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Providence teachers gain contract
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2009
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The Providence School Board voted 5 to 3 Tuesday to approve a new three-year contract that requires teachers to pay a larger share of their health-care coverage and includes pay raises totaling 3 percent over the life of the agreement.
Teachers overwhelmingly approved the contract last week. The contract calls for raises of 1.5 percent in each of the first two years and no raise in the third year.
Board members Melissa Malone, Maila Touray and Ronnie Young voted against the contract and Robert Wise, Philip Gould, Brian Lalli, Katherine McKenzie and Grace Gonzalez voted for it. The discussion, which took place in closed session, lasted almost 90 minutes.
Young said he couldn’t support the contract, which calls for raises totaling 3 percent and is retroactive to Sept. 1, 2007, because it does not represent a complete break from the previous contract. Malone said that teachers deserve a raise but said she can’t justify salary hikes during these difficult financial times.
Even some of those board members who approved the contract did so grudgingly.
“I’m conflicted,” McKenzie said. “I believe that teachers should be paid for the work they do. But then I see children in buildings with lead paint, children without the most up-to-date textbooks. It grieves me. It’s a hard choice.”
Wise, the School Board president, said he hopes that the next contract will establish a more effective way to evaluate teachers and include a new way of hiring teachers that isn’t based on seniority, something that the state has already ordered the district to do, beginning on a limited basis this fall.
Providence Teachers’ Union President Steve Smith said he was stunned by some of the board’s comments, adding that no one raises an eyebrow when school administrators are hired for five-and six-digit salaries.
“I’ve been insulted in a lot less time than this,” Smith said after Tuesday night’s vote. “They’re saying, ‘We love our teachers but we don’t want to pay them.’ ”
The majority of the 2,100-member union — those who are at step 10 or above on the wage scale — will also receive a one-time retroactive payment equal to 1.5 percent of their salary. That payment will be made no later than September. About 75 percent of the teachers qualify for this payment.
In addition, most teachers will pay a greater share of their health-care premiums, moving from 10 percent to 15 percent. A small percentage of teachers, those hired after Sept. 1, 2004, already pay more than 15 percent of their health care and they won’t pay more under the new agreement.
Under the new contract, most teachers will pay $867 for individual health-care coverage and $2,316 for family coverage.
Last week, teachers expressed relief that, after two years of sporadic negotiations, they finally had a contract they could live with.
Teachers union would overhaul peer evaluations
Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009
By Jennifer D. Jordan
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — As in most years, about 400 teachers around the state will enter their own classroom for the first time this September. For many, it will prove a very difficult first year.
Isolated and alone, some new teachers struggle to balance the demands of running a classroom, teaching content and disciplining students. Nearly 10 percent of all teachers — according to national studies — will find they are in the wrong profession.
State educators want to lessen those problems, advocating more supports for teachers during that critical first year.
But without a comprehensive mentor program and evaluation process, it is difficult for schools to give new teachers guidance and, if necessary, steer them out of teaching.
Friday, the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, which represents teachers in 11 districts including the state’s largest, Providence, announced plans to launch a more rigorous teacher-evaluation and mentoring program that has proved successful elsewhere.
The state requires that teachers be evaluated every few years. But the standards and rigor of evaluations are left up to districts, with uneven results.
Union leaders said they would begin a yearlong planning process to modify the Peer Assistance Review for Teaching Excellence, a widely respected peer-evaluation process started 28 years ago in Toledo, Ohio. Similar programs have spread to Chicago, Minneapolis and Rochester, N.Y.
Marcia B. Reback, union president, says she wants to roll out the program in Rhode Island’s four urban districts in September 2010. Reback said the superintendents of Pawtucket, Providence and Woonsocket have said they want to participate in the program, and that union officials are also talking with Central Falls Superintendent Fran Gallo.
“The core of this program is providing support to new teachers,” Reback said. “The model we have now is new teachers go into classrooms and it’s sink or swim. We need to be giving these teachers every kind of support.”
The Toledo evaluation program has removed 400 ineffective teachers over the past three decades, said Dal Lawrence, former head of the Toledo teachers union and the founder of the peer-assistance review program.
In Toledo, there is a “consulting” teacher — a veteran instructor — for every 10 new teachers. Throughout the year, the consulting teacher visits and mentors the new teachers and provides a recommendation to an evaluation team about whether the teacher should continue in the profession. The evaluation team includes administrators and other teachers.
“Most people will tell you the system we have is broken,” said Lawrence, who attended RIFT’s news conference. “Why can’t we fix it with union and management doing it together?”
The program is expensive. Consulting teachers commit to three years, training a total of 30 new teachers before returning to the classroom. Districts pay the consulting teachers’ full salaries during this period. Lawrence said that Toledo hired nine consulting teachers for the 2008-09 school year, at a cost of $1.2 million to the district.
Nationally, the issue of teacher quality is heating up. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have both highlighted rigorous teacher evaluations and mentoring programs in recent speeches.
The topic is receiving more local attention, too. The state Department of Education on Wednesday presented the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education a new framework for more meaningful teacher evaluations.
“Right now, we don’t really have a system. Everyone has a different evaluation process,” said Paulajo Gaines, the state’s director of educator quality and certification. “We are trying to standardize what it is we are looking for when we look at educators.”
The state proposal, which will be the focus of a public hearing in the fall, differs from the teachers union’s proposal in one important regard, Gaines said. If the Regents adopt the new evaluation framework, tenured as well as new teachers would undergo the more rigorous evaluation.
“Research has shown us that the single most important factor in a child’s success in the classroom is the quality of the teacher,” Gaines said. “That’s why our framework applies to all educators.”
Renovation makes Nathan Bishop the school of choice
Posted Wednesday, May 27, 2009
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — With a dramatically overhauled Nathan Bishop Middle School set to reopen this fall on the city’s East Side, a growing number of middle-class parents have decided to put their trust in the public schools.
After undergoing a $35-million renovation, Nathan Bishop will open this fall with slightly more than 200 sixth-graders, the majority of them from the East Side, including less-affluent neighborhoods such as Camp Street and Mount Hope.
Supporters are hoping that the refashioned Nathan Bishop, which will offer Advanced Placement courses, student advisories and team teaching, will attract children of more affluent parents back to the public schools.
So far, Nathan Bishop seems to be doing just that: more than 55 students are coming from private schools, including Moses Brown, The Wheeler School, Providence Country Day, St. Mary Academy-Bay View and several other schools. And more than 65 youngsters will come from two high-performing public elementary schools, Martin Luther King and Vartan Gregorian.
According to the 2000 census, almost half of the East Side’s 937 middle-school students, which include grades five through eight, were enrolled in private schools.
Parents say that Nathan Bishop represents a turning point for the city’s public schools. Until now, affluent parents typically opted out of the public schools because the city’s middle schools were seen as failures, plagued by chronically low student performance, disruptive students and a high turnover of principals and staff. Only one middle school, Nathanael Greene, was seen as an option because of its gifted-and-talented program.
“This truly was a David-and-Goliath story,” said Lucia Gill Case, whose son, Lars, will attend Nathan Bishop this fall. “This school had gone downhill. It was in horrible shape. There was a sense of hopelessness.”
In the spring of 2006, then-Supt. Donnie Evans stunned parents with his decision to close Nathan Bishop, citing falling enrollments and alarmingly low student achievement. But Evans was forced to reconsider after hundreds of East Side residents launched a massive e-mail campaign protesting his decision. Evans not only listened, he invited parents to participate in the process of planning a new middle school.
“Now, there is this beautifully renovated building where many students can walk to school,” Case said. “It has a certain miraculous quality, like Obama becoming president.”
The new Nathan Bishop is changing for the better for several reasons: a dynamic principal, Michael Lazzareschi, who was named Rhode Island’s 2008 elementary school principal of the year; greater autonomy for the principal, who can hire his own staff; the opportunity for students to take advanced courses and a learning environment that offers the latest technology.
Tobias Lederberg, of Laurel Avenue, graduated from Nathan Bishop more than 30 years ago and he is tickled that his son, Eli, 10, will go there next year. Eli currently attends the Henry Barnard School, a laboratory school at Rhode Island College.
“We’re going back to the public schools,” Lederberg said, adding that he would have probably sent his son to a private school if Nathan Bishop had not been available.
“First,” he said, “we like that it’s a neighborhood school. Secondly, there are a number of students from his current class at Henry Barnard that are going there. There is some comfort in knowing that other people have made the same decision.”
Every parent interviewed for this story said that what sold them on Nathan Bishop was Lazzareschi, who currently runs the successful King Elementary School on Camp Street.
“What clinched it for us was Michael Lazzareschi,” said Debra Warshay, whose son, Matthew, currently attends the Jewish Community Day School in Providence. “He has a very sophisticated understanding of the role that parents play. I think he has a vision of what the school can be.”
Warshay, who lives on the East Side, said she was excited by some of the policy changes at Bishop, notably that the principal has the authority to choose his teachers, a policy that was successfully implemented at Hope High School.
Still, the decision to send Matthew to Nathan Bishop was not made lightly — or quickly, Warshay said.
“What I needed,” she said, “was enough time to trust that the school’s potential wouldn’t be blocked by archaic policies like bumping.”
Starting this fall, teaching vacancies at six schools, including Nathan Bishop, will no longer be filled based on seniority, which has often led to bumping — wherein a teacher with more seniority can replace someone with less seniority, a process that can result in a cascading series of disruptions.
Warshay also likes the fact that the school is opening with the sixth grade only, which means that her son will always be in the oldest class at the Elmgrove Avenue school. Bishop will add grades seven and eight during the next two years, for a total of 600 students.
In a 2001 Brown University survey, Providence parents said that offering a gifted program was the single most important factor that would bring them back to the public schools. But parents who were involved in the early planning of the new middle school wanted it to be inclusive. Instead of offering a separate strand for gifted and talented students, Nathan Bishop will offer advanced courses to all students, depending on their abilities.
That was a huge draw for a number of parents, who said that without that offering they might have sent their children to a private or parochial school.
But parents stress that this is not about creating a boutique school for the city’s middle class. Although almost 80 percent of the school’s students will come from the neighborhood, many of those who attend the two feeder elementary schools are children of color.
These parents hope that Bishop will be the catalyst for a deeper change throughout the school system.
“Superintendent Tom Brady feels strongly that it’s not just about Bishop,” Case said. “He is starting to put things in place that will be harbingers of change all over the city.”
“The Providence public schools want to be the school of choice for all families,” Brady said. “My goal is to put the charter schools out of business in five years.”
Educators relieved stimulus money coming their way
Posted Wednesday, May 20, 2009
By Jennifer D. Jordan
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island will receive a huge infusion of federal money for schools, after the U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday the release of $111 million for the current and next school years. The money is arriving just in time to save hundreds of jobs in schools statewide, according to relieved state education officials.
“It would not be an exaggeration to say that due to the timing of the stabilization money coming in to the state, there are districts with such significant cash-flow issues that rather than laying off a couple of teachers, districts would have been facing a scenario of closing school for a number of weeks and losing all of their teachers for a portion of the school year,” said David V. Abbott, state deputy education commissioner. That crisis will now be avoided, he said.
More than half of the economic stabilization funds — $69 million — will replace state money for local public schools that was cut in Governor Carcieri’s spending plans for fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2010.
The funds are part of the $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (President Obama’s stimulus legislation) and were intended to preserve public education in difficult financial times.
The rest of the federal cash consists of $21.5 million for the state’s three public colleges and about $20 million to offset cuts in the Rhode Island state police budget, according to Carolyn Dias, finance director for the state Department of Education.
Some leaders, including Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, have decried the use of federal funds to replace state aid to schools, saying cash-strapped school districts need additional support. The federal stimulus package was designed to create and protect jobs, they say, not plug state cuts.
Education officials have been more circumspect.
“While it would have been nice to have been able to use the stabilization funds to increase the amount of funding to our school districts,” Abbott said, “the sad reality is, without the federal assistance, untold numbers of teaching and support jobs would have been lost in our schools.”
A spokeswoman for Carcieri said the state had not yet received the money but that it would be coming shortly.
The state is also receiving $43 million this year in stimulus money for special education and low-income students through two federal programs, Title 1 and Special Education. Vocational education programs and independent living grants for the disabled are also included in this extra money.
“That really is new money and it will do a lot of good,” Abbott said. “Given that our poorest districts are also historically our lowest performing, the state has been working with those districts for years on improvement plans …. We are very confident they will use this money to address the needs that have been identified.”
The state must track how the stimulus money is spent. A new accounting system now used by all school districts will help officials show where the money goes, Abbott said.
Rhode Island can apply for another $54 million in stabilization funds this fall. But receiving the second installment hinges on whether a waiver from the state is accepted by the federal government, said Amy Kempe, Carcieri’s spokeswoman.
The state must show it is spending the same proportion of money on education as it has in past years — about 27 percent of total state spending. But because of cuts to the education budget, that means the General Assembly must find ways to save money in other areas or increase revenue. Carcieri has already said he will not raise taxes; instead he wants lawmakers to approve pension reform that he says will save tens of millions of dollars.
Providence ends ‘bumping’ by teachers with seniority
Posted Tuesday, April 14, 2009
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Starting with six schools in the next academic year, teaching vacancies in Providence will no longer be filled based on seniority, a shift that could have far-reaching implications for every school district in Rhode Island.
In a letter to all staff on Wednesday, Supt. Tom Brady announced that principals, working closely with school-based interview committees that include teachers, will choose which teachers will be assigned to their schools based on a common set of criteria. No longer will seniority be the driving force behind all staffing decisions.
Brady didn’t reach this decision alone.
In early February, Peter McWalters, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, ordered Brady to begin filling vacancies based on teacher qualifications because, he said, the district wasn’t moving quickly enough to improve student achievement. McWalters made it clear that teachers contract language would not stand in the way of his “corrective-action order” to the school district.
McWalters said a 1997 state law, called Article 31, gives the commissioner broad power to intervene in chronically low-performing districts, as does the federal law known as No Child Left Behind.
Tim Duffy, executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, said McWalters’ order, coupled with several recent court decisions and the federal law, could have huge implications for school districts around the state.
“This recognizes that student welfare trumps any kind of contract language on seniority,” Duffy said. “I think it’s a good move.”
Brady’s decision, however, may deep-six his efforts to develop a collaborative relationship with the Providence Teachers Union. Steve Smith, president of the 2,000-member union, said he was blindsided by Brady’s announcement and threatened to sue the district:
“He ignored our ideas,” Smith said. “This doesn’t empower teachers. It relies solely on the principal’s authority.”
According to Smith, Brady knew that the union was preparing its own hiring policy, an assertion that Brady denied.
If the union’s recommendations aren’t taken seriously, Smith said, it will have no choice but to file a lawsuit.
Brady denied that this was a unilateral decision, adding that his office and the union met for at least six hours and that his plan incorporated several of the union’s recommendations. In his letter to teachers, Brady said that he appreciates the “uncertainty and angst that may surface as we implement a dramatically different system for hiring and assigning teachers.”
Starting this fall, teacher vacancies in four Providence schools — Hope High School, Veazie Street Elementary School, Lauro Elementary School and Perry Middle School — will be filled based on whether the applicants have the skills needed to serve students in those particular schools. The principals of the district’s two new schools — Nathan Bishop Middle School and the Providence Career and Technical Academy — will have the authority to hire their own teachers. The entire school district will move to this new plan at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year.
MCWALTERS ORDERED Providence to radically change its assignment policy because he wanted to end a practice called bumping. Under the current seniority rules, when there is a layoff, the most-senior teacher can dislodge someone with less seniority. In a district with 2,000 teachers, bumping can result in wholesale dislocations. In recent years, some smaller high schools have lost a third of their staff due to bumping.
The result is a school system in which large numbers of teachers are constantly in flux, a system in which someone with a lot of seniority winds up teaching a particular class not because the teacher is the best person for the job, but because of the number of years that person has logged in the school system.
Brady emphasized that the new hiring policy is based on mutual consent, which would work like this: A teacher interviews for multiple vacancies. Once all of the interviews are completed, the committee ranks which teachers would be a good match for various openings at their school, while the individual teacher ranks which schools would be acceptable.
“No applicants will be assigned to schools that they have indicated to be unacceptable,” the policy states. “Conversely, no schools will be assigned to applicants that they have indicated to be unacceptable.”
Teachers will also have to submit evidence to support their applications, including three pieces of student work, a record of their professional development, two letters of reference and a cover letter that addresses specific questions developed by the district.
Teachers have the right to appeal their assignment, all the way up to the education commissioner’s office.
Unions object to charter school provisions in budget
Posted Wednesday, April 8, 2009
By Cynthia Needham
Journal State House Bureau
PROVIDENCE — As hundreds of parents pinned their hopes on winning a spot in Rhode Island’s charter schools Tuesday, teachers union leaders rushed to the State House to protest a plan that would give the alternative public schools more leeway in how they do business.
Under the proposal –– nestled in Governor Carcieri’s budget plan for the coming year –– charter schools would not be bound by prevailing wage, tenure and retirement-system clauses that govern other public schools.
Removing those requirements, supporters including the governor say, would eliminate the red tape that can hamper classroom innovation. Such freedoms give charter schools greater control over budgets and personnel and allow them to attract and pay for top teaching talent.
But teachers union representatives vehemently object, contending it amounts to an end run around collective bargaining units, giving management an excuse to pay lower wages and do away with seniority protections.
“It’s wrong, it’s unfair, it’s unconscionable, it’s absolutely unnecessary and it wasn’t the deal that was struck when the original charter law was put into place,” James Parisi, a lobbyist for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, told the House Finance Committee in a hearing Tuesday.
The original charter law, drafted more than a decade ago as Rhode Island looked for new ways to foster innovation in its public education system, called for the new class of schools to be tied to local districts. It was later amended to liberate such schools from district oversight, making it easier for independent groups to start new institutions.
A year ago, the legislature approved yet another new class of schools, known as mayoral academies, which unlike the state’s existing 11 charter schools did not require specific salary or tenure structures, or obligations that teachers contribute to the state retirement system.
The governor’s budget proposal, if approved by lawmakers, would extend that flexibility to all charter schools. (It would also add $2.8 million for existing schools and $1.5 million for new or expanding schools, including the first proposed mayoral academy, in Cumberland.)
Deputy Education Commissioner David Abbott said the change would not prevent schools from organizing into unions if they chose to do so. Rhode Island already has three unionized charter schools.
The idea, he reiterated, is simply to give schools more autonomy in how they spend their dollars. Schools in other states including New York have used the freedom to pay teachers higher-than-average salaries, he noted.
“It’s just a question of flexibility of how they choose to allocate the funding they get. Should they choose to increase teacher pay to attract more highly qualified candidates, they would have to make that up somewhere else in their overall budget,” Abbott said.
But Parisi and Henry Boeniger, of National Education Association Rhode Island, say the plan could also cause problems for the state’s retirement system.
Currently, most charter school teachers are enrolled in the state pension system. If enacted, the new law would allow schools to elect not to continue participation in the state system.
“If you waive charter schools’ obligation to participate in the teacher retirement system, you are in effect relieving them of the obligation of paying off the unfunded liability that’s in our pension plan …” said Parisi. “Once you start exempting people from participating in the pension system you’re also exempting them from their share of paying off the unfunded liability.”
Governor Caricieri Tuesday said “that’s not a reason not to allow more flexibility in the operations. The unfunded liability for pensions needs to be dealt with but not in the context of requiring union rules in the way they are operating.”
The House Finance Committee made no decisions on the proposal, though members including Chairman Steven M. Costantino raised questions about how the state Board of Regents selects which charter schools to approve and fund. Union leadership has accused the mayoral academies of trying to leapfrog other charter applications now pending.
Abbott conceded that while the process was not always competitive, a moratorium that temporarily banned the creation of new charter schools until last year generated a backlog of applications. It is now up to the Regents to decide which new schools to approve and how to divvy up the funding, he said.
The unions say now is not the time to thinking about funding new schools.
“What I don’t understand,” Parisi said, “is how the governor could propose expanding charter schools when the public school districts are hurting as much as they are hurting.”
Providence After School Alliance going to the high schools
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2009
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Imagine a place where high school students could converge to find out where to take art classes, get a summer job or go for health screenings. Then imagine a Web site where teenagers could find out about the latest poetry slam, hip-hop concert or art offerings at AS220.
Five years ago, at the urging of Mayor David N. Cicilline, the Providence After School Alliance — known as PASA — created a network of after-school activities for middle school students, half of whom had nowhere to go between the time school let out and the time their parents came home from work.
On Monday, Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Sen. Jack Reed joined Cicilline and dozens of youth groups to announce the launch of a high school version of PASA’s nationally recognized middle school program.
Five years ago, Cicilline decided that the city’s middle school students needed a coordinated network of activities to engage students during the long and sometimes hazardous hours that follow the end of the school day. The Providence After School Alliance was the result of that effort. Rather than duplicate existing programs, PASA created a network of activities around neighborhood hubs — a middle school or a YMCA — and then provided free transportation within the neighborhoods.
Today, 1,800 middle school students take juggling or learn to sail after school. Initially, the alliance focused on middle school children because that age group had the fewest after-school activities and the greatest need. About 50 percent of middle school students are alone when they get home.
Cicilline always dreamed of extending the program to the city’s 7,000 high school students, half of whom have never participated in any after-school activity.
“Our kids spend a lot more time out of school than in school,” Cicilline said yesterday. “We need to recognize that.”
“We’re graduating 400 middle school kids a year,” said PASA’s executive director, Hillary Salmons. “The question kids ask is, ‘What’s next? How do we go deeper?’ ”
The high school version of the After School Zones is called the Providence Hub and it will exist in real time and in cyberspace in the form of a Web site. Hub.com will bring together all of the resources available to teenagers, from after-school arts programs at New Urban Arts to summer internships to HIV screenings. The site will also be interactive, allowing students to share their interests and even post comments about existing programs.
Because most teenagers have to hoof it to after-school activities, the program will also provide bicycles planted at various locations around the city in addition to a local trolley that would drop teens off at places such as AS220 and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Students will also be able to access information at automated kiosks scattered around Kennedy Plaza.
What is unique about this effort is that high school students helped create it. Last year, PASA tapped teenagers from 10 youth organizations and invited them to brainstorm what an effective after-school program would look like. Those students interviewed 1,300 young people, asking them what they wanted and what services were missing.
“Right now,” Michelle Duso, a consultant who helped design the high school plan, said, “kids need to go to three different places to find out information about summer jobs, internships and financial aid. It’s very fragmented. The Hub will be the central place that collects all of this information.”
Duso gave the following example. AS220 is a place where students can create art and make music, but it is not equipped to help students who are having academic problems or substance-abuse issues. The Hub would be able to answer those questions, taking a burden off nonprofit groups that have a more defined mission.
“This will be a central conduit for a system of extended-day learning programs,” said Paul Sproll, who runs the Department of Teaching and Learning at RISD. “Teens live in several different worlds. Being connected to the Hub gives all of us access to the world of teens.”
The hope, he said, is that the Hub will allow youth and arts organizations to reach many more high school students.
The PASA program hopes to raise $500,000 in start-up funds. So far, it has received $150,000 from the City of Providence and Bank of America.
Regents, Carcieri vote in new education commissioner
Posted Friday, April 3, 2009
By Jennifer D. Jordan
Providence Journal Bulletin
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- As expected, Deborah A. Gist was appointed the state's new education commissioner at a 3:15 p.m. ceremony Thursday at the State House. She is the first woman to hold the post.
The Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education unanimously voted to appoint Gist, along with Governor Carcieri, who is permitted by state law to cast a vote.
Gist "is a committed educator who recognizes the importance of community as we accelerate our efforts to get all our students to proficiency and close the achievement gap that exists between our urban and suburban schools," Carcieri said. "Rhode Island is now poised to realize the promise of our current reform efforts and move all our students to the highest levels of performance."
Gist, 42, resigned Wednesday from a similar job in Washington, D.C., where she oversaw the district's public schools as a "state superintendent." Her resignation is effective June 30, and she officially takes over for departing Commissioner Peter McWalters July 1.
However, Gist said she intends to spend time in Rhode Island before then, working closely with McWalters to ensure a smooth transition. Her successor in Washington, a former assistant secretary of education, was announced by Washington Mayor Adrian M. Fenty Wednesday afternoon, shortly after the news broke that Gist had been offered the job here.
Gist was appointed by former Mayor Anthony A. Williams in 2004, but found herself in an awkward position after Mayor Fenty took over the school system in 2007 and named Michelle Rhee as the day-to-day administrator for the city's schools. Rhee has spearheaded a time of huge upheaval in the distressed Washington, school system and has been profiled on the cover of Time magazine.
Gist, meanwhile, oversaw the city's 59 charter schools; compliance with federal requirements, including yearly testing of students and classification of schools; transportation; early childhood and adult education. However, Gist reported only to a deputy mayor.
Gist will be paid about $200,000, including salary and retirement benefits, but the details of her contract are still being ironed out, said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the Department of Education.
Gist plans to visit Central Falls High School at 8:30 Friday morning to get her first glimpse of a Rhode Island urban school, Krieger said.
Roger Williams assistant principal denies comment about Dominican flag
Posted Friday, March 6, 2009
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — As assistant principal Robert Perkins tells it, last Friday was a frustrating day at Roger Williams Middle School.
It began badly. Perkins was in the corridor when he saw three students racing down the hallway waving a Dominican flag, which got quite a response from other students who were celebrating Dominican Independence Day. Perkins took the flag away and told the boys that he wouldn’t tolerate any behavior that would disrupt the school day. He told the students that he would keep the flag until the end of class.
Later, Perkins said he walked through the school, with the flag tucked under his arm. A teacher approached him and asked if he planned to “lock down” the school because students had been so unruly.
“It was crazy that day and the day before,” Perkins said in an interview last night with Dan Yorke, a talk show host on WPRO. “I don’t know why. It was just the vibe.”
After disciplining the three students, Perkins met with a concerned parent, was waylaid by a couple of teachers who needed help with some disruptive students, then walked into the school cafeteria, where he discovered a mess that students had left behind.
“I was at my wit’s end,” said Perkins, who calls himself a disciplinarian. “I had had it. Everything was laying on me that day. I threw that flag on the ground and I stepped on it.
“But I didn’t do it out of anger,” he said. “I didn’t do it out of anger for the flag or the kids. I’m just glad it wasn’t a baby.”
Perkins said there were no students present when he stepped on the flag. And he denied an earlier allegation in which he supposedly said, “I’ll mop the floor with your flag.”
“Never, never, never,” he said. “That never happened. That never was said.”
But the bad day only got worse.
At lunch, a major food fight broke out in the lunch room. According to the police report, several students began singing and banging on the table, and then two students began throwing apples and bread at another table. Before long, a large crowd of students began screaming and running around the cafeteria, “creating an unsafe environment,” according to the police.
When the police tried to place one student in custody, another boy interfered and began yelling at the patrolmen. The teen repeatedly refused to calm down even after the police ordered him to do so. After the police and the school administrators got the cafeteria under control, three students were brought to the police station, where they were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
Yesterday, Perkins said that the food fight had nothing to do with the flag incident. But by the end of the day, he said that he had suspended about 20 students, some for the food fight, other students for inappropriate dress.
Perkins went home and returned to work on Tuesday. (Monday was a snow day).
Around 10 a.m., Perkins said he got a phone call from principal Rudolph Moseley. The middle school director, Denise Carpenter, met him in his office and told him he would have to leave Roger Williams immediately.
“She said, ‘You’ll be getting a letter from human resources,’ and that’s it,” Perkins said. “She couldn’t, she wouldn’t, tell me what was going on.”
On Wednesday, Perkins said he received a letter saying that he had been placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation. He said he didn’t know why he had been suspended until he read yesterday’s Providence Journal. Perkins said he was disappointed that Supt. Tom Brady didn’t speak with him before placing him on leave.
“Mr. Brady, you have tarnished my reputation,” Perkins said. “I’m on the front page of the Journal, above the sex offenders. This issue is more important than those issues.”
Brady, in an e-mail that he sent out on Tuesday, wrote that an administrator at Roger Williams had “displayed a lack of judgment and cultural insensitivity in his actions toward students who were demonstrating pride in their Dominican heritage.” Brady also wrote that “such blatant disregard for the culture of another by any member of the Providence School Department is never to be tolerated.”
Brady, who never identified Perkins by name, also apologized to the students and their families for the apparent actions of the assistant principal.
Yesterday, Perkins said he would love to return to work, but Mayor David N. Cicilline said that he should be fired if, in fact, he stomped on the Dominican flag: “This behavior is totally unacceptable and has no place in our schools.”
School officials, including Brady, declined to discuss the matter further yesterday. But principal Moseley said the public perception of the school has been improving, along with students’ test scores.
— With reports from Maria Armental and Alisha A. Pina.
Providence schools develop new graduation requirements that will do away with the district’s fragmented curriculum
Posted Friday, February 13, 2009
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Imagine a school district with 13 high schools, each with its own curriculum, its own graduation requirements, even its own version of algebra 1.
That’s what Providence has had for years. But not for long.
School officials here have developed a new set of graduation requirements that will do away with the district’s fragmented curriculum, a system in which two-thirds of the 321 high school courses lack a curriculum guide, a system in which students can take courses such as General Math that don’t prepare them for college work, a system where students can discover during their senior year that they don’t have enough credits to graduate.
For the first time, these new requirements will impose a uniform curriculum across all high schools, all courses and all grade levels.
According to Supt. Tom Brady, the goal is that algebra 1 will look the same whether you attend Hope or Mount Pleasant. Every student deserves the same high-quality course work, Brady said, and the only way to do that is to make sure that every high school offers a curriculum that is in line with the district’s standards.
Providence is one of three school districts (the others are Cranston and Burrillville) facing mounting pressure from the state Department of Education to adopt more rigorous high school graduation standards. Districts have until 2012 before they face penalties, but state education officials hope the remainder of the schools will be on board by 2010.
Unlike most Rhode Island school districts, which have only one high school, Providence has 13 schools, which makes it even more challenging to bring all of them into line. Complicating matters further, several high schools have been allowed to develop their own curriculums, which led to initial reluctance to move to a uniform system. But, chief academic officer Sharon Contreras said, the days of allowing schools to pursue their unique brand of education are over.
“We’re establishing uniform, high standards,” she said. “Before, schools determined the course sequence. The district will determine that now.”
In the sciences, for example, students will take biology, followed by chemistry and then physics. Non-college courses, such as Fundamental Science, will be eliminated.
The state now requires students to demonstrate they have specific skills in order to graduate. Students must meet the following standards: achieve partial mastery on the state NECAP exam, which is taken in 11th grade; complete a senior research or exhibition project; complete 21 credits and finish the district-approved course work.
For the first time, students will also have to take a lab-based science course.
Although every student will receive the same diploma, there are two distinct paths: a traditional academic one and a technical one. Students who follow the technical track will not be submitted to a watered-down curriculum, as was common in the past, Contreras said. Rather, they will be allowed to substitute certain traditional math and science courses with technical ones that are directly related to the construction trades or electrical training.
When the new $70-million Career & Technical Academy opens this fall, the building will offer nine career paths, a wireless library, recording and television studios, a student café and cosmetology salon. When finished, the CTE will offer graduates industry-recognized certificates of competency, and, in some careers, students will be able to enter industry training programs with advanced standing.
The new graduation requirements will also establish guidelines for students who want to earn college credits; permit students to earn credit online and require schools to provide extra academic help for students who fall behind.
Although some high schools already offer dual enrollment programs, Contreras wants to make sure that every student, no matter where they attend high school, has an opportunity earn college credits. The new regulations will also allow middle school students to earn high school credits.
So far, state education officials like what they have seen. Roy Seitsinger, the state director of middle and high school reform, said he thought the policy was acceptable but stressed that this is the first of several steps toward the district having a fully approved graduation plan.
“Having a clear policy is critical for Providence to move forward,” Seitsinger said. “This is the cornerstone of their graduation plans.”
The district must now prove that the policy has substance. Every high school must have student advisories or something similar; teachers must be trained to implement the new graduation standards, including the student exhibition; and the new requirements must be explained to students and parents.
The Providence School Board is scheduled to vote on the new policy Feb. 23.
As ESL students lag behind, Rhode Island cities look to fine-tune instruction
Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — In spite of all the rhetoric about the surge of illegal immigrants, the number of students who speak little or no English has decreased in Rhode Island over the past five years.
State and local education officials couldn’t explain why those numbers are declining, but some educators wondered whether Governor Carcieri’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, combined with the state’s abysmal job market, has contributed to the reduction.
Central Falls had about 1,000 students enrolled in English as a Second Language classes seven years ago; now, it has 600 students who fit that category. In Providence, the number has declined slightly over the past five years, from 16 percent to 14 percent of the total student population.
Nationally, however, this population has more than doubled over the past 10 years, especially in the Southeast, where 13 states saw a growth of more than 200 percent.
But Peter McWalters, Rhode Island’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, said those numbers should not obscure very real performance gaps between English language learners and their fluent peers.
According to a national study by Education Week, an education policy magazine, only 13.8 percent of English language learners in Rhode Island scored proficient on a state math test compared with more than 50 percent of all students statewide. In reading, 11.3 percent of English language learners are proficient versus slightly more than 60 percent of all students statewide.
Nationally, only 9.6 percent of ESL fourth- and eighth-graders scored proficient or higher in math on a nationwide test and 5.6 percent scored proficient in English. Across the United States, 25 percent of all English language learners are failing to make progress toward English-language proficiency.
In Rhode Island, McWalters said, “We’re not in agreement that these kids are worth it because we are torn between a culture that’s says, ‘We don’t want you,’ and one that wants them to come here. We have to decide that these kids are worth it and that it is necessary to pay the bill.”
That said, Pawtucket and Central Falls are teaming up to teach middle and high school teachers how to think like ESL instructors.
“It’s making them all ESL teachers,” said Patricia Morris, the director of English as a Second Language in Central Falls. “They understand that they have to teach language skills as well as content — math or science.”
Meanwhile, Rhode Island College has agreed to offer ESL certification at a reduced cost to teachers in Pawtucket and Central Falls. As Morris said, “We’re trying to expand our pool of qualified candidates.”
But she suggested there is an inherent flaw in a system that measures students by a standard that she claims is impossible for them to meet.
“If an ESL student could meet the standard,” she said, “then they would no longer be classified as ESL. A student must take the math test regardless of how long they’ve been in this country. This is what drives ESL teachers crazy.”
English language learners are not a monolithic group, however. Nearly two-thirds are second- or third-generation Americans, with at least one parent born in the United States.
As a state, Rhode Island acknowledges that raising student achievement does call for a one-size-fits-all solution. In Providence, some children arrive in high school with little or no formal education in their native language, much less English. Other students have witnessed horrific violence and spent much of their childhood in refugee camps.
“We are not endorsing a bilingual program for everyone,” McWalters said. “What we are endorsing is a more sophisticated way to teach” English language learners.
The good news, he said, is that the leaders of urban districts such as Providence and Central Falls are looking for guidance in this area. In fact, the Department of Education has been working with urban school districts to fine-tune ESL instruction so it meets the needs of individual students.
As McWalters put it, “We are way beyond resistance. Providence School Superintendent Tom Brady is looking for help. Central Falls Superintendent Fran Gallo is leading it. The question is: Do we have the money and horsepower to do it?”
Health program ordered to arbitration
Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008
By Philip Marcelo
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A Superior Court judge barred the City of Providence from changing its health-care benefits administrator as planned on Jan. 1, saying it must submit the issue to binding arbitration with unions.
But Mayor David N. Cicilline, who says the change would save the city more than $11 million over three years, said he would appeal Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer’s order to the state Supreme Court today.
“It is disappointing that the court’s action enabled the [unions’] strategy to undermine an open and competitive bidding process that will result in an $11-million savings for our taxpayers,” Cicilline said. “Facing costs of $58,000 for every week of delay, the city will appeal … to the Supreme Court immediately.”
In a morning hearing yesterday, Pfeiffer ruled that the city and the unions representing municipal employees must bring their dispute over the change to binding arbitration, as specified in their collective bargaining agreements. He also denied a request from the city that he stay his decision pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Paul Doughty, president of the city firefighters union, called the city’s decision to appeal the order “short-sighted” since a ruling from an arbitrator may force the city to reverse any changes it makes on Jan.1, even if it receives a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court.
“The city should be sitting down with the unions and following the contracts that they negotiated rather than seeking court orders,” says Steven Smith, president of the city teachers union.
At issue is whether the proposed change from a single benefits administrator, Blue & Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, to two administrators, UnitedHealthcare of New England (for medical benefits) and CVS/Caremark (for prescription drug benefits) represents the same level of services.
According to all but one of the city union contracts, the city may change benefits administrators so long as the new administrator offers “equivalent services” as offered by the city’s longtime administrator, Blue Cross & Blue Shield. The firefighters union contract does not have any provision allowing for the city to change its benefits administrator from Blue Cross.
Also at issue is whether the city can change administrators at all without first negotiating with the unions. The unions claim that the city unilaterally awarded the contracts for the city’s benefits administration to United and CVS/Caremark in October; the city maintains it was within its rights to do so.
Last week, the six unions representing active employees –– including teachers, police officers, firefighters, City Hall employees and School Department clerical staff –– as well as two unions representing retired city workers filed requests in Superior Court to halt the planned changeover.
Senior Assistant City Solicitor Anthony F. Cottone said that the city will now file an emergency motion to stay the Superior Court order.
Cicilline argues that bringing in new benefits administrators does not change the benefits guaranteed under union contracts.
Providence is self-insured, meaning that it assumes the risk associated with the payment of the claims made annually by the roughly 5,000 city employees and 4,500 retirees and dependents who receive benefits.
“This is just the company that processes the payment and paperwork,” said Cicilline. “The plans themselves remain unchanged.”
The unions counter that United does not provide the same network of doctors as Blue Cross although they have said previously that they do no oppose CVS/Caremark taking over the city’s drug plans.
Meanwhile, Blue Cross & Blue Shield, whose contract with the city expires Dec. 31, disputed Cicilline’s assertions about the savings from switching to United and the loss of money from any delay in the planned switch:
“Contrary to the city’s assertions, they will not save $11 million over the life of the contract …,” James E. Purcell, president and CEO of Blue Cross, said in a statement. “We can provide the city with tangible savings by providing health insurance services on an interim basis to city employees under the terms of our recent bid.”
Unions seek halt to health care change
Posted Tuesday, December 16, 2008
By Philip Marcelo
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Six unions representing city employees sought court orders yesterday to stop Mayor David N. Cicilline’s plan to change the city’s health care benefits administrator on Jan. 1.
A Superior Court judge will decide next Monday whether to impose the legal actions, which were sought in response to the city’s awarding two separate three-year contracts, one to UnitedHealthcare of New England to administer its medical benefits, and another to CVS/Caremark to handle its prescription drug coverage, in October.
Providence is self-insured; it assumes the risk associated with the payment of the claims made annually by the approximately 5,000 city employees and 4,500 retirees and dependents who receive benefits.
The October decision severed the city’s decades-long relationship with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island to administer those claims, a move that is expected to save $11 million over the life of the contracts while providing the same services as Blue Cross, according to Cicilline.
But the unions, which represent municipal employees, firefighters, police officers, public school teachers, administrators and clerks, say that the city has not sufficiently proven that UnitedHealthcare’s services are equal to Blue Cross’ services.
Each union filed separate requests for temporary restraining orders in Providence County Superior Court yesterday morning, all essentially claiming that the city is in violation of the collective bargaining agreements.
Their main arguments are that United’s network of doctors is smaller than that of Blue Cross, does not have the same medical protocols and does not include an arbitration clause requested by unions.
They also say that the city should have first negotiated or sought arbitration with the unions before going forward with the changes.
“The main issue is the legal process,” says Paul Doughty, president of the Providence Firefighters’ Union. “The city can’t unilaterally change agreements outlined in the [collective bargaining agreement].”
The city filed an objection to the union’s request.
“We’ll ask that the complaints be dismissed because there is no legal basis for them. The contract with United is the result of an open, competitive bidding process,” Cicilline said yesterday.
Superior Court Associate Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer scheduled a Dec. 22 evidentiary hearing in which he will decide whether to uphold the unions’ request to stop the Jan. 1 changeover.
Cicilline said that the unions’ actions threatened to deny the city nearly $11 million in savings at a time when it can least afford it.
“The city is going to confront one of its toughest budgets in its history,” he said at a Christmas event at Dominica Manor on Federal Hill yesterday. “The city urges the labor unions to withdraw this lawsuit and stop any efforts to block this health-care administrator change that will save this city money.”
The city will continue to prepare for the health-care transition, he said.
The $11-million savings is a new calculation of the potential savings from the transition. Previously, the administration had said the deal would save $7.8 million.
Cicilline spokesman Rhoades Alderson said that Hewitt, the city’s health-care consultant, found “significant discrepancies between the benefits that were outlined by contract and what Blue Cross was actually implementing,” based on the information it disclosed.
Blue Cross had been implementing services that cost about $1 million per year more than what the contracts called for, he said. So over the three years of the UnitedHealthcare contract, the city would save another $3 million, he said.
What can $11 million get for residents?
According to Cicilline: “We can repave 18 to 20 miles of city roads, provide summer jobs for every public school student, and save residents $240 per household,” though he added that none of the anticipated savings had been earmarked for any specific expenses.
Meanwhile, the unions say they asked the city to consider expedited arbitration, a process which would have resulted in a ruling within one week’s time, according to Doughty. The city has declined.
“Expedited arbitration would have required different processes for each union so it would have been cumbersome,” said Alderson. “It is also a much less transparent process with no transcripts or briefs and would not have been appropriate for this issue of pressing public interest.”
Unions protest change in health-care managers
Posted Thursday, October 30, 2008
By Philip Marcelo
Journal Staff Writer
The crowd booed and hissed and screamed “liar!” as the familiar black city-owned sport-utility vehicle pulled up to the door of the downtown restaurant. Out bounded Mayor David N. Cicilline, wearing a dark coat and insulated from the masses by a staff member and a security detail.
Members of six city unions opposing the city’s decision to change its health care benefits manager picketed yesterday evening in front of Waterplace Restaurant, an upscale restaurant on the river walk across from the Providence Place mall where a group of young professionals was holding a fundraiser for the mayor.
By an unofficial Journal count, there were at least 500 in the crowd; union members estimated 700 to 800 were in attendance.
A police detail of about 15 officers was sent to keep the peace. The crowd dispersed at about 6:30 p.m., shortly after former Providence Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr. made his way through the crowd.
Earlier this month, the city awarded two separate three-year contracts, one to UnitedHealthcare of New England to administer its medical benefits, and another to CVS/Caremark to handle its prescription drug coverage.
The decision severed the city’s decades-long relationship with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and is expected to save $7.8 million over the life of the contracts while providing the same services as Blue Cross, according to Cicilline’s administration.
Under the new agreements, the city remains self-insured; the only difference now is the third-party administrator, the company that oversees the management of city insurance coverage, has changed.
But the unions, which together represent municipal employees, teachers, police officers, firefighters, school clerks and administrators, are critical of the deal with United even if they are satisfied with the new prescription terms under CVS/Caremark.
