Aaron Apps – RI Future

Last week, more than 60 local students marched in circles around City Hall holding signs that read, “Keep Your Promise,” and “My Feet Hurt.”

The Providence Student Union (PSU) organized the action in protest of Mayor Elorza’s failure to follow through on his campaign promise regarding school transportation to “bring the walking limit to 2 miles, and to grant bus passes to anyone who lives beyond that.” Currently, Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) passes only extend to students living farther than 2.5 miles from school. This 2.5 mile radius came after a reduction from a 3 mile radius by former Mayor Angel Taveras via the inclusion of additional funding in the 2014-15 budget, with plans for further reduction of the radius in the 2015-2016 school year. As WPRI reports, as “Elorza and school officials scrambled to close a projected $34.7-million shortfall in the budget year that begins July 1, the $680,000 needed to reduce the distance to two miles was deemed too steep.”

PSU organizer Roselin Trinidad, in an interview with NBC 10’s Bill Rappleye, stated, “Kids have actually told me I’d rather stay at home than walk in the snow because I’m safe. I know I’m not going to slip on the sidewalk. I know I’m not going to get frostbite because I’m home.” And she continued, “the sidewalks are not well plowed, so it forces me to walk on the street. I’ve been lucky so far.” Indeed, the need for a solution to this massive lack of transportation for students who live substantial distances from their schools is incredibly palpable after this past winter, when the unplowed and unsalted sidewalks became dangerous.

It’s a predicament that I myself can relate to: while I don’t attend public school in town, I live exactly 2.5 miles from Brown’s campus where I go to teach and attend classes, and I often walk the distance. Here is the crucial difference: if I get a blister, or my feet hurt, or I’m just exhausted, or there has been a blizzard, I have the option of either taking the bus (which is paid for), getting a ride from my partner, taking a Brown-provided safeRIDE, or driving in my sometimes-functional car. When the streets were at their worst this winter, I walked to campus as little as possible, because I didn’t feel safe walking down the slippery sidewalks, or, worse, down the middle of the street because the sidewalks were too icy or completely unshoveled. Again, I live 2.5 miles from campus, which is relatively far, regardless of whether the city thinks this is a reasonable distance for high school students to walk. I fell one of the few times I did walk this winter, and I heard many stories of fellow students, a number of whom lived much closer to campus, who fell multiple times, often getting injured or bruised in the the process. If Brown students with access to multiple forms of transportation are having trouble getting to school, it is absurd that high school students being asked to make such long treks without access to public transit.

Indeed, the 2 mile mark is not enough, and this seems especially true when the weather turns sour. I say this not solely as a Brown student, but as someone who has attended 8 different public institutions across the grade spectrum, including several public colleges, all of which provided better access to transportation than Providence currently provides its students.

As Elorza himself said while campaigning, “denying students who live between 2-3 miles away from school bus passes impacts learning, impacts health, and impacts safety, and our low-income communities are disproportionately affected.”

Roselin Trinidad’s response as quoted in Bob Plain’s recent RIFuture article seems apt: “Mayor Elorza pledged that the City would put money in next year’s budget to lower the walking distance for Providence high school students down to 2 miles. Yet his proposed budget does not direct a single dollar toward keeping this promise. It is unacceptable for Mayor Elorza to value our ability to access education before an election, but not after, and we will not quiet down until this wrong has been righted.”

Is there a way to make bussing more sustainable? Can bus passes have some form of nominal fee attached to them that is tiered much like many free or reduced price student meal programs in order to make the program budget-friendly in a way that opens it to students up to the 1.5 or 1 mile mark (according to an RIFuture article from 2014, over half of Rhode Island school districts provide transportation for students living within 1.5 miles, and almost a third of districts provide transportation to students living beyond the 1 mile mark)? Is there a way to expand this program to more students when the weather turns sour for months on end? Can schools do anything in the interim to help students get to their classes like school organized car-pooling?

I think this issue needs to be looked at seriously, and just reducing the limit to 2 miles, while a necessary first step, also leaves many other students still in precarious positions, especially if the city experiences another winter like this last one. Providence’s utter neglect evokes one of those “back in my day” stories where a grandparent describes walking uphill, through the snow both ways, to school. Except the city’s current students experience such ridiculous slogs on a daily basis. Except now, when the the students do get to school, the buildings are often crumbling. Seriously, Providence can do better.

I recently wrote a short op-ed for Providence Journal about the state of Gilbert Stuart Middle School demanding action be taken with regard to the physical state of our local schools.

A recent RI Future article published pictures from inside of this school, which show – even if only in part – how poor the conditions of the physical school buildings actually are in urban Rhode Island.

Having been inside this school in particular, I’d say these are just an additional glimpse at the many physical problems the school has.

Beyond the asbestos curtain, peeling paint, and falling roof tiles, I find myself concerned about the prospect of the leaky roof and the resultant mold, as well as the state of the school’s potable – or perhaps non-potable – water.

The photos do provide a much more accurate depiction than Linda Borg’s Aug. 23 article for Providence Journal (“Superintendents say deferred maintenance in Rhode Island schools is driving up costs”) I wrote the critical op-ed in response to an article that seemed more like acquiescing political coverage and a public relations stunt than an honest consideration of how bad the schools are. These are public buildings occupied by students and teachers and they are being left to rot because of poor budgetary management.

The RI Future article also was beneficial for pointing out the school’s score on the 2013 RIDE report, where Gilbert Stuart received 2 out of 5, on a scale where 5 is the lowest score (2 being considered “generally good condition, some system needs. Minor renovations.”).

Looking at the photos, and having actually been inside of the building itself, makes me question the report itself, and how honest it is being about the living conditions inside of schools. I tend to think leaking roofs, likely mold, and an asbestos curtain puts the school in a category that’s much worse than just being in need of “minor renovations.” One wonders if the people grading the schools have looked at so many bad schools, so many schools so much worse than Gilbert Stuart, that their sense of what is acceptable has become clouded.

gilbertstuart8 — Click for more pictures.

What struck me the most about the report, is that the average condition of schools in urban and rural locations is worse than the condition of Gilbert Stuart according to the organization’s grading scale. Urban schools received an average condition rating of 2.25, and rural schools received an average rating of 2.19. Suburban schools were only slightly better on average than Gilbert Stuart, receiving an average rating of 1.85. In other words, Rhode Island has many schools in just as bad, if not substantially worse, condition than Gilbert Stuart.

It is also worth noting that these schools are worth a lot of money (the report values Gilbert Stuart at $18,466,300) and they’re being left unrepaired in ways that are detrimental to the buildings themselves. But that feels besides the point, as these are public buildings being occupied by people, and I tend to think that moldy buildings with asbestos in them are detrimental to the people occupying them.

There is a kind of slow, horrible violence being done against the students and teachers expected to occupy these buildings. This is not just some minor budgetary hiccup: something drastic needs to be done about the condition of these schools for the sake of the children and teachers who spend their days inside the schools.

Author: Aaron Apps

Providence school busing routes require rethinking

Condition of PVD schools: ‘a kind of slow, horrible violence’