Hope High Reaccredited

Hope High School has been given full accreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Having lost its accreditation, Hope was taken over by RI Commissioner of Education Peter McWalters in 2005. Hope underwent restructuring, including division into three “Academies”, new administrators and a requirement that teachers who wished to remain must [...]

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Tuesday’s meeting with Ai3

UPDATE: I’ve added links within this posting so that you can see the architectural drawings that are being described.
Sam Zurier has been kind enough to write up this summary of Tuesday’s meeting at King. I hope to get Jpegs of the designs to add to this on Friday.
Architectural Involution, also known as [...]

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PEEC meeting

Last night’s Providence Educational Excellence Campaign (PEEC) meeting was immensely interesting. While the student and parent speakers acknowledged that there are many excellent teachers in the public schools, they also spoke forcefully and movingly about their frustrations with the attitudes and behaviors of others. Some of the stories were truly appalling. The emphasis was on [...]

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Ai3 meeting tonight

As a notice for any readers not among the 380 people on the ESPEC email list, the architects from Ai3 will present a second round of designs tonight at Martin Luther King Elementary School, from 6:00-8:00 p.m.

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School Board Approves Budget

The ProJo reports this morning that the Providence School Board approved a $322.2-million budget last night. Salaries and benefits account for $250 million of this sum.This amounts to a 3.5% increase over last year.   The full story is here.

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Bishop Designs from Ai3

Here are the design proposals from the first meeting with Ai3 architects. Apologies to those who checked earlier and found nothing, the links vanished for some reason I can’t see.
UPDATE: I’ve converted the very large PDF files to JPG files. They are much smaller and take less time to load.
Existing Plan
Option 1 (renovation)
Option [...]

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PEEC forum Tomrrow

The Providence Educational Excellence Coalition is hosting a public forum:
Futures in the Balance:
A Community Campaign for Effective Teachers in Every Classroom
JOIN US FOR A COMMUNITY FORUM WITH PETER MC WALTERS
COMMISSIONER OF ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
6:30 P.M.
CCRI PROVIDENCE CAMPUS
1 HILTON STREET, PROVIDENCE, RI
For more information call 401-854-5506 x 142

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ProJo on Ai3 meeting

Today’s ProJo has an article on last night’s meeting with the architects from Ai3.  I can’t see any glaring problems with the story, so I’ll just encourage you to  click here.
One minor quibble:  The story refers to ESPEC in this way: “A small band of East Side parents opposed the closing and they persuaded Supt. [...]

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Providence Educational Excellence Coalition

PEEC’s activies have been noted here before. A member of the group posted this as a comment. They have a very interesting web site:

We (PEEC) now have a website dealing exclusively with the campaign, “Futures in the Balance” at www.futuresinthebalance.com.
Portions of the audio from the city council meeting can be heard there.
 

 

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Tonight’s meeting with Ai3 Architects

Tonight the community got a chance to see some preliminary “conceptual” designs by the firm of Ai3. Renovation, new construction, and hybrid approaches were discussed. Attendees were encouraged to provide feedback in preparation for the next meeting on April 24. Mark Dunham of the School Department offered his email as a way [...]

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West Broadway Parents Continue to Fight Closing

Today’s ProJo reports on the second day of hearings held by the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) on the closing of West Broadway Elementary School.  Parents filed an appeal to RIDE after the School Board voted to close the school.  WBES parent Bryan Principe, acting as the group’s representative, questioned Superintendent Evans about the [...]

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ProJo on State Funding Formula

Today’s ProJo has an article on efforts to create a state funding formula for education. Right now, R.I. is more reliant on local (property) taxes than all but a few states. Moreover, state aid is unpredictable on a year-to-year basis, making budget planning difficult for school districts.
A somewhat remarkable coalition of groups [...]

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Open Post

Use the comment link below to post anything you want related to ESPEC, public education and the like.

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Education Funding at the State House

Today’s ProJo has a story on education budget hearings held at the State House yesterday. According to the story, education officials across the state, citing budget woes, have chosen not to ask for more than the 3% increase recommended by Governor Carcieri. “Instead, they urged committee members to pass a school funding [...]

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Choosing A Design That Is Best For Our Children

[NOTE: Sam Zurier posted this as a comment on another post, but this essay should be on the front page where it will be more readily seen]
There are many standards by which we can measure the three types of school construction (renovation, new construction and hybrid) that will be proposed for the New Nathan [...]

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ProJo on Central H.S. Renovations

This morning’s ProJo has an article by Linda Borg on the ongoing renovations taking place at Central High School. The reviews appear to be very positive. They also show the impact that new and, more importantly, well-designed facilities can have on behavior and learning. A few quotes:
Three years into a [...]

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