5,000 from one area of its budget to another without the council's approval, Jackson said.
He queried Johnson and Dunham closely about School Department jobs that did not appear on the council's personnel ordinance, only to discover that all the positions were financed through federal funds.
Dunham said, "We don't put federal jobs on the local ordinance."
But Johnson assured the committee that the jobs were approved by the state Department of Education, which reviews the district's annual application for federal funds in several categories.
Moving forward to the current budget, Jackson said, "If I were able to find money to reinstate high school sports, would they be reinstated?"
He alluded to a $300,000 cut to varsity sports -- one quarter of the entire varsity budget -- which is included in more than $10 million in spending reductions already planned by the School Board to help balance the budget.
Johnson was non-commital in her reply to Jackson, saying that everyone has a different opinion about the most damaging cuts.
Then Jackson indicated that he might ask the full council to hold $300,000 in a contingency fund to be released only if the School Board agreed to spend it on sports.
"I understand tough decisions have to be made," Jackson said, "but most studies say most juvenile crime happens after school until 7 or 8 at night" and sports are an important factor in keeping youngsters out of trouble.
Jackson's comments occurred at the end of a meeting nearly 2 1/2 hours long, in which Dunham led a review of the $289 million budget proposal, as well as a remaining $11 million revenue shortfall that must be filled if further school spending cuts are to be avoided.
The talks between the committee and school officials are to continue on Tuesday.
Schools could get additional $6 million
Posted Tuesday, June 24, 2003
An increased education aid figure approved by a House committee must still gain full General Assembly approval.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The city's public schools, with the largest enrollment in the state, stand to gain nearly 40 cents on the dollar of the $15.6 million in state aid to education approved by the House Finance Committee last week.
Viewed another way, the additional $6 million earmarked for Providence would increase the current level of aid by only 3.6 percent, from this year's $174,934,589 to $181,224,594.
The additional state aid -- which still needs approval by both the full House and the Senate -- would reduce the revenue gap in the proposed school budget of $289 million from $18 million to $12 million.
But the final shape of the school budget still remains a guessing game, one played out every year not only in Providence but in all the other Rhode Island cities and towns.
The General Assembly departed from a predictable school-aid formula in the mid-90s, and many communities must set their budgets before they know how much money their schools will receive from the legislature.
But the political will in the General Assembly seems to be gathering some momentum for overhauling the financing of state aid to local schools as a means of reining in the galloping costs of public education.
One proposal in the state budget would direct the Department of Administration to complete a cost-benefit analysis by next March 1 for having a single, statewide teachers' contract.
Meanwhile, a high-ranking Providence city official said that Mayor David N. Cicilline is confident the city can eliminate a built-in municipal deficit that originally stood at $58 million.
Because of action by the City Council, the tentative approval of additional school aid, and contributions the private colleges in the city have agreed to make, the revenue gap has been reduced to "under $19 million," according to John Simmons, Cicilline's director of administration.
"We are working with the unions and others to reduce the $19 million to zero," Simmons said.
Estimates on the additional revenue the city might take in from hikes in liquor license fees and restaurant taxes approved by the House Finance Committee range from $6 million to $8 million, depending on the date they actually go into effect, Simmons said.
"We will be better able to tell you over the next several days," about any additional revenues, he said.
Cicilline has sought concessions from all the city's unions, including teachers and school administrators. But teachers and administrators had put Cicilline on hold while they focused all their efforts on defeating Governor Carcieri's proposal to increase their contributions to the state pension system from 9 percent to 11 percent of their salaries.
With the House Finance Committee maintaining the existing 9 percent contribution, the city has scheduled meetings in the next few days with the Providence Teachers Union and the Association of Providence School Administrators.
Simmons said city officials met yesterday with two other unions, Local 1033 of the Laborers' International Union of North America and the School Department clerical union.
Asked about widespread speculation that Cicilline will be forced to raise property taxes to balance the budget, Simmons said a tax hike would be a tragedy of last resort, after all other avenues are explored and exhausted.
The spiraling costs of public education have put an increasing burden on property taxes all over the state, and disporportionately so in Providence, where about 40 percent of the land is tax exempt.
