On Monday the community gathered for the second of four planned workshops between the Warwick School Committee and long-term planning consultant Symmes Maini & McKee Associates (SMMA), as the district continues to weigh options and determine the best course for how to address declining enrollment and financial constraints.

The main goal of Monday’s meeting was to better understand the demographic study and capacity analysis that SMMA performed, which led the firm to declare that Warwick is operating between eight and 10 schools too many and the district is losing four to six full classrooms of students per year.

“The number of classes being lost is leveling out, but the trend is continuing,” said architect and educational planner Ed Frenette, a senior representative of SMMA. “In 2011-12, you had six too many schools, right now you have seven too many, with a trend to nine.” 

When asked how many students would comprise a full classroom, Frenette said average class size is 25 at the high school level and 24 for everything below that.

When asked if the firm took into consideration small class sizes due to special education needs, Frenette said it had.

“We also looked at class offerings and the numbers over capacity don’t change,” he said. 

There was a question about whether there is a variance in capacity numbers from school to school.

“Yes, some are more overcrowded while others are fairly vacant, which is mainly at the elementary level,” Frenette said. “It’s not particular to one area of the city over another.”

One audience member who identified herself as an elementary teacher said she and her colleagues have been introducing differentiated instruction and small group learning in some of their classes, which requires acoustic separation. 

“We may have excess capacity, but we have found innovative ways to use these spaces,” she said. 

Another audience member said if spaces are being used effectively for instruction, they shouldn’t be considered excess capacity.

“You can’t apply modern education techniques if things become too dense,” Frenette said, adding that the approach has moved away from the “sage on the stage” 60-minute lecture to a “guide on the side” where educators act as coaches and work one-on-one or in small groups with students.

Frenette said differentiated instruction is difficult to achieve in a small classroom because you can’t get acoustic separation. 

“If you have larger classroom spaces, differentiated learning is much easier. The problem here in Warwick is that you have over 30 percent to 40 percent [37.5 percent] too much space, and that is the total building, not just the classrooms with ‘acoustic space,’” he said. “This level of overcapacity is beyond what you want. So, even though it’s being used, you wouldn’t go out and buy it. And indirectly, you are buying these ‘vacant schools’ each year incrementally, roofs, windows, boilers, heat and light.”

Frenette said 850 square feet is required for a classroom, but 950 square feet is preferred.

“Classrooms represent one-third to one-half of the total square footage per high school,” he said. “There’s no school district that I’m aware of that consciously funds 30 to 40 percent more space than they need.”

Frenette said if educational spaces aren’t functional; they need to be made functional. 

“We’re talking about a fully programmed school in all cases, where everything has its appropriate space,” he said. “When we assess your schools, we’re assuming that if you keep these buildings open, they can be made to function. Every dollar you spend on buildings you don’t need takes away from education.”

Frenette said in the junior highs and high schools, classrooms can be effectively used 85 percent of the time. 

“You can’t attain 100 percent, that’s impossible to do. The schools would be too overcrowded,” he said. 

Frenette said most of the rest of New England is functioning at the proper capacity levels.

“New systems are not building excess capacity and they are functioning fine,” he said. 

An audience member countered, saying other districts don’t have the number of private schools that Warwick must contend with and that it loses students to, especially when parents see a headline saying Warwick needs to close eight to 10 schools. 

“If I can be critical for a minute, it sounds to me like everyone is searching too hard to find a way to not believe in these numbers,” Frenette said.

Another audience member asked if the eight to 10 excess schools include the two buildings being used as administration offices, the annex building on Warwick Lake Avenue and the former Green School building. 

“Administration buildings are above and beyond excess capacity, so if you include them and consider them as educational space, it makes the numbers worse,” Frenette said.

Monday’s meeting was also used to generate ideas regarding what additional criteria should be used when measuring master plan options as well as additional master plan suggestions that hadn’t already been considered. 

MASTER PLAN OPTIONS

In addition to a base level master plan, which would consist solely of the cost to maintain buildings all year long to ensure a protected, safe learning environment, other master plan options under consideration include: consolidation of secondary schools; consolidation of elementary schools; consolidation of both secondary and elementary schools; creation of a middle school (6th-8th grade), with two magnet high schools with ninth grade academies; creation of a broadband middle school (5th-8th grade), with two magnet high schools with ninth grade academies; and creation of three magnet middle-high schools, with ninth grade academies. 

Frenette described Toll Gate High School as a default magnet school because of the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center attracting students from all over.

“You need to create special offerings at the other high schools to generate parity across the district with other attractions, such as humanities and STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] programs,” he said. “It’s more important to think about establishing a magnet school, rather than determine what type it will be.”

Frenette described a ninth grade academy as “a school within a school.”

“Ninth grade academies are geographically self-contained and the teachers work together on lesson plans,” he said. “One of the major problems with high school is that ninth grade students have a hard time coping with going from the warm and fuzzy comfort of a middle school environment to a bigger, less friendly and less familiar high school experience, so ninth grade academies try to bridge the gap and ease that transition.”

Frenette said the option involving three two-school campuses would allow the district to close three large schools, but it would require additional instruction; separate buses; separate building entrances; separate lunch rooms, with one kitchen; and separate gyms.

“Three two-school campuses seems to work well with the city’s comprehensive plan,” he added.