Among their chief concerns is that city employees will not have as many options in choosing doctors under United, a fear that city officials say is unfounded.
The unions say that United’s physician network –– those doctors approved by the health-care administrator –– includes about 97 percent of the primary care doctors Blue Cross offers; however the company has only about 85 percent of the medical specialists –– which range from plastic surgeons to obstetricians –– that the unions had under Blue Cross.
Cicilline says that after meeting with union leaders yesterday, his administration has offered to allow certain members to remain with their current doctor or specialist, even if the doctor is outside United’s network. Union officials dispute that any agreement was reached.
Those granted the special consideration under the offer would include members suffering from a chronic or serious illness such as cancer, as well as organ transplant recipients, or women in their third trimester of pregnancy. The consideration would remain in effect until treatment is complete, Cicilline said.
Another union complaint is that the city is not taking enough time to implement the changes, which go into effect Jan. 1.
The less-than-three months window, which comes during the holiday season, does not leave enough time for dependents to make adjustments, if necessary, says Paul Doughty, president of the Providence firefighters union.
Cicilline says the city has given enough time to allow for a smooth transition, sending out three communications in recent weeks to city workers regarding the change in medical and prescription benefits managers. Briefings about the changeover are expected to continue department by department, and representatives from United have already met with fire and police union memberships, with the others to follow, he said.
Meanwhile, the administration has established a hot line for employees with questions about the plan and a Web site that addresses frequently asked questions.
There will also be a six-month grace period for members who have physicians not in the network. Those members would have the same coverage as they had under Blue Cross until July 1, 2009, when they would have to change doctors or choose to pay out-of-network rates.
Neither satisfies the unions.
They demand a written commitment that the city cover the difference of claims not fully paid by United that would have otherwise been covered by Blue Cross.
The unions have also asked the city to consider creating a board to review medical claims in the event they are denied by United, but that is a request that the city has denied, according to Director of Administration Richard I. Kerbel.
School Supt. Tom Brady says he’s job is about building trust
Posted Monday, October 27, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — When Tom Brady arrived here three months ago, the school district was in turmoil: Supt. Donnie Evans was on his way out, the teachers had issued a no-confidence vote in the administration and the relationship between the School Board and the teachers’ union was acrimonious.
Brady, a retired Army colonel with top leadership experience in the Philadelphia and Washington schools, recognized that one of the first things he had to do was rebuild frayed relationships with his constituents, including teachers, parents, community leaders and the City Council. And so he embarked on a 90-day “listening and learning” tour whose goal was to introduce himself to the community, and, ultimately, heal the rifts that were keeping the district from moving forward.
Brady calls his management style “leadership by walking around,” which means you talk to people first before you make any big changes. During his first eight days in Providence, he visited every one of the district’s 45 schools. He asked each city councilor to take him on a tour of his or her ward. And he is meeting with small groups of parents in a series of informal conversations called “backyard chats” that allow families to put a face on the new superintendent.
“It’s all about building relationships,” Brady said last week. “The two questions I hear the most are, ‘How long are you staying?’ and ‘Can you do snow?’ I want people to know that I have a decent amount of experience and that I’m not going anywhere.”
In a district that has seen three superintendents come and go in nine years, sticking around counts. The turnover at the top has been harmful to students and staff, according to consultants. During a recent independent audit, many teachers told the consultants, “We’re just worn out.”
While it is too soon to see an uptick in test scores, Brady seems to be winning the first battle: restoring confidence to a demoralized district.
“He’s what Providence needs,” said Karen Feldman, who runs a youth-empowerment group called Young Voices. “He acknowledges when things are not right but he doesn’t dwell on the negative. We need a stellar manager of resources who is also politically savvy.”
During his first week in Providence, Brady took time to meet with the private foundation that was reviewing a major grant proposal from Young Voices, a small grass-roots organization. It is those small but important gestures, Feldman says, that build trust.
Nowhere were relationships more strained than with the 2,000-member Providence Teachers Union, whose members have been anxiously awaiting a new contract for 14 months. PTU President Steve Smith said Brady immediately reached out to the union and reopened negotiations, which had been stalled for months. At present, the union and the city are on the verge of ratifying a two-year “bridge” contract. As soon as that agreement is inked, both sides say they will sit down and begin work on a long-term contract that will deal with meatier issues, such as teacher evaluations.
“I can’t emphasize enough Tom Brady’s role in working out an agreement,” Smith said last week. “He’s thoughtful. He listens, and his goal is to have a true collaborative partnership with the union.”
Does Brady offer substance as well as style? Brady points to several concrete accomplishments during his first three months in office. In August, he brokered a new contract with the union that represents teacher assistants by offering a compromise that preserves jobs but calls for more training. The union, which staged a protest at a City Council meeting, threatened to hold the school budget hostage unless their demands were met. Brady asked for a meeting with the union’s president, the two sides reached an agreement, and the school budget was approved by the council shortly thereafter.
Brady also developed a 90-day plan that addressed five goals: increasing student achievement in a district where 40 percent of the schools are classified as low-performing, improving the efficiency of the business side of the district, creating a positive culture for school employees, improving the public’s trust through honest communication, and working collaboratively with the unions.
Brady hired consultants from the University of Texas to help the department craft a district-wide curriculum for math and science, bought 41,629 new textbooks and offered teachers 24,000 hours of professional training over the summer.
Brady has also taken a hard look at two offices that a recent audit said weren’t performing effectively: the human resources department and the central office. The independent audit concluded that “the human resources office has been ineffective for at least eight years.” The consultants found that the school system doesn’t have enough administrative capacity to develop a uniform curriculum, much less evaluate how well it’s taught. “There are a lot of chiefs and secretaries,” the consultants wrote, “but no one in between. Key positions in math and science have gone unfilled.”
Parents have long complained that the Providence schools are far from welcoming. In a district where 59 percent of the students are Latino, parents say that the School Department, in many cases, doesn’t value their language or their life experiences. A series of missteps by former Superintendent Evans, from the closing of a popular West End elementary school to the infamous Dec. 13 snowstorm that stranded children on school buses for hours, further tarnished the department’s public image.
Today, parents are expressing a cautious optimism that the schools have taken a turn for the better. Brady, they say, listens to their concerns and responds quickly when issues need to be addressed. While he offers a sense of hope, he doesn’t promise the moon.
“Things seem to get done,” said Lauren Zurier, who sits on the School Improvement Team at Classical High School. “And his hiring choices have been very sound.”
Jill Davidson, the PTO president of Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, says parents know who Brady is and what he stands for.
“He has this ability to focus on the details,” she said. “And he is serious about taking parents as his partners.”
Brian Principe had waged war with the district over the closing of the much-loved West Broadway Elementary School last year, mounting an unsuccessful legal challenge to force the School Board to reopen the school. After a recent conversation with Brady, Principe said that “for the first time, I’m excited again about the prospects for the city.”
“I don’t feel this is just the honeymoon period,” Principe said. “He’s sincere and he has plans and he’s being deliberate in his understanding of the district.”
When Mayor David N. Cicilline recruited Brady in March, he said the district needed a leader who could deliver textbooks on time, sign a contract with teachers and restore the public’s trust. So far, Cicilline said Brady has delivered the goods.
“Tom has done an excellent job of establishing relationships with important partners,” the mayor said. “He has done an excellent job of establishing relationships with the local colleges and universities.”
Cicilline also credited Brady with tapping into the expertise of the Broad Foundation, which trained Brady to become an urban superintendent. Broad, a national education think tank, has paid for the district to hire an expert to reorganize its human-resources department and its central office.
“When I listen to parents and teachers,” Cicilline said, “there has been a uniform confidence in his leadership and his accomplishments. Tom, in his first 90 days, has shown that he’s a strong leader who can convene different groups who have a stake in our kids’ success.”
McClure to resign from Providence School Board
Posted Thursday, October 23, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Mary McClure, whose 9-year tenure on the School Board is extraordinarily long for an urban district, has announced she will step down in late December. She has been president of the board for nearly five years.
In an interview yesterday, McClure denied that she was leaving because of calls for her resignation by parent activists upset with the way in which Supt. Tom Brady was hired last winter. She said she is leaving to pursue private business interests that will demand more of her time.
“I thought long and hard about this last year,” McClure said. “But we had just started our work with Reform Governance in Action and I wanted to finish that work.”
Reform Governance in Action refers to the board’s shift in focus from day-to-day decision-making to larger policy issues. Next year, many of those policies, from creating a uniform curriculum to developing new high school graduation requirements, will come to fruition, McClure said.
McClure has seen three superintendents — Diana Lam, Melody Johnson and Donnie Evans — come and go during her tenure. During that time, the district has boosted elementary test scores, built four new high schools (a new vocational school will open next fall), turned around Hope High School and brought the district into the information age.
But stubborn challenges remain: the district’s central office is woefully understaffed, the human resources department is dysfunctional and, at the high school level, the curriculum is fragmented and inconsistent. McClure said her biggest frustration is that the district is asked to do more with less every year, adding that budget cuts have made it difficult to improve student achievement.
Last winter, McClure survived a strong challenge by members of the City Council before being re-appointed to a three-year term. McClure was blamed for everything from the rancorous relationship between the council and the School Board to the handling of the Dec. 13 snowstorm, which stranded dozens of children on school buses until late at night. (Her term expires in January 2011).
In February, the teachers union issued a vote of no confidence in McClure’s leadership. Teachers staged informational picketing and said that they were frustrated by what they called the district’s lack of direction and lack of support. Teachers have also been stymied by the snail-like pace of contract negotiations, although Brady said recently that a new agreement is close to completion.
Last month, both McClure and the School Board came under fire for appointing Superintendent Brady in closed session, which, according to the attorney general’s office, violated the state’s Open Meetings Law.
Despite the growing drumbeat of criticism, McClure said she was under no pressure to resign and said she told Mayor David N. Cicilline about her decision late last month. Looking back, she said she has been proud to serve and doesn’t regret it for a minute.
“I’ve always told the mayor that this is the best job I’ve ever had,” said McClure, who is 59 and retired. “I’ve never done anything this meaningful. I’ve had a blast.”
Students cram for Classical High School admissions test
Posted Friday, October 10, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — On Yom Kippur, a day when most students are off having fun, 60 students from one of the lowest-performing middle schools in the city are studying to take the entrance examination for Classical High School.
These eighth-graders are not necessarily the smartest kids in their class. Not all of them get good grades or have a spotless attendance record. What they do have in common is the determination to get into one of the best high schools in the state, a school where 99 percent of the seniors went to college last spring.
Last year, 16 Perry students were admitted to Classical and 6 were placed on the waiting list. Perry’s principal, Frances Rotella, appealed to the guidance department at Classical. “These are college-bound students,” she said. “They get all As. They have near-perfect attendance records.”
After Classical took a look at the students’ entrance exams, however, only one child was admitted. Why? Because their test scores were weak. That’s when Perry’s two assistant principals, Jeremy Chiappetta and Shirley Kinsey, decided to offer a Saturday test prep program for any student interested in taking the Classical exam. Much to their surprise, 70 students signed up.
About one student out of four is accepted at Classical, and roughly half of those come from either Nathanael Greene Middle School, which has a gifted and talented program, or the state’s Catholic schools.
On Thursday, the last prep before the Oct. 25 test, Chiappetta assembles his eighth-graders for a pep talk in the school’s darkened auditorium. The students begin with the Perry pledge, “I pledge to do everything I can so that I can become a member of the class of 2017.”
“Last week, we put you in a real test situation,” Chiappetta tells them. “More than 100 questions were left blank. There are 298 questions on the test. Most of you only need to get 10 to 15 correct. Think of all the sacrifices you’ve made. Are you going to put all that at risk because of 5 or 10 questions?”
Then, Chiappetta, who wears his Yale sweatshirt to these sessions, repeats the various test strategies: Answer everything. Read the directions carefully. Double-check all of your answers. Make every minute count.
“I want you to spend 90 minutes a day reviewing the Kaplan [test] book,” he says. “I can’t guarantee that you will get into Classical. But even if you can’t, you are college material.”
Perry Middle School is all about getting students to make college part of their future. The Perry principals recognize that children need to start thinking about college in middle school, because, by high school, it’s often too late. In many classrooms, banners proclaim that students are part of the college Class of 2017 or 2016. The assumption is that they will all graduate from high school, no small feat in a district with a 75-percent graduation rate.
“The most inspiring thing for me,” Chiappetta says, “is finding ways to have all these positive relationships with these great kids. These kids are coming here on Saturday to better themselves.”
Chiappetta says that the school couldn’t do this alone, however. In addition to six teachers, Perry has enlisted two seniors from Classical High School and about six student volunteers from Rhode Island College. Thanks to Perry’s corporate partner, Amica Insurance, the two students from Classical — Ramone Rodriguez and Hamlet Urena — will receive scholarships of $450 when the training is over.
Although test prep sounds deadly dull, Perry’s teachers have tried to liven up things by creating word games based on Jeopardy questions. In Donna Perrotta’s English class, students have to use unfamiliar vocabulary words in sentences. To help them along, they are encouraged to create skits.
The girls really ham it up. Asked to create a skit around the word indigent, two girls sit on the floor with a sign that says, “Needs cash.” During a break, eighth-grader Staci Braxton talks about why she has been willing to give up her Saturday mornings to review flash cards and algebraic equations.
“I want to go to Classical,” she says, “because I want to be the only person in my family to go to a four-year college. I want to be a designer. I want to go to the Rhode Island School of Design.”
In Hamlet’s math class, the students are playing math Jeopardy.
“I’ll take basic algebra for $100,” one boy says.
The question is, “What is a coefficient?”
Ask any student and he will tell you that Classical is a sure route to college, and college is a guarantee of a better-paying job and a brighter future. Ken Vega isn’t sure if he wants to be a lawyer or an artist. What he does know is that Classical will increase his chances for admission to a four-year college.
“I want to be prepared to take the Classical test,” eighth-grader Wendy Iglesias says. “If I can go to Classical, I can go to college.”
But the preparation for college doesn’t stop here. Last spring, Perry brought a group of eighth-graders to four colleges, including Bryant and Brown universities. These were not ordinary campus tours, however. The students had to “apply” to college by filling out applications, including their grades and references, and writing college essays. Amica paid for the visits.
The previous spring, students spent the day at Harvard University. Based on their essays, students were admitted, wait-listed or rejected, just like the real college admissions process. Of the 50 students who applied, 42 were accepted — a much higher admission rate than Harvard’s 9 percent. Students even had a chance to have lunch with Harvard’s president, Drew Gilpen Faust.
This winter, Perry hopes to launch a third piece of its college campaign by inviting professors to speak to students about their areas of expertise.
“The endgame is college,” Chiappetta says. “If the path to college is Classical, that’s fabulous. Even if it isn’t, every kid here is pushing himself. I’d love for every one of our students to go to a great college.”
Back to basics paying off
Posted Wednesday, October 8, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Last year, the district introduced a new phonics-based reading program and a number of elementary school teachers objected, saying the curriculum robbed teachers of their creativity and denied children the opportunity to read real literature.
The program, called direct instruction, is a highly scripted way of teaching reading to students who are performing below grade level. It is an updated version of phonics instruction, which starts by teaching students to sound out individual letters, followed by combinations of letters, then words, and so on. Proponents say that children will become better readers once they can decode sounds and letter groups.
This year, direct instruction is being offered in seven elementary schools, most of which have failed to make adequate yearly progress for several consecutive years under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
At two schools, Veazie Street and West Elementary, the program is being offered to all students, not only those reading below grade level.
The beauty of direct instruction, supporters say, is that it groups students by ability, not age, so struggling readers no longer become frustrated because they can’t keep up and skilled readers aren’t bored because they are grouped with children of similar ability.
At Veazie Street, students in the early grades “walk to read.” For two hours a day, they leave their homeroom teacher and walk to a classroom where they are taught at their ability level. In a direct instruction classroom, grades are mixed. The child’s actual grade doesn’t matter; reading skills do.
In kindergarten through grade two, instruction is very scripted, but the curriculum becomes progressively more flexible as children advance through elementary school.
In Virginia Olivelli’s kindergarten class for English as a Second Language students, some children arrive with very little formal language training. In other words, a child might know only two colors, three shapes and their first name. Compounding the problem, students might have limited vocabulary in their native language because books are not readily available at home.
“Their school language doesn’t exist,” Olivelli said. “Some children don’t know how to follow directions; others don’t know how to read from left to right.”
Direct instruction takes none of these skills for granted. It starts with the most basic elements of language: the sounds of letters and letter combinations.
A teacher for 23 years, Olivelli said that she has never seen children leave kindergarten as well-prepared as they were at the end of last year, after only one year of direction instruction. Like many of her peers, Olivelli resisted the idea of teaching by using a lesson that leaves little to the teacher’s imagination.
Last year, critics argued that direct instruction dumbed down reading instruction, playing to those students with the weakest skills. It took all the fun out of teaching, they said, turning teachers into little more than actors reading a script.
Fast forward a year. Several teachers at Veazie Street say that they are sold on the program, whose official title is the SRA reading mastery series. They say it takes the guesswork out of reading instruction by providing daily lesson plans that map every minute of instruction.
“This is what I’ve wanted my whole career,” Olivelli said. “We can tailor instruction to the needs of every child. And, if you’re a new teacher, the program is all there for you. Sure, an actor is handed a script but he can bring it to life.”
At grade four and above, students spend more time reading texts, although they are basal readers, not literature in the true sense of the word. In Lynn DiPippo’s fourth-grade class, students are reading a condensed version of Jack London’s classic, The Call of the Wild. Although the plot follows that of the novel, the narrative is simplified and the names of some of the characters have been changed.
After several children read out loud, DiPippo pauses and asks the class a series of questions designed to tease out if the class understands the story line.
When a child stumbles over a word, DiPippo adds it to “the goodbye list,” which means that the entire class will go over that word the following day.
“I’m absolutely sold on it,” DiPippo said. “These children need structure and this program gives them the structure they need.”
The majority of the district’s 40-plus elementary schools still use a program called balanced literacy, which emphasizes reading comprehension. Although this model uses phonics, it holds to the theory that students learn best by reading real literature.
But Veazie teachers said that balanced literacy isn’t well-suited to children who are struggling to decode words. According to DiPippo, with that approach, children couldn’t read stories on their own and quickly grew frustrated.
“I’ve never seen so much growth in my nine years of teaching,” said Tom Nolan, a third-grade teacher. “Last year, there were 12 third-graders reading at grade level. This year, that number has more than doubled. This is working for kids who have a hard time decoding words. We’re no longer reading over their heads.”
According to Nolan, direct instruction addresses the five core reading skills: phonemic awareness (sounding out the letters), phonics (breaking words into sounds), vocabulary, comprehension and reading fluency. Students master sounds before they master letters and they learn to break apart words before they learn to write them.
Although Nolan says this approach isn’t as much fun for the teacher, he said he realizes, “This isn’t about me.”
Last year, several teachers from Pleasant View Elementary School complained that the brightest students suffered under direct instruction because the teacher no longer could provide accelerated instruction. Critics also claimed that the assessment used to place students isn’t a reliable measure of what they know because the words in the test are spelled phonetically, which children find confusing.
But Veazie Street teachers said that students are frequently tested and those who are ready to move ahead are sent to a more demanding class. Moreover, a literacy coach helps teachers analyze test data, conducts professional training and co-teaches in the classroom.
For many teachers, the proof is in the pudding. Students are happier. They are learning the basics more quickly and moving on.
“The kids like the program,” DiPippo said. “They feel more confident. They like reading out loud now.”
‘New’ Nathan Bishop aims to bring public back to public schools
Posted Friday, October 3, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — City and school officials broke ground on a “new” $35-million Nathan Bishop Middle School yesterday, which neighborhood families hope will spur a resurgence of interest in public schools on the East Side.
When the Elmgrove Avenue school reopens next fall, the exterior will look much the same but the interior will be completely fresh, from the new gymnasium to the Internet-accessible classrooms.
“I’ve always had a strong commitment to diversity and a sense of community,” said Lucia Gill Case, who was wearing a T-shirt that said “Future parent of a Nathan Bishop Middle School student.” “I’d love to have my two kids go to a school where everyone is on an equal footing.”
East Side parents see the refashioned middle school as a way to attract other families back to the public schools. The East Side’s two public elementary schools, Vartan Gregorian and Martin Luther King Jr., have already experienced a revival and parents hope that a high-performing middle school will keep families from fleeing the public schools once their children are older.
Nathan Bishop is appealing to parents because it will offer advanced placement courses, team-teaching and student advisories, some of the hallmarks of successful middle schools, Case said. Parents are also drawn to the idea that Bishop will be a neighborhood school, drawing roughly 80 percent of its 600 students from the East Side.
Kate Keizler, who has two children at Vartan Gregorian, said she is excited about Nathan Bishop because “this community cares, it’s motivated and it also believes that public education should be inclusive.”
School Supt. Tom Brady said, however, that no decisions have been made about who will attend Bishop and where they will come from. The school will open with a sixth-grade class this fall and then add a grade each year. Brady noted that there currently aren’t enough East Side children to fill the entire school, which has a capacity of 750 students.
According to the 2000 census, almost half of the East Side’s 937 middle school students, which included grades five through eight, are enrolled in private schools.
Sam Zurier, one of the leaders of East Side Public Education Committee, said that his group’s vision is that of a “greater East Side” that encompasses Mount Hope and Summit Avenue as well as College Hill and Wayland Square.
ESPEC was formed in response to then-Supt. Donnie Evans’ decision to close Bishop, citing declining enrollments and alarmingly low student achievement. Evans’ recommendation to close Bishop in the spring of 2006 took everyone by surprise. Initially, he proposed reopening the middle school as a temporary high school while construction of the new Adelaide Avenue High School was under way.
But Evans was forced to reconsider his plan after hundreds of East Side residents protested his proposal and launched an extensive e-mail campaign directed at elected officials. While the school’s immediate neighbors complained that teenagers would rampage through the neighborhood, a small group of East Side parents asked Evans to reconsider. Evans did just that and appointed a parent-led study committee to advise him on what a new Nathan Bishop would look like. The committee presented their findings to Evans and he recommended them to the School Board.
As envisioned by the parents, the new Bishop would have an advanced academic program, much like the one at Nathanael Greene Middle School, except that it would be open to all students, not only gifted children.
As Zurier described it, the school would offer an à la carte menu of advanced classes similar in structure to AP classes at the high school level.
Yesterday, Mayor David N. Cicilline framed the new Bishop against a larger backdrop, the city’s proposed $790-million overhaul of the district’s 40-plus schools, some of which are nearly 100 years old.
“Schools should be places of inspiration,” he told the crowd. “A student should walk into school and immediately feel valued and challenged.”
“As a former alumnus of Bishop, I can tell you it was a dark, dank, uninspiring place,” said state Rep. Gordon Fox of Providence. “Infrastructure matters. Children cannot achieve in miserable conditions.”
And City Councilman Cliff Wood said that Providence needs Nathan Bishop to work.
Meanwhile, Brady is weighing three finalists for principal selected by a search committee that consisted of parents and school officials. A principal could be chosen by the end of this month, he said.
Task force takes on transformation of city school district
Posted Thursday, October 2, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — More than 30 leaders from public and higher education, the local schools, the religious community and City Hall met yesterday to discuss ways in which the community can help the school district transform everything from the curriculum to the central office.
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, along with Supt. Tom Brady and Mayor David N. Cicilline, convened the Providence Partners Blue Ribbon Task Force to do the following:
•Identify the most critical issues facing the district.
•Invite local organizations to share their expertise.
•Outline specific ways that the district can work more effectively with local partners.
•Begin matching community expertise with district goals.
Warren Simmons, Annenberg’s executive director, said that community partners were there to begin a conversation about how they can partner with the school district more effectively.
“We’re not here to cast blame and point fingers,” Simmons said. “We’ve had a succession of individual saviors. They stay an average of three years, and then they leave. We have to ask ourselves, ‘Do we own the problem?’ Are we going to invest in this leadership and solve the problem?”
It’s time for community leaders to focus on improving the entire district, not “scattering our attention on our favorite schools,” Simmons said.
The institute also released its synthesis of 11 previous studies on the school system, including the PDK curriculum audit, the Council of Great City Schools human resources’ report and separate evaluations of the district’s reading, math and English as a Second Language programs. The so-called “meta-review” is designed to help the district build a broad set of civic, business and community partnerships that will ultimately lead to school reform.
The institute conducted the evaluation at no cost at the request of Brady.
Given the state’s fiscal crisis, Brady said that it is unrealistic to expect the city or state to bail out the district’s struggling schools, which suffer from a lack of resources, a lack of central office staff and a lack of technology.
“The pie is only so big,” Brady told the crowd. “I can make a plea to the city or the state for a larger piece of the pie, but that’s not going to work, or I can expand the pie. We want to ask, ‘What can you contribute as organizations?’ ”
Brady provided some context for what the district is doing to address major shortcomings, from creating a systemwide math and science curriculum to making the student registration center more user-friendly.
He also shared some important demographic information: The district is the third-poorest in the country, after Hartford and Brownsville, Texas. Nearly 60 percent of the 24,000 students are Latino but that population is not monolithic. There are second-generation families from the Dominican Republic and newcomers from Honduras, and each population has very different needs.
He also told the assembled leaders that the district is “very, very close” to signing what he called a “next-step” contract with Providence Teachers Union. In earlier conversations, Brady signaled that the district would probably sign a short-term contract and then negotiate a longer agreement to deal with meatier issues.
“We’re in the mindset that school starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m.,” Brady said. “We need to think of that child from dawn until dusk, maybe later.”
The entire community, he said, needs to think seriously about pre-kindergarten, an area that some states are tackling because research has shown that an academically challenging early childhood program gives children a leg up when they enter public school.
Brady then asked the room to break into small groups to discuss the following questions: What can we do to be a better partner? Who else do we need to reach? And what concrete things can you do to help the district reach its goals?
“Every leader has a theory of change management,” Brady said. “We need to change the system, but we’re not going to blow it up. But we do have a sense of urgency.”
In the small-group meetings, community leaders discussed how local organizations can increase the size and quality of the central office staff, boost the district’s use of technology and create a core curriculum across subjects.
At one table, Chief Academic Officer Sharon Contreras described some of the challenges facing high school teachers. The faculty has agreed that algebra II and pre-physics need to be taught at every high school; however, many of the staff lack training in the subjects. How does the district support those teachers?
At another table, Cicilline and Peter McWalters, the state commissioner of public education, discussed how to evaluate teachers and how to grow a cadre of strong leaders from within the district. The conversation included Nancy Carriuolo, the new president of Rhode Island College, Larry Roberti, president of the administrators union and other top school officials.
The blue ribbon panel also includes Dennis Langley, director of the Urban League of Rhode Island; the Rev. Donald C. Anderson, executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches; Terri Adelman, director of Volunteers in Providence Schools; Paul Sproll from the Rhode Island School of Design; Mary Sylvia Harrison with the Nellie Mae Education Foundation; Providence School Board President Mary McClure and the leaders of Young Voices, a student advocacy organization.
The task force will meet again in January.
New Classical principal comes ready to play
Posted Friday, September 26, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — When Scott Barr walked into Classical High School as its new principal, it just felt right, like coming home.
For 16 years, he was a history teacher at Classical, the jewel in the district’s public school crown and the only public school in the city that requires an entrance exam.
In 2006, he left to become an assistant principal at Cranston High School East. It was there that Barr grew professionally and became familiar with the issues that confront principals every day, from discipline to parent outreach. During Barr’s brief tenure at Cranston East, the high school underwent a wholesale renovation that increased the school’s footprint by a third, adding new science labs.
Barr has seen education from multiple perspectives — teacher, department head, assistant principal and School Committee member. After more than a dozen years on the contentious Lincoln School Committee, Barr, who is 46 and lives in Lincoln with his wife and two children, knows how to parse his words carefully.
“When you sit on a school committee, you see the big picture,” he said during an interview. “Our discussions were very public. Even the smaller decisions were big. I had people’s lives in front of me. I had to decide whether to uphold the firing of a teacher.”
During a couple of recent public forums, several Classical parents have criticized the school administration for failing to support Classical, pointing to a decline in the rich selection of afterschool activities and a building that has seen better days. Last spring, a group of department heads met with The Journal to discuss the state of the school’s textbooks, many of which haven’t been replaced in 12 to 15 years.
On his second day on the job, Barr was reluctant to address specific challenges facing Classical, although he said none of them was insurmountable. Echoing his boss, Supt. Tom Brady, Barr said that he wants to meet with all of the school’s players before he makes any grand statements about the school.
“My job is to listen and hear their concerns,” he said.
“First, I want to visit every classroom. I want to meet my department heads, pick their brains and ask what they need. I want to ask the kids, ‘How is your experience at this school? Are you joining clubs and sports? How many of your parents went to Classical?’ ”
At Classical, the parents are vocal and active. Several of them were part of a group of people, that included teachers and administrators, who screened some 50 applicants for the principalship.
Guy V. Pirolli, Class of ’73 and president of the school’s new alumni association, was on the committee. “Scott Barr was a longtime teacher at Classical,” Pirolli said yesterday. “He knows the school’s philosophy. He understands the school’s traditions. He was a department head. He understands the budget process.”
As a member of Classical’s parent-teacher organization when he taught there, Barr could always be called on to speak with parents about the pressing issues of the day, Pirolli said.
“When you put it all together,” he said, “he was someone who could walk in here and hit the ground running.”
Barr is fond of football metaphors and said that his leadership approach is similar to that of Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick. Before their first Super Bowl victory, the Patriots came onto the field as a team rather than as individual players. Barr said that sums up his approach to running a school.
“He’s firm, but fair,” said his former boss, Cranston East Principal Sean Kelly. “Every-thing I asked him to do was always done with the highest standards. He has good management skills, good organizational skills and he is easy to talk to.”
Lauren Zurier, a parent and member of the screening committee, said Barr was held in high regard by his colleagues at Classical. She also liked the fact that Barr had acquired policy experience during his tenure on the Lincoln School Committee, where he helped draft a new teacher-evaluation process for the district.
“He was very much loved by the kids at Cranston East,” Zurier said. “Every parent I talked to really liked him a lot. He is a leader without being confrontational. And he can see both sides of a question.”
Barr began his career as a substitute teacher in Providence in 1990 and was hired full-time in 1992. Classical is where Barr cut his teeth as a teacher and where he learned to lead.
“I went from twenty-something to forty-something there,” he said. “I see my students all over the place.”
As a teenager, Barr was an offensive lineman for the Lincoln High School football team, where he said that he “blocked for the guy who got all the glory.”
As the principal of Classical, Barr sees himself in a similar role — as a team player who works with faculty and parents to move the school forward.
Providence reports dismal showing on the state’s new science assessment test
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The city’s public school students scored abysmally on the state’s new science assessment test in large part because what’s being taught in the classroom isn’t in line with what’s being measured by the test.
Only 9 percent of 4th graders scored high enough to be deemed proficient in science, 2 percent of 8th graders and 4 percent of 11th graders. Of the 20 lowest-performing schools in the state, 17 are in Providence.
Yesterday, city school officials gave the following example of how the New England Common Assessment Program does not necessarily measure what happens in the classroom. The district teaches students about electromagnetism in fifth grade, however, children are actually tested on the subject in fourth grade.
“This is not about a student who doesn’t know the material,” Supt. Tom Brady said. “It’s about the district not preparing them to take the test. The curriculum is not aligned to prepare students to be tested on this material.”
Echoing what state education officials said yesterday, Brady said that the dismal science scores were not a surprise: “I’m not dismayed,” he said. “We’re already starting to do the things we need to improve student knowledge.”
Governor Carcieri, however, called the test results “very sobering,” and said that it is “a disgrace that such a large chunk of our youngsters have not been getting the science content they need.”
Carcieri and Peter McWalters, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, released the results of the first statewide science achievement test at a State House news conference yesterday. The test, which was developed jointly with Vermont and New Hampshire, was administered in May to students in grades 4, 8 and 11.
In Rhode Island, about one in four students achieved proficiency in science: 36 percent in grade 4, 18 percent in grade 8 and 17 percent in grade 11.
Local school officials said there are at least three reasons why student performance is so low in Providence:
•The curriculum is not aligned with the NECAP.
The state assessment tests students in space and earth sciences but they are not taught in many high schools in the state.
According to state school officials, only half of Rhode Island’s schools have begun aligning their science curriculum with the new state assessment. They also noted that Rhode Island, unlike other states, has refused to lower the passing score to make student performance look brighter.
•Urban districts, such as Providence, have devoted most of their time and resources to boosting literacy skills, considered the foundation upon which other skills are based. Because of that focus, little attention has been paid to science, and, in fact, the curriculum has been watered down in many schools.
•The district’s science curriculum lacks rigor, especially at the high school level.
Although Providence requires three years of high school science, there is no consistent sequence of science courses at all high schools. Some high schools offer Physics First, part of a statewide science pilot program; others offer the Fundamentals of Science, a course that does not prepare students for college-level work, according to Sharon Contreras, the district’s chief academic officer.
“High schools are not focused on inquiry-based learning,” said Natalie Dunning, the district’s new supervisor of science, a position that had gone unfilled for years. With this approach, the students become the researcher and the teacher guides them to understand scientific concepts.
“We don’t want just skill-and-drill science,” Contreras said. “We want a comprehensive science program.”
The School Board recently signed a $1-million contract with the Dana Center at the University of Texas to help the district develop a sweeping new math and science curriculum for all students, and Brady said that the new science curriculum will be completed by June.
Even at Classical High School, only 20 percent of students reached proficiency. Not one student reached proficiency at the following high schools: Feinstein, Hope Arts, Mount Pleasant and the Providence Academy of International Studies.
•There hasn’t been enough teacher training in the sciences.
Science teachers have received very little training in their field. Schools have largely been responsible for their own professional development and there has been little consistency across the board, according to Contreras.
Brady said that is about to change. The district will offer 70 sessions targeted at hot science topics this year. Next week, the School Department will begin to explain how science teachers can interpret the NECAP scores.
During yesterday’s news conference, McWalters stressed that the release of the scores isn’t a one-time event, nor will it be solved by a one-time fix.
“We’re going to have to get better content, better teacher preparation and more time on task,” he said. “We will always be faced with the sixth-grader who arrives at a fourth-grade level. We can’t change that. Until we change our entire frame of reference, progress will be slow.”
Doing more of the same — offering double blocks of basic science — won’t work, McWalters said. Instead, schools have to radically rethink the way they structure time in school, from extending the school day to extending the school year.
“Even if we get the right curriculum,” he said, “even if we get teachers up to speed, this is a systemic challenge that will be with us for a generation.”
Annenberg Institute to review reports on school district
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Supt. Tom Brady has hired the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University to review a dozen major evaluations of the School Department that have been conducted over the past several years.
The goal of this “meta-review” is to pull out eight or nine recommendations that appear in each of the studies. Brady will then convene a blue-ribbon panel that includes Mayor David N. Cicilline, Annenberg Executive Director Warren Simmons, and members of the business community, the state Department of Education and higher education.
The panel will investigate what the district needs to do to bridge the gap between where the School Department is now and where it should be. Because money is scarce, Brady said he will ask major foundations to help the district provide the staff and financial support needed to do everything from revamp the human resources department to beef up central office staff.
“It’s tapping human capital,” he said. “Suppose Brown University wanted to give us four graduate students in urban education to help us update our policies?”
When Brady worked for the District of Columbia schools, Exxon-Mobil “loaned” one of its executives to help the district transform its procurement system. The new superintendent said he believes that school districts must think in fresh ways about how to not only raise cash, but to also take advantage of the expertise of area businesses and foundations.
The School Department, for example, might consider hiring a development officer whose mission would be to regain the millions of dollars lost when the Carnegie and Wallace Foundation grants expired a couple of years ago. Perhaps, Brady said, the School Department could ask a foundation to pay for the position.
Brady doesn’t want to see the reports gather dust sitting on a shelf. The Annenberg review will be completed in roughly 30 days.
Last week, two consultants, paid for by the Broad Foundation, which trained Brady to become a superintendent, spent several days in Providence interviewing staff and reviewing documents.
Jim Huge, a former superintendent and educational consultant, is evaluating the way the central office is organized. Among the questions he will ask are, “Do we have the right positions? Are there redundancies?”
An exhaustive audit by Phi Delta Kappa International recently found that the school system doesn’t have enough administrative capacity to develop a uniform curriculum, much less evaluate how well it is taught. No job descriptions are available for 43 percent of the positions listed on the organizational chart, teachers are omitted from the table of organization and essential positions, including supervisors of guidance and math, have not been filled.
“There is not enough middle management capacity to get things done,” Brady said. “There are not enough people to drive the district’s core beliefs and organize effectively to meet those beliefs.”
Betsy Aherns, the former director of human relations for the Fairfax, Va., School Department, is evaluating the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the human resources department.
According to the PDK report, “The human resource office has been ineffective for at least eight years.”
The PDK consultants urged the district to hire an experienced human resource professional to run the office, train or replace ineffective staff and approve a list of objectives and a timetable for improving the office.
“HR is a real problem,” Brady said. “Betsy’s report will provide us with recommendations on how to realign human relations so that it’s a service provider.”
City Council members call for elected school board
Posted Friday, September 19, 2008
PROVIDENCE — City Council members were fuming last night over the revelation that the School Board violated the state Open Meetings Law when it appointed the new superintendent, Tom Brady.
Council members seized on the opportunity to slam one of their favorite targets, School Board President Mary McClure, and to propose that the city elect, rather than appoint, the School Board.
Councilman John J. Lombardi led the charge, describing the School Board as aloof, irresponsible and in dire need of change.
“It operates under its own rules and is unmoved by the criticisms of the very people it is charged to serve,” Lombardi said.
After similar comments by Councilman Luis Aponte, Councilwoman Balbina A. Young followed up by saying McClure needs to be replaced.
“She is a detriment to the progress of the educational system in Providence,” Young said.
The real problem is systemic, said Councilman Nicholas J. Narducci. Because the School Board is appointed — the only appointed school board in the state — it doesn’t have the same level of accountability that an elected body would.
“Maybe it’s time for an elected school board — so they’re accountable to somebody,” Narducci said.
— Daniel Barbarisi
Providence School Board to repeat vote to hire Brady
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — School Board President Mary McClure said she regrets breaking the Open Meetings Law, but would not change the way in which Supt. Tom Brady was hired.
“We made a mistake,” she said yesterday. “I’m not trying to make any excuses.”
The attorney general’s office found that the School Board violated the Open Meetings Law three times when it appointed Brady as superintendent in March. The agency ordered the board to appoint Brady again — this time, in public session.
The state launched an investigation into the process after Judith Reilly, a Providence resident, filed a formal complaint this summer alleging that the law had been violated.
The attorney general’s office found that the School Board should have posted its intention to discuss the selection of a new superintendent at its March 24 meeting. The agency also faulted the board for failing to disclose that it was going into closed session to discuss the superintendent’s job. The School Board did state that it was going into closed session to discuss personnel, but the attorney general said it should have been more specific. Finally, the School Board also erred when it voted to appoint Brady during a closed session.
In an interview yesterday, McClure said that the board did not intend to circumvent the Open Meetings Law, nor did it intend to mislead the public.
Then why did the School Board appoint Brady in closed session? And why didn’t the board make its decision public when it returned to public session?
“I don’t have an answer to that,” McClure said.
Around March 17, the School Board met with Mayor David N. Cicillline, who said he had asked the Council on Great City Schools and the Broad Center for superintendent candidates and they had recommended Brady. Because the board supposedly only listened to the mayor, this meeting did not constitute a board meeting and no public notice was required.
During the next week, the board interviewed Brady in pairs, according to an affidavit provided to the attorney general by Assistant City Solicitor Adrienne Southgate.
“By splitting up the interviews so that a quorum was never reached, the School Board again avoided the public notice requirements of the Open Meetings law,” Reilly wrote in a letter to The Journal. “As long as school board members did not discuss Mr. Brady among themselves, they avoided causing a rolling or walking quorum, at least according to the attorney general’s office.”
McClure said that the board interviewed Brady in groups of two because of time and scheduling constraints. Asked if the board intentionally sidestepped the law, she said, “According to the Open Meetings Law, if you don’t have a quorum, there is no meeting.”
McClure confirmed that no other candidate was considered for the position.
At the time of the Brady appointment, several observers, including Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith, criticized the board for not involving members of the public in its search for a new superintendent, as it did with previous Supt. Donnie Evans.
Yesterday, McClure said she would not have conducted the search differently, given what she knows now.
“Based on my understanding of the market, there was a very small pool of candidates,” she said. “We had consulted with two national agencies and this is who they recommended. A national search would have been very time-consuming and expensive and it seems unlikely that we would have found a better candidate.”
“Our goal was to get the best possible candidate,” she said. “The advice we got [from a previous search firm] was to keep things as confidential as possible.”
The timing of Brady’s appointment took everyone by surprise, coming a week after Evans announced his plans to resign at the end of his three-year contract. During a news conference held the day after the School Board appointed Brady, Cicilline said he had begun putting out feelers with the Broad Foundation in January, well before Evans made his decision public.
Yesterday, McClure denied that the board, which is appointed by the mayor, had been pressured into appointing Brady.
“The School Board voted unanimously to hire Tom Brady,” she said. “If we didn’t want him, we would have voted no.”
Yesterday, Cicilline, speaking through spokeswoman Karen Southern, declined to comment on the attorney general’s ruling.
On July 28, the board voted to appoint Brady again — this time in public. When asked about the need for a second vote, McClure said that the Human Resources Department couldn’t find any record of Brady’s original appointment and so voted again.
“I’m upset that we made these mistakes,” she said. “It is what it is. Now, we have to move forward.”
In its Sept. 11 letter, the attorney general’s office gave the board 10 days to indicate whether it plans to comply with the requirement to appoint Brady again. McClure said she will do whatever it takes to comply with the attorney general’s ruling, although the board has yet to set a date for the vote.
Nathan Bishop renovations on track for fall ’09
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Drive down Elmgrove Avenue these days and you will see the stately Nathan Bishop Middle School encircled by chain-link fencing, the sloping lawn replaced by mounds of dirt, the front steps missing.
The $35-million renovation of the East Side school is well under way, according to Alan Sepe, the city’s acting director of public property.
While the exterior of the three-story brick building remains largely untouched, the interior has been gutted. Construction crews are removing plumbing, electrical and heating systems, tearing out the old floors and removing the gymnasium. And they are starting to install new pipes and conduits for the electrical system. The brick exterior will be cleaned and re-pointed and a new entrance to the school will be built.
“We’re on target,” Sepe said recently. “The building will be open next fall.”
Nathan Bishop was slated to be closed because of declining enrollments and chronically low test scores until a group of East side parents lobbied hard to keep the school open. Former Supt. Donnie Evans appointed a parent-led study committee to come up with a design for the new school and, last summer, a design firm called Architecture Involution recommended a wholesale renovation of the building.
The consultants recommended restoration rather than new construction because recent changes in school construction regulations allow a larger volume of square footage if the project involves a restoration rather than new construction. The additional space means that the school can keep its existing auditorium and retain additional rooms for teacher planning and and allow for wider hallways.
