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The school department and city leadership should follow Joanne Pelletier's initiative and be asking all those who leave the school system or the city (and should be tracking the demographics of out and in migration) their reasons and a citywide plan to address the issues should be implemented. This was mentioned by a resident/parent at a city budget hearing and both the schools and city council responded that exit interviews are not done by either party in Warwick and the only one to date that has acted is Joanne Pelletier. The city wide school building conditions are the result of decades of minimal maintenance and upgrades and will take strong and collaborative city and school leadership and decades to improve citywide. However, its not only the buildings that parents are disappointed in, there are a countless number of administrative and budget issues in both the city and state and a culture that needs change. All that being said, most teachers are very hardworking and good educators. Many Warwick and other public school system retirees are teaching at the very schools that parents choose over the public system (and the physical condition and class size at some of these schools is not much better and in some cases worse). If you were to adjust for demographic variables that directly correlate to academic success and compare public school systems to each other and to catholic schools, my guess would be not much difference in long-term achievement. I have tracked college acceptances for many years from RI schools and although may vary year to year, catholic and public schools (including Warwick and with the exception of Classical), are not very different and if adjusted for demographics, a much more accurate depiction of the schools would be available. I also agree with Dr.D' Agostino that there are many examples of high achieving students in Warwick, students that win awards and scholarships over every other student in the state. Warwick needs to do a better job in celebrating these achievements (and the Beacon could help tremendously with that!) A good student will still do well in the public system and there are many, many examples of this in Warwick and elsewhere. However, every child is different and each family needs to decide long term education plan/goals for their child and balance their resources, their child's needs, and options for kindergarten through college/graduate school. It's a long, expensive journey and as most families who have been through it can tell you, there's no perfect answer, we all just try to do the best we can for our kids.

From: Concerns over student loss to private schools

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