But the General Assembly cannot come up with a logical school aid formula that helps homeowners unless the state also gets control over school spending, he said.
And the state can't get a rein on school spending unless it can control personnel costs through one contract with all the state's public school teachers, he said.
Crowlely said he is pushing a proposal in the budget that would direct the state Department of Administration to commission a cost-benefit analysis of a statewide teacher contract.
"In conversations with superintendents and school committee people," Crowley said, "the municipalities are saying, 'we're worn down' " by the combination of contract negotiations, the demands of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and the pressure to raise scores on state exams.
The deadline for the cost-benefit analysis of a single teacher's contract would be next March 1, Crowley said.
He said House Finance Committee Chairman Paul Sherlock, D-Warwick, is driving another budget article that would establish two legislative commissions related to taxation and educational funding that would make their reports to the General Assembly two weeks later, on March 15.
One commission would make a comprehensive study of the state's tax structure and the other would focus on a formula for funding education, Crowley said.
State Rep. Paul Moura, D-Prov., Deputy Majority Leader of the House and a House Finance Committee member, said there is political will for change in the General Assembly.
The current method of determining state aid "causes problems not only for us [in the General Assembly], but pits us against each other," Moura said.
He alluded to the closed-door decisions made informally in the final days of the annual legislative sessions and the division between urban and suburban communities over education funding that is never enough to cover the needs of the schools.
Moura said he is confident that the $6 million in extra aid approved by the House Finance Committee will stand, but he also said he did not think it would prevail without "another debate on the floor" of the House.
Classical's academic reforms get high grades
Posted Monday, June 23, 2003
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Classical High School must continue to work hard to provide a diverse student body with a high-quality college-preparatory program, according to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
The school district has released a report on an accreditation visit made by NEASC representatives last November which said that Classical is moving in the right direction academically.
The visitors singled out Classical's implementation of districtwide high school reform initiatives, particularly a reorganization of the ninth grade into teams of students who share the same teachers.
The ninth-grade teams represent the beginning of a long-range plan to divide all the grades at the city's large high schools into smaller units that would encourage more personal connections between students and faculty.
Key to the success of the teams is joint planning time for faculty, who would use it for developing curriculum and professional training.
With the exception of the ninth grade, the NEASC report stated that the lack of common planning time among faculty in the upper grades impedes training in curriculum development, new teaching strategies, and various forms of assessment, according to the report.
This deficiency affects not only Classical but all other high schools in the city, which all say they need more money to hire extra teachers to gain the scheduling flexibility necessary to arrange common meeting times for teachers with mutual interests.
The extra teachers are not likely to materialize soon, since the district recently eliminated 128 jobs in an effort to make ends meet in what school officials describe as the worst crisis in the history of public education, not only in Providence but across the nation.
No matter the impediment, the NEASC visitors said the Classical faculty as a whole needs professional development to consistently link the school's mission statement with everyday practice in the classroom.
The report noted that parents say some courses are less challenging than others.
It said the perception of uneven academic rigor contradicts the school mission statement, which says Classical provides students "with the means to achieve high standards in a rigorous learning environment."
Accompanying the school's mission statement is an outline of graduation expectations that demand proficiency in four areas:
Various forms of communication
Knowledge from a variety of disciplines
Applying knowledge to solve problems
Accepting responsibility for oneself, one's learning, and one's role in society.
The visiting team endorsed efforts of Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson to introduce districtwide teacher guides that link subject matter and a variety of teaching strategies to state academic standards.
But the team said Classical must further tailor these guides to the needs of its students.
Like other schools, Classical has a lead team of teachers that serves as a faculty model for various aspects of school improvement, and the teachers' work was recognized by the NEASC visitors.
But the report suggested that the best of Classical should become the norm.
"Classical High School has a longstanding reputation in the city of Providence for providing a challenging program for the college-bound student," the report said.
"Recent initiatives to broaden the opportunity for students from diverse backgrounds to participate in the pursuit of higher education have met with success," it continued.
