Vartan Gregorian: Media Center Opening and School Tours

I am passing this along from Karina Wood, who is PTO chair at Vartan:
Vartan Gregorian Elementary School would like to announce the following upcoming events to welcome new parents to our community:
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008, 3:00 – 7:00 pm: Vartan Gregorian Media Center Grand Opening & Tours of the School
Current and prospective families are [...]

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City Response on Stranded School Buses

By now, everyone has heard about the Providence school children who were stuck on buses, which were themselves stuck in snow or traffic, yesterday. Some children did not get home until very late indeed. Mayor Cicillini has directed Police Chief Dean Esserman and City Chief of Administration John Simmons to conduct an investigation into [...]

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What’s going on at Bishop?

A number of people have noticed a great deal of activity around Nathan Bishop lately, much of it at night. Last night, for instance, there was a tall light-boom shining into the second story windows.
No, this is not the beginning of construction. Rather, an independent film, titled Tanner Hall, is being shot there.
Thanks [...]

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US News: Classical High School Among Top 3% of Schools Nationally

The magazine US News and World Report has released its survey of 18,700 public high schools nationwide. No Rhode Island Schools were among the 100 “gold medal” schools, but Providence’s Classical High and two other state schools were among the 400 “silver medal” schools, putting them in the top 3% of schools in the [...]

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Sam Zurier’s Notes from Regents Meeting

An email glitch prevented me from getting these up earlier, but here are Sam’s notes from yesterday’s meeting of the Board of Regents:
The Rhode Island Department’s Board of Regents approved State funding for Nathan Bishop in two meetings that took place on Wednesday afternoon.
The Finance Committee held the first meeting. The RIDE staff architect, Joseph [...]

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ProJo on Regents’ Meeting

ProJo education reporter Linda Borg was at last night’s Regents’ meeting asking tons of questions and taking copious notes. Oddly, it seems this first step in the City’s $700M master plan for renovating Providence schools didn’t merit any space in the morning paper. I did find Linda’s report in the ProJo blog last [...]

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Regents Approve Bishop Plan!

This afternoon, the RI Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education have unanimously approved the renovation plans for Nathan Bishop Middle School. The Bishop plan was approved along with the plans for the Hanley Career Technical Education Center, which is another very worthy project benefiting Providence children.
This is the final step of official [...]

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Regent’s Meeting Wednesday- Please Attend!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
I have received a call from Alan Sepe, Director of Public Property for the City of Providence.  Mr. Sepe indicated that the $35M figure for Nathan Bishop referenced in my earlier email was reached during discussions between himself and the staff of the Rhode Island Department of Education, following more in-depth analysis of the [...]

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Sam Zurier’s East Side Monthly Column

I’ve been remiss in not always posting Sam Zurier’s regular monthly column in the East Side Monthly. Here’s December’s column which is also available at http://www.providenceonline.com/eastsidemonthly/education.html

Solving the “Bumping” Problem
In October, The East Side Public Education Coalition and the Martin Luther King Elementary School PTO co-sponsered a pulic forum on public education in general, inviting [...]

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