Former student stands by Central Falls High teachers
Sunday, February 28, 2010
By: Jennifer Zaldana
LINK

The author graduated from Central Falls High in Rhode Island in 2003.

Under the advisement of Superintendent of Schools Frances Gallo, the Central Falls school committee in Rhode Island voted 5-2 to fire the entire faculty, 93 people total, including the principal, three assistant principals and 77 teachers at Central Falls High School on Feb. 23.

This decision did not come as a surprise to any of the teachers. Gallo had been threatening the mass firing for months in an attempt to pressure the teachers’ union to accept the terms of the so-called "transformation" model. Under the approved "turnaround" model, the school is allowed to re-hire no more than 50 percent of the previous staff.

State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist mandated an overhaul of the "failing" high school through one of four models. The "transformation" model included an extended seven-hour school day, weekly after-school tutoring for one hour, having lunch with students, holding 90-minute weekly meetings to discuss education and taking two weeks during the summer for "professional development."

The other two options were closing the school or turning it into a charter school.

Gallo’s "transformation" model did not include pay for the added hours of work, nor did it include negotiating with the teachers’ union. In fact, Gallo stated that she was firing the teachers because the "union insisted on negotiating over the terms of the transformation." This lack of respect for the teachers and the union is criminal.

Commissioner Gist’s mandate to overhaul the school was reportedly implemented in an effort to raise the students’ low test scores, which are amongst the lowest in the state of Rhode Island, along with decreasing the dropout rate, which is reported to be about 50 percent.

Helping students in poor areas means funding education, not firing teachers and busting unions

A teacher at CF high school, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, told PSLweb.org, "… the dropout rate is measured inappropriately. If a student moves out of the district … that student is counted as a dropout, even if he or she graduates from another school. If a student stays back and takes five years to graduate, that student is counted as a dropout. … People move to CF because of the inexpensive housing. They move out because of job loss or other reasons. In other words, we are penalized for being a poor community."

Central Falls is one of the poorest cities in the state and the country, with a median income of only $22,000. Of the 800-plus students at Central Falls High, the only high school in the city, 65 percent are Latino, most whom speak English as a second language. Yet somehow, these facts do not get taken into account when looking at test scores.

Standardized testing such as the NECAP (New England Common Assessment Program) is culturally biased, and does not adequately "assess" a student’s knowledge. Imagine having to take a test in another language that you barely understand. Is it really possible to do well if the student does not even understand the questions?

Many students also lack "initiative" due to the inability to pay for college. If students know they cannot afford college, then why would high school matter to them? The same teacher added in her interview with PSLweb.org: "My major concern is the number of undocumented immigrants at the school. These students and their families are in fear that they will be discovered and deported. Many of them do not finish school because they can’t go to college without papers. This is a common occurrence."

These are the real issues that face Central Falls High School students every day. I know this personally. I graduated from Central Falls in 2003. I experienced first-hand families of friends struggling to make ends meet; students trying to juggle full-time jobs needed to help their parents pay bills and also trying to finish school work on time.

I remember students skipping school, not because they did not care, but because they knew they could never afford to go to college. I know of students who were undocumented, some who were deported. Those who were not deported had no access to college due to their legal status in this country.

Life for us students was never easy, but it was our valiant teachers who helped us through our constant struggles. The Central Falls teachers not only helped their students better themselves academically, but emotionally as well. The teachers respected their students, and in return they were given respect back. What these teachers instilled in their students cannot be measured by any standardized test.

Superintendent Gallo does have one thing right, however—the students of Central Falls do deserve the best. They deserve a chance, an opportunity and the right to a higher education and equal quality of life. Most importantly, they deserve to not be treated as a statistic. They deserve change, but not the kind being handed down by the school board.

What Gallo, Gist and the board tragically got wrong were to unjustly blame the hard-working teachers, many of whom spent their entire careers as dedicated educators at the school.

As a graduate of Central Falls and a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, I stand firmly with all the teachers, students and families of Central Falls, Rhode Island.

Our teachers have struggled alongside us and now we must all struggle alongside them. Reinstate the teachers! Defend the union! Fire Superintendent Gallo! Public education is a right!

