Warwick wants to charge students for riding the bus, playing sports
In an effort to balance its budget, Warwick wants to charge students $1 to take the bus to and from school as well as a fee to participate in after school sports. But because these cost-cutting moves flout state law, the local school committee is seeking the approval of the state Department of Education to […]
Flanders spams public sector employees seeking campaign cash
When Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Flanders was the state-appointed receiver for cash-strapped Central Falls in 2012, the affluent East Greenwich resident infamously offered municipal employees a haircut or a beheading in balancing the city’s budget. As such, public sector workers probably won’t prove to be a major source of support for Flanders, a small […]
RI seeks to boost school breakfast
Eating in the classroom once resulted in detention. At the Veazie Street School in Providence, it’s a part of the curriculum. The K through 5 elementary school in Wanskuck, where 94 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, serves breakfast in the classroom to start the school day. “We know that every child […]
Survey illustrates challenges for transgender and gender non-conforming Rhode Islanders
“The findings reveal disturbing patterns of mistreatment and discrimination and startling disparities between transgender people in the survey and the US population…”
RIDE commits to statewide policy protecting transgender and gender non-conforming students
Education Commissioner Ken Wagner announced his commitment to require all school districts in the state to adopt comprehensive policies affirming the civil rights of transgender and gender non-conforming students.
Wagner on transgender policy: “You can’t force people to love”
“You can’t force people to love and sometimes when you force you actually create the very issues that you say you are trying to prevent,” said Education Commissioner Ken Wagner.
Pawtucket ends lunch shaming, moves toward free food for all students
Pawtucket is employing a two-part strategy to changing its approach to school lunch. The first part was to stop lunch shaming. In April, RI Future flagged the Pawtucket School District as one of several in Rhode Island that serves cold cheese sandwiches to students if their parents don’t pay their food bill on time – […]
Groups urge RIDE to adopt statewide policy for transgender students
A recent report from the ACLU of RI found that more than 25 percent of RI public schools have no comprehensive policy in place to protect transgender and gender non-conforming students.
RI needs a policy to protect transgender students
The report highlights the multitude of issues facing transgender and gender non-conforming students, including privacy and confidentiality, the use of students’ preferred pronouns and participation in gender-segregated activities.
RI now has one of the best public preschool programs in the country
When it comes to pre-kindergarten programs, Rhode Island is slowly becoming one of the best states in the nation, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research’s annual State of Preschool Yearbooks released yesterday. “Rhode Island is a leader on funding per child and preschool quality standards, meeting all 10 current and new benchmarks,” […]
The state of RI school buildings is in ‘crisis,’ says Wagner
“We have a crisis with our facilities,” said state Education Commissioner Ken Wagner about the state of school buildings in Rhode Island during the student question and answer portion of his State of Education speech Monday night. A student from Chariho posed the question. He said his school resembles a prison. Then there’s Providence. In […]
Rhode Island’s pre-k program is expanding, slowly
As Rhode Island considers extending the social contract at the tail end of the public education experience with Governor Gina Raimondo’s high profile RI Promise proposal, it’s worth noting the Ocean State has been extending it at the other end for almost a decade. This September, the state-funded pre-kindergarten program adds four new classrooms in […]
Raimondo on lunch shaming: ‘We shouldn’t be singling kids out’
“As a mother I sure wouldn’t want that happening to my kids,” said Governor Gina Raimondo when this reporter explained to her the concept of lunch shaming. Several Rhode Island school districts serve cold cheese sandwiches in lieu of a hot lunch if their parents miss payments for the meal (here and here). “We shouldn’t […]
Legislation would end ‘lunch-shaming’ cheese sandwich policy, maybe much more
A new bill seeks to outlaw lunch shaming policies in Rhode Island public school cafeterias by mandating “Type A” lunches for all students. The way it’s written, it could also make school lunch free to all students. “It’s a very simple solution,” said the bill’s lead sponsor Rep. Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, of Providence, “provide a hot […]
Lunch shaming in RI: Suburban schools say let students eat cheese sandwiches
It’s known as lunch shaming. Students are subjected to special, sometimes embarrassing, treatment because their parents didn’t pay the school lunch bill.
Jack Reed’s Town Hall that wasn’t
Featuring illustrations from Selene Means. As I approached, I saw that the east end of Kennedy Plaza had been transformed into a police car parking lot, with maybe two dozen officers from at least three different law enforcement agencies.
Expansion approved for Achievement First charter school
The state Council on Elementary and Secondary Education approved Achievement First’s controversial 10-year expansion plan that will result in the multi-state charter school in being responsible for educating more than 10 percent of the Providence public school students. The vote was 5 to 3 with Colleen Callahan, Larry Purtill and Jo Eva Gaines opposing the […]
Achievement First expansion could be decided tonight
Public education in Providence comes to a fork in the road tonight as the state Council on Elementary and Secondary Education is scheduled to act on Achievement First’s controversial 10-year expansion plan. If approved, the multi-state charter school would become responsible for educating more than 10 percent of all city public school students, growing from […]
Going deeper into RIDE and Brown’s Achievement First fiscal impact memo
As part of the ongoing debate regarding the proposed expansion of Jorge Elorza’s Achievement First (AF) mayoral academies in Providence, one crucial question is the expansion’s fiscal impact on the Providence Public School District (PPSD) and the City of Providence budget. In the 2016 legislative session, Rhode Island charter law was revised to require… …the council […]
The optics, politics and nuance of Achievement First expansion
Supporters, many poor people of color, spoke passionately about justice and opportunity in Providence schools. Opponents, mostly well-employed white people, spoke about economies of scale and efforts to undermine public education. This was the scene last night as the state Council on Elementary and Secondary Education listened to public testimony on a proposed expansion to […]
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