New feeder patterns regarding school consolidation were approved by a 4-1 vote, with Karen Bachus dissenting, at Monday’s School Committee meeting. The plan will send 10 elementary schools through Warwick Veterans Junior High and Pilgrim High School and six elementary schools through Winman Junior High and Toll Gate High School for the 2016-17 school year.

The breakdown is as follows: Students from Francis, Holden, Holliman, Hoxsie, Lippitt, Norwood, Oakland Beach, Sherman, Warwick Neck and Wyman will all go to Warwick Vets and Pilgrim, while Cedar Hill, Greenwood, Park, Robertson, Scott, and Wickes students will go to Winman and Toll Gate.

According to a Power Point presentation using Oct. 1 enrollment numbers, Pilgrim would have 1,622 students in grades 9 through 12 (59 percent of the high school population), while Toll Gate would have 1,123 (41 percent). According to the capacity building analysis performed by Symmes Maini & McKee Associates (SMMA), the consulting firm hired to develop a long-term education and facilities master plan for the district, capacity at Pilgrim (219,111 square feet) would slightly exceed the recommended 85 percent utilization rate at 91 percent, while Toll Gate (204,621) would be well within at 68 percent.

Warwick Vets Junior High, consisting of grades 7 and 8 for the 2016-17 school year, would have 853 (60 percent of the junior high population) and Winman would have 571 (40 percent). In terms of building capacity, Vets (210,520 square feet) would be at 49 percent and Winman (144,267 square feet) would be at 46 percent.

“One primary concern and difference to address regarding feeder patterns is the fact that Vets will be larger than Winman, which has limitations when considering team structure,” said Rosemary Healey, director of human resources.

According to the Power Point, with 120 students per team, Vets would have 7.11 teams and Winman would have 4.76 teams in 2016-17.

Although it wouldn’t happen right away, Healey said the plan is for students at the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center (WACTC) to have Toll Gate as their home school.

“With Career and Tech as configured, we spend a lot of time transporting kids to Vets and Pilgrim,” she said. “We’re looking at establishing these students at Toll Gate for the future.”

Recently appointed director of secondary education Steven Ruscito said there are currently 88 WACTC students from Vets and 104 from Pilgrim. Including students from East Greenwich and West Warwick, in addition to Warwick, Ruscito said there are currently a total of 455 WACTC students.
Monday night’s meeting marked the final time the school committee will meet with SMMA.

School Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Ahearn confirmed that the meeting fulfilled SMMA’s contract and the firm’s services will no longer be retained by the district. The firm was hired at a cost of $238,243.

Ahearn said the meeting was purposefully pushed back from the summer time because she knew people and families often take vacation time in the summer and she wanted to make sure as many people as possible would be able to attend.

Although the meeting fulfills SMMA’s contract with the district, Ahearn said the firm is currently bidding on a Request for Proposals (RFP) to conduct architect and engineering work on buildings throughout the district over the next five years related to the consolidation plan, which is separate from the consulting work the firm conducted.

As part of that consulting work, the firm discussed its completed report at Monday’s meeting, a 1,000-plus page document consisting of full-fledged cost estimates, demographic studies, and documents all building visits the firm performed.

Ed Frenette, senior vice president of SMMA, laid out the timeline for both planning and implementation of the various phases of consolidation as follows: plan the consolidation of secondary schools (closing Aldrich and Gorton junior highs and re-purposing Warwick Vets as a super junior high) in 2015-16; implement secondary consolidation and plan the conversion of junior highs (Winman and Vets) to middle schools in 2016-17; implement middle school conversion and plan for elementary consolidation in 2017-18; and implement elementary consolidation in 2018-19.

With sixth grade moving up to the junior high level to create middle schools in the 2017-18 school year, enrollment at Vets for grades 6 through 8 would be 1,282 (61 percent of the middle school population), with 10.68 teams and 74 percent building capacity, and enrollment at Winman would be 833 (39 percent), with 6.94 teams and 68 percent building capacity.

