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September 2005
Middle schoolers could find themselves in the 'Zone'
Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005
After Zones will offer mini-courses ranging from cooking to break dancing to robotics to students in Bridgham, Perry, Springfield and Gilbert Stuart schools.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A broad menu of after-school programs for middle school students will be offered in the Olneyville and West End neighborhoods starting Oct. 21.
They are the first of five After Zones planned by the Providence After School Alliance, part of the Education Partnership. The zones aim to connect students with activities in schools, libraries, city recreation centers and nonprofit community groups.
The After Zones build on programs that exist by creating a series of connected campuses. For instance, a student could participate in a chess club at middle school, then go to the library for help in reading and writing. The programs will be run at no cost to the parents or the city.
The After School Alliance wants to serve at least 300 children this fall. Next year, when the program expands to five After Zones, the organization hopes to reach 500 children, half of them students who had not been previously involved in any after-school activities.
The first two zones will serve students from Bridgham, Perry, Springfield and Gilbert Stuart middle schools. For four weeks, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, mini-courses will be offered ranging from cooking, break dancing, flag football, art, science and chemistry, engineering and robotics, computers and martial arts.
The After-School Alliance will offer a full semester of classes starting in January. The pilot programs will be used as a foundation on which to build next year's larger offering of activities.
Three more After Zones will open next year -- in the South Side, Smith Hill and the North End-East Side. Each zone will have a budget of $400,000 over three years for a fulltime coordinator, busing, training and technology.
Funding for the zones comes from a five-year, $5-million grant from the Wallace Foundation, and $1 million from Bank of America. The Nellie Mae Education Foundation donated $100,000 to help get the zones off the ground.
The organizations that have agreed to collaborate include the Boys & Girls Clubs, CityArts, Curse Breakers, Federal Hill House, John Hope Settlement House, Junior Achievement, Olneyville Community School, the Providence School Department, and the public libraries.
The Providence After School Alliance recently announced that $200,000 is available to develop new activities for middle school children. A request for proposals is available online at www.mypasa.org.
Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2005
test
New superintendent takes teaching to heart
Posted Wednesday, September 21, 2005
In his second day on the job in Providence, Donnie W. Evans draws on broad experience in public education.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Donnie W. Evans is an imposing man -- tall and broad-shouldered. But when he speaks to children, he drops his voice and crouches down to their level.
During a visit to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School yesterday, Evans didn't spend all his time talking with the adults. Instead, he spoke with the students.
In one classroom after another, Evans, the city's new superintendent of schools, kept asking the same questions: Do you like school? What are you learning? What does this mean?
In a first-grade class, Evans helped a young boy find the T in the word, CAT. In another, he helped a little girl read a first-grade primer on farming. When she came to the word "henhouse," the student stopped cold.
"Break it into two words," Evans suggested gently.
The child still seemed puzzled.
"What do you call a chicken that lays eggs?" Evans prompted.
"A hen?"
"And what do people live in?"
"A house."
"Now put the two words together."
Although he has done almost every job in the public school system, Evans said he has always been a teacher at heart. And the kinds of questions he posed to the adults at Martin Luther King reflected a teacher's knowledge of the classroom more than an administrator's penchant for bureaucracy.
Educational jargon was surprisingly absent from his conversations with teachers. What Evans wanted to know was this: Are students engaged in their lessons? Are they being challenged? Is the teacher using her time effectively?
Yesterday was Evans' second day on the job, and his schedule was packed: he visited Martin Luther King school, met with the state education commissioner, and with his wife taped a TV interview with Mayor David N. Cicilline.
Evans' life story has the kind of narrative arc that movies are made from. Born on a tobacco farm in rural North Carolina, he and his family were poor in a region where poverty is commonplace.
But many skills that he learned on the farm -- cooperation and self-sufficiency -- prepared him for a world he couldn't have imagined as a young boy. Throughout his childhood, his parents "always taught me that education was the great equalizer."
