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Families and Schools Working Together in ProvidenceConnections Newsletter

Visit: www.providenceschools.org

C o N t e N tJune 2012 | Vol. 9 | Issue 3

1 Superintendent’s Message 1 New Graduation Requirements 1 Rosetta Stone in Providence 2 Innovation Schools 3 What Can Parents Expect?

The Providence Public School District will be a national leader in educating urban youth. The Providence Public School District will prepare all students to succeed in the nation’s colleges and universities, and in their chosen professions.

Greetings! This issue of Connections will give you important information about ma-jor initiatives in our district. Be sure to read about new statewide graduation re-quirements starting with next year’s 11th graders. The new requirements impact all future graduates. The key to setting the right track will be to start as early as possible by taking the right courses, learning the needed material, and “show-ing what you know” on the NECAP test.

We are featuring the work being done in our Innovation Schools, a group of schools named for intervention by the RI Depart-ment of Education, that are now working hard to take advantage of the flexibility, resources and opportunities that come with that designation. More Providence schools will soon be part of this effort, so we feel it is important to educate families district-wide about this work designed to deeply and meaningfully improve teach-ing and learning in our schools, creating greater opportunity for all.

Sincerely,

Susan F. Lusi, Ph.D.Superintendentprovidenceschools.org/superintendent

New Graduation RequirementsParents, make sure that your high school student is ready to graduate on time! The Rhode Island Department of Educa-tion (RIDE) has announced that beginning with the Class of 2014 (students who are entering 11th grade in August 2012), all students must successfully complete the following requirements to graduate on time with their high school diplomas:

5 21 course credits in specific areas 5 A Senior Research Project 5 Comprehensive Course Exams 5 A Score of 2 (“partially proficient”) in

reading and mathematics on NECAP

To ensure that students are ready for the NECAP test in October, all Providence public high schools will offer a Summer Academic Institute for students entering 11th grade. In this free session, from July 9 through August 16, students will learn and refresh the skills needed to perform well on the NECAP exams. Students are highly encouraged to take part in this op-portunity to improve their test scores and remain on track for graduation.

To sign up for these sessions, contact the guidance office at your child’s high school as soon as possible.

Rosetta Stone software for parentsOn a recent Monday morning, the Parent and Family Resource Center is filled with the sounds of people talking. It’s not the sound of a meeting or office chatter, but of parents speaking into a headset as they improve their English language skills us-ing Rosetta Stone software.

Rosetta Stone, recently purchased by Providence Public Schools, is designed to build confidence and polish pronuncia-tion skills using state-of-the-art speech recognition technology. The software provides immediate and ongoing as-sessments of speech through Actionable Feedback, which helps learners pro-nounce syllables, words, and sentences correctly and easily. As learners advance, they have the opportunity to practice with native speakers in live interactive ses-sions. (Continued on page 2)

Message from Superintendent Lusi

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“We’re investing in our families because we want to improve their English language skills so they can better communi-cate with the staff at their child’s school,” said Janet Pichar-do, director of the Office of Family and Community Engage-ment. “Also, parents will be learning the English language, along with their children.”

Providence Public Schools acquired the software and is introducing it to parents currently enrolled in English as a Second Language classes at elementary schools through-out the city and at Dorcas Place. “Many agencies have long waiting lists for English language classes,” Pichardo added. “Many are eager to learn, but there is not enough support.”

Program offers complete immersion in languageThis spring, the Parent and Family Resource Center, located at 379 Washington Street, has 37 parents enrolled in classes on Monday and Wednesday mornings using a combination of desktop and laptop computers. Each is accompanied by a headphone and microphone. “This program is very differ-ent from other language programs,” Pichardo said. “This is complete immersion – there is no translating. It offers the opportunity to practice pronunciation while listening to a voice and being assessed as to whether you are pronouncing correctly.”

Yenny Jaquez, a parent at Charles N. Fortes Elementary School, enjoys learning English using Rosetta Stone, and feels she is progressing faster using this method. “If you give the wrong pronunciation, the program doesn’t allow you to continue,” she said through an interpreter.

For Altragracia Rodriguez, who emigrated from the Domini-can Republic eight months ago and is a parent at Feinstein at Sackett, the program is “like a conversation. Hearing the words helps with writing. The two go together.”

Yenny Jaquez, a parent at Charles N. Fortes Elementary School,enjoys learning English using Rosetta Stone

She is also taking ESL classes, which offer more empha-sis on phonics and grammar, while Rosetta Stone empha-sizes pronunciation and writing. With both programs, Ro-driquez feels she is gaining comprehensive instruction.Staff from the Family Resource Center are available to assist parents with the software and how to use the com-puters. The lessons are visual and self-guided so partici-pants can progress at their own pace.

Funding for the Rosetta Stone program was made avail-able through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, which appropriated $400,000 to Providence Public Schools to support families.