With a restoration, the consultants said that there is a greater likelihood that the school will open in the fall of 2009 because groups such as the Providence Preservation Society will look more favorably on a restored Nathan Bishop. Renovation will also allow the architects to restore many of the building’s original features, including skylights that will flood the building with natural light.
The new Nathan Bishop calls for 10 classrooms on each floor, with two teams of 100 students per floor. Each of the building’s three floors will house one grade, for a maximum of 750 students, although area parents are hoping for a smaller population.
The plan also calls for a two-story library and media center on the second and third floors but leaves the school with two separate gymnasiums of 3,000-square-feet each. Virtually every surface will be touched, the architects said: windows will be replaced, brass and marble surfaces will be restored and the grounds will undergo extensive landscaping.
The East Side Public Education Coalition, the parents’ group, has recommended that Nathan Bishop offer student advisories, team teaching and an advanced academic curriculum open to all students.
State orders city to reappoint school superintendent
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The attorney general’s office has found that the School Board violated the Open Meetings Law when it appointed Tom Brady as superintendent in March and ordered the board to appoint Brady for a third time.
The attorney general’s office issued the order after reviewing a complaint filed by Judith Reilly of Providence. Yesterday, Reilly said that she is pleased with the order and looks forward to learning more about what transpired during those closed sessions.
The finding also sheds light on the last-minute decision-making that led to Brady’s appointment on March 24 during a closed-door meeting of the School Board — a week after then-Supt. Donnie Evans announced that he would not seek to have his contract renewed.
Around March 17, Mayor David N. Cicilline met with members of the School Board and told them about his efforts to find a replacement for Evans. Cicilline explained that he had asked both the Broad Foundation and the Council on Great City Schools to recommend possible candidates for superintendent and both groups recommended Brady.
At that meeting, Cicilline encouraged board members to meet with Brady and consider him a serious candidate, according to an affidavit by Adrienne Southgate, a deputy city solicitor.
“Over the next week, in pairs, members of the [School Board] interviewed Brady,” Southgate wrote. “No more than two [board members] participated in any interview. At various times, the mayor’s chief of staff and his liaison to the Providence School Department were present.”
On March 24, the School Board held a regular public meeting that included a closed session for personnel matters. After the open portion of the meeting was over, the board went back into closed-door session.
The board, during this session, voted 9-0 to appoint Brady as the next superintendent, according to Southgate’s affidavit. School Board member Maila Touray moved to appoint Brady as superintendent and the motion was seconded by Ronnie Young.
The minutes of the closed session “shed almost no light on what transpired during the course of either closed session,” Southgate writes. School Board President Mary McClure’s notes simply state, “Brady contract — approved 3/24/08.”
“I think the people will be interested to know how brief the discussion was,” Reilly said, “and that it seems like it was done in less than 30 minutes.”
The board never indicated that it was going into a closed session to discuss the possible appointment of a superintendent, nor did it publicly announce its vote afterward in public session, according to Special Assistant Attorney General Adam J. Sholes.
It wasn’t until four months later — July 28 — that the board voted to appoint Brady in open session. And Reilly said that that vote may have been prompted by a ruling that found that the Cumberland School Committee violated the Open Meetings Law by voting in closed session to give a raise to its superintendent.
In Providence, the attorney general’s office found that the School Board violated the Open Meetings Law in three areas:
•The agenda of the March 24 meeting failed to disclose that a new superintendent might be appointed.
In a 2005 case involving the town of East Greenwich, the state Supreme Court found that a meeting notice “reasonably must describe the purpose of the meeting or the action proposed to be taken.”
•The School Board voted to appoint Brady in executive session.
Rhode Island law allows discussions of job performance to be held in closed session, but the actual vote must be taken in open session.
•The board violated the law when it voted in closed session to invoke the “exceptional circumstances” clause, which allows the board to appoint a superintendent without first conducting a search. This clause was used to appoint Melody Johnson as superintendent several years ago.
Despite these violations of the Open Meetings Law, the attorney general’s office decided not to impose a fine:
“We have been provided no facts that suggest that the board willfully or knowingly violated the Open Meetings Act,” the office wrote. “However, this finding serves as notice to the School Board that its actions violated the Open Meetings Act and may serve as evidence of a willful or knowing violation in any future similar case.”
Because the Brady vote occurred in closed session and was never publicly disclosed in open session, the attorney general’s office ordered the board to take a new vote on Brady. If the School Board does not comply with this order, the state may take legal action.
Meanwhile, Reilly said she has written a letter to Brady explaining that her complaint is not directed at him, nor is she calling for the appointment of a new superintendent.
“This is about the process,” she said. “It’s not personal.”
Several School Board members, including Philip Gould, Touray and Katherine McKenzie, declined to comment on the ruling because they hadn’t had the opportunity to read it yesterday.
McClure, in a prepared statement, said it was never the board’s intent to circumvent the Open Meetings Law.
“Our focus was on trying to conduct business in the most open and transparent manner,” she wrote. “We will accept the attorney general’s findings and will immediately take the appropriate steps to remedy the situation.”
Mayor David N. Cicilline did not return phone calls.
School superintendent promises new registration system
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Supt. Tom Brady said he wants to revamp the school registration process and promised that a new system will be ready by January.
Although complaints have reportedly declined this year, Brady said the department needs work and that the district is not taking care of parents in a prompt and effective way. The School Department, he said, will revive the student registration complaint committee to investigate how to make the registration process less difficult for families.
“Are we getting the word out to all parents in time?” he said. “The parking at the registration center [on Prairie Avenue in South Providence] is horrible. Maybe we should be looking at satellite centers to make it easier to register.”
To date, Providence has enrolled 22,855 students, 800 students fewer than in June, but considerably more than earlier estimates. Last month, school officials said that enrollment had declined by 1,700 students, although they anticipated that those numbers would bounce back after school began. At the time, school officials speculated that the state’s lagging economy, coupled with the foreclosure crisis, might be contributing to the decline of enrollments in Providence and Central Falls. Immigration advocates worried that the dip was linked to Governor Carcieri’s recent crackdown on undocumented aliens.
Brady, in a 10-page report to the School Board on Monday, said that the opening of school was the smoothest in recent memory, adding that there were only 52 teacher vacancies on the first day of class, down from 81 the previous year and there were only 10 teachers with emergency certification, down from 19 last year.
He also said that 95 percent of the district’s 9,924 school buses ran on time. When asked how this rate compared with last year’s, Brady said there wasn’t any previous data but said that the district would keep track of the information from now on.
A lack of technology has long plagued the school district and continues to be an issue, but Brady had good news to report on that front: Internet bandwidth has been upgraded at 28 schools for greater speed and access; Central High School now has wireless Internet access, and a new server that houses the student information system’s database has been installed.
Brady also noted that maintenance projects have been completed at 30 schools, including 19 roof repairs, 8 fire code upgrades, the installation of security cameras at 3 schools and the refinishing of 3 gym floors and 3 auditoriums. The summer institute, which offered nearly 300 workshops to teachers and staff, was singled out for praise. Brady reported that teachers completed almost 24,000 hours of professional development and said that the most popular session was a mandatory class on how to improve parent engagement. This was the first time that the School Department has offered an intensive summer training program, which teachers could use to satisfy the 38 hours of professional development required by their work contract.
Secondary math teachers also worked with the Dana Center of the University of Texas, Austin, to conduct a “gap analysis,” which looks at where the district is in terms of middle and high school curriculum and where it should be. The School Board on Monday hired the Dana Center to help the district develop a systemwide math and science curriculum for kindergarten through grade 12.
Brady brings special guest on school tour
Posted Friday, September 5, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The Charles N. Fortes Academy is a piece of living history, its hallways lined with photographs and stories that describe the consecutive wave of immigrants who settled in Providence, worked in its mills and created its ethnic enclaves.
Yesterday, Supt. Tom Brady invited U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin to tour the school, in a renovated factory on Daboll Street in the West End, as part of their first official meeting, one of many that the new superintendent has been holding with parents, teachers and elected officials.
Brady told Langevin that he has already settled into his new job and that the real work has begun. An independent audit commissioned by former Supt. Donnie Evans last month provided the district with a brutally honest critique of what’s wrong with the system, including a finding that instructional shortcomings in reading and math have a serious impact on minority students, who represent more than 70 percent of public school enrollment, and the lack of a core curriculum at the middle and high school levels.
According to Brady, the report has also provided the School Department with a 200-page blueprint on how to move forward.
Brady, who has already visited 41 schools, said that the elementary schools are on track in terms of uniform literacy and math curricula, but said that the middle schools need a lot of work. The School Department is working on developing a standard curriculum for middle school students.
Langevin asked what Brady thought of a controversial new state regulation that, starting in 2012, makes state achievement tests count for a third of a student’s graduation requirements in English and math.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” Brady said. “It’s difficult when you have multiple high schools doing different things, but we’ve identified the problem.”
Langevin mentioned that the federal No Child Left Behind law is up for reauthorization by Congress this year and added that the law, which has not been popular with many Democrats, needs some fine-tuning. Brady agreed.
“I like the law’s accountability,” Brady said yesterday. “But reaching 100 percent [proficiency] is not a standard. It’s distressing to see a school miss [making adequate yearly progress] because six children were absent. Suddenly, it becomes a failing school. That troubles me.”
During a brief tour of the school complex, which includes the Alfred Lima Elementary School, Langevin visited a second-grade bilingual education class and was told how difficult it is to find qualified bilingual education teachers.
He spent some time in a sixth-grade class where the students were learning about plate tectonics and the evolution of the continents from a single land mass into separate bodies.
Long-term subs caught in schools’ financial squeeze
Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — More than 70 long-term substitute teachers will not be recalled this fall unless the Providence Teachers Union agrees to a compromise plan that calls for rehiring the substitutes at a lower salary.
Long-term substitutes typically receive layoff notices in late February or early March, before a dead-line set by state law, but the notices usually are rescinded over the summer after the school budget has been approved by the School Board and the City Council.
Last month, however, about 75 long-term substitutes began hearing rumors that they wouldn’t be recalled if they were on step 5 or higher on the 10-step salary scale. Substitutes with considerable seniority were furious because they weren’t notified sooner, while others were upset that substitutes with much less teaching experience were rehired instead of them.
Long-term substitutes are paid union-scale salaries and receive full medical benefits. Many of them have been teaching in the district for years and have come to depend on the work. While some substitutes move from one classroom to another, others fill in for teachers who are out on year-long maternity leaves or sabbaticals.
At an Aug. 22 meeting, the Providence Teachers Union told long-term subs that they had a choice: all substitutes with more than four years of teaching experience would lose their jobs or the teachers could work for $100 per diem until a new contract is ratified.
According to the union’s Web site, once a contract is approved, the substitutes would receive retroactive salaries equal to the difference between the per-diem sum and the fourth-step salary.
“At this time, the Providence School Department is prepared to offer [long-term substitutes] who have not been recalled . . . the opportunity to begin substituting next week at the per diem rate of $100,” a letter from the union leadership says. “Once the tentative agreement is ratified by all parties [the School Board, membership and City Council], substitute teachers serving per-diems will be appointed as [long-term substitutes] retroactive to his or her first day of work.”
Yesterday, representatives from the school district’s human resources department began asking substitutes if they wanted to return on a per-diem basis, according to a letter from union leadership posted on the union’s Web site.
Both the union and the school administration have been tight-lipped about the issue, citing the confidentiality of contract negotiations. Steve Smith, union president, confirmed that the fate of long-term substitutes has been part of ongoing contract negotiations with Supt. Tom Brady, and that the union met with the substitutes on Aug. 22.
Although Smith said he appreciates the substitutes’ frustration, he stressed that there are no recall rights for substitutes in the existing contract; substitutes can’t assume that they have job security.
“When a long-term sub is hired, he or she receives a one-year appointment,” Smith said yesterday. “The district never agrees to more than that.”
According to Smith, the union is trying to work out a settlement that protects the pool of substitutes. He would not disclose details of the proposed compromise.
School spokeswoman Kim Rose confirmed that the department is recalling some long-term substitutes at a per diem rate of $100, but declined to say anything further about the proposed agreement:
“At this point, we’re in negotiations, so I can’t confirm anything,” she said. “But we are making the educational needs of students our top priority.”
Ann Morin, a long-term substitute and an elementary school teacher, has 36 years of experience in the classroom and was hired by the district in February 2006.
Under the proposed agreement, Morin would take a 34-percent pay cut, earning $44,275 a year instead of $67,000.
“This is frustrating and demoralizing,” Morin said. “It’s a waste. I’m a great teacher and here I am, sitting on the shelf. Some of the subs are the breadwinners in their families and this is what they will be making? One hundred dollars a day?”
Meanwhile, Morin and other substitutes say they are scrambling to find teaching jobs long after most districts have hired their staff.
“I want my own room,” she said. “I want to teach. This is what I do, and my career is on hold.”
New principal brings fresh approach
Posted Tuesday, September 2, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
“This staff has so far surpassed my expectations,” says Brent Kermen, the new principal at the William D’Abate Elementary School. “These teachers personify a collective commitment to education.”
PROVIDENCE — Brent Kermen doesn’t let a child walk past him without giving him a handshake or a high-five.
“How’s it going, handsome?” says Kermen, principal of the William D’Abate Elementary School near Manton Avenue.
Kermen is in front of the school every morning, greeting students and parents with a smile and a few cheery words to begin the day. As a new principal, he says, it’s important to be visible so parents can connect a face with a name.
“I have to put myself out there for them to judge,” he says. “Every kid that passes by looks me up and down.”
Kermen has big shoes to fill. Lucille Furia, who retired in June, spent 39 years at D’Abate, the past 13 as principal. In a district where principals rarely stay at one school for very long, Furia was nothing short of an institution. And, because of her longevity, the school has one of the most stable communities of teachers in the district.
“This staff has so far surpassed my expectations,” says Kermen, who is 37 and lives in Cranston. “These teachers personify a collective commitment to education.”
Kermen cut his teeth as an administrator in Newport, where he was assistant principal of Thompson Middle School. One of his biggest accomplishments there was developing a guide to help teachers prepare students for the state assessments.
Kermen represents the new breed of principals, who see themselves as instructional leaders, not simply school disciplinarians. After the morning bell rings, he pops into one class after another to make sure that students and teachers are engaged in honest work.
Friday is only the fourth day of school, but Kermen, who spent four years in the Marines, including a tour in the Gulf war, has already begun to identify the “alphas,” the children who are natural leaders.
During lunch, he points to a fifth-grade girl who looks far older than her peers, an adolescent trapped in an elementary school. She sits facing away from her classmates, a look of supreme boredom on her face. Kermen nods his head and predicts that she will turn out to be one of the leaders, the student that the other fifth-grade girls look up to.
“You can learn more in the lunchroom about who’s who on the social ladder,” he says, “than any place else.”
Details matter to Kermen. He notices that teachers flock to the teachers’ room for their lunch break, which means that they enjoy each others’ company.
He also notices that each of the three lunch periods runs like clockwork. The students queue up for lunch, sit down right away and throw away their trash before lining up to return to class. Although the noise level is high, it is not deafening and there is no fooling around. When lunch is over, the gym teacher blows a whistle and students automatically put their heads down and stop talking.
Kermen shakes his head and smiles. This order is the result of years of consistent leadership on the part of the principal and staff. The children know what it is expected of them and they model that behavior for the newcomers, especially the kindergarten students.
“The teachers here are so welcoming, so nurturing,” he says. “Lucille deserves a lot of credit.”
During the third lunch, a fifth-grade girl buries her head in her hands and starts crying. A teacher assistant tells Kermen that one of the boys said something nasty about the girl’s looks. Kermen asks the boy to apologize, and then pulls the girl aside.
“You know,” he tells her, “I don’t think he meant to be mean. Sometimes, when a boy says something like that to a girl, it really means he likes her. But if anyone does that to you again, tell me about it or your teacher. Are you OK? All right, let’s have a good afternoon.”
An urban principal wears many hats: cheerleader, disciplinarian, data guru, master teacher and social worker. Sometimes, the principal also has to be a clerk of the works.
When Kermen arrived at D’Abate shortly before school started, he found a building in turmoil. Construction crews were installing sprinklers and there were wires hanging everywhere and a thick layer of dust on every surface. Meanwhile, the courtyard was littered with broken glass and graffiti.
Kermen got on the phone to central office. He called the building’s union representative. For the two or three days before school started, maintenance teams worked double shifts to clean up the building.
“I had everyone down here,” he says. “Central office was outstanding.”
Since this is Kermen’s first year, the district has assigned a veteran administrator to be his mentor, Mary Brennan, a retired principal hailed for turning around Vartan Gregorian Elementary School on the East Side.
Brennan has given Kermen the kind of advice that only a veteran of a school district knows about, like how to get the buses there on time and who to call when a parent is late picking up his child.
But even in the best-run schools, plans can go awry, as they did on Friday, when a little boy bolted from the classroom and was caught running down the hallway. It seems that his mother had promised him that he would attend the same school as his big sister and when he wound at D’Abate, he had a meltdown. This was the second day in a row that the boy had tried to run away.
Kermen tried to calm him down.
“Lunch is coming up,” he said to the tearful child. “You can buy me an ice cream.”
Kermen called the school social worker and the district’s director of special education and explained that the child needed a more secure setting. In the meantime, he made sure that the teacher had a walkie-talkie in case the boy tried to make another run for it.
All too often, Kermen says, something at home sets the child off and that emotional upheaval travels with the child to the classroom.
“As a child, my family moved from Central Falls to Newport,” Kermen says, “and I remember like it was yesterday what it was like to be the new kid in school.”
In Providence, it isn’t unusual for students to move a half-dozen times by the time they reach high school. Sometimes, the family moves from Providence to Pawtucket to Central Falls, depending on the availability of affordable housing. All these changes add another level of anxiety to what is often a fraught moment anyway — the first day of school.
Bring it on, Kermen says. He is ready for the baddest boy, the toughest fifth-grader, because this is what he was meant to do.
New superintendent touches base — with everyone
Posted Wednesday, August 27, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Supt. Tom Brady hit the ground running yesterday morning, greeting bus drivers at dawn and dishing up bagels for breakfast at one elementary school.
By lunchtime, the district’s new superintendent had toured four schools, and he visited four more before wrapping up the day at Kennedy Plaza, where RIPTA buses disgorge hundreds of high school students every afternoon.
Brady, who arrived here from Philadelphia six weeks ago, is a natural at the “meet-and-greet.” Where former Supt. Donnie Evans was reticent, Brady is gregarious. Shaking hands, meeting new people and making casual conversation come as naturally to him as they do to a seasoned politician.
At the Fortes/Lima Annex, there were more than a few tearful kindergarten students struggling to get through that painful moment of separation from their mothers. In one classroom, Brady knelt down next to a miserable 5-year-old named Sharon and spoke a few words of encouragement. But it wasn’t until a teacher handed Sharon a big stuffed bear that she began to cheer up.
“We all need a huggy bear sometimes,” Brady said as he left the classroom.
Brady embarked on a “listening and learning” campaign shortly after his arrival in Providence, meeting with 250 teachers during an informal coffee hour, the first of three such meetings. In the weeks that followed, he met with parents and teachers in packed school auditoriums and in parents’ backyards; he toured the neighborhoods with City Council members and met with community groups.
His advance work is beginning to pay off. Yesterday, several teachers shook Brady’s hand and said, “We met at Hope High School,” or, “I heard you speak at one of the parents’ nights.”
Meeting the public sends an important message, Brady said, that “this is a team and we have to work together.”
In every class, Brady thanked teachers for their hard work and told students to have a great year. But he didn’t just stop for teachers. He introduced himself to custodians and kitchen staff, to secretaries and teacher assistants. Everyone got the same square handshake, the same direct gaze.
Brady has his work cut out for him in the goodwill department. A series of missteps during Evans’ three-year tenure — from the closing of a popular West End elementary school to the Dec. 13 snowstorm that stranded students on school buses –– has led to a spirit of distrust among teachers and parents.
Teachers, meanwhile, are frustrated by three years of budget cuts and the failure to secure a new contract. But Brady and Providence Teachers Union president Steve Smith have both signaled that the long-stalled negotiations are progressing and a resolution may be in sight.
Yesterday, Brady expressed curiosity about every aspect of the school day, from the bus monitors who keep the children safe to the people who prepare the school lunches. At Fortes Elementary School, Brady popped into the cafeteria where masses of macaroni-and-cheese were being prepared for the district schools.
In every classroom, Brady asked which textbook the teachers were using and how they liked it. At Mount Pleasant High School, he asked to see the teacher’s lesson plan. When she said that the plan was at home, Brady asked her to e-mail it to him. All this was done with a smile and the teacher didn’t seem to mind.
At Nathanael Greene Middle School, Principal Nicole Thomas introduced Brady to a young boy in a wheelchair named Wayne, whose medical condition is so complex that he needs a full-time nursing assistant.
At a recent public meeting, the child’s mother begged Brady not to separate her son from the nurse who had cared for him for several years. The nursing assistant made the same appeal.
“I figured if they both wanted the same thing, it had to be good,” Brady said. “We made it happen.”
In a district known for its revolving door of superintendents, Mayor David N. Cicilline has said that strong, consistent leadership must be the basis for academic achievement.
When Cicilline announced Brady’s appointment in March, the mayor made it clear that he was looking for an experienced manager, not an academic leader. In an interview this winter, Brady addressed his apparent lack of academic experience by saying that Providence needs someone who can manage complex systems, someone who can define the district’s mission and then tap the right people to get the job done.
Brady certainly has had experience running large systems. As commander of Fort Belvoir, Va., he oversaw a $770-million budget and more than 20,000 residents. As the interim education chief of Philadelphia, he was responsible for running the eighth-largest school district in the country, and as the chief operating officer of the District of Columbia public schools, he managed a $1-billion budget.
According to state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, the district needs a superintendent who can deliver the books on time, settle the teachers’ contract and find savings in the midst of a budget crisis.
Brady wrapped up his first day at Kennedy Plaza, where 800 high school students descend every afternoon after school gets out. Brady met with Police Chief Dean M. Esserman and Sgt. George Smith, who oversees the police detail at the plaza, which is now staffed by 8 to 10 patrolmen.
Yesterday, the RIPTA bus depot was calm. Three years ago, however, a brawl involving nearly 100 students broke out at the plaza and traveled up College Hill. Although some students were armed with bricks and bottles, no one was seriously hurt. The melee and several subsequent fights led the police to beef up their presence at the plaza.
“You can see the tension build some afternoons,” Smith told Brady as they walked around the plaza. “We’ve made hundreds of arrests. We average about five a week.”
Brady, who never stopped for lunch, ended the day on the same upbeat note with which he began it.
He said the first day of school was “absolutely smooth” and that it exceeded his expectations.
“I saw schools that were inviting and welcoming to parents,” he said. “The buildings looked good, the teachers were engaged and the children ready to learn.”
Workshop helps teachers hone communication skills
Posted Thursday, August 14, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
WARWICK — Carolyn Reedom has been a teacher, a principal and an assistant superintendent, and she has seen and heard it all.
That’s one of the reasons why her presentation on parent-teacher communication was so engaging. Reedom knows what it’s like to be a teacher dealing with a disruptive child just as well as she knows what it’s like to be a principal on the line with a frustrated parent.
Yesterday, during a two-hour class at the Warwick campus of the Community College of Rhode Island, Reedom showed teachers how to break through some of the roadblocks that prevent teachers from communicating effectively with parents.
In a lecture that blended humor with a homespun wisdom, Reedom, a private consultant, says there are good reasons why parents have negative feelings about their child’s school.
“Every parent has caller identification,” she said. “When the prefix 456 shows up on the phone, they press ignore. Why? Because they know it is bad news. Ninety-eight percent of the calls we make are negative. We need to be making many more positive calls.”
The parent-engagement class is part of a month-long summer institute for teachers offered at several locations, including the Community College of Rhode Island. This is the first time that the district has offered teacher training in such an intensive format, according to district spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly. More than 300 individual classes are available and all teachers are required to take two classes: parent engagement and a session on special-education requirements.
O’Reilly says that this is also the first time that the school department has offered broad-based parent-engagement classes for all teachers. Teachers are required by contract to complete 39 hours of professional training annually and they are paid for their time.
Yesterday, Reedom said that teachers have to demonstrate their competence to an often skeptical audience. How many teachers, fed up with a child’s constant interruptions, will tell a parent, “I don’t know what to do about your child’s behavior?”
Instead, teachers should focus on the positive, saying something like, “I’m never going to give up on your child. I’m not going to let your child fail. I like your child.”
Reedom asks the class to role-play a variety of parent-teacher interactions. First, she stages a typical phone conversation between the parent of a disruptive child and a teacher frustrated with the child’s behavior.
The teacher begins with a litany of complaints: the child refuses to sit down, talks back and won’t concentrate on his work. The parent asks what she can do to help. The teacher continues to vent; his frustration is palpable. The parent grows upset and ultimately hangs up on the teacher.
“Do phone calls go like that?” Reedom asks. Many teachers nod their heads in the affirmative. “Did I sound like I like this child?”
No, the teachers said.
Write this down, Reedom says. Never call a parent when you are feeling frustrated or angry. Avoid words that will put a parent on the defensive.
“In every interaction, we have to demonstrate that we care about their child, that we like their child,” she said. “Parents want to know that we will treat their child fairly.”
Begin the conversation by saying something positive about the child: “Tyler has great potential,” or “Tyler is very bright.”
Reedom says there are two kinds of teachers: reactive and proactive. Reactive teachers nurture a preconception about “Tyler” based on office gossip. When the teacher finally gets Tyler on her student roster, she complains to her colleagues and gets them to validate her negative feelings about the child.
Reedom role-plays a typical conversation initiated by a reactive teacher:
“On my gosh, I have Tyler,” the teacher says. “I wonder if the district is still offering that early buyout.”
The class chuckles. Everyone has heard a variation of that conversation in the teachers’ room.
“What kind of a chance does Tyler have?” Reedom says.
“None,” the class says.
A proactive teacher calls Tyler’s parents and says, “I’m excited to have Tyler in my classroom. What can you tell me about him to make this a good year? What is his favorite subject? Math? I’d love to make him the chairman of the math resource corner.”
By now, most parents are hooked. Here is a teacher who is enthusiastic about their child’s furture, someone who cares enough to ask for advice from the person who knows him best. This parent will say to Tyler, “Finally, you have a good teacher. Do whatever she asks.”
Teachers also have to get better at communicating their expectations clearly. Reedom suggests that at the beginning of the school year, teachers send a welcome letter home spelling out the school’s homework and discipline policies.
“Homework is not busywork,” Reedom says. “It should be used the next day to review the previous day’s lesson. Many kids don’t know how to do homework. That’s our job, not the parents’.”
Never underestimate the lasting power of a handwritten note, Reedom says. Then, she pulls out three such notes, the only ones that her two children received during their entire public-school experience. When she got them, Reedom remembers thinking, “I don’t know this teacher but I love her. She told me my son is a great kid.”
“You can’t imagine what this does for parents,” she says. “If you want your school to be perceived as a caring school, this must be done.”
Contact parents at the first sign of a problem, Reedom says. Don’t wait until the child is failing a subject. Notify the parent early enough so the child can make up his missing work or change his behavior.
Reedom cites the example of a parent who complained that her son’s chemistry teacher never told her that he had failed to hand in 13 lab assignments. When the parent complained, the teacher said, “I did what I was required to do. I sent home the notice of failure at week 6.”
But Reedom says that teachers must go beyond what is required by contract or district policy.
“You can’t let a child fail because he is not responsible for his behavior,” she says. “Allowing him to be irresponsible will not teach him to be responsible.”
New D’Abate principal sees positive changes ahead
Posted Tuesday, August 12, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Brent Kermen, the new principal of William D’Abate Elementary School, realizes that it won’t be easy to fill Lucille Furia’s shoes.
In a district where principals come and go like the seasons, Furia was one of the few constants, spending 39 years in the same school, 13 of them as its leader. Kermen, who comes here from Newport where he was an assistant principal, actually knows Furia through his wife’s family and has met her several times. In fact, he recently stopped by her house to get the keys to his new school.
“It’s an honor to fill her shoes,” said Kermen, who is 37 and lives in Cranston. “I’m the beneficiary of her hard work. The staff is really on board, the expectations are very clear and the leadership has been consistent.”
Kermen cut his teeth as an administrator in Newport, where he was assistant principal of Thompson Middle School. One of his biggest accomplishments, he said, was developing a guide to help teachers prepare students for the New England Common Assessment Placement, the state test.
“We came up with testing strategies,” Kermen said, “test items and ways to analyze our curriculum to find out the gaps between the curriculum and the material on the tests.”
Although Thompson is still classified as low-performing, its students made enough progress on the NECAP this year to move off the state’s “watch list.” Chronically low-performing schools wind up in “corrective action,” which makes them eligible for additional services and ultimately state intervention.
Kermen began his career in Providence, where he taught fourth grade at Laurel Hill Elementary School for six years. He left the district to earn a master’s degree in school administration at Rhode Island College and then took the position in Newport.
When he saw that Providence had several administrative postings, he decided to apply:
“I was aware that the district had a new superintendent,” he said last week. “I had heard positive things about the direction Providence was going in and I wanted to be a part of that. The timing was perfect.”
Kermen said he is pleased that Supt. Tom Brady has indicated that he wants to establish a collaborative relationship with the Providence Teachers Union.
“There is no way you can move forward without an open, positive relationship with the union,” he said. “Having been a teacher in Providence plays to one of my strengths. I’ve seen both sides. I know what it’s like to have a program thrust at you.”
Kermen grew up in North Providence and then spent four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, including a stint in the Gulf War. After finishing his military service, he returned and attended Rhode Island College for his undergraduate teaching degree. Kermen is the first member of his family to graduate from college.
“I really like helping kids,” he said. “The bigger the challenge, the more gratifying it is. Every kid deserves a fair shot.”
Kermen said he will not try to reinvent the wheel.
“I will listen and learn and build upon whatever is positive and make sure the district initiatives are carried out. “
Teachers’ union chief sees contract within reach
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Providence Teachers’ Union President Steve Smith said that he is optimistic that contract talks will resume shortly and that a two-year contract is within reach.
Smith, in an interview Friday, said that he has met a couple of times with Supt. Tom Brady and said that the new superintendent seems eager to resolve the contract. The 2,000-member union has been working under the terms of its old contract since last August, when the contract officially expired.
“Mr. Brady has expressed an interest in reaching a resolution even if it’s a short-term one,” Smith said. “We’re open to working to reaching an agreement. We have to work out the financial details.”
Brady said recently that he would like to sign a contract as soon as possible with the understanding that the agreement could be reopened in a year to discuss deeper, more systemic issues.
Negotiations slowed to a crawl this spring after then-Supt. Donnie Evans announced his resignation, effective in mid-September. At the time, Smith said that both parties felt they should wait until the district had a new superintendent before resuming negotiations. Brady arrived here three weeks ago. A mediator was brought in last year after negotiations stalled.
“We felt we were very close earlier in the year,” Smith said. “If we can reach an agreement by September, we would begin negotiations on a longer agreement.”
It seems unlikely that teachers would have time to ratify an agreement before they report back to work on Aug. 25, Smith said, adding that he wants the membership to have ample time to review the language in a new contract.
After months of acrimony between the union and management, Smith signaled that the union is willing to collaborate with Brady.
“Our position is that we want to be a partner,” he said. “I am happy that he has taken a proactive role in such a short period of time and that he has expressed that working with the PTU is important.”
School Board President Mary McClure said she was hopeful that talks would resume in the immediate future. “The superintendent is obviously eager to establish good working relationships with all of the unions and that is evident in his work with Donald Iannazzi,” she said.
Brady reached a compromise with the teacher assistants that precludes layoffs but now calls for assistants to receive additional training so they can be more effective in helping struggling students to read. Iannazzi, president of Local 1033, had organized his members to turn out en masse at two recent City Council meetings and had taken out a half-page ad in The Providence Journal decrying the cuts.
The relationship between the union and the school administration reached a low point in March, when the union voted overwhelmingly to express a lack of confidence in Evans and McClure. The ballot question claimed that students were being denied a quality education and cited more than a dozen supposed missteps by the administration, including the Dec. 13 snowstorm that stranded more than 100 students on school buses.
The ballot also mentioned the “mass exodus” of teachers and administrators during Evans’ two-and-a-half years in office.
After the no-confidence vote was taken, more than 100 teachers staged an informational picket in front of the School Department’s headquarters on Westminster Street. The last time that the union took a vote of no confidence was in October 2001, when Diana Lam was superintendent.
At the time, union leaders said teacher morale was at an all-time low, citing the worsening budget crisis, constant turnover at the top and a perception that the district was adrift.
The union, Smith said, has no plans to strike or “work to rule,” in which teachers refuse to perform any duties beyond those specified in the contract.
Brady goes face to face to determine district’s needs
Posted Thursday, July 31, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — School Supt. Thomas Brady fielded plenty of tough questions last night, but no statement was as poignant as the one made by Charlotte Whittingham, a teenager who said that the public schools repeatedly fail their most disadvantaged students.
“I’ve been in four public schools in Providence,” she said, her voice breaking. “The kids at Classical High School have everything. It’s appalling. No, it’s disgusting how low the expectations are for the kids in the other high schools.”
Brady thanked her for her honesty and said: “I wish I could look you in the eye and say that every student will be challenged. But we will begin the work.”
For nearly two hours at Hope High School last night, the new superintendent heard that the school system was broken, that the School Board wasn’t effective and that some of the teachers no longer care. He heard from parents who said that they weren’t taken seriously and parents who asked when art and music would be restored for their children.
Through it all, Brady tried not to make promises he couldn’t keep, and sometimes he said he didn’t have the answers.
“You sound very good,” said Osiris Harrell, a parent activist. “But we’ve heard this before. Dr. Evans was very qualified. But because of the bull that goes on here, he wasn’t allowed to do what he wanted to do.”
Brady asked for six months: “Let’s see what the litmus test is then.”
One parent spoke about the racial and economic disparity that exists between East Side schools and the rest of the city.
“There is the East Side and the South Side,” Jean Nicolazzo told Brady. “There are different schools and different standards. We have to think about integrating schools along socioeconomic lines. We have to figure out how to entice the middle class to come back.”
Brady made it clear that he wasn’t going to address the needs of the few over the needs of the many. When a parent complained that Classical wasn’t as rigorous as it once was, the superintendent pointed out that the district had to raise the standards at all of its high schools, not just the jewel in the crown.
A school psychologist explained that Providence has a disproportionately large number of students in special education and said that the district’s suspension rate was among the highest in the country. Black males, she said, are suspended at much higher rates than other student groups.
Brady said he was putting together a group (not a task force) to look into the city’s large number of special education placements. He also said that there are alternative education programs where disruptive students can be placed until they are ready to return to the regular classroom.
The new superintendent was careful not to take pot shots at the Providence Teachers’ Union. A parent complained that the contract allows teachers with more seniority to bump those with less, which removes the responsibility for hiring faculty members from the principal.
But Brady, a former Army colonel, said that it would difficult to allow each principal to pick his or her own staff in a system as large as Providence, which has more than 2,000 teachers.
“I’m not going to say that bumping doesn’t work,” he said. “Seniority is an important factor. My job is to train teachers and move them up to these new standards.”
Parents also expressed frustration with the fact that superintendents come and go, yet nothing really changes at the school level.
“The most critical thing is to bring change down to the micro level,” Gail Gifford said. “If my child isn’t doing his homework, I want to know right away, not at the end of the semester.”
And parent engagement, parents said, has to be more than skin deep. As one speaker said, parents want to be part of the educational process, not consigned to holding bake sales.
During the evening, Brady said that he supported K-8 schools, a model favored by former Supt. Donnie Evans. He said he is open to working with charter schools, adding that they have a lot to offer. And he acknowledged that the district’s biggest challenge is how to fix the middle schools, which is where student performance falls off the cliff.
But the night wouldn’t be complete without a question about the Dec. 13 snowstorm that left dozens of children trapped on school buses until late at night.
“I’ve been making weather decisions for the last 10 years and I haven’t made one right decision,” Brady said.
“But all of those decisions were made in the best interest of the children. I can’t make it stop snowing. But I can say that there will not be children on buses at 11:30 p.m.”
Brady optimistic he can work with union and council
Posted Wednesday, July 30, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Less than two weeks into his new job, School Supt. Thomas Brady faced his first baptism by fire: an irate union that was pressuring the City Council to restore teacher assistant positions.
The Laborers’ International Union of North America, Local 1033, turned out en masse at last week’s City Council meeting to protest the loss of 40 elementary school teacher assistant positions in the school budget. A week earlier, the union took out a half-page ad in The Providence Journal decrying the cuts, claiming that first-grade students would suffer from the loss of personal instruction provided by the aides.
The district said that its hands were tied. Because of state and federal regulations, the School Department has to dedicate $2.9 million in federal anti-poverty funds, called Title I, to the high schools this year. Approximately $2.2 million will come from a reorganization of kindergarten and first-grade teacher assistants.
The union claimed that 40 positions would be eliminated. The department, however, said the reductions would come from positions accrued through retirement or attrition.
The union was making a lot of noise. The council was feeling a lot of pressure. The end result was a potentially toxic mix waiting to explode and possibly derail or delay passage of the school budget.
Enter Brady, who has already made a point of reaching out to various constituencies, from parents to union leaders. Brady knew that the school budget was before the City Council on Monday. He knew the union was upset. And so he called Local 1033 business manager Donald S. Iannazzi and asked to meet with him on Monday.
Yesterday, Brady said that he didn’t want the budget sidetracked by the furor over teacher assistants.
“I wasn’t concerned about the protest,” he said. “I wanted a resolution of this issue. And I felt the dialogue should be about the needs of the children.”
After lengthy conversations with the union and top School Department staff, Brady and Iannazzi reached a compromise:
•The reduction in teacher assistants from 160 to 120 would not result in any layoffs.
•Every kindergarten class would continue to have a teacher assistant.
•The remaining assistants would be reassigned as instructional assistants. These individuals would be assigned to work in elementary schools with the greatest academic need, with a minimum of one assistant at each elementary school.
•Vacancies resulting from retirements and resignations will not be filled.
What broke the logjam was Brady’s offer to train teacher assistants to help struggling students to become better readers, professional development that has not been offered in the past. The goal is to move teacher assistants from a custodial role to an instructional one.
“Here was an opportunity to talk about teacher assistants versus instructional assistants in a district that needs more adults in classrooms,” Brady said. “My vision is to see that they be provided with the proper professional development. Mr. Iannazzi concurred and said that, in fact, he had been thinking about this for the last couple of years.”
Brady said he never felt that the council was holding the school budget hostage over the teacher assistant issue:
“Number one, I never got the impression that we couldn’t get the budget passed without restoring those positions. Number two, the council showed a remarkable [restraint] as in, ‘We’re not going to get into the details. We’re going to let him run it.’ ”
At a special meeting Monday, the City Council approved a $322-million school budget and voted to raise the city’s tax levy by 3.75 percent.
Brady said that he hopes this agreement will demonstrate that he is serious about establishing collaborative relationships with the council, the unions and other school partners.
“I think this reinforces my intent that we will partner together for kids.”
He’s the other Tom Brady
Posted Wednesday, July 16, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — “Hey, you look like Tom Brady,” a sixth grader said, his eyes wide.
“Nice to meet you,” said a tall, gray-haired man in a similarly colored suit and tie. “I’m the new superintendent.”
“I thought you were Tom Brady,” the boy said, crestfallen.
“I am, but I never played quarterback.”
“Awesome,” the boy said, smiling.
That’s how the day went for Thomas M. Brady, retired Army colonel, father of five and the incoming superintendent of the city’s 23,800-pupil school district. On his first day in Providence, Brady visited a couple of schools, met in small groups with teachers and central office staff and tried to get a feel for his new assignment.
Brady, 57, arrives here with an impressive resumé : a 25-year career in the Army; interim superintendent of Philadelphia, the eighth-largest school district in the nation; and, before that, chief operating officer of the Washington, D.C., district.
As Brady told teachers yesterday, “I know how to spell urban.”
Related link
Video: Watch Brady on his first day at work
Mayor David N. Cicilline recruited Brady in March after Supt. Donnie Evans announced that he would retire when his contract expires in September. At the time, Cicilline said that he tapped Brady because the school system needed a strong leader, adding that the district couldn’t afford to spend time on a national search, something the School Board did with Evans.
Yesterday, Brady exuded the sort of confidence that puts people at ease. During a visit to a summer school on Thurbers Avenue, Brady popped into classrooms, observed students at work and chatted briefly with teachers.
Nothing seemed to get past him. At one point, he stopped, glanced at a candy wrapper on the floor and immediately asked when the schools are cleaned. When Brady discovered that the doors to the library were closed, he explained that it isn’t unusual for the building principal to “feel proprietary,” locking up supplies and books when a summer school principal takes over.
In every class, Brady asked students where they were from because he said he was curious to find out where children lived in relationship to where they attended school. Because he is 6 feet, 2 inches tall, he made himself small, kneeling down to talk with the fifth and sixth graders and speaking softly.
“How are you doing?” he asked one boy. “Is this keeping you engaged? Are you keeping busy? Is the work challenging enough?”
Brady was full of questions, asking when teachers received their summer school training, how substitute teachers were used and how the Woods-Young building, which houses two separate elementary schools, was organized.
In one class, Brady checked a child’s math to make sure it was right. In another, he commented on how well a teacher used a common object — a packing box — to explain how to calculate surface area.
Brady faces some formidable challenges, however. The school district is struggling with a third year of budget cuts, the Providence Teachers Union issued a vote of no confidence in Evans lastwinter, and the state has placed the district in corrective action because a large number of the system’s 36 schools are chronically low-performing.
Yesterday, Brady tried to dispel some of the apprehension and distrust that has permeated the district since Evans surprised everyone by announcing his resignation. Teachers are frustrated by continued budget cuts and the steady exodus of experienced leaders. And they are discouraged by the glacial pace of contract negotiations, which have languished since the Evans’ announcement.
First, Brady said he believes in “management by walking around.”
“If you see my smiling face, I’m trying to find out what you’re doing,” he told a group of 70 teachers and staff. “Don’t be concerned if I’m asking questions. It’s not a threat. I’d rather catch someone doing something right.”
Next, Brady told the crowd that he is not about “screaming, ranting and shooting the messenger.” Let’s fix the problem and move on, he said.
When he worked in the District of Columbia, a school district where nothing worked, Brady said his office was lined with bookshelves full of studies, none of which had ever been implemented.
“I’m all about getting things done,” he said. “I don’t want a briefcase full of plans.”
And, he is all about accountability. When Brady was running on the Hope High School track this weekend, he noticed some graffiti. It was gone in no time.
“Graffiti,” he said. “If we leave it up for 24 hours, what message are we sending? That we don’t care.”
Brady made it clear that he would build on the hard work done by previous superintendents, adding that Evans did a very good job and is now moving on. Although Evans slipped out of the office early yesterday, he has been talking and meeting with Brady on a regular basis.
