After Central Falls High School missed its No Child Left Behind targets for the fifth year in a row, triggering a requirement that the school be reconstituted, interim Schools Superintendent William Holland considered several options.
He studied the feasibility of closing the school and placing the students in other high schools; turning it into a charter school; merging the school with another urban school; and hiring a private company to manage the school.
Holland, a former state higher education commissioner, decided that “far and away,” the best option was to enlist experts at the University of Rhode Island to revamp the school.
His plan, which Gov. Donald L. Carcieri has reviewed, is scheduled to be voted on this Thursday by the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education. The partnership is similar to those formed in Worcester between Clark University and the city’s schools, and between Chelsea, Mass., and Boston University. Both plans are considered successes, and in fact, BU manages Chelsea’s entire public school system.
The high school would become a “university academy,” and URI President Robert L. Carothers would put together a policy advisory committee, likely with representatives from Rhode Island College, the Community College of Rhode Island and corporate and community leaders, to provide “direction and support” to the school.
In addition, the committee would be deeply involved in choosing a new superintendent for the school district and a new principal for the high school – John Kennedy, the third principal in less than three years, was asked to step down late last month and is now an assistant principal.
Though a formal agreement between the district’s board of trustees and URI has yet to be put together, both sides have high hopes for the union.
“I think we hope to bring the university’s prestige, resources, technical assistance and certainly their expertise in core areas like teaching math and science,” said Anna Cano-Morales, chairwoman of the board of trustees.
The partnership would have a startup budget of $200,000, which Cano-Morales said is a worthwhile investment for the state, which has fully funded the Central Falls schools (except for federal and private
grants) since 1991.
“This is a state-run district, so it makes sense that we attach ourselves to the state’s flagship land grant university,” she said. “We’re all paying for Central Falls, and it behooves us to look at our investment.”
And Central Falls High School will not be the only one to benefit from the partnership, Cano-Morales said. “I don’t see Central Falls as a charity case,” she said. “I see this as a win-win situation. It’s an opportunity for there to be, in a public way, public education reform at the high school level that everybody can look at and do together.”
Abu Bakr, executive assistant to the president and director of planning services at URI, agreed. He said the hope at URI is to benefit the students of Central Falls and also to create a model for other schools to follow.
“We go into this thinking that depending on what we do and how we do it, if you create a school that’s high performing, you can share what you do successfully with other schools,” he said.
But the top priority now is educating Central Falls High School students.
“The university has a lot of resources and expertise that they can bring to the district, and the university has an overall commitment to do what it can to assure that these students have access to higher education,” Bakr said.
“This initiative could result in a partnership where the school can become high performing and students can develop academic skills that will give them options to pursue higher education and put them in a much better position to secure an economic future for themselves.”
Attempts to reach the Central Falls Teachers’ Union Local 1567 (a part of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers) for comment on the plan were not returned as of press time.
Education Commissioner Peter McWalters said the plan fits in perfectly with the R.I. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s goals.
“This is something we hope will crystallize the state’s attempt to be an intervener in the high schools,” he said. “If we can pull off a higher education partnership with our most urban center, it will be a wonderful model for the state.”
In addition, consistent with the state’s desire to have better-trained urban teachers, Holland said he wants to establish an urban education training center at Central Falls High School to better prepare new teachers to work in urban schools, financed through grants and private funds.
