Plan looks to improve student safety, success

By ETHAN HARTLEY
Posted 11/22/18

By ETHAN HARTLEY The Warwick School Department presented its three-year plan to the Warwick School Committee on Tuesday night, which focused on a comprehensive move away from the chaos caused by consolidation towards a student-first agenda of improved

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Plan looks to improve student safety, success

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The Warwick School Department presented its three-year plan to the Warwick School Committee on Tuesday night, which focused on a comprehensive move away from the chaos caused by consolidation towards a student-first agenda of improved safety protocols, higher educational expectations and increased opportunities for student and teacher development.

“Consolidation is all behind us now. We're done consolidating buildings. Now we need to look into improving the infrastructure that we have left. And we need to relentlessly focus on achievement,” said committee member David Testa. “We need to focus on teaching and learning and student achievement. And we don't have to be arguing over $7.50 doorstops any more. I don't think we need to do that anymore. I think we should be focusing on how we better accomplish things here.”

The plan consists of five sections, including: focusing on every student and every educator; creating 21st century classrooms and schools; fostering success by the design of school programs, policy and protocols; creating better communication with stakeholders and fellow educators; and moving towards facility improvements and maintaining and improving fiscal responsibility both in regards to its own operations but also in regards to collaborating with the city government.

The full plan can be found on the district’s website, but here are a few highlights.

School safety key

To focus on “every student, every educator,” a primary goal is to improve safety protocols within the district. This is planned to be accomplished within three years by enacting district-wide, school-based safety practices in line with local fire and police protocols and adoption of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) protocol.

The district wants 100 percent of schools to successfully complete safety drills, require annual review of school safety plans and work towards building improvements, such as replacing outdated locks and doors. Appropriately, one of the critical components of the $40 million bond that just passed involves replacing all outdated locks and doors in all school buildings; nearly 1,200 in total.

The schools look to revise the Code of Ethics and have a new one revised and published by 2020, and want to provide training in district safety tools like MutuaLink and the RAVE phone app, which taps into that system, to every school. They also want to offer training annually in the Run, Hide, Fight protocol, which deals with reacting to an active threat, such as a shooter.

Student achievement

By far one of the most outlined goals in the plan is to increase student success through a more rigorous teaching and learning plan intended to foster a higher level of academic growth and achievement.

The district looks to do this by continuously developing curriculum – for example, increasing science instruction time to 90-125 minutes per week at the elementary level by 2021 and providing science professional development to elementary teachers. They said a math curriculum plan would be available in the spring of 2019, and an ELA plan in spring of 2020.

The district hopes to achieve better outcomes by also providing more professional development to all educators and administrators, and then gauging the success of their efforts by creating a more robust assessment system that includes standards-based report cards at the elementary level, meetings with the grading practices committee at the secondary level and developing curriculum-based assessments for parents and educators, such as rubrics that include examples of exemplary student work.

Encouraging more blended and personalized learning is another big piece, as is increasing the importance of social-emotional learning and wellness from the Pre-K level and up through to the secondary level. By 2020, all elementary classrooms are tasked with implementing certain social emotional practices, such as having classroom meetings.

In summation, the district hopes more strict attention to developing better instruction models more in line with modern standards – and standards from the Rhode Island Department of Education – will help them towards a goal of improving student academic proficiency by 10 percent in both reading and mathematics as measured by the district’s comprehensive assessment system.

The district also hopes to be able to reduce disciplinary action at the elementary and secondary levels by 10 percent, and to reduce chronic absenteeism (missing 18 days of school a year or more, or 10 percent of the school year approximately) by 5 percent.

Success by better design

The district also hopes to shore up technology, both in providing better tools to teachers, students and parents but also by shoring up their network infrastructure and preventing possible cyber attacks or lost data. They look to perform an audit of the district’s cyber security and publish the results. They hope to go mostly paperless in the recruitment and hiring process by the 2020-21 school year.

Through the formation of a technology committee by the end of this school year, the district wants to develop a three-year technology plan based on the district’s overall strategic plan that is based in standards from the International Society for Technology in Education by the middle of the 2019-20 school year.

At a school level, administrators seek to increase opportunities by offering additional AP courses, expand pathways towards career-oriented education at the Warwick Career and Tech by submitting additional applications to RIDE. They seek to improve efficiencies in scheduling through a scheduling committee that would meet monthly.

The district also looks to offer computer science at all grade levels, and increase enrollment in the two AP computer science courses already offered at the high schools for credits at the University of Rhode Island, a collaboration happening as part of the state’s CS4RI program. They also seek to expand STEAM opportunities at all grade levels.

