CENTRAL FALLS – The Rhode Island Foundation has awarded more than $175,000 to the University of Rhode Island-Central Falls High School partnership to improve the once-failing high school, the foundation announced this morning.
The foundation had already awarded the partnership – called the Central Falls High School: A University of Rhode Island Academy – $50,000 last year, for the program’s planning. The new grant will support three of the partnership’s initiatives, helping create an Academic Enhancement Center, a Family and Community Engagement Center and a Transition through Arts Literacy Learning University.
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The grant was announced at Central Falls High School, in an event this morning attended by representatives from the Rhode Island Foundation and URI.
“This is a project that offers real hope, through a specific course of action – it is just the kind of collaborative model we are increasingly committed to support,” said George Graboys, the foundation’s chairman and acting president. “What we learn in Central Falls should prove critical to improving the quality of education in public high schools throughout the state. That is why we are so invested in the partnership’s success.”
URI President Robert L. Carothers said, “It is important to us that we have added the Rhode Island Foundation as a partner embracing a shared vision for the high school’s future. Together, we can create an environment of creativity and imagination in which all students will gain the academic and personal skills required for a productive and satisfying life.”
URI began working with the R.I. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Central Falls school district last year, in response to the high school’s classification for five consecutive years as a school “making insufficient progress,” as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.
The formal partnership between the schools became official in May 2007. The overall goal of the partnership is to achieve recognition of Central Falls High as a high-achieving school of distinction, under NCLB guidelines, within four years.
Plans call for the restructuring of the high school into six distinct learning academies. The academies will allow teaching to take place in small learning communities that provide students with opportunities to learn core subject matter in more experiential settings, officials say. Students’ involvement in the academies would begin after successful completion of their initial core academic program, traditionally in ninth and 10th grades.
The Academic Enhancement Center will be modeled after the university’s primary learning assistance center that helps students develop the awareness, skills and strategies to improve their academic performance. The grant will fund 15 computers and related academic resources.
The Family and Community Engagement Center will expand the resources and services to involve more parents, family and community members at the high school. The center will add 10 school/home outreach workers and other resources to its staff of liaisons.
The Transition through Arts Literacy Learning project is designed to increase the ability of non-English speakers to pick up the language and aims to improve students’ language proficiency through special events and activities. (At Central Falls High, 25 percent of students are classified as “English Language Learners,” the highest percentage of any district in the state.) The project uses teaching tools that integrate course content with the performing arts.
The Rhode Island Foundation, founded in 1916, is one of the nation’s largest and oldest charitable organizations serving a specific geographic community, with more than $600 million in assets under management. It grants more than $20 million per year to more than 1,000 charities. To learn more, visit www.rifoundation.org.