His wife, Deborah Harris, an educational consultant and special-education specialist, is as passionate about teaching as Evans. As a little girl, she wanted to be a doctor, but it seemed the only professions open to women were teaching and nursing. She chose teaching. Thirty-two years later, she said she has no regrets.
Husband and wife seem to share the same vision: that public education is one of the few roads out of poverty.
And both believe that without a dedicated teacher in the classroom, all the bells and whistles around education reform are meaningless.
"If teachers aren't happy," Harris said, "then no one is happy."
When asked what classroom experience shaped his world view of education, Evans recalled a moment early in his career when he faced a class of very low achievers. Evans tried every technique in the book, but nothing worked. Finally, he turned to two veteran special-education teachers for help.
What they taught him about working with children of all abilities has stayed with him his entire life.
It also inspired his abiding interest in special education. In an earlier interview, he pointed out that 20 percent of the city's students have been identified as special needs -- a figure twice the national average -- which leads him to suspect that something is amiss.
Earlier in the day, Evans described how taken he was with Providence. People, he said, seem rooted here. In Tampa, Fla., where Evans was the district's chief academic officer, "For Sale" signs dotted lawns and families were always on the move.
Although he has spent his entire career in two large school districts -- Durham, N.C., and Florida's Hillsborough County -- Evans said he has always wanted to work in a smaller school district. With 190,000 students, the population of the Hillsborough School District is larger than Rhode Island's total student enrollment
In Tampa, Evans was known as the man who jump-started a low-performing district. Under his leadership, he said that the number of high-performing schools grew from 7 to 87 in 5 years.
Providence, a majority minority city with large numbers of students living in poverty, offers many of the same challenges. Six of the district's nine middle schools are classified as needing corrective action, which means that they have not made adequate progress in four consecutive years.
The state Department of Education has intervened in one high school -- Hope -- and the other three of the city's comprehensive high schools are struggling.
Meanwhile, the pressure to show academic gains is being played out against a backdrop of increasing skepticism about the value of spending more taxpayer dollars on the public schools.
Although he barely has had time to catch his breath, Evans believes that Providence is on the right track.
"The district is running well," he said yesterday. "The two previous superintendents have done a great job. My intent is to build on what they have done."
That said, Evans wants to zero in on student achievement, which has shown considerable progress at the elementary level but falls off once students hit middle school and high school. And he expressed concern about the state's decision to move testing from the spring to the fall, noting that many students lose ground over the summer.
Evans, who is 55, is living on the East Side in a house owned by Brown University. That will be home until he and his wife are able to buy a house.
Unlike one of his predecessors, Diana Lam, who left Providence for a top job in New York City, Evans said he has no plans to make a name for himself here and then move on.
"He stays until he feels his job is completed," Harris told Cicilline. "A few days ago, he told me, 'This is a place I could retire from.' "
Welcome Back!
Posted Thursday, September 8, 2005
August 25, 2005
Dear Colleague:
Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed the summer with your family and friends, and I also hope you are looking forward to the new school year. These past few months were very busy. I would like to share some recent successes, an issue of concern, and some upcoming events with you.
Successes:
As part of the Union’s ongoing efforts to bring public awareness to the hard work of Providence teachers and to inform the community about how best to support their children’s schooling, ABC Channel 6 will air Providence Teachers Union Public Service Announcements. These announcements will focus on learning opportunities that abound both inside and outside the classroom. We thank Channel 6 for their support.
While attending the biennial AFT-sponsored professional issues conference (QuEST) in Washington, D.C., I met with Union leaders from our region who are facing the same challenges as we are in Providence. As a result, I am pleased to announce that we were selected to host the Teachers Union Reform Network (TURN) Regional Conference this fall. Adam Urbanski, President of the Rochester Teachers Association and one of the most progressive leaders in labor reform, and Marcia Reback, President of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, will join us on September 9-10 to focus on leadership in schools, specifically, teacher training, retention, and empowerment.
