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Momo12,

Your town's experience may be that their middle school populations are increasing. The fact of the matter is that Warwick does not have that issue, real or potential, for at least 10 more years. Many may not want to believe that, but it's a simple fact. Yes, Warwick turned a blind eye to all of this for decades but and now it has to be dealt with. The LTFPC really should've been called the Facilities a Planning Committee, in my view. The class size references were average class sizes, I believe the median average. Will some classes have the max contractually mandated 28 weighted students? Sure. Will all? No. As far as having enough classrooms, what did we do in Pikgrim, in '05 when we had 1376 students? If consolidation brings their population up to 1500 kids, that's about 125 kids more (spread over four grades) than were there in '05. If you insist that it'd be a problem now, then are you saying that we were short changing students in '05? There are enough class rooms in both buildings. As far as the Pawtucket plan is concerned, bear in mind that their plan is a facilities plan, and from what I've read of it, I haven't seen any educational component part like your insisting on seeing here. Pawtuckets plan is to address their deteriorating buildings only and they're pursuing RIDE reimbursement through RIDE's SCR program. Problem is, their City Council has not signed off on the $240 million project iand there's some undercurrent there because some City officials feel that the School Dept is trying to cut them out of the process. Incidentally, they're proposing repurposing Shea High School into a middle school. Pawtuckets infrastructure problems are worse than Warwick's as witnessed by roofs that failed in an elementary school that forced them to do emergency repairs to other school roofs and ceilings.

The recommendation of the Committee us a 5 year plan: repurpose Vets, close Gorton & Aldrich, move to all day K and middle school and deals squarely with under utilized facilities. Facilities use is driven by student population, period, so rearranging things to keep the same number of buildings in the face of the current and future populations accomplishes nothing. And once you implement all day K and Middle school, I think you need some breathing room to focus on making sure those implementations are being done effectively. I say that because, though from a teacher perspective, I'd expect none to quibble with all day K, but I think there may - may - be a minority who have issues with middle school so we need to make sure that everyone is on board and is being effective. Lastly, remember that our populations continue to decline so from a facilities perspective, planning can then start for 10-20 years out because unless there's a huge influx kids, our populations are not going to suddenly start a steep upswing, even if the 400 houses for sale (which needs to be offset by the approximate 200 that the Airport still has to take as part of runway expansion) are sold to young, incredibly fertile families.

From: Plan unchanged after two nights of hearings, committee expected to vote next Tuesday

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