R.I. Education Commissioner Deborah Gist's 16-page protocol for intervening in chronically low-performing schools

Central Falls superintendent acts to fire city’s high school teachers
By Linda Borg and Paul Davis, projo.com
03:11 PM EST on Thursday, February 11, 2010

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — School Supt. Frances Gallo plans to fire all the teachers in the city’s only high school as part of a major overhaul ordered by the state education commissioner.

“We need to be able to move this school,” Gallo said Tuesday afternoon. “We are persistently in the low-performing category and therefore we have options we must look to.”

State Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist last month ordered Central Falls High School and five schools in Providence — each plagued by abysmally low achievement scores and low graduation rates for several years — to follow one of four specific models for reform.

Gallo said that the 74 teachers can re-apply, but their job descriptions would be different. Under the termination-of-teachers reform model, no more than 50 percent can be re-hired.

At the time of Gist’s announcement on Jan. 11, Gallo said she already had a plan that she hoped to put in place this fall. She said she wanted to replace the principal, implement school-wide reforms, including the possibility of a longer school day and a more flexible school schedule, and more fully engage the community.

Gallo said she chose this particular approach because “it honors our dedicated teachers and their expertise.”

Tuesday, however, Gallo said she decided to recommend termination after discussions with the teachers union broke down.

James Parisi, a field representative of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Allied Health Professionals, said that Gallo had asked teachers to work a longer school day, attend after-school training and set aside two weeks in the summer for professional development. Parisi said the union balked because the district wasn’t willing to pay teachers enough for the additional time and work.

Gallo

That’s when Gallo moved to the termination-of-teachers reform model.

However, at a jammed meeting of the school district’s Board of Trustees Tuesday night, the superintendent left the door open for the less-severe option. She gave the teachers until Friday to reconsider her earlier reform proposals.

The union, she said, has until Friday to embrace a plan that would lengthen the school day, require teachers to tutor outside regular school hours, and agree to meet 90 minutes a week to discuss educational matters. Teachers also would have to agree to be evaluated by a third party beginning March 1.

Gallo is acting under the directive of Gist, who has the authority to intervene in chronically low-performing schools under both state and federal law.

Under the federal/state intervention protocol, the six schools targeted by Gist must choose one of the following options:

•Close the school.

•Replace the principal, increase learning time and change instruction.

•Hire a charter school or outside management company to run the school.

•Replace the principal and rehire no more than 50 percent of the staff.

The only comparable intervention by the state in the operation of a low-performing school was in 1999 at Providence’s Hope High School. There, teachers were required to re-apply for their jobs at Hope and roughly 50 percent of the existing staff chose not to re-apply. But they were eligible for jobs elsewhere in the system.

Hundreds of teachers, students and union supporters filled the auditorium in a Central Falls elementary school last night at which the Board of Trustees discussed Gallo’s plan to terminate the faculty and reinvent the high school.

The superintendent, who spoke first, reviewed the history of the public meetings and negotiations leading up to her decision to fire the teachers.

More than a dozen people signed up to speak.

Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, emphasized that the high school can be reformed by using less-severe measures than an across-the-board firing. She characterized the talk of termination as “blackmail” and “extortion,” and said that “the union is willing to work with you, but it’s a two-way street.”

Noting the turnover in administrators in Central Falls, both Reback and Jane Sessums, president of the teachers union, emphasized that the high school’s teachers are the only constant in the students’ educational lives. That stability should be preserved, they said.

The teachers union leaders also denied that they had reached an impasse in talks with Gallo. They said they needed more details of what they would be expected to do.

Students also spoke in support of their teachers, saying they were friends, mentors and family members. Two students read poems praising their teachers.

Thunderous applause followed each speaker.

BY THE NUMBERS

Central Falls HS

Central Falls High School has been classified by the state Department of Education as a chronically underperforming school for seven years. The most recent information on the school:

808 -- Number of students

74 -- Number of teachers

96% -- Students in poverty

47.7% -- Graduation rate

55% -- Proficient in reading

7% -- Proficient in math

Sources: Central Falls HS Web site;

R.I. Dept. of Education

pdavis@projo.com

Rhode Island School Supt. Frances Gallo Fires The Entire Staff at Central Falls High School

Rhode Island School Supt. Frances Gallo Fires The Entire Staff at Central Falls High School