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May 2008
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.
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