Noting stong community support for Classical, the NEASC team said it hopes this support "will continue to assist the school in fully implementing the standards of accreditation."
NEASC is a voluntary, if highly influential, accreditation organization whose academic standards parallel the reform initiatives begun by former Schools Supt. Diana Lam four years ago and continued by Johnson.
The visiting team found that Classical needs more financial support to expand the use of technology, update the library, and maintain and clean the building.
The school will be required to make a report in two years' time on the progress it has made in implementing NEASC recommendations.
Students will not return to Fogarty
Posted Monday, June 16, 2003
The School Department has intensified its search for a temporary school to replace the ailing office building.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Roughly 350 high school students, evacuated from a city-owned office building last Friday when many reported trouble breathing, will spend the last two weeks of the school year at the Dunkin' Donuts Center.
Furthermore, the evacuation may mark the end of the building's use as a "temporary" school for the last four years.
Alan R. Sepe, the city's director of public property, said earlier this week that he hopes the city doesn't have to put any money into the Fogarty Building at 111 Fountain St.
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson has called the building "unacceptable" for students and faculty alike unless it undergoes major repair.
Even if it is refurbished, it might be torn down anyway in the next couple of years to make way for a hotel.
Last month, Sepe seemed to be giving up on a six-month-long search for a site to put an overflow of 500 new high school students next fall, saying the city planned extensive renovations to the Fogarty Building so it could continue to be used as a school.
But Sepe now appears to have put renewed vigor into his search.
Meanwhile, a proposal for a bond issue introduced before the City Council in the last few weeks would provide $7 million for a "temporary" school that would be used long term to provide the city's overcrowded high schools with some breathing room.
According to the proposal, an estimated overflow of 500 new high school students would first use the new facility next fall.
Subsequently, the proposal said, students from Hope, Mount Pleasant and Central High Schools would rotate into the "temporary" facility as buildings are renovated.
The city plans to divide its three large, aging high schools into small learning communities intended to give students more personal connections with their teachers.
Sepe says he might have news on the location of a new high school as early as next week.
Meanwhile, officials of the schools that have occupied the Fogarty building for the last two years say that the Dunkin' Donuts Center is a marked improvement.
"It's a lot better than the other place," said Joseph Dufort, principal of the Health, Science, and Technology Academy,
In retrospect, the evacuation was "heaven-sent," said Marjorie Soto, the principal of the Providence Academy of International Studies, who reported to work on the third floor of the Fogarty building last Friday and quickly realized that chronic air-quality problems could no longer be contained.
The previous night, the school district's custodial and maintenance contractor made a concerted effort to clean all three floors of the building.
Numerous health and safety problems had been documented by two state agencies, and article on the condition of the building was about to appear in The Providence Journal.
In attempting to abate a foul odor that had been contained in one room where the roof had been leaking since December, the cleanup instead released the noxious air all through the third floor, Soto said.
She said she was among those who had problems breathing.
Soto said earlier this week that students of PAIS were actually calmer in makeshift classrooms in the Dunkin' Donuts Center than they had been in the Fogarty Building.
A big difference, she said, is that the teenagers get a chance to work off some of their youthful energy on the arena floor, where even faculty sometimes play basketball.
Soto said that all the materials teachers needed for the final days of classes this week were organized and quickly transferred to the Dunkin' Donuts Center, which is almost directly across the street from the Fogarty Building.
"We do miss our computers, though," said Dufort.
Final exams begin Monday, and the last day of school is June 23. When the two high schools reconvene in late August, the faculties and student bodies will move into a brand new building off Thurbers Avenue on the South Side.
Retirements will give schools new look
Posted Tuesday, June 10, 2003
The 110 retirements accepted last night are in addition to the planned 128 job cuts.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The overlap of a planned 128 job cuts and 110 retirements accepted by the School Board last night will change the face of leadership in the School Department, both in labor and management.
Included in the personnel reductions, not previously made public, is the position of Susan F. Lusi, chief of staff to Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson.
Lusi will be one of many laid off as part of an effort to pare $6.4 million from personnel costs.
