Stunned silence has followed in the wake of the disclosure last week that Warwick has eight to ten too many schools.
The silence is understandable, for if the conclusion of consultants is …
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Stunned silence has followed in the wake of the disclosure last week that Warwick has eight to ten too many schools.
The silence is understandable, for if the conclusion of consultants is accurate, draconian measures are needed to downsize the district. This is not a matter affecting a single neighborhood, as was the case when a school panel recommended closing Gorton Junior High School several years ago. That plan was put aside and after nearly a yearlong study, the school committee was presented with the recommendation to close Gorton and Aldrich, combining them in a middle school at Vets High. Vets students would then be divided between Toll Gate and Pilgrim.
Each of those plans, drafted in response to declining enrollment, met with outcries from parents, students and even school alumni. And in both situations, the committee chose to study the matter even though millions of dollars could have been saved.
While schools have not been specified, Symmes Maini & McKee Associates (SMMA) has painted a clear picture of the city’s surplus of classrooms that is projected to continue growing at four to six full classrooms every year.
As a community, we’re faced with choices – none of them easy – that will impact Warwick and education in the years to come.
SMMA is looking at the options and will present them in the coming weeks. Unless the decision is to do nothing, which would be costly for the taxpayer and in terms of educational opportunities for our young people, the system will undergo dramatic change. We can no longer afford three high schools with three feeder junior highs and a series of elementary schools beneath them. There are options. We could have two or single high and middle schools. We could redesign elementary schools so that they all offer full-day Kindergarten through Grade 5. Currently about half the schools have all-day K and all go through Grade 6.
This is not to suggest these are the only variables.
School Committee chair Jennifer Ahearn has set an aggressive timetable to come up with and discuss the options. SMMA has already conducted two of six public meetings to discuss findings and, if everything goes according to plan, they will complete their part of the process by the end of this month.
Is it too fast for such important decisions?
We think not. Some decisions need to be made now, or at least by next month, if changes are to be made by the start of the next academic year.
That said, however, not all of the changes need to be locked in at this time, and quite obviously, not all of them should be made at once. It could be a three or four-year plan.
What we hope for is an honest and fair appraisal of the findings with an open discussion of the options that take into consideration community resources and what we want of our schools. We can’t afford to ignore, as we have done since the mid-1980s when enrollment forecasts showed a shrinking school age population, that the system is half the size it once was and promises to get smaller. Nor can we ignore that not since the 1970s, when the Robert J. Toll Gate Complex was completed, has a new school been built in Warwick. During that period, two fire stations were built and a third will be opened this fall. Many of our school buildings are old … and they show it.
Finally a word about that “shocked silence.”
From what we’ve seen so far, SMMA has done a good job in holding up the mirror. What we’re seeing we didn’t want to believe two years ago, or for that matter 35 years ago.
This time not only is the image distressing, but it’s worse than we imagined.
Breaking the mirror – in other words shelving the report – won’t change it. We’ve procrastinated long enough.
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davebarry109
THe school committee did not need to hire SMMA to find out we had too many schools. The director of administration of buildings and grounds said FIVE YEARS AGO that we should have begun closing scholls FIVE YEARS BEFORE THAT. That's ten years now we haven't closed schools. If Ahearn's agenda is aggressive, I'm a mensa member.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015 Report this
jackiemama63
I've been attending the SMMA meetings to hear their findings, to see if anything they suggest might be different than the proposal from 2013....nothing different, except our schools have $250,000 less than they did before. It's painful to hear the same tired arguments, the same obstinate attitude toward change. These meetings are designed to appease a segment of the population that is unwilling to move forward, who have visions of Warwick suddenly becoming overrun with children, causing the schools to burst at the seams. We will never see our schools overcrowded again. Not when we have an airport that has expanded in the past, is currently expanding, and will probably continue to expand in the future. Even if we were going to see an increase in population, it would never be enough to justify keeping all of those buildings open.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015 Report this
JohnStark
A detailed, expensive, well done report to tell us what we already knew. I just think there are some in Warwick who are covering their ears, stomping their feet, and saying: "I'm not listening...I'm not listening..." Warwick's schools were overflowing in the early 70's because they were full of children whose parents moved here from Cranston and Providence in the 50's. Those kids, for the most part, have left Warwick and are neither coming back nor being replaced. At least those that are well-educated. Warwick's plummeting school population is a function of it's economy and demographic makeup, which is a function of the state's economy and makeup: i.e. High taxes, stifling regulation, a poorly educated adult workforce, and an expanding dependency class run by one political party. Think: Detroit 20 years ago.
Thursday, May 21, 2015 Report this
jackiemama63
Well said, John Stark.
Friday, May 22, 2015 Report this