At the elementary level, the district wants to increase writing proficiency opportunities at the fifth grade level and improve the climate of classrooms. At the Pre-K level, they seek to focus on a developmental model that prioritizes speaking, listening and language development as well as social emotional and cognitive development, with an emphasis on social skills, readiness to learn and executive functioning skills. As for a goal, they hope to increase their Bright Stars rating to a minimum of three stars.

Increasing community relations, fiscal responsibility

Perhaps the most important element outside of the classroom relates to bettering the communication between those within the district and the parents who send their students into schools within the district.

As part of the three-year plan, the district states that all schools will share initiatives, achievements and available programs to parents through newsletters, an increasing emphasis on the schools’ websites and public presentations. The plan also states it will “empower and educate parents through improved home-school connections.”

They seek to specifically improve relationships between the administration and the Warwick Teachers’ Union. One way included scheduling regular walkthroughs from administrators to visit classrooms, meet teachers, hear concerns and share success stories from students in the schools.

To be held more accountable financially, the district said it is a goal to begin complying with RIGL 16-2-21, which states municipal school departments and public bodies must meet with municipal government bodies – in Warwick’s case, the city council – prior to budget time commencing so either side has a better understanding of the fiscal realities of the other.

Progress highlighted

As part of the presentation, administrators ran down the line on progress they feel has been made since the creation of the first three-year plan under Superintendent Philip Thornton was initiated in the summer of 2015.

During that first school year (2015-16), consolidation of secondary schools began and has been completed – with Aldrich Junior High closing, Gorton being re-purposed to the admin building and Warwick Vets turning into a junior high school. Increased security measures were implemented, such as the installation of 250 cameras and the beginning of the MutuaLink system. Chromebooks began to be given to junior high students, and the first batch of Promethean Boards went into Winman and Vets.

In 2016-17, the district moved to a full kindergarten model and implanted technology integrationists at all four secondary schools to assist with the upgrading tech in the classrooms. The online Aspen gradebook was launched with its accompanying parent portal so parents and students could keep up to date with school happenings online. Junior high athletics was introduced this year as well.

In 2017-18, the HVAC system at Vets was completely replaced, the SIMS middle school integration program was implemented to widespread acclaim and all secondary students at this time had Chromebooks, making the district a 1-to-1 Chromebook district. Five additional AP courses were introduced at the high school level, along with Promethean Boards. At Winman, a comprehensive STEAM lab went online.

Then, this year, elementary consolidation has been completed and sixth grade students moved up to Winman and Vets, completing the transition to a full middle school model. A $40 million bond referendum was just passed by voters, allowing the district to begin planning for major capital improvements in the most direly needed areas of the city’s schools.

“There’s a lot for us to be proud of, and certainly members of the school committee, past and present, deserve credit for their support of all these initiatives,” said director of secondary education Bob Littlefield.

Comments

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  • richardcorrente

    History has shown that I haven't always agreed with David Testa but when he says "We need to relentlessly focus on achievement" I am applauding...loudly.

    Everything he says from "fiscal responsibility" to "1-to-1Chromebooks" sounds like a massive improvement over the past. Warwick now has, I believe, the best team to better the lives of our students. What we are hearing here is the plan, and it's an excellent one. Now put it in place David, and I'll be one of the first of many to recognize the success.

    Merry Christmas David and all the members of the "new" School Committee.

    Merry Christmas everyone.

    Rick Corrente

    The Taxpayers Mayor

    Saturday, November 24, 2018 Report this

  • ThatGuyInRI

    All I want for Christmas is for Richard Corrente to stop using this forum to forward his personal agenda. That's all.

    Monday, November 26, 2018 Report this

  • richardcorrente

    Dear ThatGuyInRI,

    What is your problem?

    Do you somehow feel that you have the right to comment here but I don't? Are you THAT arrogant?

    I campaigned for years and spent tens of thousands of dollars. You didn't campaign for one day or spent one dollar. How does that make you more important than me?

    Newsflash: It doesn't.

    Merry Christmas everyone.

    Rick Corrente

    The Taxpayers Mayor

    Monday, November 26, 2018 Report this

  • CrickeeRaven

    ThatGuyInRI, look how the two-time election reject defends his right to promote his losing agenda on someone else's website, as you correctly pointed out.

    Here he is accusing you of thinking that you're "more important" than him -- yet he suggests that the new school committee members care in the slightest what the two-time election reject thinks about them -- as if he were more important than them.

    I, too, look forward to the day that the two-time election reject stops using this website for his personal agenda -- but that would require a level of insight that he has so far stubbornly refused to exhibit.

    Monday, November 26, 2018 Report this

  • Cat2222

    Newsflash RC - It doesn't make you any better than anyone either. Just broke and unelectable.

    Wednesday, November 28, 2018 Report this