Full Version of November 2012 East Side Monthly piece on MLK Elementary's Possible Move to Become an In-District Charter School

November's East Side Monthly is out, with an abruptly abridged version of a piece I wrote on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School's process of applying for status as an in-district charter school. Please read the full version below, which provides a fuller picture of this development. There's more to say, and more that's happened since I wrote this, which we can get into in subsequent posts.

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Illustration by Jessica Pollak

A Reinvention? MLK Elementary Considers Charter Status

Broadly described, charter schools are publicly funded elementary, middle, and high schools that have freedom from some of the rules, regulations, and policies that apply to other public school. With this autonomy—which allows greater control over budget, instruction, assessment, governance, leadership, student population, teacher hiring and firing, professional development, and other factors—charter schools are accountable for producing certain student achievement results. In Rhode Island, schools' charters are granted by the state. Charter schools are not part of school districts; they regulated by their own governing boards and each functions as an independent districts.

Some outspoken advocates say that charter schools will save our public schools. Others assert that charter schools will destroy our public schools. The discussion of these possibilities is endlessly fascinating, but not germane to the immediate proceedings, so let’s move on.

As this school year began, the Providence Public Schools invited all of its schools to apply to the state to become “in-district” charter schools, a process that would ordinarily have begun a year ago. Two factors created the conditions for this development. The first was the Providence Public Schools’ urgent need for more flexibility in order to create better conditions for student achievement. The second was the availability of federal charter school funding administered by the Rhode Island Department of Education. The district envisioned that such schools would work with local education and social service partners to create and implement an educational program that would serve students within Providence. This process unfolded with extraordinary haste, which was somewhat understandable in order to capture an opportunity, but also unfortunate, because schools have been asked to take a tremendous leap of faith while basic questions remain unanswered.

Nevertheless, several schools asked for support from the district to submit charter applications in December 2012, which would allow them to be considered for charter status for 2013-2014 academic year. One is the East Side’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School, which serves approximately 600 students in kindergarten through fifth grade (and where two of my three kids are enrolled; our third is a King alum). King’s leadership team formed a partnership with The Learning Community charter school, a Central Falls school that serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade. On October 1, King submitted a prospectus that described its vision for its reinvention as a charter school, which was approved on October 10. King will submit a full charter application to the state on December 1; by that date, the school’s faculty members—who would remain members of the Providence Teachers Union—and parents—whose children would remain students at King if they wish—will vote about whether to proceed with the charter application, which will go forward with majority approval by both groups.

Derrick Ciesla, King’s principal since 2009, believes that the potential upside for the school validates the risks of moving quickly. If King were an in-district charter school, the school community would have the opportunity to make decisions that would improve students’ academic achievement while bolstering family involvement. Cielsa says that increased independence from the district, combined with additional funding, would make possible “opportunities that we will otherwise never benefit from or have access to, namely, funding for special programs, more teachers, support staff, new books, computers, and equipment.”

Ciesla also views the charter possibility as a way to have more control over student population. Like most public elementary schools in Providence, King is designated as a neighborhood school, which means that it may enroll up to 80 percent of its students from a neighborhood zone defined by the district as a mile around the school. However, due to school closures at the end of the 2010-2011 school year, district enrollment decisions, and other factors, well more than half of King’s students are from more than a mile away. King plans to ask for a variance to state charter law in order to remain a neighborhood school and to use the charter process to accelerate school improvement so that King indeed remains (as it has been for many years) a school of choice for the diverse families that it has served for, in some cases, generations who come in part though not entirely from the East Side. “My goal is to close the achievement gap,” says Ciesla. “I want to do that with the students we are serving now as well as whatever students of whatever ethnicity we may serve in the future.”

King will convene several community conversations at which staff members, current families, and interested neighbors can gather to give input, ask questions, and understand the potential benefits and risks, including the benefits and risks of remaining a school that serves its neighborhood, however that may be defined. The school will also include parents on the team that will write the charter application.

“Everyone at MLK agrees that the most important thing here is to educate all of our children to the best of our abilities,” Ciesla notes. “It doesn't matter what background our students come from. I want to give each of them a solid learning foundation that will provide them with the chance to succeed in their education and in the rest of their lives.”