Brady also offered an abbreviated version of his agenda: increase student achievement; make business operations more efficient; improve communications with teachers, parents and taxpayers; spread the word about the district’s mission; bolster the administration’s relationship with the unions, and make sure that teacher training is aligned with the curriculum.
When Evans arrived here almost three years ago, he promised that Providence would be his last stop. Brady didn’t go that far, but he did say “I don’t want to be chancellor of New York or Los Angeles.”
He also shared a bit of his personal history: he is married with five grown children and six granddaughters and he began his career in education as president of a parent-teacher association in Fairfax, Va., an affluent community. Later, in the District of Columbia, he helped close 11 schools in one year as part of a $4.5-billion overhaul of the city’s aging school buildings.
At least one administrator was so impressed with Brady’s take-charge attitude that she said she was almost moved to tears.
“I felt for the first time, ‘Wow,’ ” said Kim Luca, supervisor of literacy and the humanities. “He exudes greatness. He’s a team player. He wants to treat people with respect and dignity. I haven’t felt this good about someone right off the bat in a long time.”
Leadership takes Adelaide High to a new level
Posted Wednesday, July 2, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — In August, Adelaide High School principal Robbie Torchon was assigned a daunting task: to create a new high school out of whole cloth.
Torchon’s job was to imbue the building with meaning — to create a sense of community, a shared mission, where there was none. This was no easy task because the 600 students and the staff were plucked from high schools all over the district. Many of the students, however, came from Harrison Street, a shell of a high school where students and staff felt abandoned.
When school opened, Torchon hit the ground running. He divided the student body into teams of 130 and assigned each teacher to one of five teams, which focused on school climate, data assessment, rules and regulations, a teachers’ handbook and curriculum. On Fridays, the faculty was freed up for one period to discuss the school’s progress.
Torchon runs his building with military-like precision. During a fire drill, he timed how long it took students to leave and reenter the building. He speaks with tremendous authority and passion. Recently, Torchon reflected on what the school has accomplished in its first year and the challenges that still remain.
“The biggest challenge of the year?” he said. “Learning to be patient. I was too quick to implement too many things.”
Without missing a beat, he added, “Next year, I will make sure that 100 percent of the faculty buys into my vision. I will create an appeal from the heart.”
One of the biggest challenges this year was getting teachers to take leadership roles. According to Torchon, teachers were accustomed to an adversarial relationship with administrators. Torchon upended that approach by asking faculty teams to develop their own expertise and make recommendations to the entire faculty.
One team looked at suspension data and discovered that student misbehavior rose immediately before and after vacation. Teachers also found a direct relationship between the quality of classroom instruction and behavior in the classroom. Teachers who were highly engaged had the fewest student behavior problems.
The team met with Torchon and recommended that administrators use suspension as a last resort. This represented a sea change, Torchon said, because teachers typically clamor for disruptive students to be removed from the classroom, not kept in school.
Starting this fall, disruptive students will attend focus groups, where a team of teachers and guidance counselors will help them learn how to address their behavior. The school staff will get an assist from a member of the community who works with at-risk students and who talks with them about anger management and conflict management.
“We’re already seeing a ripple effect on attendance,” Torchon said. “We have an 82-percent attendance rate but we’re aiming for 92 percent.”
Torchon also asked the faculty to think of rituals that would make the school more welcoming to students, teachers and parents. His mantra, repeated at staff meetings and school events, went something like this:
“This is your building, your community. You are no longer guests here, you are hosts. Your diploma’s value will be based on the impressions people have of your school.”
As the year progressed, Adelaide High School began to create its own traditions, which were designed to foster a feeling of shared purpose. On Fridays, students invited their peers from The Met, E{+3} and Central High School to spend an hour or two playing basketball and volleyball. Nothing breaks down barriers between rival groups better than sports, Torchon said, especially when the teams are a mixture of students from different neighborhoods.
“We can invite other schools to get to know each other,” he said. “We have a responsibility to make sure we’re welcoming to one another.”
Adelaide also holds an academic celebration every quarter to recognize honor-roll students. Perhaps because the event is more celebratory than cerebral, it attracts 200 parents, a huge turnout for any urban school. The celebrations are popular, in part because they feature the food of a particular culture. But they are also serious. At each celebration, parents receive a mini-lesson on topics ranging from the senior project to the new statewide assessments.
“We eat together and then we talk,” Torchon said. “We try to alleviate that parental anxiety, that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling that happens when you walk into school knowing you’re going to hear something bad.”
This fall, the International Institute will offer classes to parents on the Adelaide campus, including English as a second language and courses leading to a GED. The institute, which is a clearinghouse for new arrivals to the United States, will also offer Spanish language classes to teachers.
“This suggestion came from the climate and culture committee,” Torchon said. “It’s an example of an idea bubbling from the bottom up.”
Thanks to suggestions from staff, Adelaide has also adopted a fresh approach to parent-teacher conferences. Instead of the typical five-minute meetings with teachers, parents will now be able to make an appointment with a guidance counselor; together, the counselor and parent will discuss how to improve the student’s academic performance.
Adelaide has also developed an academic probation program. Once a month, teachers from the core subjects in each team meet to discuss students who are in danger of failing. Any teen on academic probation must sign up for extra help after school. This year, those students were not eligible to participate in sports, but that policy will change in September.
Why? Because the data team decided that students who are trying to improve their grades shouldn’t be penalized while working toward improvement.
John Craig, one of two assistant principals at Adelaide, said he has never worked for such an inspirational leader, adding this has been his best year in Providence. As Craig put it, “Robbie Torchon isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty.”
Torchon said he doesn’t spend much time alone in his office. He’s out in the corridors, popping into classrooms, handling discipline issues and meeting with parents.
“It’s leadership by doing,” he said.
Providence School Department may change financial practices
Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The School Department manages 26 separate health insurances packages. It operates four different payroll cycles. And it processes more than 17,000 benefit checks for former employees.
According to Mark Dunham, the department’s chief financial officer, some employees are paid weekly and some are paid bi-monthly. Complicating matters further, some employees choose to be paid 52 times a year while others choose to have their salaries spread over 42 weeks — the length of the school year.
At least one School Board member, Ronnie Young, called the multi-tiered payroll system “an obvious waste of money,” and asked why the department structured the payroll that way. Dunham said that union contracts dictate part of the schedule and added that the district has had some conversation with the teachers’ union about streamlining this system.
Although he didn’t have any estimates, Dunham agreed with board member Robert Wise that placing everyone on a bi-monthly payroll would significantly reduce overtime costs accrued by School Department staff.
The department processes 127,085 payroll checks a year, which translates into 15,885 checks handled by each payroll employee. His staff also processes 1,437 retirement benefits and 17,244 benefit checks, at considerable time and expense to the district. And Dunham said that he is in the process of talking to the state retirement board about taking over this responsibility.
The discussion over payroll systems occurred during a presentation by Dunham that detailed how the district’s Finance Department functions.
School Board member Rosanna Castro asked why the budget was driven by contractual obligations rather than programs. She referred to a recent audit by a private consultant, Phi Delta Kappa, which concluded that the budget does not reflect curriculum priorities, nor does it lay out a series of scenarios for bare-bones funding, desirable funding and optimum funding.
While Dunham agreed with the audit’s findings in theory, he said that the severe budget constraints under which Providence has been operating recently has prevented the department from using the budget to drive student improvement.
Meanwhile, the budget deficit is something of a moving target. After the School Board failed to approve a 2008-2009 budget, Mayor David N. Cicilline submitted a $319.9-million budget to the City Council, $6.7 million short of what Dunham said was needed to meet the district’s expenses.
Late last month, the General Assembly awarded an additional $3.5 million to the district, but state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters warned districts not to count on getting all of that aid because it is contingent on additional overnight gambling revenues from the Twin River casino, which is dealing with its own financial crisis.
“We’re trying to survive,” Dunham said. “There is no [local] money for student enhancement, no money for intervention. There is nothing left to cut, no money left to be had.”
Providence, however, does get some money from the state Department of Education to provide additional resources to schools that have consistently failed to make annual yearly progress. It also receives federal Title 1 monies, which are awarded to schools with large numbers of children living in poverty. But the federal dollars can only be used to pay for supplemental services; it can’t be used to pay for supplies, building repairs or teacher salaries.
The scale of the School Department budget became clear during last night’s workshop. The school budget is the largest municipal budget in the state. It manages 40 grants totaling $46.6 million and those monies are distributed to nearly 100 schools — more than half of them private or parochial schools. No matter where a Providence student attends school, that student is eligible for a variety of federal grants, some keyed to poverty.
The district not only administers these grants, it also must send staff to each of these non-public schools twice a year.
Providence high school principal leaving for job in Scituate
Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Michael Sollitto, the principal of Mount Pleasant High School, said he is taking a similar job in Scituate because of the constant turnover at the top in the Providence schools.
Sollitto, who was appointed principal of the 1,500-student school a year ago, is considered one of the district’s most promising new leaders, so much so that both Mayor David N. Cicilline and incoming Supt. Thomas Brady called and asked him to reconsider his decision to resign.
But Sollitto, who is leaving Providence after 14 years to become principal of Scituate High School, said their kind words weren’t enough to persuade him to change his mind.
“The number-one reason I left is that it’s not very stable here,” Sollitto said in an interview yesterday. “There have been six superintendents here in the last 14 years. And there has been a high turnover of staff.”
Sollitto said it’s difficult for school principals to set a course when the district’s mission keeps shifting with each new superintendent. Under former Supt. Melody Johnson, for example, teachers taught English using a lot of original texts. Under outgoing Supt. Donnie Evans, teachers who work with struggling readers have been asked to rely on a specific curriculum that spells out exactly what should be taught and when.
“I’m not leaving because I’m bitter,” Sollitto said. “I was happy at Mount Pleasant. I loved the faculty, the staff and the kids. But this kind of opportunity doesn’t come up very often.”
Sollitto is part of a larger exodus of administrative talent from Providence. This summer, five administrators are resigning or retiring: Sollitto; Nicolau Amaral, an assistant principal at Central High School; Lucille Furia, principal of William D’Abate Elementary School; and Cheryl Gomes, principal of Classical High School. In addition, Brian Baldizar is stepping down as principal of E{+3} Academy, one of the city’s new smaller high schools.
Last summer, two principals and three assistant principals, including the principal of Mount Pleasant, Maureen Crisafulli, and an assistant principal of Mount Pleasant, Michelle Natalizia, resigned or retired.
But Providence school spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly said that these numbers aren’t unusual given the size of the district, which has 36 schools and 2,600 teachers. Of the 78 administrators who work in school buildings, only 5 percent left last year and 6 percent left this year, O’Reilly said.
“Of course, we are sad to see any [highly qualified] administrator leave,” she said, “but these numbers are part of the natural course of organizational turnover. This is not something that will disrupt the continuing delivery of education in Providence.”
Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, disagrees. Since 2000-2001, only three administrators still occupy their original positions, he said.
“There have been an unprecedented number of administrators retiring or leaving for other districts,” Smith said. “The district has to rethink leadership structure in the schools. It has to create leadership positions for teachers. If you feel you’re not going to be promoted, you will take your skills elsewhere. The district has to get better about how it treats its employees. People don’t feel valued.”
Actually, the district does have a path of promoting teacher-leaders, the Aspiring Principals Program, which pairs teachers with experienced principals in addition to the requirement that they take specific courses.
Nationally, two trends are converging to produce a high turnover of school administrators: the baby boomers are retiring in force and the federal No Child Left Behind law is putting more pressure on novice principals, who no longer have the luxury of growing into their jobs.
“Not only are we seeing more retirements, we’re seeing a lot of movement, only some of which is voluntary,” said John Nori, director of program development for the National Association of Secondary Principals. “And the urban schools seem to be impacted to a greater degree.”
Commissioner says progress in city schools inadequate
Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Although the Providence schools are starting to improve, far too many are still failing to make adequate yearly progress, according to Peter McWalters, the state commissioner of elementary and secondary education.
“We congratulate your central office, the leadership of these schools and their faculties for their efforts on behalf of students,” McWalters wrote in a recent letter to Supt. Donnie Evans. “Balancing this progress however, too many of your schools continue to miss their performance targets year after year.”
Seven schools are no longer classified as needing intervention under the federal No Child Left Behind law and six more are due to come off that list next year if they meet all of their performance targets for a second consecutive year, McWalters said. The state Department of Education declined to release the names of the schools because the classifications have not yet been made public.
More than 40 percent of the district’s schools are low-performing, which puts the entire district in a category called in need of improvement.
In January 2007, McWalters ordered Evans to come up with a “corrective action” plan for improving the lowest-performing schools or face state intervention. With guidance from McWalters’ office, Evans submitted a plan that introduced a new math curriculum for struggling students in elementary and middle school, added reading classes in middle school, and conducted a review of the School Department’s central office to help staff become more effective in improving student achievement.
When he issued the order, McWalters made it clear that this would be a multi-year process whose results would be reviewed on a yearly basis. Although the district was successful in implementing many of the plan’s programs, McWalters said that the school system still has a lot of work to do.
In a recent interview, he acknowledged that the district faces huge financial challenges, but he also said that neither the lack of money nor the absence of contract language would be acceptable excuses. He also said that the timing of his letter is intentional, because he knows that the district is in the middle of teacher contract negotiations whose outcome could affect issues that the state has identified as barriers to improvement.
McWalters, in his latest order, said the district needs to make the following changes:
•Develop a method to ensure teacher stability and for assigning highly effective teachers to the neediest students, especially in schools identified as low-performing. This requirement is a holdover from the original order.
•Implement personnel policies that retain highly trained middle school intervention teachers, district assistant team members and elementary literacy and math coaches.“This stabilization effort,” McWalters wrote, “must include both the elimination of undue annual turnover of staff through seniority-based hiring practices and the continued use of interview-based hiring for vacancies within these three critical positions.”
The district currently relies on seniority to fill positions. For example, if a sixth-grade science position is open, the teacher with the most seniority has the first shot at that job, provided he or she has the appropriate certification.
Evans agrees that the district “needs to assign teachers based on their strengths. But that is a contractual issue. “Can [McWalters] override the contract? Federal law says he can but he would have to proceed with great caution,” Evans said.
Evans said that he would not move to override seniority-based hiring without first getting support from McWalters and the teachers’ union. The issue hasn’t been revisited since contract talks, which were on hold earlier this year, resumed.
Meanwhile, Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith wouldn’t get into the specifics of McWalters’ order, except to say that the union is seeking clarification from the Department of Education on some of the language.
Smith, however, did say that the district must create incentives to attract the strongest faculty to low-performing schools and he said that deep and lasting student achievement will not occur unless the district is willing to empower teachers.
“What frustrates me,” Smith said, “is that the letter doesn’t address programs that have been proven to move student achievement, programs like pre-kindergarten and smaller classes in kindergarten through grade 2.”
Smith also said that the state can’t ignore the adverse effect of at least three years of sustained budget cuts, which have led to the loss of 300 teaching positions and caused numerous classroom disruptions.
“We’re in constant conversations with [McWalters],” Smith said. “He’s open to listening to what we have to say.”
Meanwhile, the state’s latest order, also calls for:
•The district to take over all 38 hours of professional teaching training, a move that is bound to run into resistance from principals who are used to developing their own training.
•Ensure that all teachers who are required to implement curriculum interventions receive training this summer. McWalters wrote that this training is especially important for mathematics, where student performance has been stagnant at every level.
•Obtain letters of agreement from every union stating that they will ensure that their members participate in the summer training and support the district’s new curriculum and programs. This requirement was also listed in last year’s order.
•Fill key positions in the district’s central office, including director of teaching and learning, supervisor of career and technical education, supervisor of secondary school reform, supervisor of mathematics and supervisor of science.
•Provide federal Title 1 monies to high schools, which Providence has already agreed to do. Title 1 monies are specifically allocated to high-poverty schools to pay for instructional programs other than salaries and building improvements.
Last summer, Evans developed an intervention plan for the middle schools, including the creation of student advisories and common planning time for teachers, but the district was unable to implement those reforms because of budget constraints, according to school spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly.
McWalters expects the district to respond with a detailed plan by the beginning of the school year, and he said that if the district doesn’t comply with the order’s conditions, he will get more aggressive in terms of intervening in the way the schools are run and organized.
State certifies Brady as next school superintendent
Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Thomas M. Brady has been approved by the state Department of Education to receive his certification as a superintendent in Rhode Island, according to a department spokesman.
Brady, who is interim superintendent of the Philadelphia school district, is now fully certified to take over as the city’s new leader on July 14.
Originally, state and local officials thought that Brady, who has taken an unorthodox path to the superintendency, would need a waiver from the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education. But Peter McWalters, commissioner of elementary and secondary education, told the regents last week that no action from them was necessary because Brady has the credentials to meet the requirements for state certification.
After 25 years in the Army, Brady retired and was appointed chief executive officer of the Fairfax-Va., school district. In 2004, he enrolled in the nationally recognized Broad Center, which trains military and private sector CEOs to become urban school leaders. Although Brady doesn’t have a graduate or a master’s degree in education, his year-long internship at Broad apparently meets that requirement. The state educators’ certification office is also giving Brady credit for teaching at the college level.
In March, Mayor David N. Cicilline announced Brady’s appointment just a week after Supt. Donnie Evans said that he planned to step down at the end of his three-year contract in September. Evans is a finalist for the superintendent’s job in Cincinnati, Ohio.
State will maintain control over Hope High
Posted Thursday, June 12, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Hope High School will remain under the authority of state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, a decision that is bound to please the principals and teachers at the once-troubled high school.
McWalters’ decision means that the district will not be able to tamper with the way the school is organized. Hope will continue to operate as three smaller learning academies, the school will have control over teacher recruitment and hiring and student advisory periods will be retained.
But McWalters’ new order goes even further, replacing traditional department heads at every high school in the district with teacher-leaders, who are responsible for training teachers, providing model classrooms and otherwise acting in a leadership role. Hope introduced these positions three years ago when McWalters imposed his original order for corrective action.
“The continuance of department chair positions at this time is counterproductive to achieving the new vision for all Providence high schools,” McWalters wrote in his letter to Supt. Donnie Evans. “All job specifications for these new teacher-leader positions shall be forwarded to the commissioner for approval prior to beginning the interview and selection process.”
Under state and federal law, McWalters has the authority to intervene in schools and districts that are chronically under-performing. Because more than 40 percent of its schools have been consistently low-performing, Providence is classified as a district in need of improvement, which can trigger intervention by the commissioner.
“At the time that Hope was put under state order, it was the only school that warranted such intervention,” said Mary Canole, director of the state Department of Education’s office of progressive support and intervention. “Now you have three other high schools — Mount Pleasant, Central and Feinstein — that are in restructuring.”
A school in need of restructuring means it hasn’t made annual yearly progress for six consecutive years. With those schools, the district or the state has the authority to replace the staff, place the school under private or state control or reopen it as a charter school.
Canole said it isn’t unusual for the state to review applications for positions paid for with federal money. The state Department of Education has targeted federal money to schools that are consistently under-achieving.
Canole, however, couldn’t say whether the state order will run afoul of the Providence teachers’ contract, which includes department head positions.
The new order recognizes the considerable progress that Hope has made since McWalters intervened three years ago, but says that the school has a long way to go in terms of student performance, graduation rates and attendance.
In 2005, McWalters set specific conditions for Hope because the school was beset with abysmally low test scores, a high dropout rate and significant discipline problems. Three years later, the commissioner wants to move student achievement at all of its high schools, Canole said. In other words, the district must bring the positive improvements at Hope to scale.
The challenge is how the district can boost the performance of all high schools without losing ground at Hope.
“Some of the things in the original order were implemented very successfully,” said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the state Department of Education. “Are the results there yet? No. There are still problems with the test scores and attendance.
“There is a different need today,” he said. “What needs to be solved now has to be solved at the district level.”
“We don’t want to lose what Hope has,” Canole added. “That’s the reason the school remains under [McWalter’s] authority.”
McWalters decided to keep Hope under his authority because he said he felt that neither the school — nor the district — has the capacity to support the kinds of change that would lead to even greater success, especially in academic achievement.
“Do they have the staffing they need?” Canole said. “Do they have the budget to pull this off? We already know that they don’t have the technology they need.”
That said, Hope will no longer get a separate line item from the state. Canole said that the progressive support and intervention money will now go to the district, which presumably will have greater latitude in how the federal money is doled out.
There is one other significant change in the commissioner’s new order. Before, the district had little control over Hope’s curriculum. Now, the district will have total authority over every high school’s curriculum because Evans is moving toward a uniform curriculum for all core academic subjects, Canole said.
Hope, she said, will continue to have control over curricula for each of its three smaller theme-based academies: leadership, arts and information technology.
Reaction to the order was muted yesterday because school officials, including Evans, said they hadn’t had a chance to review the conditions, released late Tuesday.
“If it’s back to the old order, we welcome it,” said Arthur Petrosinelli, one of three principals at Hope. “We want to stay under the commissioner’s order. We’ve come a long way but we still have a long way to go.”
This winter, Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, testified in favor of keeping Hope under the commissioner’s order. Yesterday, he said that he was pleased with the decision, although he wanted his staff to scrutinize the details.
The new order stems from a show-cause hearing that the commissioner held in February to consider whether Hope should remain under state intervention or be returned to district control.
Numerous speakers, including the school’s principals, argued that the high school was able to turn itself around precisely because of the state’s intervention order.
Staff testified that during the past three years, Hope has moved from a chaotic environment to an orderly one. Student advisory periods are beginning to build bonds between students and their teacher-advisor, individual learning plans spell out each student’s academic goals and effective partnerships have been developed with local universities and businesses.
But Evans urged McWalters to weigh the needs of one school against the needs of the district. Today, he said, the entire district, not just Hope, is listed as being in corrective action.
State allows Brady to head schools in Providence
Posted Tuesday, June 10, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The state Department of Education has determined that prospective superintendent Thomas M. Brady is eligible to receive a superintendent’s certificate, according to a spokesman for the education commissioner.
Yesterday, the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education was supposed to vote on whether to grant Brady a waiver from the required certificate, but Commissioner Peter McWalters told the board that no action was necessary because Brady apparently has the credentials to satisfy the state regulations for school superintendents.
The state educators’ certification office has yet to approve Brady’s request for certification, but Education Department spokesman Elliot Krieger said he expects that the board will act quickly since Brady is scheduled to arrive here in mid-July.
“The regents don’t have to do anything,” Krieger said yesterday. “The certification office has to review the waiver. Brady does seem to meet the qualifications.”
Brady, who is interim superintendent of the Philadelphia school district, has a nontraditional resumé. After a 25-year career in the Army, Brady was appointed chief executive officer of the Fairfax, Va., school district. In 2004, he enrolled in the Broad Center, a nationally recognized program that trains military and private CEOs to become urban school leaders. The state Department of Education apparently considers the one-year Broad program as roughly equivalent to a graduate degree in education.
The state certification office is also giving Brady credit for teaching at the college level, although the certificate calls for teaching in a public school. Brady also has extensive management experience, both in the military and in urban education.
Brady was chosen in March to be superintendent a week after Supt. Donnie Evans announced that he would step down in September.
The regents postponed acting on the waiver last week because the certification office hadn’t had the opportunity to review Brady’s credentials. A special regents’ meeting was convened yesterday to revisit the request, which came from Mayor David N. Cicilline.
Board of Regents delays action on superintendent waiver for Brady
Posted Friday, June 6, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education has postponed acting on a request to grant the city’s prospective superintendent, Thomas M. Brady, a waiver from the state’s superintendent certificate.
Brady, who is interim superintendent of the Philadelphia school district, meets most of the state requirements with two exceptions: he hasn’t attended a formal graduate program in education, nor has he taught in a public school.
Mayor David R. Cicilline, who was instrumental in bringing Brady to Providence, requested the waiver on the grounds that Brady has more than enough experience, given his 25 years of military service and his decade-long career in top management positions in large urban public schools.
The postponement does not signal that Brady’s appointment is in trouble, according to Regents Chairman Robert G. Flanders, who said that the board tabled its decision until the office of the state commissioner of education thoroughly reviews Brady’s credentials.
“We wanted to make sure that we didn’t do this hastily,” Flanders said yesterday. “He has a very impressive background. The regents wanted the staff to take the time to go through his credentials thoroughly and come back with a report concerning what specifics in his background, or lack thereof, need to be waived.”
The regents also listened to the concerns cited by Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith, who asked the board to think carefully before issuing a waiver because of the message it might send to teachers and administrators who labor hard to maintain their certifications.
“I didn’t testify against Mr. Brady,” Smith said. “I asked the regents to take time to deliberate this process because the Providence School Board did not. The School Board has taken the position that this is a formality. What would the School Board’s reaction be if teachers were not certified? I was reacting to calls I received from administrators expressing their concern, as well as their disappointment that they didn’t have the opportunity to apply for the job.”
Brady was appointed by the School Board in March a week after Supt. Donnie Evans announced that he would step down in September. Smith and others criticized the process, arguing that it was done behind closed doors without input from the union or the public.
“Steve put them on the spot,” said state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters. “They were about to give a waiver to me without me having the full opportunity to review it.”
McWalters said his office didn’t receive Brady’s complete résumé until Wednesday. McWalter’s staff completed its review yesterday morning and a special regents meeting has been scheduled for Monday at 3 p.m. to act on the waiver. McWalters said that he doesn’t anticipate a problem with the request.
“Here’s a guy with a master’s degree in human resources,” McWalters said, “years of military training, and he’s run a school system bigger than our entire state. He has taught in college but not in elementary or secondary school. We will say that publicly. But his experience in teaching and management, all of those things that the district needs, is perfect.”
Brady began his formal career in education in 1999, when he was appointed chief executive officer of the Fairfield, Va., school district. In 2004, he enrolled in the Broad Center, a nationally known program that trains private and military CEOs to become leaders of large urban school districts. The intensive one-year program has produced a number of urban school superintendents and is considered to be the equivalent of an advanced academic program.
Council wants people to vote on electing School Board
Posted Friday, June 6, 2008
By Daniel Barbarisi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The School Board holds a unique distinction in Rhode Island: it is the sole appointed board, with members selected by the mayor, rather than elected by the people.
Some on the Providence City Council think that the rest of the state might have the right idea; council members have sponsored an ordinance that would replace the appointed School Board with an elected one, through an amendment to the City Charter.
The change would require voter approval, and if the full City Council approves the resolution, the question would be placed on the November ballot. A simple majority of voters is required to make the switch.
“We don’t believe that the board, as it stands now, is accountable to the people,” said majority leader Terrence M. Hassett, one of four co-sponsors of the resolution.
“We believe that middle management is top heavy. Test scores are down. The School Department itself, our school system has major problems … There has to be a drastic and substantial change, that way the board will be accountable to the people,” Hassett said.
Councilman Luis Aponte, also a co-sponsor, said that removing the School Board from the mayor and the council’s approval would add needed autonomy to the system. Committee members appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council, Aponte said, will never be wholly independent.
“That cannot create an independent climate whereby folks can be the kind of independent advocates that our children need,” Aponte said.
The City Council and the School Board have long butted heads on a variety of issues, but the fighting has intensified in recent months.
Council members have hammered the district on school performance, the communication with the council and recently, on its performance and accountability during the Dec. 13 snowstorm. Several called for the removal of Supt. Donnie Evans and others on the council have consistently opposed the appointment of School Board Chairwoman Mary McClure.
McClure could not be reached for comment last night.
A report released last week, however, charged that City Council interference is part of what is bringing the Providence school system down. The council, according to consultant James A. Scott, has trampled on the School Board’s authority by interfering in the superintendent’s efforts to reorganize his top staff.
“That’s interference, plain and simple,” Scott told the School Board last week. “If you’re going to hold someone accountable, you have to let them do their thing.”
City Councilman John J. Lombardi took offense to those characterizations, saying that providing fiscal oversight is at the heart of what the City Council does.
“They were basically telling the council, ‘do not do your job,’ ” Lombardi said. “We really need to do something about this.”
Hassett agreed, saying that the release of the report is just one more reason why this is the right time to change things at the School Department.
As it stands now, a School Board nominating commission accepts applications from potential members and forwards them to the mayor. The mayor makes his recommendations to the City Council, which ratifies his appointments.
Board members serve three-year terms.
Mayor David N. Cicilline could not be reached for comment late yesterday afternoon. It is not known whether he would support or oppose the resolution, and Hassett said he has not yet spoken to the mayor about the proposal.
Even if the mayor opposes it, Hassett said, the council will try to go forward anyway.
“We’re at a breaking point where something has to happen,” he said. “I think it will actually gain traction in the community, because I think people don’t think the School Department is accountable.”
The measure has been sent to a committee of the council and will get a hearing soon. Councilmen Nicholas J. Narducci and Miguel Luna also co-sponsored the resolution.
Central at West Broadway
Posted Friday, June 6, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — If necessity is the mother of invention, then the ninth graders at the former West Broadway Elementary School are a lucky bunch.
What began as an act of desperation (where do you put 200 students while their school is being torn apart?) turned into a model school arrangement that is earning praise from students and staff alike.
Last summer, over the staunch protest of parents and neighbors, West Broadway Elementary School was closed because its lack of exits violated the fire code. In the fall, it re-opened as a temporary home for ninth graders from Central High School and Hanley Career & Technical Center. Both schools are in the midst of wholesale renovations.
At the beginning of the school year, everyone was worried that the freshmen at West Broadway would feel isolated from the “mother ship,” as one teacher refers to Central, a few blocks away on Westminster Street.
What happened took everyone by surprise. Instead of feeling cut off from Central, the ninth graders bonded, creating a community in which they were not only the new kids on the block but the big kids on campus.
“The small size has created a positive culture,” said Bianca Gray, a teacher. “This is a happy little group. It has a different tone. I think it’s a combination of leadership and size.”
The school’s two principals, Ramone Torres and Michael Marino, went out of their way to welcome incoming freshmen and help them stay connected to the main campus, where the extracurricular activities are held. Before the students arrived, the principals invited families to attend an open house where they explained why their children were attending school in an elementary building.
“We embraced them,” Gray said of the students. “We made them feel important.”
Recently, students in three classrooms talked frankly about the pros and cons of a ninth grade academy. Many students said they have gotten to know their teachers better, while others said they feel more secure in a cosseted setting such as West Broadway.
“I love my teachers,” said Daphney Pierre. “This gave us a chance to get to know all of the freshmen.”
“The transition was easier because it’s smaller,” Ariel Betanes said. “I never got lost here.”
Not everyone was sold on the experience, however.
April Comissiong complained that ninth grade “felt the same as middle school. We didn’t have a high school experience because we’re not with high school students.”
Tatiana Ramirez took issue with the dating pool:
“When you’re 13,” she said, “you want to meet the cute high school boys. You want to be with someone more mature. I can’t deal with these little boys.”
A couple of students attended West Broadway Elementary as children and said this year felt like taking a step back.
“Socially, we’re disabled,” one girl said. “You feel left out.”
Perhaps because the students feel more connected to teachers and one another, fighting has been virtually nonexistent at West Broadway. Rather than suspend students for skipping school, Torres meets with parents, a conversation that would be more difficult to arrange in a school with 1,000 students.
The size also allows the school to be more flexible. Recently, students from Michael Colannino’s English class dressed up and had lunch at the Old Canteen, a Federal Hill landmark. Torres treated the students to a fancy lunch because they put on a special performance for Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Rose, who spoke to students about gang violence earlier in the year.
The transition from middle school to high school is one of the most difficult in a child’s life. Suddenly, students are jumping from a familiar environment to a much larger and more anonymous setting, where the pace is faster, the students bigger and the demands on teachers are greater.
At West Broadway, a handsome brick building nestled in a neighborhood of restored Victorians, there is no place to hide, no place to get lost. Teachers know when a student is missing; the principals know which students are the troublemakers and which are having problems at home.
The size of the student body also makes it easier for teachers to collaborate with one another, something that English teachers Jane Moody and Dan Lilley do all of the time. “It’s a joy to come in every day and work on something new,” Lilley said.
A couple of teachers are so taken with the new arrangement that they think it should serve as a model for a new kind of high school, a ninth grade academy, perhaps.
“I love my penthouse apartment,” Moody said, referring to her view of the treetops. “I don’t want to leave. “
The scale of the school has also allowed teachers to reach out to students in new ways. Lilley routinely has lunch with a bunch of students from his class. Because the cafeteria is designed for pint-sized students, Torres allows students to eat outside in nice weather.
“I’ve always been in favor of smaller learning communities,” said Colannino. “There’s a greater sense of community and you get to know your students.”
Teachers also say that they are more willing to go the extra mile because the students are committed to getting the extra help they need. Torres routinely stays until 4 p.m. so ninth graders can play basketball on the school grounds.
With only 200 students, everything from instruction to detention is much more personal. During detention, students write about why they misbehaved instead of doing busy work.
Torres is taking full advantage of the school’s unique status: he’s surveying students to find out how the school lunch is working, and he’s asking teachers to tell him how he could be a more effective leader. He even invites teachers to visit “master” teachers’ classrooms to see how they manage classroom behavior or teach different levels of readers.
Because of its size, Central at West Broadway is also able to be a better neighbor. When a neighbor complained that students were generating trash and scrawling graffiti, Torres spoke to some of his students and they decided to power-wash the neighbor’s fence and paint the rusting iron railing in front of the school.
“Sometimes,” Gray said, “transitions are all about relationships.”
Next year, the school will house about 280 9th and 10th graders from Hanley while the remodeling continues.
Consultants say school district is in ‘bad shape’
Posted Thursday, May 29, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A private consultant released a scathing report on the school district last night and said that unless changes are made in the way it does business, students, especially boys and minorities, will never catch up with their more privileged peers.
“Your district is in pretty bad shape,” the consultant, James A. Scott, told the School Board last night. “Your district is the most challenging district I’ve seen.”
The team of consultants, who visited the district in February, concluded that interference by the City Council is one of the biggest challenges facing the schools. Scott said that the council has repeatedly undermined Supt. Donnie Evans’ legal authority to reorganize his top staff.
On one occasion, John J. Igliozzi, chairman of the City Council Finance Committee, asked Evans for the resumes of several administrators that the superintendent wanted to appoint, clearly flouting Evans’ authority, Scott said. On another occasion, the council told Evans he couldn’t make certain appointments.
“That’s interference, plain and simple,” Scott said. “If you’re going to hold someone accountable, you have to let them do their thing.”
In his report, the consultants wrote that the superintendent has four bosses: the School Board, the mayor, the City Council and the state. In the future, Scott urged the School Board to shield the superintendent from this kind of meddling by outside forces.
The bulk of the audit focused on the curriculum. The consultants found that the city has no clear and consistent curriculum across schools, yet students are tested to determine if they have mastered “the curriculum.”
Of the 501 courses offered by the district, only 174 have curriculum guides. A lot of material is being taught without any guidance from a curriculum, which means that there is little consistency from one school to another, a big issue in a district with high student mobility rates.
One of the reasons why Providence doesn’t have a curriculum is because of the high turnover in superintendents and principals. The city has had five superintendents in nine years, including Evans, who announced that he would be leaving the district when his contract expires in September. Ten out of 20 principals have less than two years on the job and 6 out of the 10 have less than one year of service.
“The board needs to make a long-term commitment to a superintendent,” Scott said. “This constant churning is detrimental to students and it is wearing on teachers. Many of them told me, ‘We’re just worn out.’ ”
Why is a uniform curriculum such a challenge?
Because the school system doesn’t have enough central office staff to not only develop a systemwide curriculum, but also evaluate how it is taught.
“There are a lot of chiefs and secretaries,” Scott said, “but no one in between. Key positions in math and science have gone unfilled. That’s why your math scores are so poor.”
Scott said there are several ways Providence can get a curriculum: write one, buy one, get someone to donate one or a combination of each. Because the district is facing a $6-million deficit, he suggested Providence consider “borrowing” a curriculum from another school system.
The district also lacks an effective way to evaluate teachers and administrators. Administrators, for example, can select which subject they want to be evaluated on. Tenured teachers can satisfy performance goals by writing a paper on a topic of their choosing.
At the current rate of progress, Providence will never be able to close the achievement gaps between minority students and those who are more advantaged. The consultants also found that Hispanic, black and male students are under-represented in academically advanced programs and over-represented in terms of suspensions.
The consultants recommended that the district establish a core curriculum, recruit minority teachers to fill shortages and review the selection process for academically advanced programs.
The human resources office also came under fire. The office is ineffective, Scott said. There are no job descriptions for 43 percent of the department’s employees. The consultants suggested that the district consider turning over its human resources department to the city because the district has already had seven years of ineffective leadership.
On the positive side, the consultants liked Evans’ strategic plan and urged the School Board to stick with it when the new superintendent comes in. In light of the current budget crisis, however, the school district needs to be more realistic about its technology plan and the proposed $790-million school facilities plan.
“The master plan is very good, but it hasn’t been funded,” Scott said of the facilities plan. “Get to the critical issues first. You need a maintenance plan. Some of your schools are in terrible shape. I saw a school where the bathroom was leaking into the cafeteria.”
Scott concluded by saying that Providence is in trouble.
“You can’t put a new superintendent in every two years,” he said. “It’s bad for the city and the students.”
Parent details supplies left behind at middle school
Posted Wednesday, May 28, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A Catholic school parent said Nathan Bishop Middle School was full of new desks, chairs and paperback books when she visited the school two weeks ago.
“I am appalled that the City of Providence has let very useful items sit for two years in a closed school without dispersing them,” parent Julie LeBlanc wrote in a recent e-mail. “I have seen multiple classrooms full of brand new student desks. Several pianos! Rooms full of chairs. Rooms full of book shelves. Not to mention … student files with addresses still sitting in file cabinets.”
LeBlanc, whose child attends a Catholic school in Warwick, said she visited the school May 13 after the Diocese of Providence sent a memo to Catholic schools alerting them that furniture and supplies were available for the taking.
“Everything was up for grabs,” LeBlanc said in a phone interview yesterday. “Art supplies still in the box. Boxes of paper clips and envelopes. Overheard projector screens. A closet full of computers. I was flabbergasted by the whole situation.”
School officials, however, say that the district took extensive measures to ensure that usable supplies, equipment and furniture were moved out and provided to other schools or stored.
According to a report by Mark Dunham, the district’s chief financial officer, math and English teachers visited Bishop during the summer of 2006 to determine which books, paper and office supplies should be sent to other middle schools. Classroom furniture was removed and 189 computers were sent to several elementary schools.
Expensive audio-visual equipment and some office supplies were removed during the same time period.
“Because the actual future of the building was unknown at the close of the summer of 2006,” Dunham wrote, “the balance of furniture and equipment was left in the building.”
Meanwhile, the school’s locks and security codes were changed to prevent vandalism.
Last summer, School Department staff toured the school building to assess and distribute the rest of the inventory, Dunham said. School staff spent approximately 1,300 hours boxing and removing books and supplies. In 2007-2008, more than 600 boxes of materials were removed from Bishop and shipped to other schools or to a School Department warehouse, according to the report.
Denise Carpenter, director of the middle level for the district, and Gary Moroch, director of the elementary level, tagged and inventoried items to be saved during an extensive tour of the school in November 2007.
According to Dunham, the items removed from the building included two grand pianos, televisions, VCRs, DVD players, cameras and projectors as well as computers, monitors, printers and other pieces of computer equipment. School staff also removed faucet fixtures, door knobs, hot water condensers from the boiler area and partitions from the bathrooms.
The entire Bishop library was boxed and moved into storage by professionals hired by Gilbane Construction.
In December 2007, the Follett Book Co. assessed the remaining books and determined that most of them were too old to have any value.
“There may have been some new condition textbooks,” Dunham wrote, “but they were not recent publications. Texts that were not used in district schools and had no resale value were left for disposal.”
But LeBlanc tells a different story.
She said she found boxes of brand new novels that were included on the diocese’s summer reading list. And she said Catholic school teachers were thrilled to discover perfectly good fiction in the school’s library.
“We went into classrooms full of books,” LeBlanc said. “There was so much stuff there. There were tables and chairs and a huge rolltop desk with the original knobs. They could have had an auction and supplied an entire school.”
On May 1, the city turned over Nathan Bishop, including any remaining contents, to Agostini Construction, the company hired to perform a $35-million renovation of Bishop.
In his report, however, Dunham said Agostini jumped the gun, contacting the diocese before allowing the district to make a final tour of the building.
After learning of the contractor’s actions, school officials returned to Nathan Bishop on Friday and determined that most of the surplus items weren’t worth saving.
By then, the Catholic schools had already made at least three trips to Nathan Bishop.
On her second visit, LeBlanc said Agostini told her to leave.
“We were going from room to room,” she said, “and we had everything piled up and they said, ‘You can’t take any of that.’ They shut it down.”
When LeBlanc returned to Nathan Bishop for a third time, on Thursday, she said a woman, possibly a parent, blocked the driveway and prevented the Catholic school teachers from leaving. The teachers complied with her request and returned the items to the building.
“It was obvious that the city had gone back in there,” LeBlanc said. “There were big boxes marked Providence. It’s such a sin that they won’t allow anyone to go in. There was an entire cafeteria full of tables. We could have taken those if we had been allowed to carry them off.”
In his report, Dunham said that middle and high school principals will have a chance to look over the Bishop items in storage and take whatever they need.
Students use their voices to good effect at D’Abate school
Posted Tuesday, May 27, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Fifty third graders and fifth graders at William D’Abate Elementary School made history recently: they persuaded their principal to change the lunchroom policy.
The 50 students participated in Project Citizen, a federally funded program that promotes civic engagement by the nation’s elementary and secondary school students. The program, sponsored by the Center for Civic Education, also trains teachers and provides them with a curriculum to teach lessons in civic responsibility.
Two teachers, Carmen Rodriguez and Amy Wood, and two student teachers from Brown University, Abby Berkelhammer and Alyssa Lopes, participated in Project Citizen, which is being used in a dozen schools throughout the district.
After four months of research, including student surveys and interviews with teachers and lunchroom staff, the students presented their findings before a crowd of teachers and parents.
The students were well prepared, using note cards to explain their work. They were well dressed; some of the girls wore long dresses and several of the boys wore ties. And they were confident, speaking in loud, clear voices and looking directly at the audience.
Their performance was so polished, it was hard to believe that these students were in elementary school.
The students, who took the stage in teams, said they brainstormed different issues, including vandalism, bullying, physical education and more time to talk at lunch.
“After a long discussion,” one child said, “we decided that our lunchroom policy needed to be changed.”
At the time, the policy called for students to wait in two lines before getting lunch. No one was allowed to talk until the last student sat down and students had to read when they were finished eating.
After interviewing students and staff, the children reported that 84 percent of the students surveyed said they wanted to change the policy. D’Abate students complained that it took 11 minutes to get their lunch, leaving them with only 10 minutes to eat. The conclusion? The current policy doesn’t allow students enough time to socialize because it takes too long for children to file into the cafeteria.
Research is one thing, results are another.
“We knew that we needed to meet with our principal, Mrs. [Lucille] Furia,” one of the students told the audience. “She is like the president of our school.”
