Blog break due to energies elsewhere + Coalition of Essential Schools' Fall Forum happening here!

As you have likely surmised from the lighter volume of posts lately, circumstances are preventing me from posting to this blog as often as I had or would prefer.

I regret this but do think that the circumstances are good for education in Providence, Rhode Island, and beyond. I am focusing my energy for the next month the Coalition of Essential Schools' Fall Forum 2011: A Conversation Among Friends, which is happening here in Providence at The Met School's Public Street campus on November 10-12. Who will be there? Adults and young people who believe that challenging learning for all students everyone can--and must--be infused not only with high standards but also with creativity, personal expression, learning from mistakes, relevance, exploration, and genuine passion.

This year's Fall Forum is going to be amazing - we'll have Deborah Meier and Alfie Kohn in conversation about the intersections between work, play and learning, Tony Estrella from the Gamm Theater leading theater workshop based on Hamlet's soliloquies, more than 100 workshops created by educators and students for educators and students, day-long visits to schools that are truly walking the walk of creating meaningful, academically challenging teaching and learning experience, and much more. I hope that you can join us. Visit http://www.essentialschools.org/events/8 for Fall Forum information, links to registration, and everything else.

Here's a special offer for Providence Schools and Beyond readers. The Coalition of Essential Schools is making the large endeavor of Fall Forum happen with a small staff, and we're seeking volunteers who will be able to attend Fall Forum for $100, a significantly reduced rate, in exchange for 6 hours of work. Most volunteer shifts will happen during the second week of November and, of course, the conference itself. You can download the Fall Forum 2011 volunteer flier here or email fallforum@essentialschools.org to let us know you'd like to volunteer to make Fall Forum happen. Feel free to spread the word about this; we have lots of interest in volunteer spots and a limited number of them. I'd love for some to go to local folks who want to connect with educators and students from around the country who will be in Providence to share what they know works best for our schools for the long haul.

So - I may pop in and post from time to time but don't count on anything regular until the second half of November.  In the meantime. please visit the links to the right, and for Providence education news particularly, read Tom Hoffman's Tuttle SVC, the ProJo's education coverage, WRNI's education blog, ESPEC's blog, whatever WSPEC is saying and doing, and keep your eye on Aaron Regunberg's columns in GoLocalProv - definitely do not miss his piece published today on Achievement First.

Messer Elementary School at Bridgham: Help Needed Monday, 8/29

Judi Jeroslow, West Side Public Education Coalition volunteer, passed on this request for help on Monday, August 29 to get Messer Elementary School at the Bridgham school building ready for the first day of school. Happy to share it! From Judi:

As we enter into the weekend, I want to put out a call for anyone who can lend a hand on Monday, August 29th, at the Bridgham school building (1655 Westminster Street). We'll be planting plants and flowers, painting classroom numbers on the pavement outside, and hanging maps and mascots around the building. If you have a free hour or two and want to help out, please let me know. School starts Tuesday and we're hoping to make it easier for those little kids to navigate around that big huge building on their first day of school. Thanks! 

p.s. If anyone has a pickup truck and is willing to help haul soil, please let me know!

If you can help or have resources to contribute, please contact Judi via email or post a comment here and I'll pass it on.

WSPEC info sessions and soccer tournament for Messer/West Broadway students and families

Three cheers for the work of the West Side Public Education Coalition as it rallies the community to support the students of Asa Messer and West Broadway Elementary Schools as they transition into the Bridgham Middle School building (which will be called what? Bridgham Elementary?).

With support from the Mayor's office, PPSD and other organizations, WSPEC is holding a soccer tournament and info sessions about the renovations being done to the Bridgham building this Saturday, July 23 and next Saturday, July 30 from 2:00pm to 6:00pm at Mansion Field next to the fire station at Messer and Union Streets. Read more about the events here on WSPEC's website.