Johnson said the decision to let Lusi go follows through on a public promise she made that layoffs necessary to balance the budget would "start with me and my office."
Meanwhile, Phil DeCecco, the president of the Providence Teachers Union for the last three years, was one of 90 teachers and 10 administrators who took a $10,000 retirement incentive that expired last Wednesday.
The incentive would have saved a total of $1.2 million if 150 people had taken it, according to calculations made by the district's finance department.
It could not be immediately determined how much savings will result from the retirements of the 110 teachers and administrators who took advantage of the incentive.
DeCecco, who has been a teacher and guidance counselor for 34 years, said the incentive played only a small part in his decision to retire.
He said it will be in the union's best interest to begin what promise to be difficult contract negotiations next fall with a new president, since the next school year was to have been his last.
The retiring administrators include two figures whose names are known to the public from last year's Plunder Dome trial -- Thelma J. Corrente and Robert A. DeRobbio.
Corrente is the wife of former city Administration Director Frank E. Corrente, convicted on multiple counts of racketeering conspiracy, extortion and bribery in the trial.
Thelma Corrente's job as the school district's health administrator is being abolished at the end of the school year.
She remained at her husband's side every day of the trial, drawing from a bank of 60 vacation days she had accumulated from one year to the next, school officials said.
DeRobbio is executive director of support services and business operations.
He was the highest-ranking school official directly involved in a School Department lease of an auto body garage on West Fountain Street which ultimately became the catalyst for the Plunder Dome investigation.
During last year's trial, DeRobbio insisted that Frank Corrente never pressured him to steer the lease toward the owner of the garage, convicted felon Edward E. Voccola.
DeRobbio also said he never told the school district's business manager to alter the specifications for lease to fit Voccola's property.
DeRobbio's testimony contradicted that of the then-business manager, Mark V. Dunham, now the district's chief financial office, who said DeRobbio told him to change the specifications because the lease was a "done deal."
Other high-level job cuts in the central office included Director of External Funds Tom DiPippo and Gordon Hill, the principal of alternative education. Both are retiring.
For years, DiPippo held close the details of federally funded programs, until an outside consultant discovered that allocations of Title I funds for disadvantaged students did not adhere to government regulations.
Hill is the former controversial principal of Hope High School, a lightning rod for faculty infighting in the mid-1990s.
Other central office retirees are:
John Short, the former principal of Classical High School who only recently was named the district's chief operating officer
Edward A. Pascarella, the director of school operations and student support
Stephen V. Provenzo, senior administrator of human resources.
Two principals whose jobs were eliminated have chosen retirement; Donald A. Pastine, head of the Providence Place Academy; and Bridget S. Hawthorne, principal of the DelSesto Middle School on Springfield Street.
Yesterday, Lusi said that there will be one principal covering DelSesto and the adjacent Springfield Middle School, both housed in the same complex.
The two schools each will have one director, but no assistant principals.
Also eliminated will be the positions of two middle school assistant principals, one at Samuel Bridgham and another at Esek Hopkins.
Gone as well will be the district-wide positions of teacher-coordinators for science, social studies and programs for gifted students.
Two of the three had been vacant. The science coordinator, Ron Kahn, is retiring.
And an assistant principal's post at Classical High School, vacant since Cheryl Gomes became principal recently, will be eliminated.
In the teaching ranks, the positions to be eliminated include 11 instrumental music teachers, and 10 social workers, as well as 33 secondary teachers and 23 elementary teachers, most of them outside core academic areas.
It stinks, it leaks and its windows fall out
Posted Friday, June 6, 2003
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Despite conditions, Fogarty might be used as school again
Even from the outside, the city-owned Fogarty building on Fountain Street looks dismal.
Plate glass windows alternate with sheets of plywood on the first floor of the three-story concrete cube, an office building built in the late 1960s which has been used as a "temporary" school for the last four years.
Water periodically drips from the second floor, which overhangs a veranda where nearly 400 high school students pass on their way up and down one or two flights of stairs to classes.
Water drips on the inside too, creating damp and moldy conditions which students and teachers say have made them ill with headaches, sinus problems, and other respiratory ailments.
