Monday, July 22, 2013

Newport Daily News - Officials support study of regional high school

By Matt Sheley
July 18, 2013
Middletown school officials appear to support a proposal to investigate the merits of a 2,000-student regional high school on Aquidneck Island.

Superintendent Rosemarie K. Kraeger and School Committee members said they are interested to see what comes out of a request from Town Council members Richard Adams and Barbara A. Von-Villas for Town Administrator Shawn J. Brown to design a model for the school.

Adams and VonVillas attended the regular monthly School Committee meeting Wednesday afternoon at the Oliphant administration building, where council members and school officials agreed the study would go nowhere without cooperation.

“I do think we need to look at a regional model, given the constraints on our educational offerings and our budgets, but it has to be right for Middletown and right for our students,” Kraeger said. “Unless that happens, it’s going to be a tough sell.”

The School Department is ready to lend a hand, should educators be called upon for assistance, she said. The item is expected to be included on the agenda for the School Committee’s next meeting on Thursday, Aug. 22, at 4 p.m. at Oliphant.

“There has been some initial dialogue about shared services, but nothing about regionalization recently,” Kraeger said. “It’s come up in the past, but it’s been some time.”

Rising costs and shrinking educational offerings have sparked renewed talk in the past couple of months about Newport, Middletown and Portsmouth schools pooling resources.

A June 2009 report by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council indicated the three communities on Aquidneck Island could save close to $13 million by combining their high schools by fiscal 2013.

Adams and VonVillas said they want Brown to investigate the matter since concrete talks have taken place.

Although Brown was given no deadline for his report, it is expected to be completed this fall, once more than 30 questions — part of the Adams-VonVillas resolution — are answered and all the relevant information is addressed. School Committee Chairwoman Theresa Silveira Spengler said she doesn’t know what will come of the Adams-VonVillas proposal, but believes it is a good exercise to undertake.

“We’re going to be meeting with the other two communities (Newport and Portsmouth) to talk about shared services,” Silveira Spengler said. “I’m curious to see what will come out of this and see what’s discussed.”

Others agreed.

“I think developing this model makes things more concrete,” said Kellie DiPalma, school board vice chairwoman. “It gives a better idea of what we’re looking at, and we can have a better idea that we’re all talking about the same thing.”

“I really do think we are changing the culture of what we did in the last regionalization committee,” School Committee member Liana Ferreira Fenton said. “People are now beginning to say, ‘Oh, wait. This might help during budget season.’” Given the amount spent on schools on Aquidneck Island annually, consolidating could save money and offer a better educational experience overall, School Committee member Paul E. Mankofsky said.

“We can’t continue to support the high schools on this island, or our schools, the way we’re doing it now,” he said. “Collectively, among the three communities, we spend over $100 million and we have upwards of 6,000 students.”

But without answers to key questions — like how a regional high school arrangement would work, the costs and the time frame — the concept would have a difficult time gaining the support of stakeholders and getting off the ground, Mankofsky said.

“It should come up with a notion of how are we going to build this? What’s the total cost? What’s the total cost of operations? What’s the total cost of, perhaps, replacement?” he said. “Those elements, in a model, would give the public an idea for what we’re talking about for the parameters, the bounds, of a regional high school.”

Addressing the School Committee, Adams said he and VonVillas attended the meeting to let educators know their input is important. Without their cooperation, regionalization would be a tough go, he said.

“It is time, and we can do this,” Adams said. “We can pull this off. Is it going to be easy? I think the way to do it is at the high school level so we won’t get ourselves mixed up with the other grades to start with.”

No comments:

Post a Comment