NEW SUGGESTIONS

Two additional master plan suggestions came from the audience, including revisiting the city map, undergoing a complete redistricting and then determining how many schools are needed to create one unified city instead of three separate sub-districts, and the second suggestion was to close all six secondary schools and build one super high school and one super junior high school.

“It would be very difficult to figure out where you would put it,” Frenette said of the super high school and super junior high, adding “it would probably have to be centrally located.”

One audience member, who identified herself as a junior high nurse, spoke against that option.

“It’s a super bad idea to create a super junior high because behavior and hormones go haywire when students hit junior high; there will be fights everywhere and super drama,” she said.

Frenette said he doesn’t think the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) would fund the construction of a super high school and super junior high school in Warwick, nor will residents of the city.

“But we can put it out there and if people get excited about it, great,” he said.

WARWICK’S AGING POPULATION

One audience member asked how will the district know when population numbers will start increasing again and how will it account for that.

“There are long, long trend lines with the demographics,” Frenette said. “Warwick has an aging population. If this reverses, it will take quite some time, and even if it does, while we’re obligated to look at 20 years for this study; the state only looks at five to 10 years because the further out you go, the harder it is to predict the future.”

Frenette said for the trend to change, a lot of residents would have to sell their homes at a price that young couples that are still at a child-bearing age can buy.

“People buying real estate here are usually on their second or third house,” he said. “Younger people that have kids and are buying their first house can’t afford it.”

An audience member said in order to get buy-in from the city to invest in schools; the district needs to look into why it’s losing a young school population.

“A good school system attracts kids, parents, and property values,” Frenette said. “Rhode Island has specific budgetary problems at the state level that affect school districts that need to be solved.” 

WHAT ABOUT THE SAVINGS?

One audience member said she was concerned about what would happen to any savings generated from closing schools.

“Our concern is that the savings we generate from closing buildings will definitely go to programs in schools,” she said. “We’ve gotten rid of enrichment, AP courses and other programs over the years.”

School Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Ahearn said since school facilities are under the purview of the mayor and City Council, the school department wouldn’t necessarily receive the benefit of any sale of the buildings.

Fellow school committee member Karen Bachus followed up, saying, “The city owns the land and buildings, so when we close a school, it goes back to the city, but I’ve talked with City Council members about trying to get some of that money back [for the schools] when the buildings are sold.”

Superintendent Richard D’Agostino said Potowomut Elementary School was closed but never sold. 

“Instead, it was knocked down to make way for a new fire station,” he said. “They also tried to sell Rhodes, but it’s never been sold.”

TOWNS VS. CITIES

Having worked on master plans in both cities and towns, Frenette was asked if it was any easier working with hired and paid town managers as opposed to elected officials in larger cities.

“We’ve found the same bell-shaped curve working with towns and cities. There’s good and bad in both towns and cities,” he said. “There are more towns than cities in New England, but from a decision-making basis, cities can move faster than towns with regard to master plans.”

School Committee Vice Chairman Eugene Nadeau said of the eight cities and 31 towns in Rhode Island, Warwick is seventh from the bottom when it comes to real estate value.

“Taxes in Warwick have been raised 25 years in a row and many in the city are falling behind in income in order to pay their bills every year,” Nadeau said. “Money is continually being taken out of our pockets. I don’t know how you improve, unless the money situation is clarified.”

An audience member responded by saying Warwick taxes are modest compared to other cities and towns throughout the state.

“The grass is not always greener on the other side,” he said. “You’ve made some excellent suggestions here, but they cost money and until the city side releases bond money that was approved by voters in 2006 for capital improvements; we can put on all the additions we want, but we will choke on the interest to pay for it. The city has neglected the schools for the past 25 years.” 

TRAFFIC & COST ANALYSIS

Despite a request to include traffic studies and cost analysis as part of the criteria in considering master plan options, Frenette said the firm wouldn’t complete a traffic analysis until the options are narrowed down to two or three master plans.

“It’s very important to include travel costs and time because the administration was dismissive of that in the past,” an audience member said.  

Frenette said a traffic and cost analysis would be addressed during the final workshop on May 27.

As for the third workshop next Monday, Frenette said the firm will talk about the facility assessment in depth as well as begin to narrow down the master plan options.

Architect Ed Bourget said he’s visited all school and administration buildings and has completed assessment reports.

“Those reports were sent to the cost estimators this past weekend, we’ll be looking at them this week and expect to have a draft report ready for next week with useful initial numbers,” he said.

When asked if the buildings will be ranked by condition, Frenette said, “We can identify some important building systems like boilers, windows, roofs, fire safety, code compliance and will rank them by a system to indicate whether it is a ‘must repair,’ ‘should repair,’ or ‘could repair,’ but we won’t rank building by building.”

Frenette said while the demographic study and capacity analysis are also complete, educational planning is ongoing.

Ahearn has asked that audience members that wish to speak at the workshop meetings use the provided microphones because the meetings are recorded and posted on the school department’s website at www.warwickschools.org. The minutes and PowerPoint presentations of the first two workshop meetings have been posted to the site. Also available on the school department website is Frenette’s email address should anyone have additional questions or inquiries.  

The next workshop will be held in the Toll Gate cafeteria at 6 p.m. on Monday, May 18.