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Greetings! I hope that you and your children are enjoying a great start to this school year.

We were fortunate to enjoy a very smooth opening of school this year. To celebrate our new beginning, I visited every school in our district and thoroughly appreciated the opportunity to wel-come back principals, teachers, staff and students. The schools and classrooms were buzzing with activities and learning – it was hard to believe that the school year was just a few days old! I believe that this is a great sign of a productive and successful year for our district and especially for our students.

In this issue of Connections, you will learn about some exciting new initiatives underway in our schools such as the new zone organization and the walking school bus at Fogarty Elementary School. You will also find more detailed information about the early steps we are taking to turn around our struggling schools.

Also, as a way of promoting innovation and attracting new part-ners to our schools, we have offered every school in our district the opportunity to apply for in-district charter school status. We hope to announce newly-proposed charter schools in the next issue of Connections. We also have created a unique partner-ship with the Providence Teachers Union, the first nonprofit edu-cation management organization of its kind in the nation. United Providence! will help lead the turnaround process for a group of our underperforming schools.

One of my most important messages for this school year is the importance of regular daily attendance. Your children can-not learn if they are not in school. Please do all that you can to ensure that your children are able to come to school every day ready to learn.

I look forward to working together with all of you toward an ex-citing year of success.

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

Families and Schools Working Together in ProvidenceConnections Newsletter

Visit: www.providenceschools.org

C o N t e N t November 2012 | Vol. 10 | Issue 1

1 Additional Schools Needing Intervention 2 Walking School Bus underway 3 New Zone Organization for Schools 3 First Day of School 2012-2013

Superintendent Dr. Susan Lusi and Mayor Angel Taveras enjoy a moment before riding the first bus route of the year to Carl G. Lauro Elementary School.

When the Rhode Island Department of Education released the 2012 School Classifications under the new Rhode Island Account-ability System, 15 additional Providence schools were classified as needing improvement.

These schools have joined the nine schools already identified un-der Cohorts 1 and 2 of the School Improvement Grant Program over the last two years.

In a letter to the community on the day the 2012 classifications were announced, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and School Superintendent Dr. Susan Lusi said, “There is a deep sense of urgency to invest in and transform educational outcomes in these schools and throughout our district. As a city and district commu-nity, we are faced with the tremendous opportunity and respon-sibility to dramatically improve student achievement in every school and especially our most struggling schools. We owe this to our students and their families and must work collaboratively to recalibrate expectations and redefine what is possible in our schools.”

Under Rhode Island’s new accountability system, all schools re-ceived a composite index score that reflects multiple measures of school performance, progress and growth. RIDE classified the schools under one of six categories: commended, leading, typi-cal, warning, focus and priority, ranging from highest to lowest overall scores.

Nine Providence schools have been identified as Focus schools, including: George J. West Elementary School, Harry Kizirian Elementary School, Frank D. Spaziano Elementary School, Na-than Bishop Middle School, Esek Hopkins Middle School, Provi-dence Career and Technical Academy, Hope Arts High School, Hope Information Technology School and Central High School.

(Continued on page 2)

Message from Superintendent Lusi

RI Department of education Classifies 15 AdditionalProvidence Schools as Needing Intervention

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It brings children to school in all kinds of weather, but doesn’t have seats or wheels. It depends heavily on the commitment of its volunteers and parents and is de-signed to improve students’ attendance.

It’s not a vehicle, actually. It’s the walking school bus launched this fall at Fogarty Elementary School. So far, six children are participating and, thanks to the efforts of the school community, a second route has been added.

When the Providence Children’s Initiative began working with families at South Providence’s Fogarty Elementary School, they created a school attendance map as part of their effort to help families overcome barriers that put their children on track to becoming chronically absent. The map showed that most of the families with atten-dance issues live within a mile of the school, according to Michelle Cortes-Harkins, who heads the initiative, a program of Family Service of Rhode Island.

“Volunteers from the school, Inspiring Minds and Serve-RI will walk a route beginning on Oxford Street that has five different ‘walking bus stops,’ where students may gather to walk to school in groups with adult supervi-sion,” Cortes-Harkins said. “The idea is that parents will feel comfortable having their children walk to school even if the parent is unable to do so on a particular day, due to work schedules or other barriers.”

“We are so grateful to the Providence Children’s Initia-tive for developing an attendance map and the Walking School Bus initiative. We owe a special thank you to the volunteers who accompany the Fogarty Elementary stu-dents to school,” said Providence Schools Superinten-dent Susan Lusi. “It’s critically important that we be cre-ative in finding ways to eliminate chronic absenteeism.

“This simple, safe and healthy program will help to en-sure that children arrive to school on time and are less likely to miss important lessons that cannot be captured through makeup work. We hope this will serve as a mod-el for additional schools in our district,” added Lusi.