Two computers in the third-floor computer lab have been destroyed by leaks in the roof, according to Marjorie Soto, principal of the Providence Academy of International Studies (PAIS).
And at least one student has been hit by one of several retro-fitted windows that have fallen into classrooms, she said.
Soto said that students are not allowed to wear hats in school, "but on that day I was glad he was wearing one."
Earlier this week, the state Division of Occupational Safety of the state Department of Labor and Training ordered the city to replace the damaged retro-fitted windows to prevent them from falling out again.
The current conditions create a "hazard to occupants within the building and to the public passing by the exterior of the building below."
"Windows have fallen onto students in classrooms and fallen out of building to ground below," according to a compliance order issued by the state.
The report cited 13 health and safety violations in all, including exposed wiring hanging from the ceilings in various locations, missing fire extinguishers, and emergency lighting that does not work.
Inspectors validated students' and teachers' concerns about the moldy and musty conditions created by the leaky roof.
Meanwhile, inspectors from the Department of Health found the third-floor food serving and preparation area inadequate and noted that bathrooms on that floor lacked hot water, soap and paper towels.
Students who led a reporter and photographer on a tour of their school pointed out that one of the two urinals in the men's bathroom was out of order.
And the door was missing on one of three toilet stalls in the men's bathroom, which serves all male students and faculty of PAIS, which has an enrollment of 150.
Three toilets serve the female students and faculty of the school.
The same restroom configuration is repeated on the second floor, where there are roughly 150 additional students.
At midweek, the Department of Health barred PAIS from serving lunch in the large common area on the third floor because it does not have a sink with running hot and cold water.
The ruling sent PAIS students down to the second floor, doubling the lunch lines at the Health, Science and Technology Academy.
Several PAIS students, Elizabeth Forbes, Michelle Carvajal, Harrison Prak and Katy Mahoney, said they were aghast to read in the newspaper that the city intends to use the Fogarty building as a school again in the fall.
They invited a reporter and photographer to tour the building to call attention to the conditions there.
After two years in the Fogarty building, PAIS and the Health, Science, and Technology Academy are moving to a brand new complex off Thurbers Avenue.
But projections indicate that even with the new building, city-wide enrollment at the high school level will exceed capacity by about 500 -- and the district has no place to put them except in the Fogarty building. .
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson has called the building "unacceptable" to serve as a school in its current condition.
"We will not have children in there unless it is dramatically different," Johnson said. She said she has visited the building with Mayor David N. Cicilline and he agrees with her assessment.
"We have been given assurances" by the city that "it will be redone and fit for children and teachers," Johnson said.
Johnson said the city has been looking unsuccessfully for six months for a suitable alternative site and will continue to search.
"But I still think we will have to use the Fogarty building for a couple of months," Johnson said.
She said she will present a list of required improvements to the mayor's staff at a meeting on Monday.
Johnson was asked how the financially strapped city could afford to put money into a building with a history of problems when it may be razed to make way for a hotel.
She pointed out that the hotel project is still up in the air.
"How can you not spend money if you are going to have kids in that building?" Johnson asked rhetorically.
The two new high school programs share the second and third floors with about 35 students from the Providence Place Academy. A separate behavioral program for special education students is located on the first floor.
PAIS and the Health, Science and Technology Academy originally were to have been in their new building last fall, but legal wrangling over the site and a cold winter delayed the completion date a full year.
Even at the start of the current school year last fall, students and faculty did not believe they would end up in the Fogarty building for another nine months, said PAIS sophomore Elizabeth Forbes.
And she said they would not have raised complaints if the building were closed at the end of the school year as originally scheduled.
But Forbes said she and her friends didn't want other people to endure what they had.
The retro-fitted windows that have fallen into the classrooms were installed last summer to enable teachers and students to open and close them for ventilation.
The building was constructed with sealed windows and an air conditioning system that has not worked for years, according to those familiar with the site.
After the computers were destroyed in the computer lab, the desks and terminals were arranged to avoid the leaks in the ceiling.
A couple of wastebaskets stood in the middle of the floor, catching drips.