Teachers, parents and community members alike shared their concerns with the proposed feeder patterns. Many felt the numbers would be too high at Pilgrim, especially if the district were to suddenly see an influx of families and children.

School committee member Terri Medeiros addressed those concerns.

“Between 2003 and 2011, there have been only two [school] districts in the state that saw an increase, a 2 percent increase in Barrington and a 10 percent increase in Lincoln. We have almost the highest percentage of decline [in population] in the state,” she said. “No one is moving to Rhode Island right now. We are one of the last few districts to fight consolidation to give kids the education they need and to keep teachers. We’re doing this because we have to, not because we want to.”

One woman expressed concerns with traffic at Pilgrim, saying the traffic study that was performed there was done in the morning when seniors were not in session.

“It’s a dangerous walk for kids as is; there’s no safe way to enter/exit – there’s only one way in and one way out,” she said.

Darlene Netcoh, English teacher and department head at Toll Gate, said there are more than 20 buses coming to Toll Gate, while Vets and Pilgrim only have six or seven.

“If you close Vets, all the students that walk to school will have to be bused and I haven’t seen those numbers anywhere,” she said. “I don’t think you’ve adequately considered logistics and safety.”

When questions came up about certification of middle school teachers, school committee member Beth Furtado said the district is working to engage in a partnership with the University of Rhode Island to open up its middle school certification program to any interested teachers. She said the program is a three-course program that could be taken online or at the Community College of Rhode Island if it was more convenient than the URI campus.

When teachers asked what’s happening to them in the transition and where will they be next year, Healey said it’s an open question right now.

“We’re waiting to see what the section needs are as we complete the scheduling process,” she said. “Without establishing feeder patterns, we lack the ability to address [those] concerns. We need to get the schedules done to proceed to the next step.”

Chief Budget Officer Anthony Ferrucci said scheduling is a work in progress.

“We expect to have course offerings going out shortly and we’re looking for assistance through guidance counselors and teachers to create real schedules where students must register,” he said. “In the past, the process we’ve gone through is to have course offerings available in January and February and have schedules solidified in June.”

Ferrucci said that timeline would have to be pushed up by close to six months in order to be able to tell teachers where they’ll be located for next year.

“Our timeline is getting the course offerings in the next two weeks and getting feedback by Christmas so we can establish schedules by January,” he said, adding he’ll be reaching out to staff over the next two to three days to start that process. 

Pilgrim guidance counselors Brenda Resendes and Donna Tobin expressed concerns with the expedited timeline.

“Scheduling is an enormous job and this a very busy time for us with report card conferences with parents and college recommendation letters being due,” Resendes said.

Tobin added, “If the [teachers] contract is not settled, how will teachers be assigned?”

Guidance counselors weren’t the only ones frustrated by the expedited timeline.

“You’re asking for stanines [method used to scale test scores] for student placements next year in two weeks and first quarter report cards are due three weeks from today,” said a sixth grade teacher. “I can’t tell you where students will be one year from now based on one quarter of data.”

Another teacher wanted to know about the educational aspects of the master plan and what programs will be offered as part of it.

“We’re not hearing about the educational aspects of the plan, which concerns me because if we aren’t changing for the better quickly, we’ll lose students,” she said. “If you consolidate secondary schools, aren’t you losing teachers that will need to be brought back when you move sixth grade to the junior highs? Can you honestly say we can do this for September 2016 and do it right?”

Superintendent Philip Thornton said although you may never be totally ready, you have to move forward.

“I know it’s stressful, but it can be done. I wouldn’t come here if I couldn’t do it,” said Thornton, former superintendent of schools in Cumberland, as he tackled his first day on the job in Warwick. 
In other committee news, the committee also approved the internal posting of five assistant principal positions, one each at Winman, Pilgrim and Toll Gate and two at Vets, as well as one principal position at Vets.

The votes for each were 4-1, with Bachus dissenting.

The committee also heard an updated report from the Consolidation Committee via Power Point presentation, which detailed the status of all 10 Consolidation Committee sub-committees. That report, as well as a detailed list of members on each sub-committee, can be found here.