A proposal for a new performance-based high school to replace two existing alternative programs still lives — barely — after facing withering opposition from parents, faculty and students at a recent Providence School Board meeting.
After more than two hours of sometimes impassioned pleas from Alternative Learning Program and Feinstein High School for Public Service faculty, students and parents, the board voted to table a resolution that would close both schools and create a new high school in their place.
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Councilwoman Josephine DiRuzzo was the first to address the board. “I don’t think that now is the time to make a move such as this,” she said.
For 31 years, ALP has served students with special needs, she said, and “it will continue to be needed in the future. Not everyone does well in a comprehensive learning situation. Their needs have been met at this school.”
Addressing the board, DiRuzzo said, “It is your responsibility to make it better. I wanted to know how many school committee members had visited ALP. I was not happy with the answer I got.”
Councilwoman Patricia Nolan praised teachers at both schools, and said the outcome of this decision will affect her future votes.
“I’m not going to support new schools until we take care of the ones we have,” she said.
She was also openly critical of Providence School Superintendent Diana Lam.
“This top-down management style where you don’t take into account the parents, the teachers, the community — I don’t agree with that,” Nolan said. “Don’t close down two schools that are making a difference.”
Councilmen Joseph DeLuca and John Igliozzi also expressed their support for ALP.
DeLuca suggested a brainstorming session.
“I think it should be looked at,” he said. “Some better plans could be made to improve the program rather than doing away with it.”
The proposal for a new performance-based high school would close both existing schools — ALP and Feinstein — and create a new alternative high school in their place, to be located in the Feinstein building.
Individualized learning plans, a lengthened academic day and longer school year are part of the plans for the new school. Technology would also play a key role at the school, with each student receiving his or her own laptop computer. Teachers would have continuous professional development opportunities.
Some of the most poignant appeals at the meeting came from ALP students themselves.
“At Central I was failing all my classes,” said one. “Kids there do not succeed in other schools. Sometimes they have trouble concentrating in class. I was absent a lot.”
Another informed the panel “This is not going to affect you — this is going to affect the teachers and the students. If it weren’t for ALP, I probably wouldn’t be in school right now.”
Students present at the meeting, which filled the school board meeting room to more than capacity, displayed handmade signs that read “If you dare to be different, you can make a difference” and “The Power of One, The Strength of Many — ALP.”
It was Roosevelt Benton who introduced the motion for the board to table the resolution, and said “I would like to look at it a little closer.”
Fellow board member Mary McClure opposed “because it doesn’t allow us to discuss anything.”
The resolution will again be addressed at the next meeting of the school board, scheduled for February 26.
“You have to look at it as a victory,” said one ALP parent on her way out of the meeting. “At least they want to hear from us. Table is better than nothing.”