And so the students spoke with faculty members and staff, gathered data and “started to get the lunchroom problem solved.”
The students eventually came up with a new lunchroom policy: students will enter the cafeteria in pairs, play specific games at the table and sit quietly for three minutes before returning to class. Students who misbehaved would be required to sit at a separate “consequence” table and reflect on their actions. As an added incentive, students would have to sign a contract in which they agreed to follow the new rules.
One group made their pitch to the lunchroom staff; another met with their peers and a third group met with the principal. This group used posters to support their findings and described how other schools have handled this issue.
The students defended their decision to revise the lunchroom policy, using terms like “constitutional,” the “common good” and “freedom of speech.”
“Some advantages are that we get more time to socialize,” one child said. “We also think that the silence will get us ready for class and we believe we will have more time to eat.”
Then another child spoke: “Some of the disadvantages are that games could get out of hand. It might get too loud and be difficult to have silence at the three-minute mark.”
The children argued that their policy is constitutional because it treats every student the same way, and it reflects the common good because it tries to keep students and staff safe by considering everyone’s feelings.
“We also have freedom of speech and have our own opinions,” one child said, “because everyone can think what they want when they play and eat.”
The children also had to field questions from two members of Project Citizen, who later praised the children for their poise and their determination. Michael Trofi, a member of the organization, which advocates for civics education, said that it’s unusual for children to get such quick results on their action item.
Asked why she was willing to change school policy, Principal Lucille Furia said, “How could you refuse them?”
School off intervention list
Posted Friday, May 23, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Acting Principal Edward Halpin recently had a surprise visit from two top school administrators bearing good news: Nathanael Greene Middle School has moved off the state’s intervention list.
Two years ago, all seven of the city’s middle schools were classified as making insufficient progress, which means that the schools missed at least one of the 37 academic targets set by the federal No Child Left Behind law.
This year, based on preliminary test data released by the state, 13 Rhode Island schools have made adequate yearly progress and 7 of those schools have made adequate progress for two consecutive years, which removes them from intervention status. Esek Hopkins and Springfield middle schools in the city were also among the 13 statewide making annual yearly progress this year.
Elementary and middle school students across the state are tested every fall to determine if their schools are making adequate yearly progress, a standard set by the state Department of Education. If a school is not making adequate yearly progress, the district, and, in some cases the state, can intervene in ways large and small, from changing instruction to removing the principal.
The Department of Education is in the process of examining test data from a dozen other Providence schools which narrowly missed reaching all of their targets, according to school spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly.
Under NCLB, all schools have until 2012 to bring their students to proficiency. In Rhode Island, the bar that defines proficiency is raised every three years; it was raised this year.
At Greene, which has the district’s only advanced academic program, 61 percent of students were proficient in reading, 50 percent were proficient in math and 41 percent were proficient in writing.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled,” said Halpin. “This is something to celebrate.”
He reflected in an interview on the changes that have contributed to improved student performance on the New England Common Assessment Program, or NECAP.
In September, the school adopted a new, highly scripted literacy program for struggling readers that gives teachers detailed lesson plans. In addition, struggling readers receive one, and sometimes two, additional hours of literacy instruction.
Greene allows students in its advanced academic program, formerly known as the gifted and talented program, to take a foreign language instead of an additional reading class.
The program calls for frequent testing to make sure that students understand the material; it also provides software that tracks individual test scores in real time, allowing teachers to modify their instruction for those students who haven’t gotten the material.
“Kids are assessed as they finish each unit,” Halpin said. “I can pull up a student’s test score and have a conversation with the teacher about it. It’s made us much more nimble in terms of our ability to tweak instruction.”
Faculty members at Greene are also much better at using test data to pinpoint which students are struggling and why. This summer, teachers received training from a middle school intervention expert on how to analyze test data to help individual students.
“The data can be so overwhelming,” Halpin said. “The coach put it in a package we can understand. He said, ‘Let’s see if this strategy works. If it doesn’t, let’s try something else.’ ”
The school identified the top five questions on the NECAP reading exam that students missed and figured out how to revamp specific lesson plans to fill in those gaps. Every week, students were tested to see if the new lesson plans worked.
Greene also has something called lead teachers, who design professional development around the needs of their faculty. Teachers are generally more responsive when training comes from their peers, rather than an outside expert, and the team is much more familiar with the needs of individual students in a particular school.
“This is real,” Halpin said. “It’s not a group hug.”
Finally, Greene, which has 877 students, has developed something called response to intervention. When a student is struggling academically, the teacher can refer that student to a teacher support team. In some cases, the team decides that the child needs to be placed in special education; in other cases, the team can help the child before he needs to be placed in special education.
The Department of Education is expected to release its annual school rankings later this month.
Hope students are taking to the new graduation requirements
Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — They are understandably nervous, these well-dressed teenagers waiting to sum up four years of academic blood, sweat and tears in 15 minutes.
The students, 190 seniors at Hope High School, recently presented portfolios of their best work before small groups of teachers and class advisers. Some students became teary because it was such a momentous event. Others cried because they never thought that they would get this far. Teachers who had pushed and prodded their students to get to class on time, take the algebra test and finish the essay on Oedipus were equally moved by the spectacle of students talking openly about their high school experience.
Hope is one of more than 50 high schools in Rhode Island whose seniors have to satisfy the state’s new performance-based graduation requirements. Students are no longer able to “walk the stage” simply because they have earned a specific number of credits or sat in class for four years.
Starting with this year’s senior class, students have to demonstrate that they have mastered certain skills such as public speaking, problem-solving and analytical thinking. Seniors have to take, but not pass, the New England Common Assessment, complete a culminating project and earn 24 credits. In this district, seniors also have to pass end-of-course examinations. (The NECAP is a new assessment that is designed to measure school performance more than individual performance at this point.)
In Providence, each high school chose how to measure proficiency. Some schools picked a senior research project, while others, like Hope, selected portfolios. With the help of their adviser, each senior had to select five pieces of their best work, one from each subject.
“It could be a piece of music or an essay in English,” said Becky Coustan, a faculty member at Hope. “A lot of kids talked about how Oedipus related to their lives.”
The student work must reflect the skills and the standards set by the high school. At Hope, seniors have to prove that they made a contribution to the school or the community. Students also had to write an essay summing up their high school experience, a reflective piece designed to illustrate how they have grown during their four years at Hope.
Sharnese Williams wrote a personal reflection that was both thoughtful and heartfelt.
“When I first entered Hope High School, I was a young, confused, scared girl,” she wrote. “I thought it was cool to bunk and slack off in all my classes. Studying was not in my vocabulary at all.”
During the summer following her junior year, Williams participated in the Brown University Summer High School, where she finally recognized the importance of getting good grades.
“Once I started 12th grade, I knew I had to grow up and take responsibility and realize it’s about now, it’s about my future,” she wrote. “I had to realize that my biggest weakness was my laziness. Now I am working my hardest so I can graduate. I am getting As in my math class. I never had an A in math. Now I can say I’m proud of myself.”
After her speech, teachers asked about her goals. Williams said she plans to attend the Community College of Rhode Island next year and then attend a four-year college in preparation for law school.
“I want to help people get the justice they deserve,” she told the team that evaluated her presentation. “I don’t just want law school to be about the money.”
One teacher asked if Williams had any advice for freshmen.
“Listen to your teachers,” she said. “Realize that what you do now affects your future. Be the best that you can be because every moment matters.”
Williams said her mentor was her older sister, who became pregnant when she was young, but went on to graduate from high school, get a job and raise two children. She also took care of Williams.
“She’s her own person,” Williams said. “She doesn’t depend on anyone.”
Asked to describe herself, Williams didn’t miss a beat: “I’m smart, outgoing, curious and proud.”
Williams stepped outside while the team evaluated her performance. A couple of teachers said that they were not only struck by Williams’ maturity, but her insight into what went wrong during her freshmen and sophomore years, when she was more interested in making friends than earning good grades.
“Her goals are really focused,” said Amanda Vetelino, an English teacher. “She has seen the brass ring.”
Kenneth DiRaimo, a math teacher, said he was touched by Williams’ wish to represent those who might not otherwise have access to a lawyer.
Every roundtable ends on a positive note, with teachers commenting on the effectiveness of the student’s presentation, as well as constructive suggestions about the student’s future. Jonathan Goodman, chairman of the English department, told Williams that “big dreams happen when you do the right thing each day.”
Another senior, Jessica Campoverde, was asked what she liked the most about high school.
“The teachers,” she told the team. “They didn’t give up on me, especially Mr. Goodman. He made me realize I could do it. Thank you, Mr. Goodman.”
The narrative of each student’s high school experience was eerily similar. Campoverde, who said she was painfully shy, talked about how she slacked off during her freshman and sophomore years. After she joined Students Against Destructive Decisions and began speaking to younger students, she started to become more self-assured. She also said that she had been a hypocrite, preaching one kind of behavior while practicing another.
“Now,” Compoverde said, “I’m comfortable with everyone. I found out who I am.”
She, too, praised one of her teachers for driving home the message that college is an option, even for students whose academic records are less than stellar. At first, she said, the portfolio was terrifying because she worried that she wouldn’t have any quality work to put in her folder. Now, she said she feels proud of her accomplishments: “We’re graduating because we did the work.”
The public presentations, called roundtables, are not designed to be “high-stakes” measurements, according to Principal Arthur Petrosinelli, who runs the Information Technology Academy, one of three small high schools within Hope.
“If they showed up, they passed,” he said. “The teachers want to keep the roundtable low-key.”
The 25 seniors who missed their presentation will get another chance, Petrosinelli said. Those students, many of whom lack the credits to graduate, have been asked to write a letter to the principals explaining their absence.
One of the biggest surprises, Petrosinelli said, is the willingness of teachers to embrace a new way of measuring high school performance. Now that faculty members have seen the finished product, they realize that the portfolios have value beyond their role in the new graduation requirements. Portfolios help students connect the dots between what they’re learning in English class and math class, between what they have studied in sophomore year and senior year.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is the way that the students have embraced portfolios, which was an alien concept just a few months ago.
“We were wonderfully pleased with the kids,” Coustan said. “They said they loved the portfolio. It gives them a chance to show who they really are. It’s become part of our curriculum and it’s intimately connected to all of the lessons we do in class.”
Because Hope doesn’t have the technology to create electronic portfolios, the staff has created a system that protects student work from getting lost. Teachers save the work in their classrooms. At the end of each year, the student sits down with each teacher and together, they select the best piece of work; that work is collected in a loose-leaf binder and stored in the principal’s office for safekeeping.
So far, the process has worked, Petrosinelli said.
Accommodations are made for students who transfer into the district during their senior year. Special arrangements are also made for English language learners, who make their presentations in Spanish to bilingual teachers. Similar accommodations are made for special education students.
Although students move frequently from one school to another, Hope takes the high mobility rate into account. Under the current standards, a senior needs to present only five pieces of work. Next year, they will have to submit eight pieces.
The portfolio is very much a work-in-progress this year, Petrosinelli said. Next year, seniors will be much better prepared because this year’s juniors are taking a portfolio class where they are learning to revise their work, create Power Point presentations and practice speaking in public.
“This year, the kids didn’t have a lot of support,” Coustan said. “We only started in February. Next year, we want to get kids talking more about the depth of their academic knowledge.”
Meanwhile, Providence as a district is struggling to fulfill the state’s new high school diploma system. The district is one of eight that did not receive preliminary approval from the state Department of Education in January.
One of the state’s chief concerns is that Providence lacks a uniform curriculum in its 11 high schools. The district effectively has 11 different sets of graduation requirements.
This means that algebra I at one high school might look completely different than algebra I at another school, officials have said.
The lack of state approval, however, will not affect the district’s or the school’s ability to award diplomas for the next few years, the state said. Districts have until 2012 to come into compliance with the new diploma regulations.
Earlier this year, district administrators were thinking of adopting senior projects as a systemwide graduation requirement because school officials felt that portfolios were too cumbersome in a district with high student mobility.
The district has not made any final decisions about which graduation requirement it will adopt.
Parents allege contractor offered items from school
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A couple of parents said last night that the contractor hired to renovate Nathan Bishop Middle School contacted the Catholic Diocese of Providence and allowed its teachers to cart away books, supplies and equipment that the school district had left behind.
Christine Wilford, whose child attends Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, raised the issue at a meeting of the District Parent Advisory Council, whose mission is to improve communication between families and central administration. Supt. Donnie Evans formed the committee last year to reach out to parents in the wake of several decisions, including the closing of a popular elementary school, that left parents feeling powerless.
“We heard that the contractor at Nathan Bishop allowed parochial school teachers to take whatever they wanted,” Wilford said. “I’m told they took science supplies, books in their wrappers, tables and chairs.”
School spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly said she received two e-mails this week from City Councilman Cliff Wood and Tom Schmeling, an East Side parent, asking for information about the allegations.
She said that the district took multiple steps to ensure that any useful items were removed from Bishop, which is about to undergo a $35-million renovation as part of the first stage of a projected $792-million overhaul of the district’s aging school buildings.
According to O’Reilly, two high-level school administrators made an exhaustive inventory of the East Side middle school in November, tagging everything that was supposed to be kept and labeling where it should go. Some materials were placed in storage while other supplies were shipped to schools or the central office.
Follett Books was brought in to assess the remaining items for resale or trade value and it determined that the remaining items were too outdated to have value to the district or to the company.
In an e-mail to Wood and Schmeling, O’Reilly wrote that “there may have been some ‘new condition’ textbooks but they were not recent publications.”
However, an article in yesterday’s Providence Journal reported that many of the textbooks at Classical High School, the district’s flagship high school, are 12 to 15 years old. A half-dozen department heads said that they don’t have enough money to replace books, much less buy new ones. And school administrators said it would cost millions of dollars to replace textbooks for an entire subject.
According to O’Reilly, School Department staff also visited Bishop and stripped doorknobs, light fixtures and any other useful hardware that could be salvaged. Tables and chairs were removed and Hope High School, because of its proximity to Bishop, was offered a chance to claim anything it wanted.
The contractor, Agostini Construction of East Providence, apparently had permission to dispose of whatever materials were left over, according to Alan Sepe, the city’s acting director of public property.
“This was in accordance with the job requirements that specified that the contractor was to dispose of materials left behind after a through inspection by the district,” O’Reilly wrote in her e-mail to Wood and Schmeling.
But several members of the parents’ advisory group were not satisfied with those answers.
“Who made the decision to allow the diocese to go in there?” said Lorraine Lalli, whose child attends King.
Another parent asked why the two East Side elementary schools, King and Vartan Gregorian, weren’t given a chance to take supplies out of the building.
Wilford said she raised the issue because no one from central administration responded to her e-mail on Wednesday, despite the fact that she forwarded it to several school administrators. She said the latest incident is an example of the lack of communication between the district and parents, a breakdown that the advisory committee is meant to address.
New school on polluted site energizes environmental coalition
Posted Thursday, May 15, 2008
By Peter B. Lord
Journal Environment Writer
No matter which way you look from inside the city’s new Adelaide High School in the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood, the views aren’t good.
Out back, a tall chainlink fence encloses a huge pile of debris. Off to the side, several acres between the school and Mashapaug Pond are also fenced off and signs warn people to keep out.
The front of the school faces an empty Stop & Shop supermarket and parking lot. Inside the store, crews are drilling through the concrete floor so they can test for contaminants in the soils underneath.
Adelaide assistant principal John O. Craig, supervising students at the end of a recent school day, points to the ductwork designed to pull toxic gases from the soil and direct them away from classrooms. He thinks the school is safe, but barely adequate for his students.
“We’re doing the best we can with what we have,” says Craig. “But I’d just like to get a ball field and a running track for my students.”
The only other place in Rhode Island where a school has been built on contaminated land is just a short way up Route 10, also in Providence. The city built a middle school and an elementary school on a closed landfill off Springfield Street. The School Department continually vents harmful gases and fills places where soils and walks have caved in.
Related links
Investigative reports on the Adelaide Avenue School and the two schools that were built on a dumpsite on Springfield Street
"Environmental Justice" blog, with links to other environmental equity resources
Both projects faced neighborhood opposition and lawsuits, but the city, in a rush to serve a growing student population, built them anyway.
Soon, there may be more organized action to ensure that no community in Rhode Island ever again builds a school on a contaminated site.
A coalition of advocacy groups has incorporated the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island. The coalition plans to raise money and hire staff to protect the interests of the poor and minorities in Rhode Island’s cities and to tackle other issues such as dilapidated housing and pollution from traffic.
Two state legislators have also submitted bills that would prevent municipalities from building schools on landfills or Brownfield sites.
Connecticut recently enacted environmental justice legislation that goes even further.
Providence officials insist they have ensured the safety of the city’s children. But the city is old with a history of heavy industry, so it’s not easy to locate significant tracts of land that don’t require some cleanup.
“We don’t have a lot of land to work with,” says Karen Southern, spokeswoman for Mayor David N. Cicilline. She said the mayor would never build a school on a site that wasn’t deemed 100 percent safe by the state Department of Environmental Management. “That’s the mayor’s number-one priority.”
The coalition is being promoted by groups fighting lead poisoning, asthma and toxic pollution. Its supporters range from statewide groups such as the Environment Council of Rhode Island to more urban-focused groups such as the Hartford Park Residents Association and the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council.
Its goals, according to a mission statement, are to make available more information about pollution sources to neighbors and parents, to have people treated fairly and to give them equal and fair access to a “safe, healthy and sustainable environment at home, at work, at school and in public places.”
“Lots of organizations work on environmental justice, but we all operate in our own areas,” said one organizer, Liz Colon. She is a leader of CLAP, the Childhood Lead Action Project. “Now we want to bring people together collectively. And we want to get people involved who don’t know they are being affected.”
Steven Fischbach, a lawyer for Rhode Island Legal Services, said when Providence residents first came to him in 1999 because they were opposed to the city’s plans to build schools on the Springfield Street dumpsite, “we felt that environmental problems affecting poor people and people of color weren’t getting addressed.”
Fischbach said many people he represents in the city don’t know whom to call when they need help, and they are used to not getting help from the government.
“It’s not like people didn’t try, Fischbach said. “They are so used to losing, it’s like, why bother. So many people feel like they can’t fight city hall.”
Fischbach represented the Hartford Park Tenants Association and sued the state DEM, the Providence School Board and Alan Sepe, acting director of Providence’s Department of Public Property, to stop the school projects on Springfield Street, which were being constructed by the Cianci administration.
Superior Court Judge Edward C. Clifton found that the DEM properly evaluated the site and took the necessary steps to protect students from toxins in the ground. But he found the agency violated state law by not meeting “environmental equity” (to minorities and the poor) and community involvement requirements.
Clifton found the city failed to properly notify neighboring property owners and allow public participation in the siting process and violated the law by starting site work without DEM approval.
He disagreed with the plaintiff’s allegation that siting of the school was based on race.
“While plaintiff’s evidence proves that the process was rushed and even sloppily executed, there is insufficient evidence to support a finding that intent to discriminate was the driving force behind defendant’s actions,” Clifton wrote.
The judge ordered that all documents related to environmental hazards at the schools be made public, that all parents should be notified of environmental hazards in English and Spanish, and that summaries of nurses’ logs be made available each month. When future school sites are evaluated, he said, neighbors should be notified.
Several years later, similar issues arose as the city worked to build a new high school on Adelaide Avenue, using some of the 37-acre Gorham Manufacturing Co. site previously owned by Textron. This time, in 2006, the DEM sued the city.
In that case, Judge Daniel A. Procaccini ordered more work evaluating environmental hazards on the site, removal of a pile of hazardous slag and an eight-foot-high chainlink fence to keep people out of areas that remained polluted.
Last summer, the city opened the high school. But a few months later, the YMCA of Greater Providence dropped plans to build a $10-million facility next door. Delays and neighborhood concerns had driven up the costs, officials said.
Terrence Gray, DEM’s assistant director for air, water and compliance, says the DEM learned a lot in the course of the lawsuits.
With the Springfield Street schools, he said the city was moving very fast and the DEM mistakenly tried to work with the city’s timeline.
In the end, the DEM made sure the cleanup was done properly, he said, but it didn’t do a good job of involving the public.
“Our people tend to be more introverted engineers and scientists. So now we’re providing training in environmental justice and public outreach.
“A lot of people didn’t know who we were. We also learned we relied too much on the old media. We had to learn to use list serves and blogs. We now have a blog on environmental justice, though it doesn’t get a lot of viewers.”
Still, Gray is concerned about the long-term costs of maintaining the equipment to keep harmful vapors out of the schools. Will future administrations appreciate the importance of maintenance?
Textron says it is committed to resolving further environmental issues at the Gorham site with a goal of turning a large portion of the site into a public park.
That would appear to provide the open space for Adelaide’s students to get out and run and play.
For more information and detailed environmental updates on the school sites, go to the Department of Environmental Management’s environmental justice Web site at: http://www.demenvironequity.net/
Providence school fight posted online
Posted Wednesday, May 7, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — An afterschool fight that drew 50 to 60 student onlookers in front of Roger Williams Middle School was posted on the Web site YouTube, making Providence part of a growing phenomenon in which teenagers use technology to publicize acts of violence.
When the police arrived Wednesday around 3 p.m., they saw three to five girls punching and kicking someone in front of a large crowd of students from Roger Williams as well as a nearby high school, Cooley Health & Science Technology Academy on Thurbers Avenue.
Rhakiyyah Lovett, 28, of Providence, was also involved in the brawl. According to the police, Lovett initially denied involvement in the fight but was seen punching the victim on the video, which has since been taken down from YouTube.
The victim suffered a bloody lip, bloodshot eye and bruises to her upper arms. The police would not release the names of the suspects or the victim because they are minors.
The four teenage suspects turned themselves in after the police, who watched the video online, announced that they were about to be arrested. The students have been charged with disorderly conduct and referred to Family Court. Lovett, who turned herself in, was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct and referred to District Court.
The police said that the girls were fighting because a couple of them had a beef with one another. And several middle schools students said that two of the girls had insulted each other online.
This isn’t the first time that a Providence school fight has been captured on a cell phone camera and transmitted to the Web. This winter, an afterschool brawl involving students who were leaving Bridgham Middle School wound up on YouTube.
Providence is hardly alone. In Florida, a video showing teenage girls beating another girl unconscious made national headlines. As teens beat the girl, they talked about making the video “good.”
And in Baltimore, a student assaulted an art teacher while another teenager taped the beating with a cell phone and posted in online.
In fact, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have actually begun to study the phenomena of students using technology to harass and bully other teenagers. From 2000 to 2005, the CDC says there has been a 50-percent increase in teens claiming to be victims of some type of Internet aggression.
One expert says that teenagers view the Web as a way of becoming famous. The more hits on YouTube or MySpace, the more popular you are, according to Parry Aftab, executive director of Wired Safety, an online group that fights cyber-bullying.
“Kids live in cyberspace where popularity is based on page views,” she said yesterday. “We’re creating a generation of kids who live in virtuality, not reality. They see themselves as the producers of their own hit shows.”
The act of videotaping allows teenagers to distance themselves from violence, turning them into passive observers rather than participants who feel the victim’s pain, she said.
Aftab says schools and police departments must take a hard line against bullies and she wants additional penalties imposed on teens who post the fighting online for posterity. Her organization is also hoping to create a “cyber army” of volunteers who will help Web sites track down violent videos and get them off the Internet. File-sharing sites, she said, don’t have the capacity to police themselves because of the volume of material uploaded every day.
Pamela Riley, executive director of Students Against Violence Everywhere, says that she is particularly disturbed by the lack of remorse exhibited by the perpetrators as well as the chroniclers of student brawls. One of the suspects in the Florida fight asked if she would still make cheerleading practice.
“We’re seeing a loss of civility in our society,” she said. “Teenagers are reflecting what they see among adults. Kids need to know that there are consequences for their actions and those consequences have to be swift and fair.”
It isn’t clear what actions, if any, the School Department will take against the Providence suspects.
R.I. education commissioner leaving in 2009
Posted Friday, April 11, 2008
By Jennifer D. Jordan
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Peter McWalters, one of the nation’s longest-serving state education commissioners, will step down next year — a decision that follows a month of closed-door discussions among Governor Carcieri, McWalters and the state board that oversees public education about whether to extend his contract.
Yesterday, Robert G. Flanders Jr., chairman of the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education, announced the Regents had agreed to extend McWalters’ contract by six months, expiring June 30, 2009. Last month, McWalters had informed the board that he would not seek a two-year extension of his contract, which would have expired this Dec. 31, according to a news release from the state Department of Education.
By the time he leaves next year, McWalters will have been the state education commissioner for 17½ years, overseeing numerous changes, including a new high school diploma system, the implementation of statewide testing under the federal education law No Child Left Behind, and initiatives to boost middle school performance.
Flanders thanked McWalters, 61, for his service and his leadership, but Flanders also acknowledged a growing frustration that Rhode Island’s education system continues to trail national averages on standardized tests.
Flanders said he plans to assemble a search committee “immediately” to find a new commissioner “who is prepared to take the state to the next level of reform and change and get us to where we need to be.”
“We are far from getting into the Promised Land in terms of where K-12 education is concerned and we need a new leader who will get us there,” Flanders said in a phone interview. “None of us are satisfied with where we are now. So all the good things we are doing are fine, but it’s not enough. We need to get to an even better place, and our new commissioner will be the person to lead the way.”
Discussions about McWalters’ contract began when the Regents met in executive session after their regularly scheduled March 13 meeting, which Flanders missed due to illness. Since then, Flanders, McWalters and Carcieri have met, and the Regents have privately discussed how much longer McWalters should stay on, all agreeing to the six-month extension, Flanders said.
Supporters call McWalters a nationally recognized visionary who has called for greater accountability from schools and teachers and has led the state through a series of major education reforms, despite limitations on his powers and diminishing state resources. Critics say that despite some gains, he has not done enough to raise the test scores of Rhode Island students and the time is ripe for change.
McWalters assumed the state’s top education job in January 1992, and ranks among the top five longest-serving commissioners currently serving around the country. He earns about $149,000 a year, and the state pays another $22,500 a year into his retirement account, as he is not part of the state pension system.
McWalters’ fifth three-year contract, which was set to expire Dec. 31, 2007, came up for review last spring by the Regents. But when former Chairman James A. DiPrete was replaced by Flanders, McWalters’ contract renewal was put on hold until this year, McWalters said. His old contract rolled over another year and would have run out Dec. 31, 2008.
The Regents will vote on the matter at an April 23 meeting held at 4 p.m. at the state Department of Education, 255 Westminster St.
McWalters said that he is satisfied he will have another 14 months to further several initiatives. He said he was not being forced out of his job earlier than he wanted to leave.
“The system has cycles, and this keeps me here through the next school year and the next legislative session,” McWalters said in an interview in his office. Discussions about his contract “really were about how much longer do I want to stay and what do I want to get done,” he said.
McWalters said his priorities include: revising middle and high school regulations to further the state’s new diploma system; updating the state’s basic education plan; dealing with teaching issues such as implementing a more rigorous evaluation process; and more intensely intervening in struggling school districts — Providence and Central Falls.
Standardized test scores for elementary and middle school students — particularly low-income students in urban districts — have steadily risen over the past three years, after the state, along with Vermont and New Hampshire, developed grade-level expectations and tests aligned with the new expectations. The results of new high school tests, which rolled out last October, were sobering, with just 22 percent of 11th graders proficient in math and 61 percent proficient in reading, although education officials say they expect to see those scores rise in the coming years.
Supporters of McWalters, including several regents, charter school leaders, union officials and an organization representing principals, said the state is losing a tested leader at a time of enormous change and strain.
“We are making progress in a number of areas, and I’m concerned about a change with so many irons in the fire,” said Robert A. Walsh Jr., executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association. “He’s been leading reforms and fighting larger battles with fewer resources, and when you weigh that all together, he’s done a remarkable job.”
Valerie Forti, president of the Education Partnership, a business-backed nonprofit advocacy organization, says McWalters should not be “the fall guy” for failures in education, “because the problem is much bigger than one person.” Forti said the Regents and lawmakers need to do more to push key education reforms, including redesigning teacher contracts. Forti also warned that McWalters’ replacement will face the same obstacles and finance battles.
At the same time, Forti said, a new person will bring new energy and vision.
“We’re not going to have one person come in and be a white knight and have the perfect thing happen,” Forti said. “On the other hand, could Peter have moved more forcefully on some things? Perhaps. He was able to get some things accomplished. But he was not moving as fast as the governor and now this Board of Regents wanted him to.”
Small donations making a big difference in schools
Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A middle school teacher bought eight Scrabble Junior games for her classroom. A librarian purchased $400 worth of Japanese graphic novels. And an elementary school teacher has used her grant to launch a family reading program.
None of these projects would have been possible without DonorsChoose.org, a national Web-based giving program that matches individual donors, called citizen philanthropists, with teachers. Charles Best, the organization’s founder, launched the program in Rhode Island at October at Fortes Elementary School.
The mission of DonorsChoose is to connect small donors to worthy public school projects.
By early this month, Providence teachers had received almost $30,000 for school projects and Rhode Island had received almost $50,000. The schools don’t actually get the money. Donors-Choose buys the material and ships it to the teachers. In return, students write a thank-you note, take a snapshot of their project and mail the letter to Donors-Choose, which sends it to the donors.
Donors don’t have to be a big spender to make a difference. Donors can fill the entire request, which is posted online, or a small portion. No gift is too small and teachers can apply for as many grants as they wish.
For cash-strapped school districts like Providence, these grants pay for some of the little extras that might otherwise come out of teachers’ own pockets.
At Carnevale Elementary School, Ann DePedro spent $500 buying costumes so her third graders could perform small plays based on the books they are reading in class. The costumes ran the gamut from kings and wizards to dragons and angel wings.
“I used to make things out of paper plates,” DePedro said. “It took a lot of time and it wasn’t nearly as fun. I had five students who weren’t making it before. Now they are.”
At Charles Fortes Elementary School, Allyssa Taylor applied for $700 to launch a backpack program in which students bring home books they can read with their parents. Students will be given journals and materials with which to illustrate characters or scenes from the narratives.
“I’m really trying to make a connection with home,” Taylor said. “I want my children sharing literature and talking about it. Without DonorsChoose, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.”
Teachers at Fortes have successfully applied for a total of $4,072 for a number of projects, from printer ink to a special reading table. Taylor said that her colleagues are “on fire,” adding that this program is making a “huge difference.”
Joy Cervoni bought Scrabble Junior games for her eighth graders, most of whom are struggling readers. In just a few weeks, her students’ vocabulary has noticeably increased, she said.
“These kids are beaten down,” she said. “Now it’s amazing. They are seeing things on the Scrabble board that I don’t see.”
Like Cervoni, who spent $750 of her money on education materials this year, many teachers dig into their own wallets to pay for supplies.
Last month, DonorsChoose, taking advantage of a Rhode Island Foundation grant, offered an incentive to encourage more grant applications: the first 50 Providence teachers who submitted a proposal between March 12 and March 19 automatically received $100 toward their project.
Parents float plan to renovate West Broadway school
Posted Friday, April 4, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — When West Broadway Elementary School closed last summer, it felt like a death in the family to many neighbors, parents and students who attended or lived near the turn-of-the-century building in Federal Hill.
After evaluating several design proposals and taking into account the value of preservation, community schools and cost-effectiveness, a committee of parents and neighborhood activists is recommending an $18.1-million renovation.
The moderate-scale renovation, developed by David R. Finney, president of Design Partnership of Cambridge, Mass., would include a separate exit for younger children, which addresses the fire code violation that forced Supt. Donnie Evans to close the school. That renovation alone would cost about $90,000.
“A huge part is that we think this is the most affordable option,” said Kari Lang, executive director of the West Broadway Neighborhood Association and a member of the school task force. “We saw the value of having a neighborhood school and saw how much parents and teachers did, as well. If we can renovate the school so it’s a 21st-century learning environment, that’s a plus.”
The saga of the West Broadway School began in February 2007, when Evans announced that the school building had to be closed because it violated the state fire code, adding that the fire marshal had refused to grant any more variances. Outraged parents and neighbors packed School Board meetings in protest, claiming the neighborhood school was a treasured landmark, an island of stability in a rapidly changing neighborhood. Families described the school as a warm and welcoming place that made their children feel special.
A handful of parents took the district to court, filing an appeal with Peter McWalters, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education. Although their efforts to keep West Broadway open failed, the community did persuade Evans to move the entire staff to the school’s new location in the Del Sesto Middle School building on Springfield Street. The elementary school now shares space with students from Springfield Middle School.
In response to criticism that he kept parents in the dark, Evans formed a task force composed of parents, teachers and neighbors, who have spent the past four months studying whether to reopen the West Broadway building and, if so, what kind of school it should be.
Last winter, Finney was hired by the Providence Preservation Society, which concluded that renovation would cost less than new construction, estimated at $196 million. According to Finney, there is inherent value in the preservation of sound and architecturally significant buildings. The question, he said, is whether a historic building can be renovated in such a way that it offers the same education value as a new building.
The Finney design would keep the school’s original footprint and its original mission as a K-5 building with room for 450 children. Lang said that the beauty of this plan is that it can be expanded to include an addition with room for three pre-kindergarten classrooms. It is also flexible, with the possibility of expanding to a K-8 school.
“Overwhelmingly, in meeting after meeting, the community has said it wants its children returned to its neighborhood school,” the task force said. “Parents, teachers and neighbors value a school with a past, with historic detail that comforts, as well as a community school that is within walking distance from all parts of the neighborhood.”
Dual-language program pays big dividends at Lima Elementary
Posted Friday, April 4, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — More than two thirds of the third graders at Alfred Lima Elementary School passed the statewide reading test, one of the strongest scores for that grade in the district.
What makes this score particularly significant is that out of the 34 third graders who took the New England Common Assessment, 13 are primarily Spanish-language speakers, and 8 of those students tested at or above proficiency in reading. Across the district, only 21 percent of English-language learners scored proficient on the third-grade reading test and 41 percent of all third-graders did so.
The school’s principal and staff say that the scores confirm that the dual-language program at Lima is working. According to Principal Jose Valerio, research has shown that a child who is literate in one language is more capable of mastering a second language.
The dual-language model works like this: all students in kindergarten through third grade spend half of the year learning in Spanish, which, for many students, is their native language, and the other half learning in English. Students switch from one language to another on a weekly basis. Next year, Lima will expand the program to include grade 4 and will continue to add a grade until the program is offered school-wide, kindergarten through grade 6.
“One language supports the other,” said Rebecca Box, of Dorcas Place, which runs after-school programs at Lima. “As children get stronger in Spanish, they begin to transfer that learning to the other language.”
Although Lima introduced a dual-language program 10 years ago, it existed in name only. In 2004, the school invited experts from Johns Hopkins University to help staff rethink the program, and the researchers suggested that the school adopt the so-called “50-50” model that Lima uses today.
The beauty of this approach is that it allows students to retain fluency in their native language while mastering English. It also honors the child’s native language and culture at a time when the United States faces a shortage of adults with proficiency in languages other than English. Box said that immigrant parents are delighted that their children will remain conversant in their native tongue.
Language preservation is important to a family’s identity, especially as immigrant families struggle to adapt to an unfamiliar culture. And because the family’s native language is valued, parents are more comfortable coming to school and asking about their child’s education.
Children in a dual-immersion program also pick up a second language much faster than those in a traditional bilingual education classroom.
“The kids are using language to learn language,” teacher Robert Prignano said. “In a typical bilingual classroom, it takes five years to exit to an all-English classroom. Here, by the end of kindergarten, students have had more than twice as much instruction in English.”
As Valerio put it, “We like to think that our kids are ahead of the game.”
Prignano said that students who enter the program after first grade have to pass a test to show that they are capable of working in both languages: “We don’t want children to come into classes where other children are more advanced than they are.”
Because students aren’t learning English from the radio or television, they are learning academic or grammatically correct English, according to first-grade teacher Laurie McKenna-Therrien.
For dual-language teachers, the program presents a unique opportunity to collaborate with colleagues on classroom instruction. At Lima, teachers not only meet across the language divide, they meet across grade levels. The goal is to create a seamless flow between English and Spanish classrooms so students don’t repeat material as they move from English to Spanish instruction.
Teachers say that the dual-immersion experience is deeply satisfying, according to Tracy Carcamo, who teaches kindergarten at Lima Annex, which is part of the Lima complex.
“One day, the light goes on and the child says, ‘Wow. I can do this,’ ” Carcamo said. “The NECAP scores show that a child who is learning two languages can outperform the child who is learning one language.”
“This gives children a feeling of confidence,” said McKenna-Therrien. “It really makes them feel more successful at school.”
Even the assistant principal of Lima Annex, Roseclaire Bulgin, is learning Spanish as part of her ongoing professional development.
“It gives children such a great foundation in both languages,” she said. “I wish my son could have had dual language.”
Because the program requires much more one-on-one instruction than the average classroom, teachers have asked the school administration to reduce class size in earlier grades from 26 to 20 students — a request that will be hard to satisfy during these fiscally troubled times.
Although dual-language instructors are able to meet during weekly common planning periods, they also would like additional time set aside to coordinate instruction across languages and subject areas.
Parents’ group takes teacher bumping issue to the Statehouse
Posted Wednesday, April 2, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Legislation that would make it impossible for school districts to lay off teachers purely on the basis of seniority was expected to be heard before the Senate Committee on Education this afternoon.
The proposal was written by members of the East Side Public Education Coalition, a parents’ group, and is being sponsored by Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence. Sam Zurier, a lawyer and member of the East Side coalition, said his group decided to take on the issue of bumping after it became a topic of concern at a summer education forum at the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School.
At a meeting with Supt. Donnie Evans in early February, teachers sounded off about bumping, the process by which teachers with more seniority displace those with less. In one case, three teachers were hired on the same date. In a process called a tie-breaker, each teacher was assigned a number and the number that was plucked from the mix won the job.
Other teachers described their frustration at not knowing whether they will return to the same school or the same classroom from one year to the next. Because of the budget crisis this year, even senior teachers are losing their classrooms. In some smaller schools, it isn’t unusual for the principal to lose a third of the staff, which makes it difficult to build a shared culture.
In February, more than 600 teachers received pink slips, although only 66 will actually be laid off. Critics of the process say that it not only demoralizes teachers, but also disrupts the learning that takes place in the classroom, with students as the ultimate victim.
The legislation would repeal a 1946 state law that establishes seniority as the primary criteria for teacher re-assignment. (School districts also have to take into account a teacher’s certification.) Seniority would be replaced by a teacher evaluation process in which the state Department of Education would be asked to develop statewide teacher standards.
According to Zurier, the principal would be responsible for evaluating a teacher’s performance, although the bill’s proponents are also open to a peer evaluation conducted by teachers.
The legislation, which is modeled after Massachusetts law, would permit teachers to be dismissed if they fail to satisfy the state performance standards. The Providence School Board, acting on the recommendation of the superintendent, currently has the power to fire a teacher.
“Principals should be able to make that decision,” Zurier said yesterday. “They are the ones responsible for managing the staff in their buildings. They have to be able to develop a faculty [that] believes in their mission.”
Under current law, a teacher can’t be dismissed for any reason other than incompetency, incapacity, conduct unbecoming a teacher or insubordination. The Zurier bill would add another reason: failure to satisfy teacher performance standards.
Under the proposed legislation, a teacher could appeal his or her termination to an arbitrator, which is modeled after the appeals process in Massachusetts. But Zurier said his group would be willing to delegate that responsibility to the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education or its appointee. Currently, appeals go before a hearing officer with the state Department of Education.
Earlier this year, state education Commissioner Peter McWalters agreed that there is an urgent need to provide more stability in teaching staff, especially in large school districts, where bumping can affect dozens of teachers. He also said that a regents’ task force is looking at examples of effective teacher evaluations, including those currently used by local school districts. But McWalters said he would not impose a one-size-fits-all criteria on school districts, adding that the regents will establish a set of standards that districts can use as a guideline.
According to Zurier, the East Side Public Education Coalition is willing to tweak the bill’s language to make it more acceptable to educators and legislators. The main thrust of the bill is to start a conversation that addresses the problem of bumping and its impact on school stability and effective instruction.
Mr. Collins is Cool
Posted Tuesday, April 1, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — When Adelaide High School opened last fall, the music program consisted of a battered drum set and $500.
But Adelaide has what many other high schools don’t: Ted Collins, a teacher who calls music his calling, his reason to live. When Collins was a child, he wanted to be one of two things, a musician or a priest. He chose music and there are plenty of students, from Westerly to Providence, who are glad he did.
“I love my job,” he said. “It’s my life.”
When the drums, dusty from years of disuse, arrived at Adelaide in the fall, some 50 students appeared from out of nowhere and clustered around the set, eager to play. Before long, several teachers had donated keyboards, someone else donated an acoustic guitar and a bass guitar, and then last month, a woman from Cranston gave her baby grand piano.
Slowly, piece by piece, Collins has put together the makings of a high school band — allowing 10 students to jam together for the first time. Some students hadn’t played an instrument since fourth grade, when the district, strapped for cash, dropped art and music programs in middle school. Another young man, however, has been playing the drums for 13 years; in fact, he plays keyboard and drums every Sunday at his father’s church.
“If they had an all-music school,” said the drummer, 16-year-old Derrick Jones, “I’d be in it.”
Collins led the group through a short blues riff in the G chord.
“Hold on a minute,” said Collins, wearing his trademark sweater printed with a musical score. “Let the piano players have a solo on the D chord.”
Collins reminds visitors that this is the first time these teenagers have played together as a group.
“I have to keep reminding myself to keep things in perspective,” he said. “If this is what they sound like after only five months, imagine what they’ll sound like in four [more].”
Collins stops them in mid-beat.
“Good,” he said. “What’s another way we can vary the beat?”
“Quarter notes?” one of the guitar players said.
“Right.”
The band runs through the riff again and again. By the end of class, Jones is doing a drum solo and the guitars have learned to mix up the beat. The band sounds tight, like they’ve been jamming together for a while.
COLLINS IS A NATURAL LEADER. He knows when to let the students loose and when to rein them in. His own enthusiasm for the blues is contagious. And he knows that he is starting from scratch.
“My job is to get them up to speed,” he said during an earlier interview. “I’m teaching them junior high school level music right now. These kids haven’t had music since fourth or fifth grade.”
When school began, Collins asked each student to create his own CD, something that would reflect their favorite artists. Their selections — rap and hip-hop — came as no surprise to Collins, who knew he had his work cut out for him.
His students didn’t recognize the rock ’n’ roll giants, like Elvis and Chubby Checker, not to mention jazz legends such as Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis.
And so he began at the beginning, bringing in CDs of Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He put up posters of them and photographs of himself playing with a couple of big-name bands. Before long, everyone was working on an instrument, using lesson plans written by Collins during his many years of teaching.
Word got out fast. Mister Collins was cool. This class was fun. Teenagers started dropping into Collins’ class who didn’t belong there. One student, who lives in a group home and had known nothing but failure in school, began showing up early to play the drums.