Hope High School Alumni Association in August East Side Monthly

My August East Side Monthly column on the Hope High School Alumni Association, which I posted about earlier this month here, is online - not at coffeeshops near you quite yet. So here's a sneak peek; click here to read the version on ESM's site or just keep reading below.

Many thanks to Brian Lalli and Anthony Sanders for all that you've done to organize Hope High School alums and inspire current students.

Illustration by Jessica Pollock

Leading the Way

As a school-obsessed East Sider, I am always on the hunt for the scoop on our neighborhood’s schools. Usually this comes from parents, students and teachers, but of course, a school is as much its history as its present inhabitants. So when I heard that Hope High School’s alumni had formed an active alumni association, I chatted with Anthony Sanders (class of 1989) and Brian Lalli (class of 1993) to learn more.

Both Sanders, the president of the Hope Alumni Association, and active member Lalli fondly remember their time at Hope. Both attended Hope Essential School, a school-within-a-school program at Hope during the 1980s and 1990s that formed the basis of the small school reform approach that was implemented within Hope during the subsequent decade. Sanders, who attended Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School and Nathan Bishop Middle School before Hope, recalled, “Hope High School prepared me for college possibly more than necessary. Everything that we did in college I was ready for because of Hope. To this day, I write in a journal because of what I learned there, which were the core values needed in life.”

Sanders, who went on to graduate from Northeastern University and then received his MBA from Johnson and Wales, is a fraud investigator with Allstate Insurance. Along with other Hope alumni, he founded the alumni association in order to ensure that current students benefit from connections with successful alumni. “There are so many of us who are now lawyers, doctors and business owners who can go back and connect students to Hope’s traditions. We need to let everyone know that great things come out of Hope.”

The Hope Alumni Association, which is now a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, also arose from a sense that “something was missing,” as Lalli put it. “I never had a 10th reunion, and that didn’t feel right, so we started connecting with alums from across the years. And as we kept talking, we realized we wanted to do more than just get together and remember. We wanted to provide opportunities for Hope students today.” Lalli, the assistant director of residential life at Rhode Island College, grew up and still lives on the East Side. He attended Holy Ghost School and Nathan Bishop Middle before Hope, graduated from URI and is completing a certificate for advanced study in mental health counseling.

In order to provide that opportunity, Hope Alumni Association members created the Reach for the Stars scholarship program for Hope grads. The program raises funds from donations, an alumni weekend (which this year was July 13-15) and sales of Hope Blue Wave gear. This fundraising is on-going; you can make donations, buy Blue Wave sweatshirts and, if you’re a Hope alum who hasn’t yet joined up, become part of the alumni association by registering online.

The Hope Alumni Association plans to expand its involvement beyond the Reach for the Stars Scholarships and other sponsored awards for graduates by boosting alumni financial support and alumni attendance at sporting, theater and other events. Plans for a mentoring program are in the works, too. “Money on its own isn’t the answer,” said Sanders when asked about his vision for alumni involvement at Hope. “Kids want to see a living, breathing example of what can be done. I was the first one in my family to graduate from college, and I want to make sure that kids who are at Hope today can connect with people who came from where they are now. Sharing the pride that I have for Hope is what motivates me to continue to do this. Students who are at Hope now will carry that pride with them throughout their lives.”

Lalli shares Sanders’ interest in connecting alumni with students. “Young men in particular need positive male role models, and I want them to know that you can graduate and give back to your community.” And Lalli’s vision extends to the building as well as the people within. “I would love to rename Hope’s auditorium Alumni Auditorium,” he said. “It could be the East Side auditorium. We look at Nathan Bishop and see what is possible. That’s what I want for Hope.”

It’s been written before in the pages of East Side Monthly that the East Side benefits from feeling like a small town within a big city. But with eight public high schools in Providence, and many more charter and independent school options, we don’t share the defining experience of going to school together. Nevertheless, Hope High School, located at the center of our neighborhood, should also be at the center of our shared experience. So even if you did not attend Hope, consider supporting the Hope Alumni Association to keep your “hometown” school strong.

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.