Issue of Concern:
On June 27, 2005, the Providence School Board voted its approval of a new Code of Conduct. Although I support the concept and intent, I expressed serious concerns to both as well as implementation plans. As a result, ongoing discussion continues with the School Board and the Administration regarding the content of the code both the Administration and the School Board. I will keep you updated by communicating via our website, www.proteun.org., and via your building delegate.
Additionally, your feedback on the Code is essential. Please review the Code of Conduct and provide your building delegate with your comments and/or concerns. Teachers are encouraged to contact the Union office immediately should you encounter any problems regarding the implementation of this code.
Upcoming Events:
RI QuEST 2005 – October 28th & 29th – Westin Hotel, Providence
RI QuEST is the RIFTHP’s biennial Professional Issues conference that features workshops and seminars on timely education issues. For more information, please contact your building delegate or call the Union office.
Finally, in keeping with our back to school tradition, I am enclosing your 2005-2006 school calendar and your 2005-2006 AFT calendar along with my sincere best wishes for a most productive and rewarding school year.
Sincerely,
Steven F. Smith
President
SFS/mmf
Schools open in Providence without a hitch
Posted Tuesday, September 6, 2005
"We had a very smooth opening," said Kim Rose, who runs the parents' center.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The opening of the public schools last week occurred with barely a hiccup, although Hope High School continues to have problems with water leaks.
"If last year was smooth, this year was a cakewalk," said school spokesman Maria Tocco. "It went incredibly well the first three days."
By Thursday, the third day of school, 25,644 students had enrolled but only 22,040 had actually turned out for class. More students are expected to return this week, however.
By the third day of school, 99 percent of the district's students had schedules and 95 percent of the buses were running on time, Tocco said.
"We had a very smooth opening," said Kim Rose, who runs the parents' center on Washington Street. "I've only had one woman call with a complaint. She wanted her child to attend a different school."
Rose also said that the center had fewer calls and fewer parents walking in with questions or concerns last week. Most of the questions they did have involved busing, registration and changing schools. One improvement, Rose said, was placing the transportation office in the same department as public engagement.
At the Nathan Bishop Middle School, where the previous school year was punctuated by fighting between middle and high school-age students, Principal Earnest Cox said, "The kids came in and everything seemed fine."
Classes began at the Springfield Street complex, a new multiyear experiment, without any problems. Three schools -- the Anthony Carnevale Elementary School and the Springfield and DelSesto middle schools -- share the same campus. The goal is to create a campus where children enter as 4-year-olds and graduate 14 years later.
Last week, the shift began: sixth graders moved to Carnevale, grades seven and eight moved to Springfield Middle School and DelSesto hosted its first class of ninth graders. Grades 10, 11 and 12 will be added in successive years.
The schools were reconfigured because of the increase in middle and high school enrollment. But Principal Fran Rotella hopes to use this new design to bring the elementary school's sense of community to the upper grades.
"The first week has gone like a charm," Rotella said. "It seems as though the middle and high school kids have been cooperating in every way possible. The big kids seem to be helping out the little ones."
Districtwide, attendance figures are in keeping with recent years, according to school officials. By Thursday, high schools were reporting 81 percent attendance, middle schools were reporting 85 percent, and elementary schools were reporting 90 percent. In years past, school officials said, high school attendance was as low as 50 percent.
Tocco also said that only 25 staff vacancies, mostly in hard-to-fill areas such as bilingual education, remain to be filled out of a total of 3,000 positions. The district has issued 73 emergency certifications, which means that the teachers might need to take a couple more courses in their certification areas.
Teacher's death leaves heavy sense of loss at Bridgham
Posted Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Linda A. Razza was "an inspiration," says one of her many students.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- To Michelle Perez, Miss Razza was the fun teacher. To Cindy Miranda, she was the one who made sure you were safe. To Alberta Algarin, she was the teacher who put everyone else's needs first.