Pichardo plans to offer the program to parents in the fall and eventually expand it to students enrolled in the district’s English Language Learner Program. For more information regarding the Rosetta Stone program, or to sign up for classes in the fall, contact Janet Pichardo at janet.pichardo@ppsd.org or call (401) 456-0686.

New Group of Innovation Schools to be named by R.I. Dept. of educationThe Providence Public School District is committed to improving student achievement, particularly in the district’s low-est-performing schools. In the coming weeks, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) will identify a new round of Providence schools, known as Innovation Schools by the district, as chronically low-achieving and in need of drastic improvement and intervention.

This news, while it may sound discouraging, is not all bad. In fact, this challenge presents an unprecedented opportunity for Providence Public Schools to join with its community partners – including parents – to implement school turnaround strategies designed to produce dramatic gains in student performance.

“We have a strong obligation and a unique opportunity before us to transform our struggling schools. These transforma-tions can serve as examples of how collaborative efforts can bring remarkable changes and success for our schools’ students,” said Providence School Superintendent Dr. Susan Lusi. “But we must act quickly. We look forward to working with all of our stakeholders – administrators, labor unions, teachers, parents, students, and community partners to raise the bar for student achievement.”

More than 5,000 schools have been identified nationally by the U.S. Department of Education as needing dramatic turn-around. Nine Providence schools are already part of the district’s Innovation Zone, and we are implementing changes under the School Improvement Grant program. This new set of schools, to be announced in early summer, will join the current Innovation Schools in developing bold and innovative reform plans. (Continued on page 3)

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The newest group of schools will be selected for intervention based on Composite Index Scores using the best indicators of progress towards college- and career-readiness, including current school-wide performance in reading and mathemat-ics, cumulative past school-wide performance in reading and mathematics over a three-year period, student growth percentiles for elementary and middle schools, and graduation rates for the high schools.

“We obviously cannot do this work alone,” said Dorothy Smith, executive director of the Office of Transformation and Innovation. “Successful school turnaround will re-quire ongoing community involvement and support. Together, we must rethink cur-rent practices and pursue bold strategies in order to improve student outcomes.”

The new round of Innovation Schools will follow the process outlined in the state’s waiver application to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), recently approved by the federal government. Schools will pursue one of three reform mod-els under this new process, which replaces the School Improvement Grant Program and the four models that applied to the first two cohorts of schools. (See page 4.)

What is the Innovation Zone?Providence’s most struggling schools have been placed in the district’s new “In-novation Zone,” which creates a protected space within the district, where schools receive additional support and the flexibility needed to develop innovative reform strategies. The current Innovation Schools were identified in two rounds. Cohort 1, or first round, were named in January 2010 and include Young Woods and Lillian Feinstein Elementary Schools, Roger Williams Middle School, and the Juanita San-chez Educational Complex. Cohort 2, or second round, were announced last October and include Pleasant View and Carl G. Lauro Elementary Schools, Gilbert Stuart Middle School, and Dr. Jorge Alvarez and Mt. Pleasant High Schools. (Continued on page 4)

Published for parents of the Providence SchoolDepartment by the Office of Communications

What Can Parents expect?Parents of children attending In-novation Schools can expect to see improvements focused on student achievement in their children’s schools. These initiatives may in-clude increased opportunities for parent involvement, new academic programming, extended learning time, more after-school activities and community partnerships, and more opportunities for virtual on-line learning.

The school communities will have an important and unique opportunity to participate in the decision-making to reform each school. “Parents, staff, students, and community members play an instrumental role in the improve-ment of our schools,” said Dorothy Smith.

After the latest round of schools are named, parents will be in-vited to an informational meeting, where they will hear from Su-perintendent Lusi about the dis-trict’s turnaround strategy, and begin a conversation about school strengths and areas for improve-ment. The informational meeting will be followed by workshop-type meetings to announce and collect feedback for the superintendent’s preliminary recommendations for which reform model meets the school’s needs. Each school will develop three goals, ranging from improved achievement in core subject areas, to the school climate and culture, to improving parent engagement.

Parents are also encouraged to: 5 Make sure your children at-

tend school and arrive on time with completed homework

5 Watch for letters, flyers and/or announcements regarding school planning sessions

5 Check the Innovation Zone website and submit questions/concerns/ideas

5 Attend school meetings 5 Participate on the school PTA 5 Volunteer in schools

Mayor Angel Taveras and Superintendent Susan Lusi stopped into science teacher Lisa Rose Bucci’s Period 3 physics class to inform her that she’d been named the Providence Public Schools Teacher of the Year.

U.S. Senator Jack Reed joined students, educators, and librarians from across the state at George J. West Ele-mentary School in Providence to discuss the importance of strong school libraries.

Our parent conference, “Summer Learning Equals Stu-dent Success,” was a hit! Parents and community mem-bers attended the event, organized in collaboration with the Pawtucket and Central Falls School Districts.

