Warwick teachers overwhelmingly ratified a two-year contract extension on Tuesday afternoon that will partially defer pay raises without changing any other aspects of the agreement for a $1.4 million savings this year. The School Committee was expected to approve the extension last night.

Committee chairman Christopher Friel believes that without the arrangement, schools would be incapable of addressing a projected $4 million budget shortfall in the current year.

“We would have $2.6 million to go. We still have a large obstacle to overcome,” he said.

But there promised to be fireworks at last night’s meeting as two committee members – Joyce Andrade and Paul Cannistra – oppose the agreement. Also, questions were raised yesterday over whether teachers would be paid raises they would forego this year no matter when they retire, as the union believes. Teachers Union President James Ginolfi said talks were purposely kept on “the limited scope of salary and health [benefits] and obviously we wanted to protect the health. Our goal was to protect the health care as it is the number one issue from [membership] feedback.”  Read More...

At their last scheduled campaign forum on Tuesday night, two of six school committee candidates—Aaron Guckian and Christopher Friel—said they would favor privatizing the school department’s special education buses; a move that would save taxpayers $2.5 million.

The question was submitted by one of the 50 people in attendance at the 2-hour forum, held at the Buttonwoods center and hosted by The Warwick Beacon.

Warwick voters will narrow down the field to four candidates next Tuesday. At the General Election on Nov. 4, the field will be reduced to the two who will sit on the committee.

The race is arguably the most competitive and most important in Warwick this election season, because the school department controls close to 70 percent of the city budget and has run deficits in each of the last two years.

That school bus privatization issue was just one of the vast majority of questions that centered on the financial condition of the school department; and how it could be improved. Read More...

Talent, depth give Hendricken hope
By WILLIAM GEOGHEGAN

The Division I landscape didn’t have many peaks and valleys last year, with almost half the teams in the league treading along the middle ground. The line between those teams was thin, but Bishop Hendricken ended up on the wrong side of it all too often.

The Hawks would like to cross the line this year.

“It’s hard to judge, but I think this team has the ability to go as far as they want,” said head coach Mickey Rooney. “We’re definitely going to be competitive in every game. I can see that. I think the difference between a win, a loss or a tie is just going to be a tiny little thing. I think in the first month or so, we’ll still be learning those little things. But by the end of the season, I wouldn’t want to play us.”

The Hawks lost five starters from last year’s squad but have a strong group of returnees and a deep crop of young players to draw from. To get where Rooney wants them to be come November, they’ll need to mesh, and they started taking steps in that direction Saturday night at the Warwick Vets Soccer Invitational. 

“We used it as an evaluation against opposition,” Rooney said. “We’ve been practicing the last three or four days against each other and it’s hard to judge what we needed to do. I learned some things and I’m very happy with the way we played. You practice against each other and you ask, ‘Are we fast or are we slow?’ This was a good test for us. I come away very happy with this. We learned a lot.”  Read More...