Yesterday, Bridgham Middle School mourned the death of Linda A. Razza, a beloved music teacher who died in her sleep early Wednesday. She was 52, married and a mother of two.
Miss Razza was an anomaly of sorts. She spent her entire teaching career -- 27 years -- at Bridgham, a racially diverse school on Westminister Street, at the entrance to Olneyville.
Yesterday, two dozen members of the chorus gathered in the library to share their memories of Miss Razza.
"She was an inspiration," said Vypatda Sophan, 14. "She told me to never give up, to always keep my head high."
Ryan Camerlin, 13, said, "Even if the kids were terrible, she never yelled. She always told you to try."
"When I needed someone, she'd always be there," said 13-year-old Alma Alvarez.
To the Bridgham teachers, Miss Razza was a constant presence in a world characterized by change.
"She went above and beyond the call of duty and the kids adored her," said Maria DeLuca, a student of Miss Razza's in 1979.
DeLuca will never forget how Miss Razza treated her when she was trying out for chorus.
"I had the worst voice ever," she said. "And she was like, 'OK, you can join,' and I was so excited. She knew I really wanted it."
Miss Razza was there when Ann-Marie D'Ambrosio began her teaching career 20 years ago. D'Ambrosio said she never heard Miss Razza raise her voice, nor did a cross word ever come from her lips.
"She saw each child as a gift," D'Ambrosio said yesterday. "If a child loved music, she recognized that. Everyone here is heartbroken, just heartbroken."
Miss Razza organized the holiday concert, which embraced every tradition, from Christmas to Kwanzaa. She coordinated a musical every year to celebrate the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She put on talent shows and hip-hop dance parties. Her energy and enthusiasm were unflagging.
"She filled all of our hearts with music," said another veteran teacher, Gloria Stoehr. "She approached everything in life like a beautiful song."
Stoehr said she saw so many children come alive under Miss Razza's careful tutelage. Miss Razza, she said, revealed "another dimension to our children." For students who were struggling in school or at home, Miss Razza's class was a refuge, a place where they could shine in their own special way.
Because of consecutive budget cuts, the arts have taken a beating in Providence lately. At Bridgham, Miss Razza was all that was the left of the arts until this year, when another teacher was hired.
In any given week, Miss Razza would see nearly 400 students and she never complained about the workload, said principal Dinah Larbi.
Early Wednesday, Larbi got the call from Miss Razza's daughter, Meredith Lynne. She said, "My mom passed away in her sleep."
That day, assemblies were held in each grade to let the children know what had happened. Grief counselors and social workers met privately with students who were having a tough time with their emotions.
Saturday, the chorus will perform at Miss Razza's funeral, beginning at 11 a.m. at Watson Funeral Home, 350 Willett Ave., Riverside.
Thay Chuk, a sixth-grade teacher, was in Miss Razza's chorus more than 15 years ago.
"Last night," she said, "I was going to sleep and I felt a tingle. I felt her presence in my room. I was scared, you know. But then I said, 'Why should I be scared of Miss Razza?' "
In Miss Razza's classroom yesterday, the keyboards were quiet and the musical staff was wiped clean.
Evans described as very bright, quiet
Posted Thursday, September 1, 2005
"He thinks and analyzes a situation," says the school board chairman in Hillsborough County.
BY RICHARD C. DUJARDIN
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Donnie Evans said his biggest regret about yesterday is that his parents weren't on hand to see him named the city's new superintendent of schools.
Related
Providence chooses new superintendent
His father, Calvin Evans, and his mother, Mable, ran a tobacco farm in Bolivia, N.C., where as a boy he used to harvest corn, feed pigs and hang tobacco for curing. It was they, he said, who encouraged him to look to a life beyond the farm and to see education as the way.
They died last year, but would have given anything to see what their son had achieved, he said.
"I do know they are still watching from up there," he said. "They are still caring for me."