This feels to me like the exact right thing to do. Transitions such as this one require not only resources but strong, clear communication about what's happening our kids as they're assigned to schools, and WSPEC is stepping up to make sure that happens.

WRNI features dual perspectives on PPSD school closing timeline + our commitment to neighborhood schools

WRNI's Elizabeth Harrison has (separately) interviewed Mayor Taveras and Matt Gabor and Michael Udris from the West Side Public Education Coalition. Both are worth a listen to deepen understanding about the arguments about whether, how, and when to close public schools in Providence.

Gabor and Udris' argue that the proposed school closings will leave the West Side with no middle school. The same is true for Windmill Street Elementary School; its closing leaves the Charles Street area/the northern part of Providence with no elementary option. That the West Side's Bridgham Middle School and Windmill (not to single them out - the rest of this sentence applies many or most other PPSD schools) have ample room for improvement is obvious, and they will be able to build on their respective recent successes and recently galvanized neighborhood energy to continue to do so. However, to say that there should be no elementary or middle school options at all in various neighborhoods is ludicrous, as is suggesting that mileage alone determines that a school is a "neighborhood" option.

This is particularly true given Providence's actual policies and current rhetorical focus on neighborhood schools. We need neighborhood task forces to bring local understanding to bear on what is reasonably walkable. Our children cannot cross highways, walk through dangerous streets with poorly understood potential for gang-related violence, or be forced to negotiate dangerous intersections. And winter isn't yet a distant memory; just a few weeks ago, we were all picking our way through unshoveled sidewalks, icy intersection, and poorly plowed streets.We may well want walkable, neighborhood schools but even from a infrastructure-only point of view, we're not yet ready for them.

Had Nathan Bishop have remained closed in 2007, the greater East Side would not have had a middle school option. At that time, that seems inequitable and unfair, and that spurred me into action as an involved parent. I started attending ESPEC meetings, witnessed and assisted the process of working through the politics of reopening the school, and along with other parents, eventually joined PPSD's Nathan Bishop Task Force as a parent/involved citizen to collaborate with the city to plan Bishop's reopening.

Many speakers at last night's School Board meeting acknowledged that we may well need to close schools and make significant changes but that doing so now, with such haste and so many remaining known unknowns, would be wrong. Those changes, many of them said, should be done with significant, substantial input from neighborhood residents within a more reasonable timeframe to allow us to create a more workable plan. 

Though I acknowledge the financial pressures that are compelling the school closings and reduction in teacher force that will result, I too want to find a way to do so with clearer answers and more adequate preparation. Along with many others, I am eager to seize our collective energy and assets to identify and implement community-based, locally-driven ways not only to save existing schools when reasonable to do so but also to improve teaching and learning all of our schools and the system itself.

Next week: still busy, but no school board vote on closures.

Update to yesterday's post on next week's hot and heavy PPSD action: the School Board has delayed its vote scheduled for Monday, April 25 on closing schools. The posted school board agenda for that evening made that evident and School Board President Kathleen Crain just confirmed it on Facebook with this post:

Providence residents: The School Board has delayed the vote on School Closures so that we may review the information and data related to each school and make an informed decision. We will update you on the date of the vote shortly.

Good to have the delay confirmed, and I am gratified that the School Board is taking the time it needs to come to its best decision but what now? The city's budget needs to be established ASAP, and teachers need clarity about the status of their jobs. Families need clarity about their school assignments--all families, both those with students in schools proposed for closure or repurpose and those with students entering kindergarten, first or sixth grades citywide, assignments that the city is delaying until it can incorporate the students in those grades affected by school closures.

So, more questions. That said, late yesterday, PPSD share some answers by releasing its responses to a long list of questions posed by WSPEC, the City Council, and the School Board about the proposed closures that will be voted on....at some undetermined future moment. Lots to discuss in the responses, will do in the next post. Click here for that document, in PDF form.