The Golden Apple Award comes to Providence again! NBC10’s Patrice Wood and Commissioner Deborah Gist surprised 5th Grade teacher Christopher Palumbo of Mar-tin Luther King Elementary School with the award.

Happening in Providence Schools

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Cohort 1 and 2 schools have developed reform plans and started to implement strategies designed to strengthen their academic and support programs. Those strategies include increasing teacher and leader effectiveness, extending learn-ing time (longer school day), improving academic programming, providing non-academic support, and increasing parent and community involvement. Individual schools are leading unique programs in each of these areas.

Jose Valerio, principal at Lillian Feinstein Elementary School, reports that new ESL classes are being offered everyday for parents at the school “to help them feel more welcomed and better connected to the school.” The school also offers week-ly parent and child time, helping parents connect with their children at home and in the classroom using various techniques, and places parents in the classroom with their children for one hour each week.

Teachers at the Juanita Sanchez Educa-tional Complex, according to Principal Janelle Clarke, have worked for the past year to improve instructional practices. The school has formed an Instructional Leadership Team to monitor school-wide data and create action plans to improve instruction and student achievement. The school has implemented targeted enrich-ment courses in writing and math to sup-port student achievement at each grade level and piloted 12 expanded learning opportunity placements for over 30 stu-dents this spring, resulting in the state’s first outside-of-school learning experi-ences for credit. The school’s new collab-oration with Lead Partner Cambium and National Academic Educational Partners (Cambium/NAEP), will help accelerate this innovation process.

Elsewhere, schools are exploring new ways to reach students. Roger Williams Middle School has developed a strong partnership with the Providence After School Alliance, which provides both classroom and out-of-school learning for students. Roger Williams teachers join instructors from community agencies like Save the Bay to design classroom lessons that can then be reinforced with fun, ex-periential learning and field trips.

Young Woods Elementary School has de-veloped a model called Full Service Com-munity Schools, providing extra support to students and their families with social

services, medical supports, adult literacy, “play and learn” time for the toddler sib-lings of existing students, before- and after-school curriculum-based activities and more, all managed at the school. These supports have benefitted dozens of families in improving behavior, atten-dance, and academics for students, ac-cording to Principal Christine Riley.

Support for School ImprovementTo assist schools in this process, sev-eral steps have been taken. Providence Schools has created the Office of Transfor-mation and Innovation (OTI), led by Smith, a former teacher, principal, and adminis-trator, to work directly with the district’s nine Innovation Schools and coordinate the district’s resources to support these reform efforts. Each underperforming school has been placed in the Innovation Zone, which receives targeted resources and the autonomy and flexibility needed to pursue dramatic turnaround plans.

A core component of the district’s turn-around strategy is the Lead Partner mod-el. Lead Partners will work within each school and will have the authority for decision-making, provide core support services, and will be held accountable for improving student achievement.

Cambium/NAEP will serve as a Lead Part-ner supporting the Juanita Sanchez Edu-cational Complex, Mount Pleasant High School, and a newly-identified school. The district will also partner with United Providence (UP!). UP! is a new nonprofit educational management organization, the first of its kind in the nation, designed to manage the innovation process in a cluster of Providence’s lowest-perform-

Innovation schools to be classifiedas one of three reform models

The RI Department of Education (RIDE) will classify schools named as Innova-tion Schools into one of three catego-ries based on stakeholders’ input and the superintendent’s recommenda-tion. The reform models are:

Flex – Select and implement a com-prehensive set of intervention strate-gies from a RIDE-developed and man-aged list of 28 proven strategies;Restart – Convert the school or close and reopen it as one of the following: regional collaborative, charter man-agement organization, educational management organization, or joint la-bor/management compact; orClosure – Close the school and enroll the students who attended that school in another higher-achieving public school within reasonable proximity.

ing schools. UP! is a labor-management collaboration between the Providence Teacher’s Union and the Providence Pub-lic Schools and will work with Lauro El-ementary School, Stuart Middle School, and Alvarez High School.

“We are excited about the opportunity to work as a partner with the district to turn around low performing schools,” said PTU President Steve Smith, “and we hope that this becomes a model to be replicat-ed across the district.”

The OTI will work with school administra-tors to engage family, community mem-bers, and local and national partners in the transformation process. Staffing will also be reevaluated in each school. The OTI has co-designed a Transformational Leaders Program, in collaboration with RIDE and the New York City Leadership Academy, to develop and support educa-tors who will lead the transformation pro-cess in the Innovation Schools. They will serve as principals-in-residence and re-ceiving ongoing leadership development and individualized coaching.

It is hoped that improvements made in the Innovation Schools will inspire district-wide innovation and reform. “This is an opportunity to do much better, to change our schools radically and with urgency,” said Dorothy Smith.

Roger Williams students spent the fall exploring eco-systems with the Audubon Society, examining plant and animal species, or gathering samples with Save the Bay.

Parents, the1st day of school istuesday, August 28, 2012. See you then!