Evans -- his mother chose the name Donnie after a radio personality of that time -- took his parents' lessons to heart and ranked third in his high school graduating class. It was enough to earn him a college scholarship that would ultimately lead to his becoming a junior-high math teacher and then a principal of a school in Durham, N.C.
In a sense, said Candy Olson, the school board chairman for the Hillsborough County Public School District in Tampa, Fla., the 55-year-old Evans "has never entirely left teaching, at least in his heart."
In 1987, he became director of Programs for Exceptional Children in Durham, N.C., and in 1990 joined the faculty at the University of South Florida as a professor and director of the Departments of Special Education and Educational Leadership.
In 1993, he joined the Hillsborough County School District, eventually becoming the district's chief academic officer, overseeing the curriculum for 190,000 students in the nation's ninth-largest school district.
Evans said he was drawn to applying for the superintendency in Providence because he believes it's a job where he can make a big impact on the lives of 26,000 youngsters -- more so than he could in the number-two spot in his Florida position.
Once divorced and now married to Deborah Harris, a former University of South Florida professor and special-education specialist who has her own business as an educational consultant, Evans is the father to two grown stepchildren. He was described by some of his former associates in Florida yesterday as a "quiet and gentle" man who is "stern only when he needs to be."
Doris Ross Reddick, a former school board member there, said some people criticized him in Florida for what they saw as a failure of a parental-choice program he was in charge of implementing as a way of encouraging integration, but she said failures with the plan were "not Donnie's fault."
"He's a very bright person, who is good at academics," she said. "He's definitely not flashy."
"He thinks and analyzes a situation," said Olson. "If he has one weakness, some would say he over-thinks and over-analyzes. But he deals very well with other entities."
Evans said he expects to spend a great deal of time popping into classrooms, meeting with youngsters and teachers because that, he said, is where the action is.
And when he's not officially working, he plans to spend a lot of time fishing and, if he has the time and patience, woodworking.
He said he's going to get some advice from people here as to the best places to fish. And as far as he's concerned, there's no need to worry about the weather.
"Remember, I used to live in North Carolina. Rhode Island may be a little colder than North Carolina, but one of the things I love is that they have a distinct winter, which Southern Florida does not. I actually had more of a challenge adjusting to the weather in Florida, where I lived for 15 years."
With his wife, with whom he is writing a book, the new superintendent shares a passion for special education. He said his interest began three decades ago when as a junior-high teacher he realized that nothing he learned in college had prepared him to teach math to children with disabilities. It led him to create a program on his own.
Evans noted yesterday that 20 percent to 22 percent of the students enrolled in Providence have been identified by the school system as special-needs students. That percentage is 10 percent above the national average, he said, and leads him to suspect that something is amiss.
"All around the country, you often see that in special education there is an over-representation of minority youngsters, particularly black youngsters and, in some communities, Latino youngsters. I happen to feel more kids are identified than really need the service.
"The solution, as I see it, is to make sure you are offering a quality education to meet their needs, and ultimately you won't see them being referred to special education."
Providence chooses new superintendent
Posted Thursday, September 1, 2005
Donnie W. Evans, 55, one of the top school administrators in Florida's Hillsborough County, will be the city's fourth superintendent in six years.
BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Providence has a new superintendent, Donnie W. Evans, a man who was born on a North Carolina tobacco farm and went on to serve as chief academic officer in a district larger than the state of Rhode Island.
Donnie W. Evans is introduced yesterday as Providence's superintendent of schools at a news conference attended by Mayor David C. Cicilline, among others.
Mayor David N. Cicilline announced Evans' appointment yesterday during a standing-room only news conference that included Brown University President Ruth Simmons, who led the mayor's search committee.
Evans, 55, is currently one of the top administrators in the Hillsborough County public schools, a sprawling district based in Tampa, Fla., that includes 190,000 students. By comparison, Rhode Island has 159,000 students.
(The new Hillsborough superintendent recently announced that she would eliminate Evans' position later this year.)
