Report Inappropriate Comments

What the Warwick Public School System needs is stability. Constant threats of school closures, and on occasion actual school closures, have caused parents of current and potential Warwick Public Schools students to lose faith in the system. The mayor, with the support of Mr. Howell of the Warwick Beacon, makes it appear that it is obvious that the high schools should consolidate. By reading their comments, you would think that we have three small high schools and it is wasteful to keep them all open. Actually we have three large high schools; each has over 900 students. As I mentioned in my earliest comments, studies have demonstrated that the ideal sized high school should have between 600-900 students. Other than cost savings, what is the educational and social benefit of consolidating the high schools? There is none. Warwick high schools’ NECAP scores have improved as the schools have come closer to a population of 900. Change for change’s sake only leads to creating an unstable school system that will in turn push families into leaving Warwick or others will avoid moving here because they do not want to subject their children to such an unstable school environment caused by the constant threat of unnecessary consolidation that has no educational or social benefit.

If Warwick Public Schools want to move to the middle school concept, the existing junior high schools apparently have plenty of room to accommodate another grade. By moving the sixth grade out of the elementary schools, it will leave room in the existing elementary schools for all-day kindergarten. As a result, no consolation is needed to accomplish the move to middle schools. We in Warwick have been told since the 1980s that Gorton and Aldrich are old schools that need to close due to cost of maintenance, but the truth is that these are extremely well-built schools that are probably in better shape than Pilgrim High School. The old Lockwood Junior High School was not torn down after it was closed. As with Gorton and Aldrich, it was such a well-built school that it was converted to an apartment complex that is still there today.

Year by year Warwick appears to slipping into the situation that Coventry was in in the middle and late 1970s. Coventry’s tax base in the 1970s was made up of older taxpayers who were not willing to approve necessary funds for its school system. It was so bad that in at least two of those years Coventry did not have the funds to field high school sports teams. We are approaching that situation now. Look at the comments in Warwick Beacon by its readers and even its writers, such as this article by John Howell, “Stuck in Neutral.” The focus is all about costs with little concern for the impact of consolidation on education. For all the taxpayers without children in the Warwick School system, it is also in your interest to properly fund the schools and provide a stable environment for its students because an increase, or at least stabilization, of property values depends on it. If people leave or decide not to move to Warwick to avoid a City whose older tax base is not willing to support its schools, that will continue to decrease demand for housing and, as a result, property values. Small short-term tax dollar savings by unnecessary consolidations may provide short-term savings but will cause long term harm to the City of Warwick as a whole.

From: Stuck in neutral

Please explain the inappropriate content below.