Words of praise and support for Providence teachers from Brown University faculty

Brown Professors Karen Haberstroh and Tim Herbert, who run the university's GK-12 science education program, shared the following letter with me for publication here. I'm grateful to be able to share their esteem and support for Providence's teachers, and enthusiastically concur. My own kids have benefited from the GK-12 teaching partnership; learning with Brown science fellows has been among the highlights of their school careers. Thanks, Professors Haberstroh and Herbert, for your commitment to Providence's students and educators, and for your words here.

You can click on the image below to see a larger version.

Okay, NOW mark your calendars.

From the PPSD website:

The Providence School Board will vote on proposed school closures at a meeting to be held Thursday, April 28 at 6:30 at the Providence Career and Technical Academy, 41 Fricker Street.

Due to a previous commitment, I will not see you there, but would dearly love any firsthand reports from those who will be there.

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.

Strike that, reverse it. Back to: School Board vote on school closures delayed.

There's no sensible way to amend yesterday's post to make this clear: the announced Thursday 4/28 School Board school closure vote reschedule is no longer announceable as the School Board hasn't yet voted to reschedule on that date. Tonight's school board meeting is still happening, 6:30pm at PCTA, with a presentation about the school closings and, I believe, a decision about when the rescheduled school closing vote will take place.

We're back to Friday's news that the school closure vote date has been postponed. Unmark your calendars accordingly until such time that Facebook, semaphore, telegraph, or some other source shares that the School Board has rescheduled the vote.

School Board vote on school closures will happen on 4/28.

Kathy Crain, PPSD School Board President, has shared via Facebook that the school board vote on school closures will happen on Thursday, 4/28. Tomorrow's 6:30pm school board meeting at PCTA includes a presentation on the school closures. I appreciate knowing that and am happy to share the info, though I wish that the district would do the same. The date of the vote should be front and center on PPSD's website. Not that there wasn't some communication about the meeting: last week, we and presumably all other PPSD families and staff members received three robocalls (actual robocalls! with a freaky robotic voice, as opposed to the usual recorded human voice) about the 4/25 meeting - just that there will be an "important meeting," though not any specific mention of the vote.

This article on Bridgham Middle School that ran in today's ProJo still has the vote happening tomorrow - no correction online, and no follow up story about the delayed vote.

At this rate, barring an effective effort tomorrow to get the word out, it's reasonable to expect that many people are going to show up at PCTA tomorrow expecting a vote.

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Update! Thanks to additional Google research, I happily stand corrected about the lack of reporting on the School Board school closure vote delay in any mainstream media outlets. On Thursday night, April 21, ABC Channel 6 local news' 11pm newscast reported the City Council's vote to delay the School Board's school closure vote pending further investigation on the part of the School Board and a conversation between the board president and City Council members. Video from abc6.com here.

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.

Keep those calendars out...get ready for a busy week.

You just typed in or wrote down the last day of school so your calendars are already at the ready. Keep them out to save the date for meeting after meeting after meeting next week that will have an impact on the future of Providence's schools.

Monday, April 25, 6:30pm-late. Providence School Board Meeting at Providence Career and Technical Academy, 41 Fricker Street. This is the meeting at which the school board will vote on the proposed school closures. This is not the meeting at which the school board will vote on the proposed school closures--more on that here. Agenda here.

Tuesday, April 26, 5:00-8:00pm. Providence City Council Education Subcommittee meeting, Providence City Hall, 3rd Floor. This is one of a series of meetings that the City Council Education Subcommittee has been holding on the Providence Teachers Union contract and related matters. Meeting description: "The Education Subcommittee will review a draft report on the Providence Teachers Union contract. The report will recommend a 'tool kit' of contract improvements to advance public education within the City's difficult financial constraints." RSVP and more info on Facebook here.

Wednesday. April 27, Providence School Board Open Forum on Aligned Instruction, 6:30-8:00pm, Central High School, 70 Fricker Street, Providence. This meeting will be a presentation and question and answer session on the district's aligned instruction approach to curriculum and pedagogy. You can download a PDF flier that describes more about this meeting here. Childcare is available (good move!).

Also - if you are a parent/family member of a student at one of the schools that the RIDE recently named as needing intervention and support, there are meetings this week to discuss the intervention model options. On Tuesday, April 26th, Mary E. Fogarty Elementary and Alvarez High School are each meeting; on Thursday, April 28th, Hope High School (technically Hope Information Technology) and Mount Pleasant High School are each meeting, and the meetings for all of the schools are being repeated on Saturday, April 30. I do not have specific information about times or locations; presumably, PPSD is sharing that information with families, teachers, and students in each school community. These are not meetings intended for the general public.

To which all I can say is: there isn't enough time, patience, or babysitting money in the world to get me to the three of these gatherings that directly affect me, much as I'd like to go, and I imagine other parents feel similarly. I will try. My youngest kid's very first Little League game is Monday night and there is nowhere else I'd rather be on the planet than on the sidelines cheering him on, so I'll head on over to the School Board meeting after that. The rest? We'll see. I'd love to go but just don't see how to swing it with other kids' baseball games every night that week. As usual, if any readers do make it to these meeting and are willing to share notes/thoughts/observations here, I'd love to share those with Providence Schools and Beyond readers.