COLLINS’ GOAL is to have his students playing the blues by the end of the year. Ultimately, he wants to form an all-state blues band that can play at games and student assemblies and eventually perform in public.
Collins has his own 10-piece band, the Ted Collins Band, which plays a little bit of everything and includes graduates of the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston. When he taught in Westerly, his band was one of the best high school bands in New England, opening for the Count Basie Band.
Collins describes turning teenagers on to music like watching children opening their Christmas presents. Even the most street-wise teenager softens when he plays his first bass note.
John Craig, one of two assistant principals, said Collins is giving these students a chance to be successful at something, in some cases, for the first time in their lives. It is the carrot that draws some teenagers to school in the first place.
“It’s given them hope, another outlet beyond the streets,” Craig said. “Mr. Collins has opened the door and said, ‘Let’s jam.’ ”
“The enthusiasm that Mister Collins brings to this class has had a tremendous impact on attendance,” said Principal Robbie Torchon. “The turnaround in attitude will translate into academic improvement. These students want to rap, to read, to explore the biography of artists.”
COLLINS HAS ALSO BROUGHT the real world of music inside the classroom, inviting friends like Rick Andrade and Chops Turner to speak to his students about the hard road they traveled to get to where they are now. One of the bands hailed from Cuba and their language and rhythms spoke to the largely Spanish-speaking audience of students, many of whose families come from the Dominican Republic.
At the beginning of class, students move to their various instruments with little prompting. Two girls sit behind the drums as Collins shows them the basics. Four young men begin tuning their guitars. The more experienced players help the newcomers. Every quarter, they rotate instruments.
Asked why they like music class, 14-year-old Jezebel Baez said, “We get to play music and be loud.”
“You can be creative.”
“The stress goes away,” a young man said.
At the end of class, Collins thanks his students for coming.
BUT ADELAIDE HIGH SCHOOL NEEDS HELP.
Many of the school’s instruments are in need of repair. The yellowed keys on the baby grand are uneven, like rippled carpet. Still, the students gather round and can’t resist plucking a few notes.
“We need trumpets, horns, clarinets,” Collins said. “We need guitars.”
Meanwhile, his students are already making music, and, while it may not sound celestial yet, it sounds like the real thing.
As Torchon put it, “Now, we sound like a high school.”
School districts don’t always hire educators as superintendents
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — It’s no surprise that a former military leader with proven managerial skills was chosen as the district’s next superintendent of schools.
During the past 10 years, between 15 percent and 20 percent of the nation’s big-city superintendents have come from non-traditional backgrounds, according to Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools. No longer are school leaders expected to rise through the ranks, a trajectory followed by Supt. Donnie Evans, who began his career as a math teacher and punched every ticket before becoming Providence’s superintendent 2½ years ago.
Now, school leaders come from the law, from community colleges and universities, from nonprofit organizations and from nearly every branch of the military.
In New York City, Supt. Joe Klein was a federal prosecutor and the leaders of school districts in Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle and Philadelphia have, at one time or another, hailed from the military or the legal profession.
“First of all, pedagogy is not rocket science,” said Timothy G. Quinn, managing director of the Broad Superintendent Academy. “You don’t need to grow up in an educational institution to understand teaching and learning. A superintendent has to be a CEO. It really takes someone who is politically savvy, thick-skinned, passionate about doing what’s right for kids and has the know-how to manage complex systems.”
Thomas M. Brady, who was named the district’s new superintendent on Tuesday, has those kinds of skills, according to Quinn and Casserly. Brady spent a year at the Broad Superintendent Academy in 2004 and Casserly worked with Brady while he was chief operating officer in Washington, D.C., and Fairfax County, Va.
No organization does a better job of teaching and learning than the military, Quinn said. One of the key books used by the Broad academy is Victory in our Schools, which was written by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Stanford, who shook up the Seattle schools during the 1990s.
Providence, Quinn said, needs someone who can get it done. All too often, non-academic issues such as transportation and personnel management sidetrack what’s happening in the classroom.
Just last week, the Council for Great City Schools reported that the Providence school district’s human resources department is so woefully inadequate that it is barely able to perform the most basic functions.
In January, more than 2,200 teachers and administrators were notified that the School Department had failed to deduct the full FICA payments for the previous year. (FICA, the Federal Insurance Contribution Act, finances Social Security and Medicare). The miscalculation was caused by a computer programming glitch in the human resources department.
Brady addressed his apparent lack of academic experience in an interview with The Journal. A large urban school district needs someone who can manage complex systems, he said. It needs someone who can define the district’s mission, then tap the right people to see that those goals are achieved.
Brady has certainly had experience running big systems. As the commander of Fort Belvoir, Va., he oversaw a $770-million budget, $94 million in contracts and more than 20,000 residents. In his current position as interim superintendent in Philadelphia, Brady is responsible for running the eighth-largest school district in the country. And as the chief operating officer of the District of Columbia public schools, he managed a $1 billion budget.
“His interpersonal and political skills are truly outstanding,” Casserly said. “He’s a guy who people like, who’s very accessible. He’s got solid political instincts, all of which he’ll need in Providence.”
From Diana Lam to Donnie Evans, Providence has had a history of strong instructional leaders, according to state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, who attributes the latest gains in elementary and middle school scores to that leadership.
The district, he said, doesn’t need another education wizard. It needs a superintendent who can deliver the textbooks on time, someone who can sign a contract with teachers and find savings in the midst of a budget crisis.
“Tom Brady is not coming here with all of the answers,” McWalters said. “He’s coming here to build relationships. He’s said, ‘I’m going to listen.’ ”
Shoe-string budget leaves schools in dire straits
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The proposed 2008-2009 school budget is so bare-bones that the district’s chief financial officer, Mark Dunham, said the School Department will barely be able to keep the buildings clean and the lights on.
At $322.9 million, the proposed budget includes a shortfall of $9.7 million, and Dunham said he had no answers as to how that deficit will be made up. The budget does not set aside any money for salary increases during a year in which teachers are negotiating a new contract, which is in its second year of discussion. A 1-percent salary hike, for example, would cost an additional $1.9 million.
The budget presumes that there will be no additional aid from either the state or the city.
“It feels like we are bankrupt,” said School Board President Mary McClure at last night’s board meeting. “What can we do if we don’t meet our legal obligation [to balance the budget]? We’re very close to not meeting our legal obligation.”
Dunham responded that the district was “close to not being able to run the schools. We’re close to being in peril.”
Last year, the district took extraordinary measures to balance the budget, increasing class sizes for special education students, a move that infuriated teachers and parents and caused the union to appeal the change to the state commissioner of education. Commissioner Peter McWalters, however, upheld the district’s request. And in 2006, the school district helped close its budget shortfall by temporarily closing Nathan Bishop Middle School on the East Side, another unpopular decision.
The proposed budget represents an increase of $8.6 million or 2.7 percent over last year’s $314.3 million budget. Of that increase, pension fund contributions and medical insurance absorb the largest piece of the pie, $4.4 million; out-of-district placements for special education are expected to cost $400,000 and contracted salary increases add up to $600,000.
There is hardly any money in the budget, Dunham said, to pay for programs that would contribute directly toward improving student achievement, measures like reducing class size, offering common planning time for teachers and providing more professional training.
“We’ve been living modestly,” he told the board. “But we’ve been regressing as far as resources go.”
According to Dunham, 350 employees have been shed over the past 10 years and 42 teachers are expected to receive the ax this year. Meanwhile, both state and local aid have been declining for the past two years. Last year, Providence received no increase in school aid from the General Assembly and Mayor David N. Cicilline and the City Council cut a total of $8 million from the School Department’s original budget proposal.
Complicating matters, a new state law further limits how much cities and towns can raise taxes. This year, Providence can raise a maximum of $12 million in new tax revenues, Dunham said.
The school district, however, is required by state law to provide a number of services, from textbooks to school nurses for private and parochial schools, which cost approximately $3 million. The City Council recently hired a lawyer to investigate how the public schools are funded, including the private school issue, Dunham said.
The district is facing several big unknowns, including the amount of school aid allocated by both state and local government and any salary increases in the new teachers’ contract.
The budget must be sent to Cicilline by April 28, well before the state aid figures are finalized. The school budget is submitted to the council in May and should be back before the School Board in July or August.
State wants role in selection of new Providence superintendent.
Posted Thursday, March 20, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The state commissioner of education met with Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday and told him that he wants to play a role in the selection of a new superintendent.
Cicilline contacted Commissioner Peter McWalters after Supt. Donnie Evans announced his resignation on Monday, shortly before the School Board was prepared to vote on whether to renew his contract. Evans promised to remain in Providence until his contract expires on Sept. 19, which should give the city time to hire a new school leader.
“They talked in general terms about the process of recruiting a new superintendent and Peter made it clear that he wants to play a role in the recruiting and hiring process,” said Elliot Krieger, a spokesman for the state Department of Education. “The state has a huge investment in Providence. The selection of a leader is part of RIDE’s engagement.”
Exactly what role McWalters will play in the selection of a new superintendent remains to be seen, Krieger said. The theme of yesterday’s meeting was that the state Department of Education remains committed to working closely with Providence to make sure there is a smooth transition from one superintendent to another.
“Providence is in its sixth year of intervention and this is the fourth superintendent in a short period of time,” Krieger said. “Both Peter and the mayor are concerned about stability and transition issues. There are many good people in the central office. Peter wants to make sure that they are encouraged to stay.”
McWalters reassured the mayor that the Providence schools are on the right track, pointing to the recent improvement in test scores in elementary and middle schools. According to Krieger, the commissioner pledged to work with Providence to help remove some of the barriers that get in the way of student performance.
“There are contract issues that need to be resolved, finance issues, data issues,” Krieger said, adding that McWalters wants to review the results of several studies of the district’s curriculum and the central office.
The state Department of Education has a history of involvement with the city’s schools. Three years ago, McWalters intervened in an effort to turn around Hope High School, breaking the school into three smaller schools. Under his guidance, the school brought in a new leadership team, hired new staff and restored order.
Last January, the state placed the entire district under corrective action and ordered Evans to develop a plan to improve the city’s lowest-performing schools or face possible state intervention. Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, a school district is classified as one in need of corrective action when two of the three grade levels (for example, elementary and middle school) have large numbers of under-performing schools.
In response, Evans introduced a new math curriculum for struggling elementary and middle school students, offered additional reading programs, hired 20 reading teachers and conducted a review of the central office, led by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. At the middle schools, Evans also promised to create student advisories and offer teachers common planning time.
Embattled school chief Evans to leave
Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2008
By Daniel Barbarisi and Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writers
PROVIDENCE — Supt. Donnie W. Evans unexpectedly announced last night that he will not try for another term as the city’s schools chief and will leave when his contract expires in September. Evans withdrew his candidacy hours before the School Board was to decide whether to renew the embattled superintendent’s contract for another three years.
Evans’ decision to step down comes amid a chorus of criticism from the City Council and the teachers union, much of it regarding his actions during the Dec. 13 snowstorm, when more than 100 schoolchildren were stuck on city school buses late into the night.
Mayor David N. Cicilline had also chastised his superintendent after the storm, but he insisted last night that Evans left of his own volition.
Related links
Providence Supt. Donnie Evans' letter of resignation
Survey: Grade Donnie Evans' performance as school chief
“The decision that Dr. Evans made not to seek renewal of his contract was his decision. I am certainly grateful for the work that he’s done. I am grateful for his dedication and his integrity and hard work. The responsibility now is to ensure we have the leadership that can move the district forward,” Cicilline said.
“Obviously, I don’t think it’s any secret that no one was satisfied with the pace of improvement,” Cicilline allowed.
Evans offered little insight into the reasons for his departure, saying in his resignation letter that he was leaving for “personal and professional reasons to pursue other opportunities.”
“My decision to leave was not made lightly. I want you, as well as every employee, student, and family in this district to know that my experience in Providence has been both rewarding and challenging,” Evans wrote to the School Board. He did not return calls seeking comment last night.
Evans’ contract runs through Sept. 19. Cicilline and School Board Chairwoman Mary McClure said that a nationwide search for Evans’ successor is already under way, but would answer no questions about specific candidates or whether interviews had taken place.
City Council Majority Leader Terrence M. Hassett said that he knew of talks between Providence officials and a high-ranking school official in Philadelphia about the Providence job. Last night, the Philadelphia Inquirer posted a story on its Web site stating that outgoing Philadelphia schools chief Tom Brady has emerged as a leading candidate for the Providence superintendent position. Brady, a retired Army colonel, has been Philadelphia’s interim chief executive officer for the past year.
Hassett and fellow council members Nicholas J. Narducci and Kevin Jackson are among a large group of anti-Evans councilors who have faulted the superintendent for what they said was poor communication during the storm. In advance of the decision on Evans this week, Hassett and Narducci issued statements calling for the board not to renew Evans. The City Council also went to the brink of voting no-confidence in the schools chief in January, before pulling back at the last minute under heavy pressure from the mayor. Hassett said that Evans’ departure is a good thing for the School Department, and that the council’s agitation helped push Evans out.
“I think the council’s resolve was very strong. The internal pressure, I think, combined with the public pronouncements about the lack of support, was a big factor in making this happen,” Hassett said.
The Providence Teachers Union has been just as loud in its condemnation of Evans. Last week, the union voted no confidence in Evans and McClure. The union and the city have been locked in a contract dispute for seven months.
Evans is the third straight superintendent to last only three years in Providence. Diana Lam came to the city in 1999, and left for the New York City school system in August 2002. She was replaced by Melody Johnson, who left for Fort Worth, Texas, in 2005 despite the School Board’s offer of another three-year deal. Evans succeeded her that fall.
Although Evans’ contract was set to run out in September, his deal stipulated that he must be given six months’ notice if it was not going to be renewed. The School Board has spent the last several months delving into Evans’ record in Providence in an attempt to decide whether to retain him.
Neither Cicilline nor McClure would say what the School Board would have decided had Evans not taken himself out of the running.
“He’s certainly brought a lot of expertise to the district. I have a great deal of respect for him and what he’s done with us, and I would like to thank him,” McClure said.
School Board Secretary Robert Wise, however, said that the board wanted Evans to return.
“We wanted to keep him around. We wanted him to stay,” Wise said.
McClure said she didn’t believe that Evans’ resignation had anything to do with criticism that he awarded the woman who would later become his wife, Charlene M. Staley, a contract with the School Department last year.
In April, the district hired Staley to develop and administer a questionnaire to special-education staff at a cost of $4,200, in addition to compensation for travel, lodging and meals. The contract ran from April 17 until Aug. 1.
In an interview last week, Evans denied that there was any conflict of interest involving his wife, whom he married a month ago, and expressed “outrage” that anyone was making an issue out of the contract.
Evans said that he met Staley in 1992 when he was working at the University of South Florida and she was the university liaison with the Tampa, Fla., school district.
After he became assistant superintendent in Tampa in 1998, Staley became a member of his staff, working first as the charter school director and later working in special education.
At the time, Evans described Staley as a “trusted colleague and friend,” but said they were not romantically involved. He said that a romantic relationship didn’t develop until the summer, after Staley was awarded the contract. By the time that Staley was hired, Evans said that he was already in the process of getting a divorce.
“Anyone who checks Charlene’s background would know right away that she is the most qualified person for the work,” Evans said last week. “She has taught special education to students with learning disabilities, to the mentally handicapped, for a long time. She had taught teachers and administrators. I saw her skills firsthand.”
The contract wasn’t put out to bid because it cost less than $5,000, the cut-off point. She is not doing any work for the school district at this time.
Evans, 58, came to the 26,000-student Providence system from the Tampa area, where he was a top administrator in the 190,000-student Hillsborough district. His most recent annual salary in Providence was $190,742.
In his resignation letter, Evans listed his greatest achievements here as: increasing the number of schools making annual progress; higher percentages of students performing at grade level; implementing intervention programs for struggling students; and gaining national recognition for several Providence schools.
At the same time, his critics said his list of failures included the closing of the West Broadway Elementary School, an increase in special education class sizes, and the snowstorm debacle.
Union pickets, votes no confidence in Evans, McClure
Posted Monday, March 17, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The Providence Teachers Union has voted overwhelmingly to express its lack of confidence in the administration of Supt. Donnie Evans and School Board President Mary McClure.
Carrying signs that said, “Rekindle the Dream/Stop the Nightmare,” and “A Blizzard of Blunders,” more than 100 members of the union staged an informational picket in front of the School Administration Building at 797 Westminster St. early yesterday. Teachers, who received ballots by mail two weeks ago, voted 1,347 to 44 against the direction that the administration is taking, union President Steve Smith said yesterday.
The ballot question claimed that students were being denied a quality education and cited more than a dozen supposed missteps by the administration, including problems related to the Dec. 13 snowstorm, which stranded more than 100 students on school buses until late at night and resulted in a 30-day suspension of Tomas Hanna, the deputy superintendent of operations.
The ballot also cited Evans’ decision to increase class size for special education students, which resulted in an unsuccessful lawsuit by the union against the district; the supposed “flip-flop” on the new high school graduation requirements; and a “mass exodus” of teachers and administrators during Evans’ two-and-a-half years in office.
The no-confidence vote is just the latest episode in the deteriorating relationship between the union and administration. According to union leaders, teacher morale is at an all-time low. Meanwhile, the teachers’ contract expired seven months ago and a mediator was brought in earlier this winter to help speed negotiations.
Smith, however, isn’t the only one who has become increasingly critical of Evans’ leadership. In the wake of the school bus problems in December, five members of the City Council signed a resolution calling for Evans’ dismissal, but later backed down after a strong lobbying effort by Mayor David N. Cicilline.
The union action comes as the School Board is scheduled to announce Tuesday whether Evans’ contract, which is due to expire Sept. 19, will be renewed. Although the union said it didn’t time the vote to coincide with the board’s decision, Smith said that he hopes the board takes notice of the teachers’ voices.
“December 13 was the culminating event,” Smith said yesterday. “That’s when we began to have a discussion about whether we should make a statement regarding the administration’s ability to lead the district. The vote is timely. At least the School Board can be under no illusion as to the overwhelming opinion of their employees.”
The School Department issued a short statement yesterday on behalf of Evans and McClure that said that the administration has tremendous respect for the “hard-working, dedicated teachers” of Providence and remains committed to negotiating a “forward-looking contract” that will put children first while supporting what teachers need.
“We have all been disheartened by years of poor student outcomes, including low graduation rates, high dropout rates, low test scores and low participation in advanced courses,” the statement said. “We must act now as educators to put aside any and all other motivations and work together to meet the needs of our students.”
In a memo sent to all principals Wednesday, Hanna said that any significant disruptions to student learning or safety issues as a result of the union’s picketing should be immediately reported to the administration’s operations office. The memo also said that any employee reporting late to work should be addressed “per normal protocols.”
Yesterday, teachers on the picket line expressed their frustration with what they perceive as a lack of direction together with a lack of support for the jobs they do every day.
Two teachers from Classical High School, Edward Rissio and Karen Hickey, complained that Evans has adopted a one-size-fits-all approach to high school curriculum, adding that the administration doesn’t recognize that Classical’s mission as a college-prep exam school differs from the other large high schools.
“Our professional development is in shambles,” a teacher said.
Teachers at Classical also said that the curriculum developed recently by the district and the professional training lack rigor. One teacher said that the new math curriculum is too easy for Classical students, who have to pass an examination to gain admission to the high school.
A guidance counselor from E{+3} Academy, a small high school, said that he gets conflicting messages from the central administration regarding the state’s new proficiency-based graduation requirements, which require students to demonstrate mastery by completing two of the following activities: end-of-course exams, senior projects or portfolios of their work. The new requirements apply to this year’s senior class.
“We’re here to show the superintendent and the School Board president that 1,300 teachers are dissatisfied with the job that they’re doing,” said Mary Beth Calabro, vice president of the union and a special education teacher at Nathanael Greene Middle School. “We want people to know that [the administration] has let the kids down.”
The last time that the union took a vote of no confidence was in October 2001, when Diana Lam was superintendent. At the time, 1,700 teachers also overwhelmingly rejected a three-year contact and agreed to work to rule.
Smith yesterday cited what he called “a litany of missteps, miscommunication and poor decision-making” by Evans and his administration, including the surprise decision last year to close (and ultimately relocate) West Broadway Elementary School and a proposal to permanently close Nathan Bishop Middle School, a decision that was later reversed after a public outcry by East Side parents. At the time, teachers and parents said they were blindsided by the decisions and complained that no one in administration asked for their opinions.
Smith said that the union has no plans to strike or work to rule, in which faculty members refuse to perform any duties beyond those spelled out in the contract.
“We’re going to continue to speak out at board meetings and plan on communicating our message to parents,” Smith said. “We will explore any and all vehicles, including contacting community groups and getting our message out through the news media.”
Educators still flock to see improvements at Hope
Posted Thursday, March 13, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Hope High School was in the spotlight again yesterday as two dozen educators from across the country visited the school as part of a two-day tour to investigate Rhode Island’s new high school diploma system.
The members of the American Youth Policy Forum met yesterday with state education leaders, including Robert Flanders, chairman of the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education, state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters and Colleen Callahan, director of professional issues for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers.
The team spent the afternoon at Hope, meeting with the school’s three principals, visiting classrooms and speaking with students and teachers. The afternoon ended with a discussion about high school reform with Supt. Donnie Evans.
“We’re very interested in proficiency-based graduation requirements and how they are being implemented,” said Betsy Brand, director of the American Youth Forum, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We’re interested in Hope because of its history as a low-performing school that moved to three smaller schools.”
The visitors included educators and education policy-makers from Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Arkansas, Michigan and Washington, D.C. Today, the team will visit Shea High School in Pawtucket and Coventry High School.
Yesterday, Brand praised McWalters for having the courage to buck the tide of high-stakes testing and implement proficiency-based graduation requirements, which ask students to demonstrate mastery in specific skills by taking end-of-course exams, completing senior projects or developing a portfolio of their work. Students have to complete two of the options to graduate this year.
“Rhode Island has been — and is — a leader in looking beyond a single high-stakes testing system,” Brand said. “The challenge is for districts to think creatively about how you create a proficiency system within the framework of No Child Left Behind.”
At Hope High School yesterday, the three principals — Wayne Montague, Arthur Petrosinelli and Scott Sutherland — recited what has become a familiar storyline: McWalters, disheartened by the school’s chronically poor performance, placed the school under state control three years ago. He ordered Hope to break into three smaller learning communities, each based on a theme. From there, the high school hired 52 new teachers, cracked down on discipline, helped teachers craft entirely new curricula and gave teachers ample time to plan together.
Today, Hope High School has an individual learning plan, called the I-Pass, which has received national recognition and has been adopted as a model by the state. The school has developed partnerships with a half-dozen area colleges, which have not only helped the district revise its curricula but also have provided real-world learning opportunities for students.
But Hope’s leaders were frank about how far the school has to go. Petrosinelli, technology school principal, said he was stunned when the math scores were released recently and hardly any students in the building met proficiency.
He said, “I don’t think that the scores truly reflect what’s happening here.”
That said, Hope High School got to work: the entire faculty reviewed the test scores and many teachers have actually taken sample math questions to see how hard the New England Common Assessment is. In fairness, faculty members pointed out, this is the first time that Rhode Island students have taken the NECAP, and most schools haven’t had time to align the new test with classroom instruction.
“We have to find a new way of teaching math,” Petrosinelli said. “I hate to say it, but we have to find a way of teaching to the test.”
“Do students know that the test is meaningless?” one of the visiting educators said.
Yes. Unlike what happens in other states, students are not graded on the NECAP, although it will count toward the high school graduation requirements. The state requires only that students take the test to graduate; they don’t have to pass it.
The visiting team also heard from several students and teachers, who told them that Hope High School has undergone nothing short of an extreme makeover since McWalters intervened three years ago. Hope, which students often called “hopeless,” was a school spiraling out of control before the new leadership team took over.
“What would you change about the school?” one visiting educator asked.
“I’d change going home every day,” said senior Ari Bzisbon, adding that he’d like to spend more time in school.
Another student said she would like to have more support for students who speak English as a second language while a third student said the school needs more computers so students can keep electronic records of their portfolios.
A couple of visitors struggled with the notion that Hope answers to two masters: the district and the state Department of Education. Sutherland explained that it isn’t always a perfect marriage, adding that the district’s goals are not always the same as the school’s.
Sutherland gave the following example to underscore his point. Hope High School, along with 10 other high schools, chose the portfolio as part of its new graduation requirement, but the district has indicated that it wants high schools to adopt senior projects instead.
In a portfolio class, every student raised their hand when asked about their plans to attend college. When asked about that afterward, Sutherland acknowledged that not every student who wants to go to college will have the grades and the skills necessary for admission. But Sutherland said that the school is asking more of its students and trying to prepare them for the real world.
“What do you do about the graduation requirements when students move?” a visitor said.
Both Sutherland and Evans said the district’s high rate of mobility — a third of all students move at least once each year — poses challenges that smaller school systems don’t have to face. When a student transfers to Hope during senior year, the school tries to find alternative ways to measure proficiency, such as performance on a district test.
Could Hope High School have turned itself around so quickly if it had a traditional leadership structure, with one principal and two assistants? Sutherland said yes, but that reform would have happened at a slower pace without six administrators. Each of the three principals, for example, has a primary area of concentration: Sutherland is the point man on curriculum, Petrosinelli focuses on discipline and Montague has been very involved in creating partnerships with the community.
At the end of the day, the visiting team seemed taken with the new Hope High School.
“I was a teacher for many years and from what I’ve seen here today, I’d want to come here,” said Jimmy Jeffress, a state senator from Arkansas.
“This is the kind of leadership that I never got. I commend you and the state for what you’re doing. I’d be willing to come out of retirement to work here.”
Upgrade plans for 2 Providence schools make progress
Posted Tuesday, March 11, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Plans for both a renovated Nathan Bishop Middle School and an enlarged Hanley Career and Technical Center, the first two projects in the city’s sweeping school building overhaul, are on track for a fall 2009 completion.
Alan Sepe, the city’s acting director of public property, said the Nathan Bishop renovation has gone out to bid, while Gilbane Inc. has been awarded the contract for the Hanley addition and construction of an adjacent athletic complex.
In December, the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education approved a $35-million renovation of the East Side middle school and a $40.8-million expansion of Hanley in the West End, next to Central High School.
The middle school project has been championed by the East Side Public Education committee, a group of parents who organized after Supt. Donnie Evans decided to temporarily close the middle school last year, citing chronically poor student performance and declining enrollment.
Parents urged Evans to reconsider and he did, appointing a study committee to come up with a design for a new middle school. Under the approved plan, Nathan Bishop will have a planned enrollment of 750 students, larger than the 450 to 500 students recommended by the parent-led study committee. Plans call for retaining Nathan Bishop’s “doughnut-shape” with a major renovation of the interior, including a two-story library and media center and numerous energy-saving additions.
The new Nathan Bishop will offer student advisories, team teaching and an advanced curriculum open to all students, depending on their interests.
Meanwhile, the Hanley Career and Technical Center has been greatly expanded. The original plans called for renovating the school and connecting it to a smaller building that includes the gym and cafeteria at a cost of $32 million.
DeJONG consultants, which conducted a citywide survey of the district’s 42 public schools last year, recommended building a second career and technical high school next to Mount Pleasant High School. However, as the School Department considered the proposal, it became apparent that a second technical high school would be too expensive. Sepe said it made more sense to combine Hanley with the new career high school.
The plan now is to demolish the existing Haney cafeteria and gym building and replace it with a 100,000-square-foot addition that will be connected to a new athletic complex. The complex, which will be 65,000 square feet, will include an indoor track, tennis courts, three indoor basketball courts and additional space for academics.
The Hanley project will cost $72 million. The school will accommodate 800 students, twice the current enrollment. Demolition of the old Hanley cafeteria and gym will begin within the next four weeks, with construction beginning in late spring.
Bishop and Hanley are the first phase of a projected $792-million school renovation project. The city is responsible for floating 20-year bonds to pay for the projects but the state reimburses the city for 80 percent of the costs.
Arts education a struggle in Providence schools
Posted Thursday, March 6, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Katharina Shroeter has her hands full. She divides her time between two elementary schools, Martin Luther King Jr. and Reservoir Avenue. Between them, she teaches art to 700 students.
Shroeter, however, has a better deal than many of her elementary school colleagues, who see between 900 and 1,000 students a week. (Middle school teachers see 260 students a week while high school teachers have 130 students). Still, this veteran teacher is stymied. With classes lasting only 30 minutes, she said students barely have time to get started on a project before it is time to clean up.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” she said. “They are not getting a lot of painting. We used to have ceramics. We have a kiln at Martin Luther King. But there isn’t enough time to set up.”
There have been cutbacks in art and music instruction since the first round of budget shortfalls in 2002. In December 2006, Peter McWalters, the state education commissioner, ruled that the Providence schools were in violation of their basic education plan and ordered the district to restore art and music programs.
In his letter, McWalters criticized Providence for not providing a comprehensive program of art instruction, including separate facilities for the creation, storage and display of arts work, supplies and materials. There is no evidence, he said, that the city’s high schools have access to the kinds of courses that provide in-depth work in art history, criticism and career education required by the basic education plan.
Although McWalters acknowledged that the school district has dealt with several years of budget cuts that resulted in the loss of many art and music teachers, he also said that budget constraints were no excuse for not meeting the education plan.
In response, Supt. Donnie Evans submitted plans to restore the arts. However, in a Feb 8 letter to the Providence Teachers Union, McWalters said that the district is still not complying with the basic education plan.
Despite his earlier comments, McWalters said that he was not going to demand compliance because the district “at this time does not have the adequacy of resources to meet these requirements, especially in small themed high schools.”
“Given the complexity of the issues faced by the [school district] in meeting the basic education plan,” he said, “we acknowledge that the [district] is not in compliance with the [basic education plan].”
Since the state Department of Education has been asked to revise the state’s basic education plan, McWalters, in his letter to the union, said that it doesn’t make sense to launch any further investigation into the district’s fine arts offerings.
Meanwhile, art teachers are trying to do more with less. Shroeter said she is fortunate to work at King Elementary because the school has a large, well-stocked art room, thanks in large part to the generosity of the Parent Teacher Organization and retired teachers. At the Reservoir Avenue School, however, the supplies are depleted. Last year, she said, the school was left with little else than crayons and paper.
“This is my 13th year of teaching,” Shroeter said. “When I first started, we had hour-long blocks with the same children. We had two teachers at Carl Lauro Elementary School. We had art clubs. And we had all the arts supplies we needed.”
Martin Luther King is fortunate in other respects. The East Side school also offers art enrichment — smaller, project-based classes for students who are either gifted in art or struggling in core subjects such as English and math. The school also excludes art and music teachers from lunchroom duty in recognition of their heavy teaching schedules, according to Principal Michael Lazzareschi.
“We’re really the exception to the rule,” he said. “We have an after-school program funded by the PTO. Parents [who] play instruments have taught pieces of the music class.”
But even at King, Lazzareschi said that it is difficult to squeeze arts classes into the schedule because of the increasing emphasis on math and literacy instruction.
Even the district agrees that students are getting shortchanged when it comes to the arts. Earnest Cox, administrator of advanced academics and fine arts, said art classes are not long enough and added that it is the “ultimate goal of the district that art and music classes have the same amount of time as other courses.”
Elementary students receive either 30 minutes a week or one hour every two weeks. At the middle and high school levels, art classes last 55 minutes except at schools with a block schedule, in which case students may have 90 minutes of art.
Not every teacher has to split time between schools, however. Cox said that elementary schools with more than 900 students have a full-time art instructor as do middle schools. Every high school has at least one art teacher, except the Providence Academy of International Studies, which offers dance instead of art.
Cox also acknowledged that school supplies, in general, are limited because of budget restraints, adding that art teachers have a limited amount of money to buy materials. The district, however, is looking into grants to support art education.
In response to McWalters’ order, Cox said the district has taken some steps to provide more art and music offerings:
•Art and music have been restored to every middle school.
•The new Adelaide Avenue High School has an additional art teacher as well as a music teacher.
•And the district is working on schedules to make sure that elementary school children receive an hour of art and music instruction every other week.
Meanwhile, Shroeter tries to connect her art classes with what colleagues are teaching in other subjects. If a fourth-grade teacher is doing a unit on ancient cultures, then she will teach a related class on hieroglyphics.
Still, it isn’t easy to carve out time to plan assignments with other teachers.
“You end up exhausted by the end of the day,” she said. “Mondays, I take a nap. Young kids have so much energy.”
Teachers sound off about state of the schools
Posted Wednesday, February 27, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Supt. Donnie Evans got an earful yesterday. School buildings are falling apart. There aren’t enough books and supplies. Layoff notices leave teachers feeling helpless. Changes are made without consulting the classroom teacher.
But Evans wasn’t put off by what he heard from nearly two dozen teachers yesterday. He was glad. Last month, Evans revived the long-dormant Teachers’ Council to get honest answers about how teachers are feeling about their jobs and what can be done to improve teacher morale, which has been buffeted by deep budget cuts, layoffs and protracted contract negotiations.
The council, which has representatives from every public school in the city, met with Evans for the second time yesterday at the Providence Academy of International Studies, on Thurbers Avenue. Evans asked teachers to identify some of the biggest hurdles that prevent them from doing their jobs.
He might have gotten more than he bargained for.
Colleen Driscoll, a teacher at Alan Shawn Feinstein Elementary School on Broad Street, found out during a party that she had been assigned to teach another grade level.
As Driscoll said, “It was really unprofessional.”
Bumping, the process by which teachers with more seniority displace those with less, generated a lot of complaints. One teacher retained her job because her number was picked out of a hat. In her case, three teachers were hired on the same date. All of them held the same certifications and had comparable evaluations. In a process called a tie-breaker, each teacher was assigned a number and the number that was selected got the job.
Teachers said they are extremely frustrated because they have no control over their futures. Even senior teachers are losing their classrooms this year. In some cases, a fourth grade teacher is assigned to teach first grade because the certification is the same. That teacher, however, might love fourth grade and have little interest in teaching 6-year-olds. In other cases, teachers are bumped from schools where they have worked for years because of the bumping process.
Not only is the teacher’s life disrupted, but, if enough teachers are transferred, the entire teaching culture is undermined.
“This is not in the best interest of the School Department or the teachers,” said Tracy Carcamo from Lima Annex Elementary School. “Now, you’re looking at teachers who have to do something they don’t want to do. We have to find a better way of doing this.”
“Talk about morale,” said Thomas Morra, a science teacher at Mount Pleasant High School. “How can you keep quality people if every year you keep laying them off? There is no continuity.”
Evans said he was as frustrated by the system as the teachers.
“I agree that the process stinks,” he said. “We are seeking to do things differently.”
Teachers also said that new programs and curricula are imposed on them from above without input from the rank and file. In one school, the faculty spent weeks working on its School Improvement Plan, only to have the district re-work the entire plan over the summer. In the future, one teacher said, faculty will be reluctant to volunteer because they fear that their efforts will be wasted.
Hope High School is a case in point. Teachers have spent a couple of years developing a portfolio system to collect students’ work over time. A few weeks ago, however, the faculty heard that the district was abandoning portfolios in favor of senior projects because students are so mobile that keeping records of their work is next to impossible.
“Why does it always have to be one way or another?” a Hope teacher said. “This shows a real lack of respect for faculty.”
The condition of school buildings also struck a chord among the council. At Gilbert Stuart Middle School, students plastered the lockers with eggs in September. Six months later, the mess remains and the teachers are ready to file a grievance.
At Roger Williams Middle School, a student needed medical help after punching out a window, but the phone system was so antiquated that she couldn’t get through to the main office, even when she used her own cell phone. “This was a real safety issue,” she said.
Other schools don’t have soap because the maintenance staff is afraid that students will make a mess, teachers said.
Supplies are another chronic problem. Barbara Ashby, a school librarian, said she is fortunate to get $200 a year toward the purchase of new books. She said that it’s been 10 years since she has any significant funding at all. At another school, teachers sent back all of their computers because they no longer worked. They expected to get new ones that did work. They didn’t.
At the end of the meeting, Evans wanted to talk about solutions to these problems, but the council first wants to conduct a citywide survey of teachers about these issues
Evans goes to Greene for direct input
Posted Tuesday, February 26, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Supt. Donnie Evans yesterday walked into a seventh-grade class at Nathanael Greene Middle School and asked the students point blank: Do you feel safe here?
Several students said yes, a few said maybe, and one student said no.
“Who said no?” Evans asked, a big smile on his face to show that there was no right or wrong answer.
One girl raised her hand: “How can you be safe with the gangs?”
Evans asked if she had been harassed by gang members and she said no.
“Any other problems?” he said.
“We have food fights and stuff,” one boy said.
“The cafeteria ceiling is falling apart.”
“The rooms are either too cold or too hot.”
“Any other problems?” Evans asked.
The room was silent.
Evans was at Nathanael Greene after complaints by some teachers there that students were acting out because of a lack of continuity in the school’s leadership. Over the past three months, the school has gone through four principals and six assistant principals, a turnover that several teachers claim has been disruptive to students and staff.
The district’s largest middle school and home to the city’s only advanced academic program, Greene has experienced three major food fights and a couple of afterschool fights since principal Nicole Mathias Thomas went out on sick leave before Thanksgiving.
After a series of principals cycled in and out of the building, retired administrator Joseph Maguire, who once led Gilbert Stuart Middle School, was appointed acting principal about a month ago.
Yesterday, Evans announced that Maguire will stay until late April, when Thomas has said that she will return. Evans said he spoke with Thomas last week to confirm her plans.
The principal turnover has been compounded by the loss of an assistant principal, who is also on sick leave. To provide more stability at the top, Evans has appointed Regina Winkfield to serve as an assistant principal until the end of the school year. Meanwhile, Edward Halpin, an administrator who is well-known by teachers and students, will remain as an assistant principal at Greene.
In an informal conversation with Evans yesterday, Maguire stressed that the school was under control, and said that he was surprised by the level of concern expressed by teachers during a recent School Improvement Team meeting, when members called for a stricter set of rules to crack down on misbehavior.
“Absolutely,” Maguire said, “I think that the kids feel safe.”
Last week, a couple of teachers, including the vice president of the Providence Teachers Union, said there has been evidence of gang activity, including some tagging or graffiti on school walls. Yesterday, Maguire confirmed that there has been some gang tagging and colors as well as two incidents where outsiders came into the building at dismissal.
“Students here are in gangs,” Maguire said, adding that one student was caught selling a product containing a gang insignia. The principal said that he might ask a member of the Police Department’s gang squad to speak to students and possibly meet with members of the Parent Teacher Organization at their next meeting.
“We want parents to be informed,” Maguire said.
Several teachers and parents have also said that Greene is receiving more than its fair share of students with discipline problems, claiming that the school received six such children during a recent two-week period.
But School Department spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly said those numbers are overblown. During a three-week period, three students with discipline issues were sent to Greene. Another child transferred to Greene for safety reasons and two newcomers to the district were enrolled during the same time period.
“I have a huge problem with this,” Evans said, referring to the practice of moving a troublemaker from one school to another. “We need more alternative school offerings. Why would anyone think that a child who is a discipline problem at one school would do any better at another?”
Because of the turnover in leadership, teachers also complained that it’s taking too long for students to be disciplined, which renders the punishment meaningless and undermines the authority of staff and principals alike.
Since he has arrived, however, Maguire said that it rarely takes more than 48 hours between the time an offense is reported to his office and the consequence is imposed. He also said that punishment isn’t the only solution to inappropriate behavior.
“I’ve been here a lot of times and the students are happy,” said Evans, who previously visited Greene on Feb. 8. “They love being here.”
If Greene is in good shape, however, then why are some teachers complaining about the lack of order in the hallways and the growing disrespect on the part of students?
Evans thinks that two things are going on: First, Thomas is a strong principal whose very presence makes people feel secure. Her absence, Evans said, creates a tremendous amount of insecurity in the same way that a parent’s absence sparks anxiety in his or her children. The second element, he said, is that certain individuals have “another agenda,” one that may be motivated by best intentions rather than malicious intent. He didn’t elaborate.
Evans acknowledged that the district has to do a better job of growing its own cadre of leaders, adding that the pool of administrative talent in Providence isn’t very deep. One possibility involves tapping teachers who have administrative certification to fill voids created when a principal leaves.
During his tour yesterday, Evans spoke with PTU Vice President Mary Beth Calabro. She was candid with the superintendent about what she perceives as a loss of order in the building. The day before school vacation, Calabro said, a handful of teachers volunteered to monitor the exterior doorways because there had been problems with intruders sneaking into the building. She also said that there has been little consistency in the way discipline is meted out.
“Has there been an increase in discipline problems?” Evans said.
“Yes,” Calabro said. “Kids test boundaries. They are showing more defiance and disrespect.”
Calabro said that she would love to serve as an assistant principal, adding that she did it briefly this winter when one of the assistants was out sick.
“I know a lot of these kids,” she said. “I know when they need a break. The kids respond when they see a familiar face.”
School superintendent speaks up
Posted Thursday, February 21, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Supt. Donnie Evans has received quite a beating over the past two months. Members of the City Council have called for his dismissal. The Providence Teachers Union is voting next week on whether to issue a vote of no confidence. But Evans, in a wide-ranging interview yesterday, said he has no plans to start job-hunting.
“I’ve given a lot of thought to that,” he said, adding that job postings cross his desk all the time. “But I’ve never worked in a system where I didn’t finish what I started.
“There were people who discouraged me from coming to Providence,” he said. “They said that it was impossible to be successful here. Well, I’ve survived two and a half years. I have a lot of bullet wounds. There are a lot of people who wish I wasn’t here. I like challenges.”
Evans is at a critical point during his tenure as the leader of the 26,000-student district. The School Board will decide next month whether it will renew his contract, which will expire Sept. 19.
Evans’ leadership has been assailed on all fronts: from parents who were dismayed that their children were stuck on school buses during the Dec. 13 snowstorm to neighborhood activists who objected to the closing of West Broadway Elementary School.
Yesterday, Evans said that some of the criticism is typical when someone new tries to shake up an entrenched system. Some of the dissension in the ranks, he said, is triggered by the protracted labor negotiations, which Evans had hoped to wrap up by Christmas.
Evans agrees that communication with staff and parents continues to be a challenge but he promised to announce some significant initiatives in the next few weeks to address that problem, a persistent one during his superintendency. In the meantime, Evans said he is trying to find less formal ways to reach out to teachers and the public.
Evans recently convened a teachers’ council, which will give him informal feedback on what’s going on in the schools. He has organized a districtwide Parent Teacher Organization to do the same thing, and next month, he will launch a Saturday morning breakfast with school principals. His office also plans on holding two more public forums to hear from the community.
“I need to be hearing from parents, teachers and principals in a less formal way,” Evans said. “People are right when they say that I and my staff need to communicate more directly with the public.”
At a recent meeting of the High School Steering Committee, Evans and one of his top administrators suggested that there might be a shift away from small, theme-based high schools, which gained currency under Supt. Diana Lam and her successor, Melody Johnson. At that meeting, Evans said that research has challenged the effectiveness of site-based schools in high-poverty urban districts.