Evans has done just about every job in the public school system: teacher, assistant principal, principal and assistant superintendent. Unlike some rising stars, who move frequently to advance their careers, he has spent his entire career in two districts -- Durham, N.C., and Hillsborough, Florida's third-largest school district.
For 30 years, Evans has dreamed of becoming a superintendent. Yesterday, he explained why:
"A teacher has a direct impact on his classroom. A principal has a direct impact on his school. But a superintendent has impact on a much larger population. I always wanted to have a larger impact."
Evans had his sights on larger districts than Providence, however. He was a finalist for the top position in his own district as well as in Savannah, Ga. During his bid for the Savannah post, the vote was split along racial lines, according to published reports.
As Cicilline put it, "It's as if he has spent his entire life preparing to become superintendent."
Evans is Providence's fourth superintendent in six years. At first blush, he seems to be the antithesis of Diana Lam, a big-city superintendent with a national reputation who shook up the Providence school system and then moved on to New York City three years later.
Evans is soft-spoken and scholarly, with dozens of academic publications to his name. He has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida. Although he has held numerous top administrative jobs, he has never been superintendent.
Evans' willingness to commit to the district was one reason the Providence School Board chose him, according to several members.
Related
Evans described as very bright, quiet
"We weren't looking for a superstar," said School Board President Mary McClure. "We were looking for someone who has breadth and depth and staying power. He's someone that likes to see things through."
At yesterday's news conference, Evans said that he would like to retire from Providence. "When we plant roots," he said, "we plant roots."
McClure said the board was also impressed with Evans' low-key leadership style, one based on teamwork and collaboration.
"We were looking for a star in our firmament," she said, "but we also wanted someone who felt he didn't have to be the sun who would block the other stars."
Both Cicilline and state education Commissioner Peter McWalters said they were impressed with Evans' success in improving students' academic performance in Hillsborough, a racially diverse district.
Under his leadership, Evans said that the number of high-performing schools in Hillsborough jumped from 7 to 87.
School board members also said they were struck by the broad trajectory that Evans' career has followed.
"He's been everything from a principal to central office [administrator,]" McWalters said. "He's done special education. He's emptied a whole building and changed the leadership and staff. He's had experience with the nuts and bolts stuff."
Evans has also had experience working with unions because Hillsborough is a union shop.
According to School Board members, race was not a factor in the selection process. "All other things being equal," McClure said, "we thought it would be wonderful to have a person of color."
Evans will have his hands full when he arrives in Providence on Sept. 19. Six of the district's nine middle schools are listed as needing "corrective action." Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, a district must intervene in schools that have not made adequate progress for four consecutive years.
The state Department of Education has already intervened in Hope High School, alarmed by the school's plummeting test scores and abysmal dropout rate.
The school district has been struggling to make academic gains during a period of sustained budget cuts. More than $11.5 million in jobs have been cut during the past three years, and music and arts programs have been eliminated in many schools.
Meanwhile, nearly 80 percent of the city's 26,000 students live at or near the poverty line; only 13 percent are white.
Evans ticked off the biggest challenges that Providence faces: The large percentage of children classified as needing special education; the achievement gap between rich and poor students; and the lack of public confidence in the city's schools.
But Evans said he will not go after more education dollars until he is convinced that the district is offering the best education it can.
While he appreciates the state's help, Evans also made it clear that he will work hard to minimize the Department of Education's involvement in the city's schools.
"I make no bones about taking harsh and swift action in a school that's not performing," he said. "I'll be in and out of schools a lot. I like being around kids."
Although the School Board is still negotiating his salary, McClure said it will fall between $165,000 and $185,000, the range stated in the search.
Evans was one of 10 finalists, including Frances Gallo, the district's director of administration and briefly, its acting superintendent.
Contacted yesterday, Gallo said she was saddened because she felt as if she failed her supporters by not being appointed superintendent.
Now that she has spoken with Evans, she said she knows that they are going to be good friends.
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