Gov. touts spending on safety
Raimondo: State will spend $10M on safer schools
PROVIDENCE –– Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo and Rhode Island Education Commissioner Ken Wagner announced Wednesday morning a new opportunity for school districts across the state to make immediate school safety repairs through a $10.5 million school construction fund. Wagner says the application is up on the Rhode Island Department of Education’s website, and he encourages districts to apply as soon as possible.
Raimondo created the school construction fund in 2015. The money can be used for low-dollar, high-impact repairs. The work must be completed within 18 months. The fund has been used in the past for work on securing windows, doors, lock-down hardware and security card readers.
“It’s a scary time to be a student,” said student speaker and Smithfield High School Sophomore Tori Richard. “When the news shows students hiding and scared, it is very hard to go back to school the next day and not let your mind wander to what could happen. In our middle schools when we weren’t allowed to have cell phones, kids were concerned because how would we contact our parents and tell them we love them? Nobody should be afraid for their lives in their own school. No parent should have to send their child on a bus and be afraid they might not come home.”
Raimondo said, like many parents, she was prompted to take action following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida earlier this year. She said waiting for the school construction bonding to be approved and dispersed is too long to wait for school safety, noting with these funds the safety repairs can be done much more quickly.
“I have two children,” she said. “As a mother, this weighs on me. My kids say to me all the time that they’re afraid. Parkland was a game changer for a lot of people.”
“My daughter came home and said did you hear about the shooting and then she said ‘what are you doing about it,’” she continued. “I started to ramble a bit about what I thought the federal government had to do and she said ‘no mom, what are you doing about it?’ She really got my attention. I have to continue to ask myself, am I doing enough? What more can I do?”
Districts shouldn’t have to wait for the bond money in order to start making schools safer, she said.
“I’ve spent a lot of time talking to teachers in informal listening sessions and asking them what’s on their mind,” said Raimondo. “I keep hearing ‘the intercom doesn’t work in my classroom,’ ‘the door to my classroom doesn’t lock,’ the windows don’t lock, the lights outside don’t work. That’s what this money is for. Relatively low-cost, high-impact capital improvements that you can make right now that will keep kids and teachers safer. This is just one more step we’re taking.”
Rhode Island General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, co-chair of the school building task force, recalled his experience as a third and fourth grade teacher undergoing lockdown drills, wondering each and every time if that was going to be the day it wasn’t just a drill.
“No teacher should have to go through the days wondering, is this going to be the day? When young people and teachers are scared, the brain shuts down. It’s harder to learn. The good news is here in Rhode Island we’re doing something about it.”
He said the money can be used for things like security cameras and new locks for doors, small changes that can have a major impact in the event of an emergency. The first step is to take advantage of the money for immediate repairs, he said, and the second step is to vote yes on Question 1 in November for the school construction bond.
“We don’t want to wait until something bad happens to act,” he continued. “We want to be proactive and prevent that bad day from coming, and this is a step in that direction.”
“The governor is not one to wait when there are pressing issues,” said RI Education Commissioner Ken Wagner. “So she pushed us and asked what we can do right away around school safety.”
The need to feel safe in a classroom is very much real, Wagner said. Fear can get in the way of instructional time and cause distractions.
“The application is up posted right now, and if you’ve got a pressing school safety project we can get that through while we do the bigger stuff. This is weighing on people’s minds and this is something we can do fast.”
Wagner said school safety and school achievement are interconnected, and making students feel safer can only drive up their achievements.