Yesterday, however, Evans said that he had no intention of abandoning site-based schools such as the Cooley Health & Science Technology Academy. In fact, he said that he would like these schools to exercise more autonomy, especially in the area of schedules and after-school programs.
“It’s clear that we, as a large urban district, have to have consistency in our curriculum,” he said. “A child sitting in algebra I in one high school should be getting the same content as a child in another school. We don’t have that now.”
Small schools such as E{+3} will continue to have the authority to hire their teachers and will continue to have greater flexibility in the way the school day is organized. But what is taught must be seamless across the district’s 11 high schools.
While student performance has continued to improve at the elementary and even the middle school level, high school performance stubbornly resists change. Even at Hope High School, the district’s poster child for high school reform, academic performance has not budged as much as school leaders would like.
Under a state order to break up into smaller learning communities, Hope High School created three theme-based schools, each with its own principal. Every teacher was asked to sign an agreement that spelled out certain commitments, and faculty members can’t be assigned to other schools when there are layoffs, a process called bumping.
Hope also received a sizeable infusion of cash to train teachers, reform curriculum and create individual learning plans for each student.
Is Hope a model for the district’s other high schools?
“You can change school culture,” Evans said, “but we could not do what Hope did without additional resources.”
Evans said there are other models that can produce similar results. In one case, the district hires a second tier of assistant principals who are responsible for discipline, freeing the first tier of assistant principals to focus on curriculum and administration.
“What we do know,” Evans said, “is that the current high school model is not getting us where we want to be.”
Evans said he is proud of the progress that his administration has made on the academic front: steady gains in student performance, including a 25-percent increase in reading scores; the fact that two high schools are accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and the remaining schools are on the way; and the introduction of new math and literacy curricula designed to raise basic skills of struggling students.
He also said that his effective schools model, which is all about creating schools where students are respected, parents are welcome and teachers are committed to high standards, is starting to take hold, especially in the elementary schools.
Asked to name his biggest challenge, Evans mentioned a better working relationship with the teachers union:
“We have to sit down person-to-person and find common ground,” he said. “We have to put the past behind us and say, ‘We’re here for the kids.’
“If I were to leave everything on my shoulders, I’d be a miserable person,” Evans said. “A lot of wrong has been done to me, growing up in the South during the ’50s and ’60s. If I held onto that, I’d never get anything done.”
Lack of leadership cited for lack of discipline at Greene
Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Nathanael Greene Middle School has been through four principals and six assistant principals during the past four months and several teachers say the rapid-fire change in leaders has been disruptive to students and staff.
The school, the site of the district’s only gifted program for middle school students, has suffered from constant turnover at the top, which began when Principal Nicole Mathis Thomas went out on sick leave before Thanksgiving. Greene went without a principal for one month and then a series of acting principals cycled through the building. Approximately three weeks ago, Joseph Maguire, a retired administrator, was appointed as acting principal until the end of the school year.
Students at Nathanael Greene, the district’s largest middle school with 820 pupils, are feeling the effects of the so-called leadership vacuum. Since Thomas left, there have been three major food fights, during which apples and milk cartons were hurled across the cafeteria, and a couple of fights after school, one of which was videotaped and posted on a popular social networking site, according to Mary Beth Calabro, a special education teacher and vice president of the Providence Teachers Union.
Another teacher, Kathleen McDonough, said that signs of student unrest are everywhere. Students are disrespectful to staff; they refuse to put away cell phones and follow orders. Several teachers say the hallways have become chaotic.
According to Calabro and McDonough, there is evidence of gang activity, with students wearing gang colors and writing graffiti on the walls. At the beginning of school, some children were so afraid they spent their lunch period in the library. Two parents who belong to the Parent Teacher Organization, however, said the climate at Greene isn’t as chaotic as some teachers say. PTO President Michelle McKenzie said it would do a disservice to Greene to say that the school is chaotic or out of control.
“There is no question,” she said, “that there has been a strain, but I’m not willing to say that it’s deteriorated into chaos.”
A recent meeting of the School Improvement Team drew more than 60 teachers, who repeatedly complained about the growing lack of order in the building. McDonough said morale is at an all-time low, adding that teachers feel stymied by what they perceive as a lack of support from central administration.
“We’re all frustrated,” said Anna Sacoccio, who chairs the School Improvement Team. “What’s missing? Leadership.”
One of the reasons there has been so much instability at Greene is that no one knows when Thomas will return to work. According to Supt. Donnie Evans, Thomas told the central office that she would be back in a couple of months. Since then, Thomas has extended her sick leave. Adding to the instability, one of the assistant principals is also out on sick leave.
“My goal is to stabilize that school,” Evans said Monday. “I’ll call Mrs. Thomas myself. Part of my job is to talk to her and see what’s happening.”
To provide some consistency, Evans said he asked Edward Halpin, a well-respected assistant principal at Greene, to take over the helm but Halpin declined. “He was my first choice,” Evans said.
Compounding the problem, retired administrators can work only a maximum of 90 days, and Deputy Supt. Tomas Hanna said many of the district’s retirees don’t want to commit to working fulltime.
“Mrs. Thomas is assigned to this position,” Hanna said Monday. “We’re aware that the staff is pleased with her and we’re hoping she can come back and bring folks back together.”
Because of the turnover at the top, teachers say it has been difficult to impose consequences for misbehavior. Sometimes, they said, the punishment doesn’t take place until days after the behavior occurred, rendering it meaningless. Calabro and members of the PTO also complained that Nathanael Greene has become a “dumping ground” for students who have been removed from other schools because of disciplinary issues. Greene, they said, received six such children during a recent two-week period.
Renee Baskerville, who has two children at Greene, is vice president of the Parent Teacher Organization and spends nearly every day at the school as a volunteer. Students, she said, are acting out because they feel that the adults aren’t able to keep them safe.
“The children are taking over,” she said. “We have kids who are getting in from the outside, from other schools. Yesterday, some intruders came in looking for one of our students. I’m concerned.”
According to Baskersville, students are asking, “When is Miss Thomas coming back?” and, “What happens if someone gets in here?”
Last week, the principal canceled the Valentine’s Day dance because another food fight disrupted the lunch room, teachers said.
Several parents, including Lee Kossin, the PTO secretary, said the biggest issue isn’t violence but the breakdown in communication between the school and parents and between central administration and the school. No one, she said, ever informed parents about Thomas’ medical leave or the steady stream of administrators who have taken her place.
“There is absolutely no communication,” she said. “Dr. Evans talks about communication but he is the worst communicator in the world.”
Kossin said the Parent Teacher Organization is holding a meeting on Tuesday to bring parents up to date about the leadership at Greene and to air some of the issues around communication and school discipline.
Meanwhile, the school has begun to take specific measures to return order to Nathanael Greene. Following a Feb. 8 meeting, the School Improvement Team asked faculty to insist on hallway passes, confiscate cell phones and other electrical devices and eliminate the practice of lining up students outside the classroom. Instead, teachers are asked to allow students to enter the classroom as soon as they arrive.
In a memo to faculty, the team made the following comments: “There has been an increase in disruptive, defiant, potentially dangerous behavior by students at Greene … An increase in gang activities has been noted. Discipline assemblies are needed ASAP.”
The School Improvement Team sent a copy of the memo to Evans and he has agreed to come to their next meeting, on Feb. 28.
Feinstein School receiving national attention
Posted Friday, February 15, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is coming to the Alan Shawn Feinstein Elementary School on Broad Street today, and when she does, the fifth graders will explain why they did so well on the New England Common Assessment Program.
“We kicked butt,” said Blanco Colato, one of a half-dozen fifth graders who composed a welcoming letter to Spellings.
Feinstein, a turn-of-the-century brick schoolhouse in Washington Park, showed the greatest rate of improvement in Providence on the latest round of NECAP tests, which measure student proficiency in English, writing and math. The tests are given every year in grades 3 through 8 and again in grade 11.
•In reading, only 37 percent of students in grades 3 through 5 were proficient in 2006. A year later, that number has jumped to 50 percent.
•In math, only 27 percent of the students tested were performing at grade level in 2006; in 2007, 42 percent were.
•In writing, student performance doubled in one year, from 30 percent in 2006 to 60 percent in 2007.
Feinstein, a kindergarten through grade 5 school, didn’t add any instructional bells and whistles to produce these strong gains in student performance. According to Principal Christine Riley, teachers made a concerted effort to use the test data to pinpoint student weaknesses at every grade level and, for every student.
At Feinstein, common planning time is carved out of the school day. Once a week, teachers from each grade meet to analyze test data and fine-tune instruction to address gaps in knowledge. As a team, teachers decide on a goal and set a timetable, typically six weeks, to see if the new approach is working. If it isn’t, the staff tries something else.
This is something that effective schools have in common: they use test data to pinpoint weaknesses in math or reading, then try fresh instruction methods to address those areas.
According to Riley, a federal program called Reading First has trained teachers in early literacy skills. Children who don’t understand what they are reading will also have trouble understanding related subjects, such as word problems in math. Reading First trains elementary school teachers to be teachers of reading, something that isn’t always taught in schools of education. Eleven schools in Providence participate in this voluntary program.
With the NECAP, one of the biggest challenges is persuading students to take the tests seriously, because the assessments don’t count toward a grade, nor do students receive credit if they reach proficiency. Savvy schools like Feinstein, however, come up with a host of creative strategies to get students to pay attention.
This fall, Feinstein held pep rallies before school began and the fifth graders came up with their own chant, which sounds like this:
“Hey students, can you do it?’
“Do what?”
“The NECAP?”
“No way.”
“Beat the NECAP!”
“OK”
Using model questions, teachers drilled students on the material they would encounter on the test, however Riley emphasized, the practice tests were incorporated into regular classroom instruction. In other words, teachers weren’t simply teaching to the test, a common criticism of the recent national emphasis on testing.
Students were also trained how to prepare for the test. Teachers explained testing strategy: for example, if you reach a question you don’t understand, move on and go back to it. Or, as one fifth grader said yesterday, “Take time to reflect on the question.”
Students were given homework assignments, including fill-in-the-bubble tests and their parents received worksheets to help their children become familiar with the questions. Signs posted around the school advised students to “Relax and count to ten,” and “Get a good night’s sleep.”
Even the younger students were brought into the act. Faculty members urged students in first and second grade to be kind to their older classmates and to walk quietly when the testing was taking place.
As Riley said, “It was a total team effort.”
When the scores came in, Riley made sure there was a schoolwide celebration. Children who performed well received certificates from the principal during an assembly and the one class that had 100 percent attendance, Room 303, got a pizza party.
“This wouldn’t have happened without the teachers,” Riley said. “They are so committed. They’re here before school and after school.”
Yesterday, Riley asked a handful of fifth graders why the NECAP is important:
“It shows what we’ve learned over the years,” said one student.
“Most of us were at the bottom and now we’re almost achieving a perfect score.”
“It shows what we need to work on.”
Students expressed a mixture of excitement and curiosity about Spellings’ arrival. The secretary of education will be joined by Governor Carcieri, Sen. Jack Reed, Mayor David N. Cicilline, Supt. Donnie Evans and others.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet the secretary of education,” said Luis Molina, 11.
“It’s astounding that we get to meet her in real life,” Michael Jimenez said. “She runs No Child Left Behind.”
Hope High still in transition
Posted Wednesday, February 13, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — No one disputes the fact that Hope High School has made tremendous progress since state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters intervened four years ago. Now the question is whether the district has the ability to sustain the improvement.
“There is no disagreement about the excellent work done here,” McWalters said. “We have something here that we need to both support and replicate, but, at the same time, we have to support the core mission of the district.”
The dilemma is this: How do you balance the district’s need to ratchet up the quality of all high schools without sacrificing Hope in the process?
That tension was evident during yesterday’s show-cause hearing on whether Hope High School should remain under the authority of McWalters’ intervention order or whether the school should be returned to the district’s control.
While many of yesterday’s speakers cloaked their true feelings about the potential loss of state oversight, Providence Teachers’ Union President Steve Smith didn’t mince words. Unless the district is held accountable, he said, Hope will regress and the progress made to date will be in vain.
“We need your help,” he told McWalters. “Your office must maintain a level of support and oversight that will force the Providence School Board and the administration to keep its promises. To do otherwise would be a mistake of monumental proportions.”
But Supt. Donnie Evans asked McWalters to weigh the needs of one school against the needs of many. He also noted that the climate has changed dramatically since the intervention order was issued. In 2004, only one school, Hope, was classified by the state as being in corrective action. Now, the entire district is eligible for state intervention under state and federal law.
“One of the issues,” McWalters said, “is the degree to which the district can support Hope at a time when the district is trying to move the entire system.”
Evans made it clear that his mission was to create a common core of standards across the district’s 11 high schools. He said that the district needs to create a uniform curriculum and set of graduation standards before it can fully support the work of site-based schools — smaller, theme-based schools that operate with much more autonomy than larger comprehensive high schools such as Classical and Mount Pleasant.
But McWalters, on more than one occasion, said he was reluctant to turn his attention away from Hope, even though the district’s other high schools are in serious need of a similar intervention. And he acknowledged that Hope High School benefited from additional financial support, resources that neither the state nor the district has to devote to the city’s other highs schools.
Other individuals spoke of the important role that the state played in getting Hope to where it is today. It was McWalters who insisted on a new leadership team, who ordered the school to break into three smaller learning communities and who demanded that the school forge meaningful relationships with students, parents and community partners.
During the past three years, Hope has undergone a transformation from chaos to order, from a school where students felt lost to a school where they feel respected. Hope has created student advisories to promote stronger ties between student and faculty, created individual learning plans that spell out each student’s academic, social and career goals and forged vital partnerships with several area colleges, including the Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island College and Johnson & Wales University.
The school’s faculty has revamped its curricula, created teacher-led study groups and begun to build stronger relationships with parents where there once was none.
Last spring, Hope High School was removed from the warning list and received full accreditation from the prestigious New England Association of Schools and Colleges. At the time, only one other Providence high school, Classical, had the same accreditation.
Yesterday, principals and teachers argued that the high school was able to turn itself around precisely because of the state’s intervention order. One of the reasons why Hope has been so successful, they said, is because the faculty has remained untouched by the annual round of layoffs, which can wreak havoc with school culture.
Some slippage has already occurred, according to some faculty. Because Hope was over-enrolled this summer, the school had to abandon its plan to create separate schedules for each learning academy, which undermined efforts to create three distinct high schools for arts, technology and leadership.
Because Hope has been given the authority to create its own schedule, teachers meet regularly to discuss student work and the entire school meets once a week to talk about global issues, a rarity in the district’s large high schools. Becky Coustan, the school’s head coach, wondered whether common planning time would continue without the state’s intervention order.
Hope has devoted considerable resources to develop portfolios of student work as part of the state’s new graduation requirements. Now, that work may be undermined because the district has decided to adopt a senior project, a new graduation requirement for all of the high schools.
According to Mary Ann Davidson, the school’s director of guidance, “If Hope is no longer under a state order, I’m afraid that advisories would disappear.”
“Is Hope a site-based school or not?” said Paul Sproll, the director of teacher education at RISD and a longtime partner. “The school believes that it is. But it needs a clear direction from the district. This ambiguity needs to come to a halt.”
At the end of the three-hour hearing, McWalters praised principals, teachers and students for undertaking a Herculean task.
“There are wonderful, wonderful things going on here,” he said. “But we’ve got to resolve this issue: What do I do to position the district to expand on what’s happening here? These kinds of schools are hard to grow.”
McWalters concluded by saying that the issues raised in the hearing are more challenging than those raised four years ago when the state was trying to figure out if it should take over the failing school.
“This is much harder,’ he said. “There is much more at stake now.”
600 teachers get pink slips; most will be rehired
Posted Tuesday, February 12, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — More than 600 teachers received pink slips in the mail last week, although the vast majority will be rehired in the spring, after the School Department works through the labyrinthine seniority system known as bumping.
In fact, only 66 teaching positions will be eliminated, more than half from the middle schools, where there has been a decline in student enrollment, according to Tomas Hanna, deputy superintendent of operations. Approximately 12 positions will be cut at the elementary level and 17 will be taken from the high schools.
At the elementary level, the staff cuts will be made by consolidating several English as a Second Language and bilingual education classes, which have only 8 to 10 students per class. At the high school level, the department will eliminate double periods of literacy and math at Central and Mount Pleasant, Hanna said.
At last night’s School Board meeting, a couple of members asked how the elimination of 66 jobs leads to 621 layoff notices, an unpleasant rite of passage that occurs every year as Providence tries to balance enrollments with adequate staffing. Last year, almost 700 teachers received pink slips before the March 1 notification deadline set by state law.
Although the pink slips are demoralizing, school officials say that their hands are tied. If the district doesn’t send out enough layoff notices, it can’t, by law, cut those positions later in the school year. Some of the layoffs are pink slips in name only. Approximately 113 are athletic coaches who traditionally have one-year contracts. The same is true of long-term substitutes.
What complicates matters is a seniority system that requires the most senior teacher to displace or bump someone with less seniority. In the past, small site-based high schools, those with the supposed authority to hire their own teaching staff, have lost a third or more of their teachers because of seniority. That experience can wreak havoc with a school leader’s attempt to build school culture.
But it doesn’t stop there. This year, 40 teachers have resigned and their positions were filled by substitute teachers. Now those positions have to be filled with permanent staff.
Seventeen teachers took unpaid leaves; now that they are returning, the district has to provide them with permanent jobs, which will displace the teachers currently in those positions, which leads to further bumping and so on down the line.
Hanna gave the following example of how bumping works: the district has to let go six English teachers. To reach that end, the department would actually have to give layoff notices to 42 teachers.
Supt. Donnie Evans last night said he doesn’t like letting go of one-third of the district’s teachers any more than the union does. Union members turned out in force last night to express their discontent with the leadership of the superintendent and School Board President Mary McClure.
“It’s an archaic exercise,” he said. “And the sooner we can remove that practice, the better. We are engaged in conversations [with the teachers’ union] that will lead to the end of that practice.”
Although the department hopes to return most of the 600 teachers to the schools in which they currently teach, in the past, bumping has often resulted in significant disruptions to teachers and their students.
Teachers set up picket line, call for change in leadership
Posted Tuesday, February 12, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
Members of the executive board of the Providence Teachers Union and teachers hold informational picketing in front of the School Administration Building to demonstrate their unhappiness with the leadership of Supt. Donnie Evans and School Board President Mary McClure yesterday afternoon.
The Providence Journal / Kris Craig
PROVIDENCE — Carrying signs that said, “A Blizzard of Blunders” and “Stop the Nightmare,” nearly 50 members of the Providence Teachers Union, picketed the School Administration Building yesterday afternoon.
“Enough is enough,” said PTU President Steven Smith. “This is about two years of ineffective leadership.”
Smith said that the union’s executive board voted last week to hold a series of informational pickets, beginning with last night’s emergency School Board meeting, which was scheduled to begin as the picketing ended. Teachers will also be asked to take a vote of no confidence in the leadership of Supt. Donnie Evans and School Board President Mary McClure on or about March 13. The union, however, does not plan to ask teachers to work to rule, a condition under which faculty only fulfill the letter of the law when it comes to their jobs.
The union action comes as no surprise. Teachers and principals have been expressing their dissatisfaction with Evans’ leadership for the past two years, citing poor communication, a lack of support and no clear sense of direction. Those issues were compounded by two recent events: the Dec. 13 snowstorm, which left 60 busloads of students stranded for hours, and the W-2 mistake, in which the School Department failed to take out enough Social Security and Medicare taxes from teachers’ paychecks. The department made good on the total amount of the deductions owed the government and will be reimbursed by taking more from employee paychecks over the next few months.
“This is global,” said Bethany Beretta, a first-grade teacher at Nathanael Greene Middle School, which went without a principal for two months this winter. “There has been a lack of leadership, a lack of direction and a lack of accountability.”
Evans, in a prepared statement, said that he values the dedication and hard work of each teacher, but he said that the district must focus on improving student performance.
“In order to accomplish this goal, we must do things differently,” he said. “The old ways of doing business in this district are simply not working.”
Evans also said that he and the board remain committed to negotiating a “forward-looking” teachers contact that will put children first.
According to Smith, Evans and McClure have made a number of missteps during the superintendent’s first three years in office, from the surprise decision to close the popular West Broadway Elementary School to the decision to increase the size of special education classes last summer to close the budget gap. Teachers and parents felt they were blindsided by these decisions and complained that neither was made in the best interest of students.
Yesterday, several teachers from Carl G. Lauro Elementary School on Kenyon Street in Federal Hill complained that their classrooms were frigid, with temperatures in the upper-40s. How, they asked, can we work under these conditions? Another teacher complained that Evans seems unapproachable, adding that his colleagues feel adrift in a sea of new and sometimes conflicting mandates.
“We want to see issues that are important to students and teachers at the forefront: discipline, school safety, the condition of the buildings, the restoration of art and music,” Smith said.
Smith said that the picketing has nothing to do with the fact that the teachers union is still without a contract, six months after the original agreement expired. The teachers are currently working under the terms of their previous contract.
“Teachers feel that these things are not going to get better,” he said, “and they want their voices to be heard collectively.”
The teachers aren’t the only group unhappy with Evans’ leadership. In the wake of the school bus transportation problem in December, five members of the City Council signed a resolution asking for Evans’ dismissal but later backed down after a strong lobbying effort by Mayor David N. Cicilline. Meanwhile, the School Board has until Feb. 19 to let Evans know whether he will receive a new contract this year.
School workers get unpleasant news with W-2 forms
Posted Tuesday, February 5, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — More than 2,200 teachers and administrators got a shock when they received their W-2 forms last week. The School Department had failed to deduct the full amount of FICA payments for the previous year.
The department plans to send to the Internal Revenue Service the amount needed to cover the miscalculation and then be repaid by collecting from each affected employee over several months.
According to Providence Teachers Union President Stephen Smith, the average teacher will have to repay between $300 and $400, while the average administrator will have to return approximately $700. Smith said this is just one more reason why teachers are losing faith in the administration of Supt. Donnie Evans. FICA stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act, which finances Social Security and Medicare.
School Department spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly attributed the miscalculation to a computer or programming glitch in the human resources system, which was discovered when the W-2s were sent out at the beginning of last week. She said that the School Department on Wednesday sent out a computerized phone message to teachers and administrators notifying them of the problem.
The department sent out a letter on Friday that explains how much money each employee owes and how it will be paid back. The money will be taken out of each person’s paycheck over the remainder of the year.
According to O’Reilly, a teacher who earns $50,000 a year owes $363 in back taxes, which translates into a bi-monthly deduction of $17.30. Only those School Department employees who pay into the state retirement plan are affected by this error, O’Reilly said
First teacher council meeting focuses on communication
Posted Thursday, January 31, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Last fall, Supt. Donnie Evans did something bold: he wrote a letter of apology to the district’s 2,000 teachers in which he acknowledged that the district’s number-one problem was a lack of communication.
At the time, Evans said he recognized that teachers were feeling frustrated and that morale was low. To correct that imbalance, Evans promised to create a teacher council to advise him on faculty issues and concerns.
Tuesday night more than three dozen teachers met with Evans for the first time. The council is as diverse as the district’s schools — 45 teachers, one from every public school in the city. The representatives were selected by their peers, or, in some cases, the local School Improvement Team. The council, which also has union representation, is the first and most comprehensive organization of its kind in the district in many years, according to School Department spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly.
The purpose of the council is two-fold: to allow teachers to give Evans feedback about what they’re seeing and feeling and to allow the superintendent to regularly float proposals with a cross-section of teachers.
“In my experience,” Evans said, “teachers, as front-line staff, provide a wealth of input and direction. It is my hope in bringing this team together that I will hear honest and frank feedback from the teachers who spend every day with our students.”
Kim White, a teacher at Roger Williams Middle School, said she was pleased with the way the superintendent took time to listen to each teacher’s concerns, which kept returning to the issue that Evans brought up in his letter: morale.
“People were saying that morale is not good in Providence,” White said. “People are overwhelmed with all of the new initiatives.”
The No Child Left Behind Act, the sweeping federal reform law, has been a double-edged sword for teachers. While it has pressured schools to identify which student subgroups are not performing, it has also stigmatized some schools as low-performing, a label that some teachers say is unnecessarily harsh.
“We try not to label our kids,” White said, “and yet our schools are being labeled as low-performing.”
The council also discussed ways in which outstanding teachers could be rewarded, including a Teacher of the Year program. Evans said that he wants to restore the district’s practice of sending a Providence teacher to the statewide Teacher of the Year committee, which picks someone to represent Rhode Island in the national program.
Evans also discussed the need to burnish the district’s image by getting word out about the good stories in the schools.
After the meeting, White said she was optimistic about Evans’ commitment to making sure that teachers have an opportunity to provide feedback on district policies. The Roger Williams faculty members have already given White a list of questions for the superintendent.
“My hope is that this is an avenue for teachers to voice their concerns and ask questions,” White said. “It’s a starting point to open communications.”
Audit will target whether district meets its needs
Posted Tuesday, January 29, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Why don’t the Providence schools have a consistent curriculum? Why do textbooks used for core subjects vary from one high school to another? And why does each high school have its own set of graduation requirements?
These are just a few of the questions that Phi Delta Kappa International, based in Indiana, will attempt to answer during its exhaustive evaluation of the district’s curricula.
According to Sharon Contreras, the School Department chief of academics, the audit, which costs $106,900, will determine whether the district has the capacity to deliver a consistent curriculum. Although the district adopted scope and sequence 10 years ago, no one has studied whether this system matches state and national standards that were adopted more recently.
Scope and sequence spells out what skills students should master at certain grade levels. But school officials don’t know if the plan fits well with the state’s new assessment, the New England Common Assessment Program, which was jointly developed with two other New England states.
“Most curriculums are revisited every six years,” Contreras told a recent meeting of the High School Steering Committee. “The audit will ask, ‘Is the curriculum there? Is it any good? Is it equitable? Are advanced placement courses offered at every high school?’ ”
The audit team will visit dozens of classrooms and review hundreds of documents, including School Board policies, budgets, curriculum guides, state reports and any other pieces of information that reveal how well the curricula is working.
The end result will be a 200-page document that will be presented to the School Board and Supt. Donnie Evans in approximately three months. The state Department of Education is paying for the evaluation with federal funds, school officials said.
At the high school meeting, Patrick McGuigan, executive director of The Providence Plan, asked why the department was tackling the evaluation now.
“We don’t have an instructional plan for the district,” Contreras told him. “One hundred and seventy districts have engaged in this process. This hasn’t been done by this city.”
Rick Landau, the former principal of the Textron Chamber of Commerce Academy, questioned why the district needed to spend money on an audit when it already knows the answers.
“Why not spend the money on the curriculum,” he said, “instead of spending the money on what you already know.”
Evans explained that the School Department needs an outside expert to weigh in on the district’s weaknesses and lack of uniformity.
“One of the issues is credibility,” he said. “A panel of experts saying, ‘Here’s what you need to address’ goes a lot further than one individual saying this.”
According to Evans, it’s also important for the district to collect baseline information (What does the curriculum teach? Where are the gaps? Does the curriculum conform to grade-level expectations?) as part of the district’s state-ordered corrective action plan. Last winter, Peter McWalters, the state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, told Evans to produce a detailed plan for improving the district’s lowest-performing schools or face possible state intervention. According to the federal No Child Left Behind law, the entire district is listed as being in need of corrective action because students at a significant number of schools have failed to make adequate progress on standardized tests.
In addition, a dozen schools are classified as in need of restructuring, which means that their students haven’t made adequate academic progress for four, and, in some cases, five years.
Evans’ plan calls for introducing a new math curriculum for struggling students in elementary and middle schools and a new algebra readiness program in schools that face corrective action sanctions. At the middle school level, the plan calls for the creation of student advisories, common planning time for teachers and a new 90-minute block of intensive reading for low-performing readers.
In addition, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, based at Brown University, is conducting a review of the School Department’s central office to determine if the administration has the capacity to carry out its various responsibilities.
At the high school meeting, Nkoli Onye, the principal of the Providence Academy of International Studies, said the curriculum audit is long overdue.
“Scope and sequence is not a curriculum,” she said. “How can we implement end-of-course exams when people aren’t teaching the same curriculum? Right now, there is no place to find out what is the right science textbook.”
As part of its review, the audit team will interview School Board members, the superintendent, other top administrators, principals and some classroom teachers and parents. It will visit as many schools as time permits. And Phi Delta Kappa will also meet with three focus groups, including parents, teachers and community leaders, who will be asked whether the district is meeting their expectations for programs and services.
Lack of raises spurs school budget approval
Posted Friday, January 25, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — School Supt. Donnie Evans got his budget approved last night but not before the City Council Finance Committee wrung some concessions from the school district.
The $314.3-million school budget does not include salary increases, a move that members of the council had been demanding for some time. According to Mark Dunham, the district’s chief financial officer, the School Department withdrew several raises based on staff promotions for a savings of $250,000.
That effort satisfied the Finance Committee, which quickly ratified the budget with hardly any criticism or inquiries. In fact, a new spirit of accommodation prevailed at yesterday’s Finance Committee meeting, with Chairman John Igliozzi praising Evans for holding the line against budget increases during a time of fiscal austerity.
“The School Department graciously agreed not to give anyone raises,” Igliozzi said. “It would have been the wrong message to send to the State House. We are all doing our part. We are all tightening our belts to get through this financial crisis.”
During the brief discussion, Igliozzi pointedly asked Evans if any raises based on promotions were included in the budget and Evans said no. The school budget does, however, include several new positions, but they are funded by federal money and called for by state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters because the school district is under corrective action, which gives McWalters the authority to require that the district make certain reforms.
Since last summer, the City Council had told the School Department that salary increases were unacceptable at a time when the city was keeping the lid on wage increases. As a result, the School Department has been operating since July under the terms of last year’s budget.
The relationship between the council and the School Department only worsened after last month’s snowstorm left 60 busloads of students stranded on area roads for hours, prompting some council members to call for Evans’ removal. (They backed down after Mayor David N. Cicilline made a strong case to allow the School Board to complete its evaluation of Evans.)
Two weeks ago, Igliozzi accused the department of ignoring the Finance Committee’s repeated requests for additional information about school salaries and the district’s organizational structure. Evans complied with those requests early last week and the Finance Committee held a hearing on the budget on Thursday.
Last night, Igliozzi said his committee was successful in convincing the School Department of the severity of the city and state financial crisis. Evans and his administration saw “the reasonableness of our request,” Igliozzi said.
“I’m pleased that the School Department was willing to work with the City Council,” he said. “The council is willing to work with everyone. But we need to be fully informed.”
Superintendent’s critic is leading drive to support him
Posted Friday, January 25, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — One of the superintendent’s harshest critics has launched a petition drive to demonstrate parents’ support for Donnie Evans, who has come under fire for the busing crisis during last month’s snowstorm.
Osiris Harrell told the School Board last night that he has gathered 100 signatures from parents who support Evans’ efforts to improve student performance and communicate better with parents and other members of the community.
“It’s important that our children have consistency,” Harrell told the board. “Every time you bring in someone new, that consistency is lost. This man has done great things. We feel confident that he will continue to be willing to hear us.”
Harrell said he decided to solicit parent support after Evans took a beating from the City Council in the wake of the Dec. 13 snowstorm, which left more than 100 students trapped on school buses for hours. Some members of the council called for Evans’ resignation but they were persuaded to let the School Board finish its evaluation of the superintendent.
Last night, Harrell said that the drumbeat of criticism of Evans was motivated by politics and personalities, not by the superintendent’s job performance. He said that the superintendent has made a heartfelt effort to inform and involve parents in policy decisions and has made a decided improvement in the rigor of the curriculum.
“Hands off Dr. Evans,” he told the school board. “And Dr. Evans, let your focus be on the children and the parents.”
However, Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union, had harsh words for the way Evans treated one of his top employees, Deputy Supt. Tomas Hanna. Hanna was suspended without pay for 30 days for his role in the school bus debacle, and the city’s emergency management director Leo Messier was fired.
“You sent a clear message that if it’s politically convenient, you will throw someone under the bus,” Smith said to Evans. “There is no credibility. We have classes in terrible condition and schools that are unsafe.”
The union is in the midst of protracted contract negotiations with the School Board and both parties have called in a mediator to help them reach an agreement.
Finance panel offers suggestions on budget, but delays approval
Posted Friday, January 18, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The City Council Finance Committee did not approve the School Department’s budget last night, despite a warning last week from state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters that further delays could jeopardize $3 million in federal aid.
The School Department has been operating since July under the terms of the 2006-2007 budget because the Finance Committee demanded more information about salaries and new positions before it approved the 2007-2008 budget, which the School Board passed in October.
The budget has become part of the ongoing feud between the School Board and the council that surfaced after the Dec. 13 snowstorm, which stranded more than 60 busloads of students for hours. The council was infuriated by the School Department’s handling of the storm and some members initially called for Supt. Donnie Evans’s resignation but backed down after a strong lobbying effort by Mayor David N. Cicilline.
City Council Finance Committee Chairman John Igliozzi said last week that the School Department has been stonewalling the council by failing to respond to several requests for more information on the department’s organizational chart, including the responsibilities and salaries of each person on that chart.
Evans said, however, that his office had complied with the Finance Committee’s requests, chalking up the problem to a misunderstanding.
Last night, Igliozzi said that Evans had provided the information in question on Monday.
“I promised to expedite the matter,” Igliozzi said, “and that’s why we’re here today.”
The Finance Committee, which started 20 minutes late and broke up 15 minutes early, spent an hour questioning school officials about the $314-million school budget, focusing mostly on the cost of busing students, which totals more than $1 million.
Councilman Kevin Jackson suggested that the department no longer buy RIPTA bus passes for high school students because he said that many of those students receive passes through another state agency.
“Maybe parents should be responsible for picking children up from after-school programs,” said Councilman Nicholas Narducci, adding that he sees too many school buses that are only half-full.
Several councilmen said they would like to see a return to the concept of neighborhood schools. In 1991, Providence adopted a limited choice plan that allows parents to choose where their child goes to school, with a certain percentage of seats reserved for neighborhood children.
“Has anyone come up with a plan to eliminate busing in favor of neighborhood schools?” Councilman Terrance M. Hassett said. “You guys ought to take a crack at it.”
Igliozzi suggested that parents carpool to bring their children to school:
“Do we have to bus everyone?” he said. “Why don’t we ask parents to take more responsibility in their child’s education?”
Evans explained that his department is about to evaluate the entire student assignment plan, with an eye to reducing busing costs. He also said that any student assignment plan has to be approved by the Rhode Island Department of Education, adding that Providence operates under a voluntary desegregation plan. School Board member Robert Wise said the board is looking at changing the percentage of neighborhood children permitted to attend each school, but this will not eliminate the need for busing.
Members of the council also questioned Mark Dunham, the school’s chief financial officer, about the rising cost of special education tuition, which totaled $700,000 this year, an increase of 4.1 percent. Evans said that the district has hired a private consultant to analyze the cost of special education services and said that the district is trying to care for more children in-house.
Council members also wondered why Providence should have to pick up the tab for busing private school students to school. Public school districts also pay for the cost of nurses at private schools and some textbooks at private schools. In Providence, the cost of private school busing and textbooks adds up to $3 million.
Finally, Jackson asked if the School Department could apply for a waiver from the state that would exempt the district from paying for charter schools. Dunham said that the district pays only 20 percent of the cost, with the state picking up the rest of the tuition, but Jackson countered that the state should cover the entire cost.
Charter schools, however, are public schools that serve public school students. Providence actually saves money when public school students attend charter schools because the state picks up the lion’s share of the expense.
Dunham concluded his presentation by warning that the district’s financial future is dire. Without an increase in state or local aid, he estimated a budget deficit of $15.1 million for fiscal 2008-09 and a shortfall of $28.2 million for the following year.
Adding to the grim news, Governor Carcieri announced yesterday that he wants to make dramatic cuts in this year’s budget to address a $151-million budget deficit. That translates into a $2.9-million cut for Providence.
“Maybe, we need to redefine what our core programs are,” Igliozzi said. ‘We couldn’t raise taxes high enough to satisfy what you’re looking at.”
Members of the Finance Committee postponed action on the school budget last night because they didn’t have time to review two other budget proposals that dealt with school personnel and wages. The Finance Committee wanted to meet again next Thursday, but the School Board has scheduled a meeting for that evening.
No date has been set for the next hearing on the school budget.
New call center for schools tested by storm
Posted Wednesday, January 16, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The School Department’s new call center worked smoothly during Monday’s snowstorm, a school spokeswoman said yesterday.
The center, established in the wake of the Dec. 13 snowstorm that stranded school buses for hours, was lightly used on Monday because the School Department had already notified parents about the cancellation of school through a computerized phone system called Connect-Ed.
Only a handful of parents called the center, which was staffed on Monday from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. by members of the district’s parent engagement office.
The call center opened earlier this month to give parents one-stop shopping when they have questions about buses or school closings during a weather emergency. Last month, Mayor David N. Cicilline fired his emergency management director and suspended for 30 days the School Department’s deputy superintendent of operations because of the breakdown in communications between the city and the schools and the schools, the bus company and parents.
Cicilline spelled out several measures that he wanted the School Department to take to prevent last month’s busing debacle from happening again. One of them required Supt. Donnie Evans to establish a hotline to address parents’ questions during a school emergency.
The hotline number is (401) 456-0686.
Education commissioner warns district on budget
Posted Friday, January 11, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Saying that more than $3 million in federal money is in jeopardy, state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters urged the City Council and Mayor David N. Cicilline to approve the School Department’s $314-million budget or face the consequences.
In a letter sent Monday to the mayor and the council, McWalters reminded them that the state placed the school district under corrective action in February because the district has a large number of low-performing schools. In response to a directive from McWalters, School Supt. Donnie Evans developed a number of plans to improve student performance, especially at middle schools.
As part of his response, Evans must give the commissioner quarterly updates on the status of his reforms and any barriers to the plan’s implementation. According to McWalters, the district, in its Dec. 7 update, said that there were continued delays in the implementation of several aspects of the corrective action plan, including the reorganization of the superintendent’s cabinet, as well as some staff job description and hiring matters. McWalters called those delays unacceptable:
“I need to impress upon you the regulatory and fiscal implications for the continued lack of implementation of the approved district corrective action plan,” he wrote. “While the school district has spent considerable time redesigning the central office organization, it has yet to implement these functions so that there is sufficient capacity to lead, monitor and implement the ambitious activities that are necessary to improve student performance.”
McWalters also pointed out the School Department’s need to improve communication between the district, parents and members of the community.
The School Department has taken a beating this past year over several breakdowns in communication, most recently the lack of information during the stranding of more than 100 students on school buses while their parents waited for word of their children’s whereabouts during the Dec. 13 snow storm.
“I am sure we all understand the need to improve communication among the school district, parents and the community,” he wrote. “I understand that failures to implement these corrective actions are caused by delays at the city level, and in particular, the review by the City Council. I am urging each of you to do everything possible to support the district’s implementation of these specific activities.”
The School Department has been operating since the beginning of the fiscal year in July on the fiscal 2006-2007 budget because the City Council has not approved the new school budget.
The department and the council’s Finance Committee are at odds over information the committee is seeking on salaries and new jobs in the department.
In an interview yesterday, Cicilline said that he has asked members of his administration to work with the City Council to expedite passage of the school budget.
“There is no good explanation for that budget having languished in the City Council,” he said. “The reality is that what the people in this city expect is for the budget to be passed so we do not lose any of our federal resources for our schools. The budget must be passed and I’ve called on the council to do it.”
City Council Finance Committee Chairman John Igliozzi blames the School Department for the budget impasse. Evans, however, says the budget deadlock is the result of a misunderstanding over what information the Finance Committee wanted. He claims that the School Department has tried to comply with the council’s request, adding that the level of detail requested by the council is time-consuming.
Meanwhile, McWalters said that the council’s failure to act might jeopardize the future status of more than $22 million in federal Title I funds, which provide aid to districts with large numbers of children living in poverty.
“The Providence school district is failing to fully and evenly spend down the fiscal 2008 Title I allocation,” McWalters wrote, “placing Providence in grave jeopardy for a loss of over $3 million in federal funds in the current year alone. Given the current state of fiscal conditions in Rhode Island, we cannot afford to put at risk any federal resources that are available.”
Yesterday, Igliozzi stuck by his argument, saying that he would not move forward on the school budget until the School Department provides the information the council wants.
“Once the council receives the information, we’ll move as quickly as possible,” Igliozzi said. “The sad part is it took the action of Commissioner McWalters for the School Department to finally start cooperating with the simple and reasonable request of the City Council.”
Asked about the corrective action plan, Igliozzi said he would be reluctant to approve anything until certain questions have been answered.
“We don’t know what the corrective action plan means,” he said yesterday. “Does it mean that when the federal funding dries up, the Providence taxpayers have to pay for the jobs? Does federal funding cover the salaries but not the benefits? People have the right to know what they are paying for and who’s paying.”
Council to form panel to probe storm problems
Posted Friday, January 11, 2008
By Daniel Barbarisi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — For what might be the first time, the City Council is preparing to use its investigative authority and issue subpoenas to secure records and question members of the Cicilline administration as it tries to document exactly who knew what, and when, during the Dec. 13 snowstorm that crippled the city.
Last night, at a freewheeling meeting that included speakerphone calls to track down Mayor David N. Cicilline’s chief of staff — and the accusation by the city’s internal auditor that the Cicilline administration is intentionally obstructing his ability to secure city records — the council’s Finance Committee voted to create a three-person independent review board to investigate the response to the storm.
The chairman of the Finance Committee, John J. Igliozzi, would have subpoena power to procure documents and testimony for the review board.
“This is a precedent-setting event. It’s never happened before. Never,” Igliozzi said. “This is the first time ever that the Providence City Council is invoking its investigative power and subpoena authority.”
The board would be composed of three unpaid members selected from outside city government. They would be given $5,000 to hire experts and reimburse their expenses,and report back within 60 days. The full council will need to approve the board’s creation at its meeting next Thursday, but the independent review is expected to have the support of both the council’s majority and minority factions, and should pass.
The council has been aggressive in trying to determine fault for mistakes made during the Dec. 13 storm. As a result of that afternoon snowfall, school children were stranded in traffic on more than 60 city buses late into the night and council members have been trying to determine whether it was due to negligence. Once the city police were notified at roughly 8:30 p.m., they drove to each bus and took the children off. As a result, Emergency Management Agency Director Leo Messier was fired and Deputy Supt. Tomas Hanna was suspended without pay for 30 days.
They have directed much of their ire at Supt. Donnie Evans. A push to pass a resolution demanding Evans’ resignation failed to come to a vote last week, but council members continue to seek ways to press the issue,
The council had previously instructed Internal Auditor James J. Lombardi to obtain the e-mail correspondence and telephone records from city and school officials the evening of the storm. But Lombardi’s efforts have been halted, he said, by the efforts of Deborah Brayton, Cicilline’s chief of staff.
“There is a pattern and practice of preventing myself and [Igliozzi] from obtaining information in a timely fashion,” Lombardi said.