And Soto pointed out a wall where "something grey" appeared to be growing.
By far the worst classroom until recently belonged to English teacher Thomas Mainey, who said he has developed sinus and respiratory problems for the first time in his life since soggy ceiling tiles fell to the floor at Christmas time.
In late May, the stench in the room became so bad, Mainey and Soto said, that Mainey was forced to become an itinerant, holding class in different rooms during various periods of the day.
Soto said she asked Sodexho, the district's custodial contractor, to disinfect Mainey's room twice a day, but she said her request was not carried out.
Forbes and other students who conducted the tour earlier this week pointed out standing water in one of the bathrooms and dirty conditions elsewhere in the building.
Bob Richards, a spokesman for Sodexho, said his custodial staff never received a request from Soto to disinfect a particular classroom.
The building doesn't "show" well, even when it's clean, Richards said, and vandalism by students is "contributing a lot" to the generally depressing appearance.
The missing paper dispenser noted by inspectors from the the division of occupational safety was ripped off the wall by students, he contended.
"The kids are creating their own hell down there," Richards said.
But Soto, pausing outside a room where a hole had been punched in the drywall, had a different view.
The hole was probably an expression of frustration, she said.
Webster Ave. students win TV's Battle of the Books
Posted Friday, June 6, 2003
A quiz show featuring local elementary school students airs today and Saturday on public television.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE-- Students at the Webster Avenue Elementary School are looking forward to more than an hour of spellbinding television starring a few of their own.
Today at 2:30 p.m. and Saturday at 9:30 a.m., Rhode Island PBS will telecast the Battle of the Books -- a competition in quiz-show format based on eight children's stories read by hundreds of fourth and fifth-grade students in a dozen elementary schools during the last several months.
The "battle" was just that, with so many tie-breaking rounds that the competition ran over the allotted hour and the host, Karen Adams of WPRI Eyewitness News, nearly ran out of questions.
In the end, a contingent of four students from Webster Avenue placed first when the contest was taped at the public television studios Friday.
"The whole school yard went bananas when we got off the bus with the trophy," said Daryl Mazza, Webster Avenue's literacy coach.
Each member of the first-place team -- Temitayo Olasanoye, Maritza Gomez, Luisamar Hernandez and Rochelle Jiminez -- received a karaoke machine as a prize.
The Edmund Flynn Elementary School placed second. Each member of its team -- Nayelis Correa, Daniel Sanchez, Quincy Gilbert, and Fatima Said -- won a portable CD player with headphones.
Members of the third-place team, from the Charles Fortes Elementary School, each took home a 35-mm camera. They are Nicole Nunez, Neisha Sanchez, Lily Marrero, and Savannah Burns.
The Battle of the Books is a reading-incentive program sponsored by Volunteers in Providence Schools, a private nonprofit organization which coordinates more than 800 volunteers in the public schools and provides other supplemental services for students.
Mazza, the literacy coach at Webster Avenue, said she didn't learn about the Battle of the Books in its inaugural year last year until it was too late for her school to participate.
When the program was announced for the current academic year, she said, she toured all the fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms and promoted the competition.
A grant from Verizon paid for copies of the books, with 10 of each title distributed to each of the participating schools, according to Kim Stowell, a VIPS spokeswoman.
At Webster Avenue, about 40 students, about a third of the combined fourth- and fifth-grade enrollment, signed up for the competition, Mazza said.
While a few students dropped out of the project, most read at least six of the eight titles. Two were picture books and the others were what children call "chapter books" of fiction, according to Kathy Branca, coordinator of RIF (Reading is Fundamental) for Volunteers in Providence Schools.
Mazza said she thinks the contest has sparked an interest in reading at Webster Avenue.
Students who had become accustomed to having copies of the books in their classrooms kept asking when they could have the books back when Mazza had to borrow copies to prepare students for the contest, she said.
Mazza said she and the four students who represented the school "met every day for six days, and we lived those books."
The experience has prepared two of the students, rising fifth graders, to lead group discussions about literature with their classmates, Mazza said. She said she will be sure to point out those students to their teachers.
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