P.S.: Can't help but notice that all the big news (PPSD school calendar change to establish the last day of school, now this) is coming directly from Facebook--useful, but not the most adequate broadcast strategy.

Mayor Taveras meeting with WSPEC + Flynn School Board hearing tonight

Two quick notes:

Per the ProJo, his afternoon, the West Side Public Education Coalition met--or perhaps is still meeting--with Mayor Taveras to clarify the questions and issues its members have raised in public statements and on its web site about the impact proposed school closures and reorganizations will have on the West Side's communities. WPSEC has been awesome at sharing info--looking forward to a report from the meeting (which was closed to the public).

Very much not closed to the public is tonight's School Board hearing on the proposed closure of Flynn Elementary School, to take place at 6:00pm at the Davey Lopes Recreation Center at 227 Dudley Street. Again, if any Providence Schools and Beyond reader attends and is willing to write up notes and thoughts, I'd be thrilled to publish those here along with my quick summary of last week's Windmill Street Elementary hearing.

Questions from the West, questions from the East, and the company we keep

Both the West Side Public Education Coalition (WSPEC) and the East Side Public Education Coalition (ESPEC) have posted thoughtful, necessary questions about the intertwined school closing/teacher firing/student reassignment crises: WSPEC questions here and ESPEC questions here.

Timelines to meet city budget and teacher retirement deadlines have created a sense of urgency that seems to be in conflict with the equally urgent need for transparency, not to mention an appropriate process, described as a minimum 12-month process. in this comprehensive guide to school closures due to urgent fiscal pressures put out by the Broad Foundation.

To make sense of and meaningfully participate in the current situation and in order to (re)establish a baseline of trust so that we can move forward with faith in the system and our leaders, we (students, family members, educators, and everyone else) need clearer, better answers from the Mayor, other elected officials, and the school board.

And in order to put the proposed school closures into a national context, take a few minutes to read this excellent account from the Philadelphia Public School Notebook of the Ford Foundation's recent "Examining School Transformations and Closures from the Ground Up" event and related school closings/reorganizations in the works in Philly and Newark (thanks to Tom Hoffman for pointing out the Notebook story).

While the context in Providence doesn't overlap fully with what's happening in New York and Chicago, the effect of our current lightning round of school closures has the truly unfortunate potential to producing much of the same community alienation and distrust. And while those of us who know the situation in Providence can read the Notebook's account and say, "Well, that's not us," those outside our context could and likely will easily believe that our city is selling out its public schools in ways that the Chicago and New York activists are claiming (if you need proof of this, see the recent claims that the city's move to dismiss all PPSD teachers put us firmly in Wisconsin's company).

Let me be clear: I don't think that's what's happening. There's a completely valid case to be made for "rightsizing" a district by dealing with excess school building capacity. There's a real need to deal with school buildings that have outlived their usefulness as places that provide the conditions for excellent teaching and learning. And there's a completely evident urgency that Providence must deal with its finances responsibly. No arguments there. But because the rushed process cannot include meaningful community/stakeholder participation, we have to face the reality that we're damaging our city's public schools, even though that damage may be inadvertent. Therefore, the need to get clear answers to pressing questions is critically important right now so that we can put everyone in all neighborhoods to work containing the damage and moving forward to ensure the best shot at ensuring consistently good schools for all kids in every part of Providence.

West Side Walk for Better Schools, Saturday, 3/26, 8:00am

As a way to make visible the desire for walkable, neighborhood schools (some of which are threatened to be closed as a result of the city's recent cost-cutting measures), the West Broadway Neighborhood Association, the West Side Public Education Coalition (WSPEC), NoMADS and Project Future are inviting families and supporter to join a West Side Walk for Better Schools. The march will take place at 8:00am, leaving from Hudson Deli at 68 Hudson Street and lead participants to the 9:00am PPSD Forum that's taking place at Classical High School. Click here for details and a map; here's a link to a press release from WSPEC for more on the march.