Providence officials are hoping a recent court decision puts to rest the tarnished history of the Harold H. Birch Vocational School.
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act at the Birch School, located within Mount Pleasant High School in Providence.
A Justice Department investigation found that Birch served as a “sheltered workshop” where intellectually disabled students ages 14-21 were segregated from their nondisabled peers. They worked long hours for little or no pay – sometimes assembling, bagging, collating and labeling for private businesses under contracts with the school, the department found.
The Justice Department also found that Birch served as a “direct pipeline” to a similarly segregated workshop setting at the state’s Training Through Placement Inc. program in North Providence.
Now city officials say the old, unenlightened ways of handling the intellectually disabled at Birch are officially history – and they want the public to know what they’ve accomplished.
“This has very much been a team effort, and all members of the team kept the best interests of students at the forefront throughout the process,” Interim Superintendent of Providence Schools Fran Gallo said in a Sept. 25 statement.
‘All members of the team kept the best interests of students at the forefront.’
FRAN GALLO, Providence Schools interim superintendent
In the same statement, Mayor Jorge O. Elorza said: “I am proud to work [with] our team at the district to provide staff [with] the professional development and readiness experiences they need to create an inclusive learning environment for our students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”
U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr. agreed Sept. 26 to lift a decree that required the school district to revamp the program at Birch.
The Justice Department and the school district had filed a motion for the judge to dismiss the seven-year settlement agreement between the department and the district about 10 months earlier than scheduled. The motion came after the court-appointed monitor issued a report, concluding the district has consistently met or exceeded the decree’s requirements.
“As this brief shows, the commitment and dedicated efforts of our team created a methodology to support students with intellectual and developmental disabilities that has become best practice for other districts across the state,” Gallo said. “More importantly, these efforts led to better outcomes for students.”
The state, the district noted, remains subject to the settlement agreement through its original expiration date in July 2020.
The 2013 settlement agreement regarding the Birch school required the city and the state to:
• Provide integrated employment services as an alternative to sheltered workshops.
• Create career-development plans and connect students at the Training Through Placement program, recent graduates of Birch and students transitioning out of Birch to integrated employment.
• Provide two 60-day trial work experiences aligned to the career goals of each Birch student.
• Ensure that Birch students are provided the opportunity to earn a high school diploma.
Mary Ann Carroll, a lawyer for the school district on the Birch case, said the school’s prior approach of essentially warehousing intellectually disabled students in workshops with minimal contact with their nondisabled peers has been changed significantly.
Previously, Carroll acknowledged, little was done to prepare Birch students to eventually integrate into society.
“One former student stated that she was required to spend a much greater portion of her school day in the workshop, including full days, when the workshop had important production deadlines,” stated a 2013 Justice Department report.
“Other than the in-school sheltered workshop, the nearest experience that some Birch students are offered to a transition work placement is assisting the Mount Pleasant High School cafeteria staff with emptying the school’s trash,” the report stated.
In 2013, Providence officials ended the sheltered workshops at Birch. The school’s longtime principal, Larry Roberti, who allegedly resisted earlier attempts to change practices at Birch, was placed on administrative leave and he eventually retired.
The district’s Sept. 25 statement outlined the steps taken at Birch:
The district began offering professional development to teachers and support staff there to ensure they were prepared to provide students with “integrated education” and “work-readiness experiences,” the district said.
The district moved Birch classrooms within the program’s host school to create “less-segregated learning environments.” The district also integrated Birch students into elective courses and extracurricular programs in sports and music at Mount Pleasant to ensure they had the opportunity to meet graduation requirements.
In addition, the district started “person-centered” planning to place students in trial work experiences that matched their interests or goals.
Scott Blake is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Blake@PBN.com.
