The Takeover
In the wake of terse union negotiations and an assault scandal , can Providence schools withstand three more years of state control ?
A few years ago , Emlyn Addison , along with other parents , volunteered to paint classrooms at Vartan Gregorian Elementary School on the East Side of Providence , where his daughter was a student . He was appalled at the sheer decrepitude of the place that was expected to deliver foundations of knowledge to his little girl . A 2016 facilities assessment had identified multiple roof leaks as the major deficiency of the now-sixty-seven-year-old building , but Addison saw other worrying signs .
“ The little [ air-conditioning ] window units . Fifteen different things plugged into one outlet — daisy chains of power strips . It was not safe . And the stuff we were lifting up and pulling down from the walls — layers of poster board and old wood from the 1950s and ’ 60s , coated in gooey dust , like nobody touched it . It was awful .”
So , in May 2019 , when Rhode Island Commissioner of Education Angelica Infante-Green released the results of a district-wide review conducted by the Johns Hopkins University ( JHU ) Center for Education , the assessment had the loud , clear ring of truth for Addison . Deteriorating infrastructure was but one element of a ninety-threepage report that described other layers of neglect : students traumatized by decades of low achievement and a “ broken ” school culture rife
GETTY IMAGES , MAGLYVI AND ERHUI1979 . with bullying and violence , and adults — from parents to teachers to administrators — paralyzed by the enormity of ongoing failure .
Six months later , the state assumed control of the Providence Public School District ( PPSD ) under a five-year plan , to the cheers of most stakeholders . ( Some city councilors objected .)
“ It made perfect sense at the time ,” says Addison , who joined the education department ’ s Parents Advisory Council . “ There was a similar report in 1993 . Obviously nothing ’ s changed , so something had to happen .”
Maribeth Calabro , president of the Providence Teachers Union ( PTU ), says the union also welcomed the takeover . But , a year and a half later , an acid bath of acrimony had dissolved the optimism .
In March of this year , contract talks between the commissioner and the PTU broke down , leading to the union ’ s overwhelming noconfidence vote in Infante-Green . In May , Infante-Green ’ s chosen superintendent , Harrison Peters , resigned after the district ’ s administrator of middle and high schools , Dr . Olayinka Alege , was arrested for forcibly massaging the foot of a minor at a Warwick gym . Peters and Alege both hailed from Florida ’ s Hillsborough County Public Schools , where Peters was school chief and where Alege , a
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