“They are attempting to undermine my office’s ability to obtain documents and be helpful to the City Council. They are violating the code of ordinances by interfering with my office’s obtaining direct access to records,” he concluded.
Lombardi said that he sought records from the city administration, the School Department and the police. The city’s information technology staff told him that “Deb Brayton, the chief of staff, was holding up the request,” he said.
“This is the public’s information. Is someone ever going to get that in this administration?” said Councilman John J. Lombardi, who initially made the call for an independent investigation.
Cicilline said last night that he does not have a problem with another review, but that he wants to move past the issue.
“Even though my administration has already taken numerous action steps in response to the Dec. 13 storm, we will certainly assist the City Council in another review of the storm should the council vote to do so,” he said. “But let’s be clear — city government has a lot of work to do and it is critically important that we focus on the difficult challenges ahead, such as pension reform, passing the school budget and the ramifications of a $450-million state budget deficit.”
The council’s Finance Committee had asked Brayton and Kim Rose, the School Department’s chief communications officer, to attend last night’s meeting and testify about their actions the night of the storm. Rose attended, but Brayton did not.
The meeting was delayed as Igliozzi tried unsuccessfully to track her down. Then, Igliozzi asked that Stephanie Federico, the ranking member of the Cicilline administration at the meeting, to give the city clerk Brayton’s city cell phone number.
Federico provided the number, and Igliozzi called it on speakerphone during the meeting.
The committee room was silent as the call rang out on the speaker.
The call went to Brayton’s voice mailbox.
“Hmm. She must not be available,” Igliozzi said in a deliberate tone. “I think it’s very concerning that one of the individuals who played an integral part in that day is not responding.”
The committee did interview Rose, who testified that she had learned that there were problems with the busing at 6:30 p.m., when she received a call from a concerned parent, but she did not know the widespread nature of the problem at the time. She then called Hanna to discuss that one child, but the conversation did not touch on larger issues.
She became more conscious of the scale of the problem at roughly 7 p.m., when she began receiving media inquiries about the busing situation. A little before 7:30 p.m., she called Hanna back, and after asking him specific questions, learned the scope of the problem. At around 7:30 p.m., she said she called Evans to alert him to the situation.
After her testimony, several council members said that Rose was clearly not at fault for the situation, and that they still want to bring Evans to the table.
“I think we have the wrong person in front of us,” Councilman Nicholas J. Narducci said.
Hassett says that he was ‘hoodwinked’ by McClure
Posted Wednesday, January 9, 2008
By Daniel Barbarisi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — City Council Majority Leader Terrence M. Hassett is claiming that he was “hoodwinked” by School Board Chairwoman Mary McClure, after McClure publicly voiced support for embattled School Supt. Donnie Evans.
McClure’s comments came soon after the council shelved, at the request of McClure and Mayor David N. Cicilline, a resolution calling for Evans to step down.
The council had been ready to pass that resolution Thursday night, until Hassett and McClure had a lengthy conversation and McClure prevailed upon Hassett to allow for a month-long “cooling-off period” in which the School Board would evaluate Evans’ future.
After that, Hassett rerouted council votes to postpone voting on the ordinance at the last minute. “I requested that the City Council take no action on a critical resolution regarding the superintendent so that a ‘cooling-off’ period could exist, thus affording a measured response to the status of the superintendent,” Hassett said. “Now, just four days later, Ms. McClure announces that she supports the renewal of his contract. I got hoodwinked by a so-called non-politician.”
McClure, in an article in yesterday’s Providence Journal, praised Evans’ performance, but never actually stated that she would support renewing Evans’ contract.
“She didn’t say it, but that’s the way I read it, that she would be supporting him,” Hassett acknowledged. He called her comments a “betrayal of trust.”
McClure, when reached for comment yesterday, was traveling, and said, “I’m not prepared to respond.”
Hassett said that the council is now likely to revisit the Evans resolution and is also exploring stronger measures, though he would not say what those were.
Evans has taken heat from the City Council for his role in handling last month’s snowstorm, where city school children were stuck on school buses late into the night.
Evans’ contract expires later this year, and he must be told by Feb. 19 whether it will be renewed.
Later at the same meeting when the Evans resolution was considered, a split council voted to confirm McClure for another three-year term on the School Board. Hassett said that it seems as if McClure only wanted the council’s support on the confirmation
“Having this done right after the vote looks as though you get confirmed and then you do what you want to do,” he said.
Hassett said this worsens the flawed relationship between the School Board and the City Council.
Council still looking for info on school expenses
Posted Wednesday, January 9, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Six months after the start of the fiscal year, the City Council has yet to approve the school budget and the chairman of the council’s Finance Committee says it’s because the School Department has repeatedly failed to provide information on salaries and new positions.
“The City Council isn’t holding up their budget,” Finance Committee Chairman John J. Igliozzi said Monday. “The School Department has been recalcitrant in forwarding information about their proposed budget. They have been uncooperative. They’re stonewalling us.”
Igliozzi said he sent two letters to School Supt. Donnie Evans, one dated Nov. 26 and the second dated Jan. 2, requesting a copy of the school district’s organizational chart, including the positions, salaries and names of each person with an explanation of his or her duties. Igliozzi said he never received a response to his letters and accused the School Department of playing politics with the budget.
But Evans, who called the issue a big misunderstanding, says his office has been providing information to the city, including James Lombardi, the city’s internal auditor. Lombardi could not be reached for comment yesterday.
“Take my word for it,” Evans said. ‘With each request that came, we responded.”
Evans said his office began pulling together information before the holidays and said some of the council’s requests required extensive research.
“The requests that were made could not be put together on a moment’s notice,” he said. “When the initial request came, we thought we provided the information only to find out later that it wasn’t what they wanted.”
But Evans was not able to answer why — three months after the School Board approved a $314.3-million budget — his department had not satisfied the council’s requests.
“I can’t answer that,” Evans said. “We submitted the budget to the council quite some time ago. That’s really a question for the council.”
Evans said his office submitted a detailed package of material to the City Council yesterday, a day after The Providence Journal began inquiring about the budget, and said he plans to follow up on the submission with a call to the council’s office.
But Igliozzi said late yesterday afternoon that he still hasn’t received any information in response to his numerous requests:
“Our requests were clear, concise and reasonable,” he said. “On our part, there was no misunderstanding.”
Meanwhile, the School Department has been operating within the confines of last year’s $311-million budget, according to school Finance Director Mark Dunham. In an interview Monday, Dunham acknowledged that his office was asked to submit the information but it was never given to the council.
“The information was never given,” he said. “We should have given it. It was asked of us. I do think, for whatever reason, we were going to try and get the budget passed without having to provide the information.”
Evans emphasized that the budget snafu has not affected what goes on in the classroom. There have been no cuts in teaching staff or direct services to students as a result of the budget impasse, he said.
The budget situation has affected the district’s ability to fully implement state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters’ orders regarding schools under corrective action. Last January, McWalters ordered Evans to come up with a detailed plan for improving the city’s lowest-performing schools or face possible state intervention. Under that law, schools that fail to improve for four consecutive years face corrective action, ranging from changing the school’s leadership to hiring more staff.
In response, Evans promised to introduce new math and reading curricula, create common planning time for middle school teachers and introduce 90-minute blocks of reading for struggling middle school readers. His plan also called for hiring administrators to help rewrite the math and reading curricula and monitor the implementation of the new programs.
These positions have remained unfilled because of the budget deadlock. But Evans said that all of the school-level reforms have been put in place.
According to Igliozzi, the school budget initially ran into trouble because it proposed adding new positions or awarding salary increases at a time when the mayor and the council asked department heads to hold the line on raises for city employees.
“We said, ‘Please don’t submit a budget with pay raises and new jobs,’ ” Igliozzi said. “No one on the city side got any raises. Fiscal prudence was our main priority. We knew the State House was going to give us less money this year.”
The council was particularly annoyed when the School Board in November hired a new facilitator of communications at a salary of $68,000, even though the person was filling a vacancy left by Maria Tocco, who resigned in September.
Yesterday, Kim Rose, the district’s chief communications officer, explained that the school budget did not include raises for any senior staff.
According to Evans, there was a misunderstanding between the School Department and the council over a half-dozen administrative positions. These positions, he said, reflected a reshuffling of current staff rather than adding new people.
Janet Pichardo, for example, works in the parent engagement office as a facilitator. Under the proposed school budget, she would assume the director’s role, but the department hoped to save money by not filling her original position.
Council members want school chief ousted
Posted Thursday, January 3, 2008
By Daniel Barbarisi
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — The fallout from the Dec. 13 snowstorm continues to roil Providence City Hall, with a significant contingent of City Council members now calling for the resignation of Schools Supt. Donnie Evans for his role in a fiasco where school children were stuck on school buses well into the night.
Members of the all-Democratic council are also calling for an independent investigation of the city’s performance during the storm, and for the mayor to name a public safety commissioner, rather than performing the job himself.
Resolutions covering all of these topics will be introduced tonight at the council’s first meeting of the new year.
The resolution urging the mayor to jettison Evans is co-sponsored by five members from the council’s majority and minority factions, including de facto minority leader John J. Lombardi and council Majority Leader Terrence M. Hassett.
“The superintendent failed to address the safety of the schoolchildren once it was well known that a snowstorm was on the way,” Hassett said.
The Dec. 13 storm left the city’s roads snarled with traffic, and as a result, dozens of buses carrying schoolchildren were stranded in traffic as late as 9 p.m. In response, Mayor David N. Cicilline suspended Tomas Hanna, deputy school superintendent for operations, for 30 days and expressed his disappointment in Evans. The mayor also fired the city’s emergency management director, Leo Messier. The council held a public hearing days after the storm, when council members roundly criticized Evans for the events of that night.
Lombardi said that the real blame lies at Evans’ feet, not Hanna’s.
“I think that Tomas Hanna is definitely a scapegoat in this,” Lombardi said, adding that he felt the snow incident was the latest in a line of communication failures by Evans. “I think he really needs to go and that’s been consistent with the way he runs that department.”
The resolution has no binding effect, but it is a clear signal that the council at the very least does not want the superintendent’s contract renewed. Evans is in the final year of his deal, and he must be informed by February if his contract will be renewed or not.
Cicilline said he will consider Evans’ future on the job over the next month, but that the council needs to pull back and respect the process without letting politics pollute the outcome.
“There’s a process in place for the evaluation of our superintendent and a requirement that he be provided with notice of the district’s intention to renew his contract or not, in February,” Cicilline said.
“That’s how that decision must be made. Obviously the council’s free to pass resolutions, but the leadership of our district and the work that’s being done in our schools is too important to be subjected to that sort of political process.”
Evans did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.
Lombardi is also seeking an independent, outside investigation into the city’s performance during the storm, conducted by a respected, impartial official such as a retired judge, he said.
He is also asking for a report to the council from the city’s Department of Public Works detailing the number of trucks assigned to plow each ward, the types and numbers of trucks assigned to plow the city and their marching orders after the storm, including procedures on “rounding the corners/cleaning sidewalks and widening street openings at intersections,” according to the ordinance.
Lombardi was motivated by the perception that certain wards, including his on Federal Hill, were ignored in favor of other parts of the city.
“Absolutely. Certain wards were complaining that nary a plow went through. So we need to know what the order is and where the priorities are,” he said.
Lombardi said the city has conducted detailed studies of how to respond to snowstorms before — most recently, a 2004 report overseen by then-Chief of Operations Carol Grant — and has not made the changes recommended. The council has also passed resolutions pressing the Public Works Department to create additional protocols for snow removal.
“At this hearing that we had a couple weeks ago, I kept saying, this isn’t new stuff, this isn’t rocket science,” Lombardi said.
Hassett said an independent investigation may not be necessary; he said the council is analyzing data and testimony collected in the days following the storm. If that proves insufficient, then council leadership might back an independent investigation and its costs, he said.
But both council factions agree on the need to fill the vacant job of public safety commissioner, now held on an acting basis by Cicilline.
Hassett said that the presence of a public safety commissioner to coordinate the actions of various agencies during the storm might have helped the city to avert the crisis.
“There would have been a lot more coordination if there was an appointment of a public safety commissioner,” Hassett said. “The mayor shouldn’t be doing both jobs.”
Cicilline has acted as commissioner since taking office in 2003. He replaced former Lt. Gov. Thomas DiLuglio, who was put in place during acting Mayor Lombardi’s brief term.
Before leaving, DiLuglio wrote a report that criticized the commissioner’s office as a waste of money and an unnecessary level of bureaucracy. He recommended disbanding the office and letting the mayor fill the role, as allowed by City Charter.
Cicilline said yesterday that he’s willing to fill the job, but is considering combining it with the Emergency Management Agency directorship when that job is filled permanently to save money.
“It’s an opportunity to determine whether that person could both be public safety commissioner and director of EMA for the city, or whether that should be a separate and distinct position,” Cicilline said.
“I’m not opposed to it in concept, but I just think we ought to look at whether to do it in a combined way or separate.”
There are actually two resolutions calling for a public safety commissioner before the council tonight, one sponsored by Lombardi, Councilwoman Balbina A. Young and Councilman Luis Aponte, and another sponsored by the council’s eight-member majority.
The two are identical in purpose, and Lombardi said that the minority group’s resolution to fill the vacancy was filed first. After that, he said, the majority submitted its version, leading to a back-and-forth over whose would appear on the docket first and which side would get credit for the ordinance, he said.
“It’s really childish and infantile and it shows a lack of leadership,” Lombardi said.
Hassett said that the two could be consolidated, but that it’s likely that the majority ordinance would go through, because with eight co-sponsors, it already has the required majority.
“It could be consolidated. They both say basically the same thing,” he said.
School district opens hot line for parents
Posted Thursday, January 3, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — In the wake of problems resulting from the Dec. 13 snow storm, the School Department has established a call center where families can get answers to questions about bus transportation delays as well as other aspects of their child’s education.
Located at the parent engagement center behind the school administration building on Westminster Street, the center will begin with five phone lines, which will be staffed daily from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. The hours will be extended during a school emergency, like last month’s storm that left 60 school buses and scores of young students stranded for hours on the city’s gridlocked streets.
“The call center will provide a central point of contact that will allow us to track incoming calls and questions,” said School Department spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly. “In case of an emergency, that number will be kept active. This center will address the mayor’s recommendations and also serve a broader function.”
Last month, Mayor David N. Cicilline fired Leo Messier, his emergency management director, and suspended for 30 days Tomas Hanna, the School Department’s deputy superintendent of operations, because of what he called a complete breakdown in communications between the city and the schools and the bus company and the School Department.
Cicilline outlined what measures his office is taking to ensure that the bus problem doesn’t happen again. One of the requirements was for the School Department to establish a hot line to answer parents’ questions during a school emergency.
Cicilline also asked that Supt. Donnie Evans improve communications between First Student, the school bus company, and the central school administration office and establish a communications plan that requires parents to be called every hour when there are substantial bus delays.
According to O’Reilly, the call center had been in the works before the mayor’s mandate. In fact, Evans had mentioned the need for a call center during his state of the schools speech last year. O’Reilly said that the center will be run by parent engagement staff for now. The School Department will eventually hire a call center specialist to be in charge, she said.
2007 recap in the Providence schools
Posted Thursday, January 3, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — From school closings to school-bus strandings, 2007 was a tumultuous year for the city’s public schools.
The year began on a high note, with Supt. Donnie Evans looking forward to opening a new high school, introducing new literacy and math programs for struggling students, rolling out a new discipline plan for younger students, and filling the final openings on his administrative team.
It didn’t take long, however, for the real world to intrude on Evans’ master plan, “Realizing the Dream.”
Two weeks into the new year, parents and neighbors learned that the West Broadway Elementary School would be shuttered in June because of fire-code violations. The school, east of Olneyville Square, had long received variances from the city excusing the egress problem, but in late 2006, the fire marshal told the School Department that it would no longer grant the variance.
Evans said there were other reasons for the closing, however, including the results of a study, also released in January, that said the 102-year-old school would be too costly to renovate.
Evans’ decision enraged parents and staff, who argued that the school was an oasis of success in a district marked by low academic performance and limited parent involvement. Preservationists argued that the brick building was a landmark in a rapidly changing neighborhood. And neighbors fretted that Evans’ plan to temporarily house high school students in West Broadway would be disruptive.
The uproar over West Broadway overshadowed the city’s $792-million plan to renovate or rebuild the majority of the city’s aging schools. “Building a Legacy,” the moniker given to the multi-year campaign, was developed by an outside consultant called DeJONG Inc. after an analysis of all 42 buildings in the district.
But at one public forum after another, West Broadway was the only thing on most residents’ minds. During a community meeting in February, the friends of West Broadway poked holes in the DeJONG study, which called for building 19 new schools and replacing the sprawling Mount Pleasant High School.
Evans wasn’t the only public official who took a drubbing during the furor over the school closing. Residents vented their anger at Mayor David N. Cicilline, who was the driving force behind the DeJONG study.
“There is a hidden agenda,” John Zayas, a West Broadway parent, told school officials. “We want some answers and we want them today.”
Several parents appealed the closing to state Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, arguing that the Providence School Board ignored the overwhelming wishes of its constituents and failed to give West Broadway parents the same consideration that East Side families received during their successful fight to save Nathan Bishop Middle School.
After McWalters upheld the local school board’s decision, parents appealed to the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education. Ultimately, however, their efforts failed and, in September, West Broadway students and faculty were moved across town to the Pell complex, which also houses a middle school.
Parents were much more successful in preserving Nathan Bishop, on the city’s East Side. When Evans announced that the school would be closed because of chronically low academic achievement, East Side parents mobilized and peppered city and state leaders with letters to keep the school open.
After a public outcry, Evans formed a parent study committee that ultimately recommended re-opening the middle school with a focus on advanced-placement classes. In late June, the Providence School Board voted to renovate the school at a cost of $35 million.
In the wake of these public relations snafus, Evans in October wrote a letter of apology to the district’s 2,000 teachers in which he acknowledged the difficult and often-unpopular decisions that he had to make because of deep budget cuts.
“Know that I hear your concerns, and for each of the situations that caused them, I am extremely apologetic,” he wrote. “I know the challenges you face each day in our classrooms.”
Meanwhile, Hope High School, the first public high school to fall under state intervention, continued to improve. In April, the East Side school regained full accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, a prestigious voluntary association that evaluates schools.
NEASC had placed Hope on warning status in 2003, detailing more than 100 problems that required correction.
In its April letter, the association commended Hope for changing the learning environment and the culture of the school. According to a NEASC spokeswoman, “This is a school where education is going on, kids are engaged in their learning, [and] instruction practices have changed.”
In November, Hope High School earned high marks from a visiting team of 25 educators, who spent two days observing classrooms, shadowing students and interviewing teachers before preparing their report. Their findings will be one of many pieces of evidence presented to McWalters when he convenes a public hearing on the high school next month. McWalters has three options: to continue the state’s involvement in Hope, modify its involvement, or return the school to the district’s control.
In April, the school board approved a $322.2-million budget, a 3.5-percent increase over the previous year. It also included a nearly $6-million budget gap, which the department hoped to close with a combination of fresh state and local aid.
But the district wound up slashing $6.2 million from its budget after the General Assembly voted against giving cities and towns a 3-percent increase in school aid.
The School Department ultimately closed the budget gap by increasing the class size for special-education students and reducing the number of administrators who oversee the program.
The changes in class size infuriated parents of special-needs students, who claimed that the budget was being balanced on the backs of their children. School officials, however, said they had sound educational reasons for increasing class size to 12 students, from 10. They said that research showed that the quality of instruction has more impact on student learning than smaller classes.
During a series of public hearings, parents, teachers and union leaders argued that the special-education system was already broken and that increasing class size would only cripple an already ineffective system.
The Providence Teachers Union wound up suing the district in Superior Court, an attempt to prevent the district from changing the class size until the issue was heard in court. But the court sent the question to the Board of Regents on the grounds that this was a policy decision best left to the state’s education policymakers. The regents are supposed to hear the appeal next week.
As the summer wore on, the budget crisis took its toll.
Dozens of teachers received pink slips, and the majority of them were assigned to the long-term substitute pool. A long-term substitute is no longer assigned to a specific school but bounces from building to building, as need arises.
The deep cuts demoralized teachers and principals alike at a time when Evans was trying to assemble a new administrative team. For the second time in as many years, Evans also made sweeping changes to the leadership of schools, moving more than a dozen principals at all levels.
The district also experienced an exodus of principals and teachers, several of whom were recruited by school leaders in Fall River and Central Falls. Frances Gallo, the former deputy superintendent in Providence, runs the Central Falls schools. In 2006, Deb DiCarlo left a longtime administrative post in Providence to run a middle school in Fall River.
There were some victories to celebrate, however. For the first time in recent memory, the city’s elementary and middle schools made dramatic progress, according to state rankings released in May.
Seventeen schools are now classified as moderately performing, up from seven schools in 2006, which means that these schools met all their 37 academic targets. Even more encouraging was the fact that many of the schools that failed to make adequate yearly progress missed only two targets. The rankings, required by the federal No Child Left Behind law, show whether a school is high performing, moderately performing, or failing to make sufficient progress.
Still, less than a third of Providence students in grades 3 through 8 were proficient in reading and math, and less than a quarter met the state standards in math. And only two schools were high-performing: Vartan Gregorian Elementary School and Times 2 Academy, a charter K-12 school.
Meanwhile, the teachers’ contract remains a dream, not a reality. Negotiations resumed in earnest this fall after the school board approved a budget, but uncertainties about this year’s state aid figures have stalled efforts to negotiate big-ticket items such as salaries. Both parties hired a mediator from the University of Rhode Island in early October help facilitate negotiations.
On another positive note, a $20-million high school opened on Adelaide Avenue in September after more than two years of opposition from neighbors, who feared that the former Gorham Manufacturing site was too contaminated to be cleaned up. E3 Academy Principal Wobberson Torchon was tapped to become the school’s first principal and he immediately set high standards for the building’s 600-plus students and staff.
The school year began with a bumpy start. Hope High School was so over-enrolled that some two dozen students spent their first two weeks sitting in the library, while 50 other teenagers sat at home, waiting for classroom space to open up. Evans said the district was slammed with a last-minute surge in high-school enrollments, but union leaders claimed that the problem could have been averted with proper planning.
But Evans’ biggest embarrassment occurred Dec. 13, when six inches of wet snow paralyzed Greater Providence, stranding between 50 and 60 school buses for hours. School buses were late in picking children up at school; others became mired in snow or traffic; one bus never showed up at all.
A week after the school-bus debacle, Cicilline held a news conference and suspended for 30 days the School Department’s deputy superintendent of operations, Tomas Hanna. The mayor also fired the city’s emergency management director, Leo Messier.
Taking full responsibility, Cicilline expressed serious disappointment with Evans, and later that night, Evans acknowledged his failure during a special meeting of the City Council. Evans agreed that there was a complete breakdown in communication between the bus company and the schools, and his administrators and his office.
Although the first 911 calls began coming in after lunch, Evans said he didn’t find out about the magnitude of the problem until between 7:30 and 8 p.m., when he got a call from Police Chief Dean Esserman asking whether he needed help.
“There was a total breakdown in communication from the bottom up,” Cicilline said last week. “This was a system that failed.”
Cicilline and Evans promised to make several changes, including improving communications between bus drivers and the bus yard, establishing a hot line to answer parent’s questions during a storm, and calling parents every hour when there are bus delays.
Councilman to Providence superintendent: ‘I’d fire you’
Posted Friday, December 21, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — City Council members wanted to know one thing last night: How could Supt. Donnie Evans go home without knowing that every one of the city’s 25,000 students was safely home?
And they were not happy with Evans’ answer.
“You are in charge of our most valued possessions,” Councilwoman Josephine DiRuzzo told Evans. “I want to know where you were and why you didn’t know where those students were. I think you failed the parents in this city. It’s inexcusable and it’s unacceptable.”
Councilman Nicholas Narducci said, “I’d fire you. You dropped the ball. It’s your responsibility.”
Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday suspended without pay Tomas Hanna, the deputy superintendent of operations, for his apparent failure to respond to the mounting school bus crisis. The mayor also fired Leo Messier, the city’s director of emergency management, saying that he had lost faith in Messier’s ability to manage a crisis.
The council met last night to demand answers from the city’s top police, fire and school officials as to why 60 school buses were stranded for hours on the city’s gridlocked streets last Thursday. While there were harsh words for many department heads, Evans bore the brunt of the criticism.
Evans was repeatedly asked: Why didn’t you realize that school buses were bogged down in snow and traffic, a problem that began early Thursday afternoon.
Bill Roche, contract manager for First Student, the school bus company, said last night that that he told the School Department at 12:13 p.m. that “traffic was a disaster.”
Evans said that when he left for his East Side home around 5:30 p.m., “I was assured that the youngsters were home.”
But in an interview last Friday, Evans said that at the time of his departure, about a dozen elementary schoolchildren hadn’t made it home, although a plan was in place to bring them home.
Evans said he wasn’t informed of the burgeoning school bus delays until between 7:30 and 8 p.m., when Hanna called him at home.
“It’s your responsibility,” Councilman John Igliozzi said, “Not Tomas Hanna or [spokeswoman] Kim Rose. You were at home at a time when 100 kids were on buses. You should be the most outraged of all of us.”
Evans’ response?
“I didn’t get accurate, up-to-date information from bus drivers, First Student or our staff,”
Not only was Evans unaware of the school bus problem, he said that he didn’t realize that there was a serious breakdown in communications between his operations staff and his office.
The City Council also slammed Evans for failing to close schools when forecasters had predicted an intense, fast-moving snowstorm two days in advance. Evans said the decision to open school was made early in the morning after talking with area superintendents. He said the storm hit sooner and harder than he expected and added that by 8:30 a.m., most high school and middle school students were already in school while elementary students were on their way.
Evans told the council that he is taking immediate steps to correct the communications breakdown. On Jan. 2, the School Department will open an emergency call center for parents. Meanwhile, Evans will appoint a committee of parents, students and staff to review the district’s emergency preparedness plans and the superintendent said that he will personally reexamine the roles of specific school staff during a crisis.
Evans also said that he is checking in with his top administrators at the end of each day to see if there is anything significant that he needs to know.
School Board President Mary McClure also came under fire last night for supposedly failing to do her job.
“Do you plan on re-upping Dr. Evans’ contract?” Igliozzi said. Evans’ contract expires next December. After hedging, McClure said that yes, she would renew the superintendent’s contract.
The City Council session continued late into the night, with testimony expected from Police Chief Dean Esserman and other administration officials.
Classical cracks top 500 in magazine’s ranking of high schools
Posted Friday, December 7, 2007
PROVIDENCE — Classical High School has been deemed a Silver Medal winner by U.S. News & World Report in its America’s Best High School rankings.
The designation means that among the 18,700 high schools surveyed by the magazine, Classical placed within the top 500 schools using criteria that measure school preparedness upon graduation. Classical is the only public high school in Providence that requires prospective students to pass an entrance examination.
Rankings were based on criteria including general math and reading scores and the test scores of disadvantaged students.
According to the magazine, the measurements were designed by the data research company School Evaluation Services and were intended to measure not only how the entire student body performed, but how well the school served disadvantaged populations, such as minority students and students living in poverty.
The magazine said its research was based on “the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college.”
Superintendent gets earful from parents
Posted Wednesday, December 5, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Parents didn’t mince words last night when Supt. Donnie Evans asked them what they thought of the city’s schools, especially the School Department’s success in communicating with families.
A woman said her two Muslim exchange students were kept out of school for three weeks because the School Department insisted that they be vaccinated, which is prohibited by their religion. Another parent said that his child’s elementary school was out of control. A mother said the school choice policy is needlessly confusing.
More than 100 parents turned out at Adelaide Avenue High School last night to hear what Evans had to say about the district’s efforts to reach out to families and to share their experiences with the Providence schools.
Parents, especially those with special needs children, expressed frustration with their inability to reach the right person to get their child the help that they need. Some said they were treated rudely when they went to register their children. Others complained about the lack of district and school support for parent-teacher organizations. And Pedro DeJesus said that his child’s school is not safe:
“My son’s school is out of control,” he told Evans. “You have kids running all over the place and the principal doesn’t want to hear it. It’s terrible. Kids are swearing and cussing. We need you to visit our school.”
Evans took responsibility for the situation and thanked the parent for bringing it to his attention:
“If a school is out of control,” Evans said, “I need to know about it right away. You do not have to tolerate this. I want your child to feel safe.”
Louise Tillinghast said that she didn’t want to wake up in the morning and read that there was a gun at her child’s school. She wanted to know why she wasn’t contacted by letter or by phone as soon as the incident happened. Evans said that the school sent a letter to parents the following day.
Osiris Harrell, an outspoken critic of the school system, asked why parent-teacher conferences were abolished at Anthony Carnevale and West Broadway elementary schools. He said that his daughter’s grades had dropped, but he didn’t find out about it until he saw her report card.
“I asked why we hadn’t been invited to the school and I was told that there weren’t any parent-teacher conferences,” he said. “But that wasn’t communicated to us.”
Evans said that this was news to him and said that he strongly supports parent-teacher get-togethers. When he asked for a show of hands, a number of parents indicated that their schools no longer have opportunities for parents to meet with their children’s teachers.
Another parent, Daynah Gist, said she has been thwarted in her attempts to get services for her child.
“It’s like going through a maze to get the cheese,” she said. “I leave all of these voice mails and I don’t hear back from anyone. How do you navigate the system without feeling stonewalled?”
Evans repeatedly heard that parents had difficulty getting answers to their questions. He heard that parents are sometimes treated without respect and that parents don’t have enough information about the school choice policy and school registration. He heard that the school Web site was difficult to navigate and that the policy handbook wasn’t clear.
In response, Evans said the district is working on making its schools, policies and staff more accessible to families. The department, he said, is in the middle of revamping its Web site to make it more user-friendly; it’s creating a blog where the public can e-mail the superintendent and he can respond. And Evans promised that the district will provide more translation services at meetings such as this one. Last night’s meeting was translated into four languages, including Laotian and Khmer.
“We know we have a confidence problem in the city and statewide,” Evans told the crowd. “Our job is to improve that situation.”
Progress seen at Hope High
Posted Thursday, November 29, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Hope High School has created a safe, nurturing environment where students feel challenged and teachers feel empowered, but teaching students to read and think analytically continues to be an issue.
Yesterday, two members of the state Department of Education briefed high school faculty on the findings of a two-day evaluation by a visiting team of 25 educators from Providence and other school districts. The team visited almost every classroom, met with students and teachers, and interviewed colleges that have formed partnerships with the East Side high school.
The report will be one of many pieces of evidence presented to state education Commissioner Peter McWalters when he convenes a public hearing in early February on Hope’s progress three years after he intervened in the failing high school. In his order, McWalters told the school to make a number of sweeping changes, including breaking into three smaller learning academies.
Rick Richards, a state school improvement specialist, and Mary Canole, the state’s director of progressive support and intervention, presented the report before Supt. Donnie Evans, Providence Teachers’ Union president Steve Smith, and the school’s entire faculty.
According to the team’s findings, teachers place such an emphasis on basic routines and skills that the development of higher-order thinking skills is neglected. Some teachers ignore students as they disengage and sit quietly in class. Students aren’t asked to think deeply about what they’re reading. As a result, only a few students are confident thinkers, the report said.
Some students say they’re bored in class and therefore take less responsibility to become better readers. While some teachers encourage thoughtful class discussions, too often they fall short of pushing students’ understanding to a higher level.
The team also found that a teacher’s ability to use literacy strategies varies according to how long that teacher has been with the district because the major training in literacy was done some years ago. This lack of expertise diminishes both the quality and the cohesiveness of literacy instruction.
Arthur Petrosinelli, one of three principals at the high school, agreed that Hope has to do more professional training in literacy instruction, but said that the district has to assume some of this responsibility, adding that there has been no district-led professional training on literacy this year.
Petrosinelli said Hope High School spent the first 2½ years implementing McWalters’ order, which called for the creation of three learning communities, advisories, partnerships with outside institutions, and active parental involvement.
Petrosinelli seemed to sum up the report’s conclusions when he said, “We’re on the right road but we have a ways to go yet.”
The commissioner’s team was much more enthusiastic about other aspects of Hope’s progress.
“Students at Hope demonstrate a sense of pride in their school,” the report said. “They are aware of their great diversity, accept one another’s differences and embrace their cultural distinctions. Students report that they look forward to coming to school.”
While this might not sound like a big deal, it was only a few years ago that Hope students routinely left school in droves at lunch, in some cases, never to return. And veteran teachers remember when bathroom fires were a weekly occurrence.
The visiting team also had high praise for Hope’s principals and teachers. The administration has made it clear that students and staff will carry themselves with respect and dignity.
“To a remarkable degree, teachers and students accept these important expectations, make them their own, and live up to them on a daily basis,” the team wrote. “Over and over again, the team heard people testify to the enormous progress that has been made over a few short years in this area.”
Hope High School was also credited for spreading leadership among its teaching staff, who are responsible for running the school improvement teams and implementing the new graduation requirements.
“This evident level of acceptance of major change initiatives would not exist without the widespread participation of teachers in school leadership and decision-making.”
The team, however, said that more work needs to be done to define the separate identities of each of the learning academies: arts, technology and leadership.
The high school also received kudos for establishing strong partnerships with several area colleges, including the Rhode Island School of Design, Roger Williams University, Johnson & Wales University and Rhode Island College. Some colleges have helped the school write new curricula while others have given students a chance to take classes on campus.
But the college partners have “an acute concern” about the lack of computer software and hardware, especially in relation to the Hope Technology Academy. Evans yesterday acknowledged that technology is a problem and said that, while money remains a challenge, the district is committed to finding solutions.
After the report was read, Evans added his own words of praise:
“You have one of the most nurturing cultures in the district,” he told faculty. “This is a caring school and an orderly environment. There is a tremendous amount of involvement with parents and the community.”
The school, he said, has a strong sense of vision, holds high expectations for its students, and uses student data to shape instruction.
Evans ended by saying, “You are doing a great job, considering all that you’ve been through.”
After the hearing in February, McWalters has three choices: to continue the state’s involvement at Hope, modify the order, or abolish it all together. Before he hears testimony, both the high school and the district are expected to come up with a plan that charts the school’s future goals.
Newcomer’ students actually look forward to coming to class
Posted Wednesday, November 21, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
Born and raised in West Africa, at least half of the students in Murkje de Vries’ class had never seen snow before Tuesday’s insubstantial flurry.
For many of these teenagers, this is a year of firsts: the first time in the United States, the first time in an American high school, the first Thanksgiving.
Yesterday, de Vries asked each student to stand up and read a short piece entitled “What I am thankful for….”
Malida, who is from Guinea, reads without glancing at her paper:
“I am thankful for my life.
“I am thankful for my school.
“I am thankful for my friends.
“I am thankful for my parents.”
Another young woman, who is shy, can’t stop giggling, burying her face behind a sheet of paper. De Vries lets her finish reading and then offers a few suggestions.
“I know that in some cultures, this isn’t respectful,” she says, “but in America, you need to make eye contact with your audience. It’s that silent language — body language.”
Every year, dozens of families arrive in Providence from Liberia, Guinea and Sudan. Some of the children have spent their entire lives in refugee camps; others have been on the move, one step ahead of the latest insurgency, the latest civil war. Many have witnessed the unspeakable. They have seen their families and their villages torn asunder.
Because their lives have been chaotic, these students have had little formal education. Some don’t know how to read cursive. Others can’t recite the alphabet. A few don’t know how to hold a book or read from left to right.
One way or another, the older students wind up in the newcomer class at Mount Pleasant High School, and those that make it there are blessed because De Vries views teaching as a calling.
“Ah, Chercher,” de Vries says with a smile to a particularly boisterous student. “Mon enfant terrible.”
There is a holy aspect to this work, De Vries says, a sweetness to these students that stands in startling contrast to the lives they have led.
“They often call me mother,” she says. “It’s like an extended family.”
As if on cue, the bell rings and a young woman slips through the open door and gives de Vries a hug.
In a culture where urban districts are begging students to stay in school, “newcomer” students actually look forward to coming to class. When the newcomer class was located at Nathan Bishop Middle School, the students would arrive at 7 a.m. and sit on the steps, waiting for the doors to open.
Providence has two newcomer classes, one at Mount Pleasant, the other at Gilbert Stuart Middle School. Students stay with the same teacher all day, much like the children in self-contained special-education classes.
Because they have had little or no formal schooling, the students are taught a little bit of elementary-level social studies, math and science with a heavy concentration on fluency in English.
“These teenagers come here with great challenges, but also with a great desire to learn,” said Pam Ardizzone, who runs the high school-level program for English Language Learners. “However, if they weren’t newcomers, there is no way they would be able to survive the traditional education system.”
Some students pick up the basics quickly and can make the transition into an English-as-a-Second-Language class. Typically, students spend a year in the newcomer class, although Providence educators concede that some students need more time to adjust to their new surroundings.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Ardizzone said. “There’s no way to anticipate all of the possible scenarios. It’s a constant learning curve.”
Teaching older children with little or no previous education is still very much a work in progress. The newcomer program began five years ago as a separate academy for students who needed a setting where they could learn at their own pace. Two years ago, the district decided to move to a new model because, at Nathan Bishop, the newcomer students were too isolated from their peers.
In one sense, you could say that the district is building the airplane while it’s flying. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out which students belong in the newcomer class and then designing a system that monitors their progress once they leave.
“There are many cases where the child arrives without a transcript,” Ardizzone said. “Sometimes, the child says that he has completed eighth grade but really hasn’t. That’s how students have fallen through the cracks in the past. We’re tightening up the whole system of student identification.”
The other challenge is the lack of resources. Providence has nearly 100 refugee students at the middle and high school levels, and that number doesn’t include students from Latin America who have had limited schooling. Approximately 4,000 students are enrolled in the district’s bilingual or English-as-a-Second Language programs.
But the district only has three English Language Learner specialists to help teachers deal with the web of social, emotional and academic issues facing these students and no formal professional development on refugee-related issues. Next semester, the International Institute will begin to hold teacher workshops on African refugee issues, and students from Brown University will begin to tutor students who need help after class.
The district is also taking a hard look at the expectation that all students should graduate from high school in four years:
“We need to find a way to let them stay in high school for a fifth or sixth year,” Ardizzone said. “That’s a discussion we need to have with the state Department of Education.”
Inside the newcomer class at Mount Pleasant, none of this really matters. De Vries is constantly making connections between the concrete and the abstract, the text and real life. After reading a story set in Japan in which soup figures prominently, de Vries asks the class to describe their favorite soup, which turns out to be spicy pepper.
Because the story centers on a man who is choking on a rice cake, deVries explains about dialing 911 for emergencies in the Unitied States, which leads to a discussion of the Heimlich maneuver.
“There is a tenderness to this work,” she says later. “It’s the American philosophy, you know, that we are all here together, celebrating learning and life.”
Day of reckoning ahead for Hope
Posted Tuesday, November 20, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Is Hope High School ready to come out from under the state’s intervention order or does the once-struggling high school need more support before it can go it alone?
In February, Peter McWalters, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, will hold a hearing to help him answer those questions. At the forum, McWalters will hear testimony from the players in the Hope community: teachers, parents, principals, central office administrators and college partners.
“The question is, ‘How well has Hope implemented the order and what, if anything, should Hope be doing differently?’ ” said Mary Canole, director of progressive, support and intervention for the state Department of Education.
McWalters will examine all kinds of evidence, from student work to the report from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which recently restored full accreditation to the school.
The most comprehensive evaluation, however, may come from the reflections of a team of 25 state and local educators sent out by the Department of Education to shadow students, observe teachers and meet with faculty and staff in small groups.
The visit last week focused on one area: how well has Hope been able to improve student reading and the teaching of reading? According to Canole, the commissioner’s office decided to concentrate on reading because it’s the one subject that is taught across curriculum.
“Reading is a good lens to measure how effective a school is,” said Rick Richards, a school improvement specialist with the state Education Department. “All of these pieces will inform the commissioner’s decision to retain the intervention order, revise it or revoke it.”
Three years ago, McWalters ordered the 1,200-student Hope High School to break into three smaller learning academies: arts, leadership and technology. It was the first time that McWalters flexed his muscles under a state regulation called Progressive, Support and Intervention, which gives the commissioner broad latitude to impose major changes on the failing school.
At the time of the intervention, Hope was a school in crisis: student performance was plummeting, the dropout rate was soaring and the building was considered out of control.
In 2005-2006, three principals were appointed with the power to hire their own staff, and teachers were asked to opt into the school and commit to a new set of goals. To make a big school feel more personal, the school implemented advisories, which pair a teacher with a same small group of students. Hope created individual learning plans, a guide that helps students identify their academic, social and personal goals.
To make sure Hope was following his order, McWalters appointed a special master, Nicholas Donohue, the former New Hampshire commissioner of education, to monitor the school’s progress for 18 months.
Last December, Donohue issued his final report, calling the school’s progress “enormous” and crediting its staff with responding “heroically” to the school’s many challenges.
But Donohue cautioned that the work was far from finished. Attendance was still too low, he said. Parental engagement remained a stubborn hurdle. And he recommended that leadership be distributed more equally among faculty and staff.
But Donohue said the single greatest impediment to progress, not only at Hope but at the city’s other three high schools, was the central office’s lack of capacity. The central office doesn’t have enough people to help individual schools implement reforms, from analyzing the data to revamping curriculum. Unless the district can provide schools with more support at the administrative level, the district will be limited to managing its most basic functions, Donohue said.
One of the teachers interviewed by school improvement specialist Richards Friday shared some of those concerns. He said that teachers receive conflicting directives from the central office. Last year, for example, the district threw out Scope and Sequence, a plan that was supposed to ensure that every ninth grader was learning the same material at the same time.
In high school, “they told us that American history will begin with the Civil War instead of colonization,” the teacher said. “The problem with that is most kids come here without prior knowledge of early American history.”
The teacher also complained about the lack of materials, a problem that hinders teaching and learning. At Hope, the history teachers received one set of source materials this fall that had to be shared by the entire department. The teacher also said that there is a lack of continuity in the professional training for teachers, calling it a bunch of “fits and starts.”
“Truthfully,” he said, “I hope that the level of support [from the state] can continue. Three years in, there has been a lot of progress but there’s a long way to go.”
A teacher in the technology academy said the partnership with Johnson & Wales University has been an overwhelming success, noting that the college helped the academy revamp its entire curriculum. But he said that the district has not been able to provide the technology needed to fully implement the new curriculum.
“Morale has taken a hit,” he told Richards. “We only have enough technology to support the first two classes in our strand. We’re not where we want to be.”
The teacher specifically said that the district has held up money that is needed to complete the curriculum, which calls for student research leading to a final project.
Teachers, however, said that they are positive about the changes at Hope, saying that there is a new climate of collaboration and accountability, and that the school is safe, orderly and welcoming to students and staff.
Once the report by the visiting team is completed and McWalters has reviewed it, the commissioner or someone from his office will present the findings at a Providence School Board meeting.
Some schools turn to direct instruction to master basics
Posted Wednesday, November 14, 2007
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff |
