As I write, the financial picture of Providence is changing rapidly for the grimmer. It was a hell of a day, with last week's teacher terminations and subsequent worry about what's going to happen to our schools placed in a broader context of massive deficit and proposals for cuts to city services and agencies across the board.
Before we totally lose the thread of the impact on teachers, I want to remember what this felt like to them when the teacher termination news first broke by highlighting a comment that appeared on the blog that the East Side Public Education Coalition maintains. In response to a statement that ESPEC put out (which, for full disclosure, I helped draft last week), Jennifer Galpern, a parent at Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, shared thoughts from teachers at Gregorian in the fourth comment down. These teachers shared their thoughts before school resumed on Monday, and give a window into what this felt like to them. As Jennifer said, "our teachers' hearts are broken and their trust lost." I am not presuming to say that all teachers feel this way, or that these teachers even feel this way now, nearly a week later, but I don't want their voices to get completely lost in the maelstrom in which we find ourselves.
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