Gist: Reform at Central Falls Now Can Move at ‘Light Speed’
Monday, May 17, 2010
The Central Falls teachers’ union and the school district have reached a tentative deal that would allow teachers at the high school to keep their jobs and the school to move forward with important reforms, Education Commissioner Deborah Gist announced yesterday.
“The tentative agreement reached today is evidence that all parties can put aside their differences and work in the best interest of our students,” Gist said in a statement. “Now it’s time to move forward and work together to make Central Falls High School one of the best schools in Rhode Island.”
The full union membership will vote on the arrangement today.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTIf approved, the vote would bring to a close a months-long standoff between teachers and the school district that has put Central Falls at the center of a national debate over how to fix failing public schools.
In January, Gist identified Central Falls High School as one of the six “persistently lowest-performing" schools in Rhode Island. The school has a 48 percent graduation rate, 50 percent of students fail their classes, and only 7 percent of juniors passed state math tests.
Superintendent Frances Gallo initially chose the "transformation" model for improving the school, which included: adding 25 minutes to the school day, professional development for teachers for two weeks in the summer, and one 90-minute, after-school a week to review student performance and make corresponding changes to the curriculum and instruction.
But Gallo and the teachers could not agree to all the changes. So Gallo instead went with the “turnaround” option and issued pink slips to all of the teachers in February.
Afterwards, the union reached out to Gallo and the two parties have been in negotiations ever since, aided by a federal mediator and retired U.S. District Court Judge Ernest Torres.
Under the tentative agreement, the school day has been extended and teachers will provide extra tutoring to students, Gallo said. She said the details will be released after the union vote today.
“We’re always going to be more successful when were working together,” Gist told GoLocalProv. “There’s just no question about that and, when everyone is committed to the kinds of reforms that we need to have in place, we’re going to move at light speed and that’s what this gives us the chance to do.”
In the meantime, the school has received over 800 applications for teaching positions—including the current staff of nearly 90 teachers. Gist said Gallo had to seek out applications, not knowing whether or not the negotiations would end in an agreement.
If the union approves the terms of the new deal, the teachers will not have to re-apply for their jobs. But they will have to “recommit” to their positions—a process that will involve interviewing with the new principal, Gist said.
“I think that, whatever we do, we need to have the conditions in place at the high school for the reform to be successful—and this was never about teachers or their individual performance,” Gist told GoLocalProv. “It was about the selection of the intervention model and the transformation model is one in which everyone together has agreed to the reform effort.”
After the union vote today, Gist said the district and the teachers will have 120 days to hash out a detailed plan for reforming the high school under the “transformation” model.
“This is absolutely an aggressive plan—the kind of plan we need in order to transform the high school,” Gist said.
