Educational visit
State education chief visits Woonsocket
WOONSOCKET – R.I. Commissioner of Education Kenneth Wagner is still in the process of learning about the state’s school districts and took some time on Thursday to tour some of the city’s schools as part of that process.
Wagner, named to his post overseeing the state’s elementary and secondary public school system last July, has been busy working on revisions to the state’s school funding formula and a $50-million plan for additional school capital improvements that is included in Gov. Gina Raimondo’s just released state budget proposal.
And how Woonsocket schools could benefit from the Governor’s budget was certainly on the minds of local school officials as Wagner came to town.
The commissioner started out with a visit to School Superintendent
Patrick McGee’s office at the McFee School Administration Building and then headed over to the Kevin K. Coleman Elementary School in the Fairmount neighborhood to meet Principal Angela Holt, members of her staff and Coleman’s students.
Coleman serves a high need student population with 76 percent of its approximately 280 students receiving free or reduced lunch.
But even with its higher needs, Coleman has worked to achieve higher student performance with the help of grant funded assistance from its school partners such as AmeriCorps, and Connecting for Children and Families.
Coleman offers its students universal free breakfast each morning as a starting point of their day and also has an active afterschool program to give added value to a student’s learning day. It also has an English Language Learners classroom serving students at each of its grade levels as another feature addressing the diverse needs of Coleman families.
“I think we are doing a great job supporting our students,” Holt said. Coleman students have shown improvement under state student performance testing and also the new Partnership of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) tests that have just been implemented, she noted.
In the latest round of PARCC testing, 50 percent of Coleman students were either approaching meeting expectations in the English Language Arts, meeting expectations or exceeding expectations, according to Holt. The state average for those three performance categories was 62 percent. The school’s students had a lower percentage of success in the Math test with approximately 35 percent approaching or achieving the requirements. The state average for those three categories is 54 percent, she noted.
To address the math needs of its students, Coleman has also been able to bring in grant funded supplemental Math and Reading teachers as well as a social worker to provide extra help to students in identified areas of need.
“I think we are doing a great job in supporting our students,” Holt said of the added assistance for Coleman students.
As Wagner walked through Coleman’s hallways and visited its classrooms with McGee, School Committeeman Donald Burke and Assistant Superintendent Jenny ChanRemka, the Commissioner said he could detect the signs of a positive learning environment in the former Sacred Heart parish school building.
“It’s great to see students with various language agendas and needs fully engaged in the academic program and working with their teachers and working with the fellow students,” Wagner said after stopping in at Karylnn Grenier’s 3rd grade classroom. “It is a great program.”
The students in Tina Elderkin’s 1st grade classroom also won praise from Wagner after he listened to how they were celebrating the “100th day” of school and working on a science lesson. “It is a positive learning envi- ronment and a really inviting learning environment,” he said.
The Commissioner also listened to itinerant music teacher Kimberly Picard sing her class through a music scale and a song that contained a triple melody.
McGee said tour would also include stops at the Woonsocket Area Career and Technical Center and High School so that Wagner could get a sampling of a range of the Department’s schools and programs.
“I think this a great opportunity for him to our great students and our teachers and see how our teachers engage their students and encourage success,” he said.
Wagner seemed to be making that connection during his stops and said that “you can tell a lot about school, when you walk into the building and get a feel for its school culture,” Coleman, for example, appeared to be a school were the staff was focused on meeting the needs of its students but maintaining a “positive environment” that kept its students engaged.
At the Woonsocket Area Career and Technical Center, Wagner’s tour group was joined by High School Principal Carnell Henderson, Vice Principal Brian Bouley and Career Center Director William Webb.
Henderson said he was pleased to see Wagner in the city and visiting its schools. “When he stops at the High School he will get to meet with administrators and the faculty and learn what our vision for the school is,” Henderson said. “I think today is just a day to plant the seed for future communication,” the principal said. “It shows that he is making himself available to us and we will be having more conversations,” Henderson said.