Providences Selects Reform Plans for 5 Failing Schools
Monday, December 05, 2011
At a series of school-based meetings last week, Providence Schools Superintendent Susan Lusi shared with parents, staff and community members her recommendations for intervention models at five schools named Persistently Lowest Achieving by the R.I. Department of Education in October.
Now referred to by the district as Innovation Schools, the five include Carl G. Lauro Elementary School, Pleasant View Elementary School, Gilbert Stuart Middle School, Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School and Mt. Pleasant High School. Each school must proceed with dramatic intervention under one of four allowable models outlined in federal and state regulations. {image_2}
“It is our hope that these Innovation schools will become the models for the rest of our district as we strive to continuously and dramatically improve learning opportunities for our children at these struggling schools,” said Lusi. “With intensive support from our district Office of Transformation and Innovation and from our lead partners, these schools will be incubators for ideas that can be replicated across the district.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe district has engaged in a stakeholder outreach process over recent weeks to determine the strengths and needs of each school. Lusi must forward a formal recommendation to Commissioner Deborah Gist by Friday, December 9, and upon approval, each school must craft a comprehensive plan for dramatic school improvement for submission by March 1, 2012. Schools would then be eligible for a portion of $2 million in federal School Improvement Grant funding to support their efforts.
For Mt. Pleasant and Pleasant View, Lusi told the school communities that she is recommending the Transformation model, which is the model already underway at the four intervention schools named in January 2010. Because of a cap on the total number of schools under this model, the district was limited to two of the five newly named schools eligible for Transformation. The model calls for replacement of the principal (unless one is already in place who was recently hired as a transformation leader), extended learning time, operational flexibility and data-driven interventions. Though the model does not prescribe the number of teachers to be retained, there will be a rigorous evaluation process, and teachers will be asked to demonstrate commitment to the principles of improvement that take root in the schools.
For Lauro Elementary, Stuart Middle, and Alvarez High School, Lusi has recommended the Restart model, which essentially re-opens the school, with its same students, under a new management model. In this case, management will be by “United Providence,” a unique management-labor collaboration which will be developed between the district and the Providence Teachers Union. The new management model is intended to give the schools flexibility to pilot innovative methods, with flexible funding, comprehensive instructional reform, and improved teacher and school leader effectiveness.
United Providence would function as an independent non-profit, with an advisory Board comprised of both PPSD and PTU representatives, and potentially community partners. United Providence would be held accountable for results by a contractual arrangement with the Providence School Board. The idea of United Providence was born last year out of the need to intervene in the first cohort of four schools named in January 2010, but the mechanics of its establishment were not sorted out in time to meet the intervention deadlines. The details of its operation are being worked out now between the District and its union partner.
