PROVIDENCE – The Providence Public School District has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to exit federal monitoring that was part of a 2018 settlement with the city over failure to properly serve multilingual learners in city schools.
The monitoring in the district ended on Nov. 13 after PPSD and the R.I. Department of Education got in compliance with many key areas identified by the DOJ to better serve the close to 8,000 multilingual learners in the city. Among them were identifying and evaluating multilingual learners for special education services; expanded access to specialized programs such as advanced academics and career and technical education programs; offering nearly 500 teachers reimbursement to attain English for speakers of other languages certification, which has significantly expanded the number of certified teachers supporting multilingual learners; and adding an executive director of multilingual learner services, among others.
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PPSD and RIDE also said the district has increased its annual, recurring investments in support of multilingual learners by more than $5 million since the state intervention of the district in late 2019.
“We believe in the promise of our multilingual learners and have invested significant time, resources and supports to rectify longstanding compliance issues,” Providence School Superintendent Javier Montañez said in a statement. “Our ongoing district-wide initiatives underscore this unwavering commitment, and we appreciate the DOJ’s partnership and continued collaboration as we have worked together to ensure all our MLLs thrive in our schools.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on X at @James_Bessette.