If you are interested in volunteering for the Walking School Bus at Fogarty Elementary School, please con-tact the Providence Children’s Initiative at (401) 331-1350, ext. 3457.

Walking School Bus Underway at Fogarty

Newly identified Priority schools are DelSesto Middle School, Mary E. Fogarty Elementary School and the Robert L. Bailey IV Elementary School.

“We have much serious work to do in our district,” said Dr. Lusi. “We expect that the changes we make in our struggling schools will drive extensive schoolwide reform throughout Providence Public Schools.

“Those transformations can serve as examples of how collaborative efforts can bring remarkable changes and success for our schools’ students,” she added. “But we must act quickly. We look forward to working with all of our stakeholders – administrators, labor unions, teachers, parents, and community partners – to raise the bar for stu-dent achievement.”

Priority, focus and warning schools must select and implement strategies designed to accelerate student achievement. Priority and focus schools will first participate in a diagnostic screening, now underway, to identify school strengths and weaknesses. Following the diagnostic phase, the district will choose one of three models for each of the priority and focus schools:

• Closure: district closes the identified school and enrolls the students who attended that school in other public schools within the state that are higher-achieving. (We do not see further school closures as a viable option for Providence at this time.)

• Restart: district converts a school or closes and reopens a new school under new management

• Flex Model: district selects a comprehensive package or intervention strategies from a RIDE-developed and managed list of 28 empirically-proven intervention strategies. The selection of strategies must be 1) coherent, 2) comprehensive, 3) responsive to the results of the diagnostic screen, and 4) ambitious but achievable.

Priority and focus schools are required to select intervention strate-gies informed by the diagnostic analysis and develop school reform plans. Priority schools will engage in a three- to five-year interven-tion process. Focus schools will engage in a two- to three-year in-tervention process. Additionally, all warning schools must select and implement one targeted intervention strategy to address the reason for the school’s classification.

For detailed information about school classifications and an explana-tion of how the criteria was applied to each school, please visit our Providence Public School District website. (Continued on page 3)

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Published for parents of the Providence School Department by the Of-fice of Communications. Questions regarding this newsletter should be directed to: Providence Public School Department - Office of Communi-cations, 379 Washington Street, Providence, RI 02903.

Director of Communications Christina o’Reilly christina.o’reilly@ppsd.org

Parent Information Specialist Robert taboada robert.taboada@ppsd.org

Interpreter/Translator Yara Rodriguez yara.rodriguez@ppsd.org

Writer Debra Hazian debra.hazian@ppsd.org

Family Service volunteers Ally Trenteseaux (left) and Melissa Fer-nandes (rear) walk with children to Fogarty Elementary School as part of the pilot Walking School Bus program.

(RIDE Classifications/Continued from page 1)

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(RIDE Classifications/Continued from page 2)A complete list of the 2012 School Classifications and links to the 2012 Rhode Island School Report Cards are available at: www.ride.ri.gov/DataWorks.

With more than half of the schools in our district identified as low-performing, three bold districtwide changes are being im-plemented: a new organizational structure for our schools into three zones (see related article below), partnerships with Lead Partner organizations that have the expertise to support and drive turnaround efforts; and the opportunity for every school in our district to apply for in-district charter school status. We will cover the district charter school proposal in more detail in the next issue of Connections.

Meanwhile, the Providence Public School District has estab-lished a strong labor-management partnership with the Provi-dence Teachers Union. Together, the PTU and PPSD launched United Providence! as a new nonprofit joint labor-management organization, the first of its kind in the nation to support the restart process in three schools. United Providence! will help direct turnaround efforts at Gilbert Stuart Middle School, Carl G. Lauro Elementary School and Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School. The district has also developed a partnership with Cambium/NAEP, a national education management organization that specializes in school turnaround and has been supporting ef-forts at Mount Pleasant High School, Juanita Sanchez Educa-tional Complex and Central High School.

The diagnostic phase is currently underway to determine the school and district’s strengths, needs and areas for improve-ment. Once that is complete, the district has until January 11, 2013 to complete the school level-diagnostics and select school models and intervention strategies detailed above. The Rhode Island Acting Commissioner of Education will review and ap-prove the intervention models.

The school district will have until February 15, 2013 to develop the school-level plans, further describing our strategies for each school and how they will be implemented. As with the last round of identified schools, there will be multiple opportunities for the community to become involved. Public meetings will be held in October and November to present information about the new identifications, the models and the process of select-ing strategies.

Carl Lauro Principal Linda Reigelman, who joined the district this summer from Ohio, reassures her younger students on the first day of school.

Sharing a good laugh on the first day of school are Superintendent Dr. Susan Lusi and teacher Jaina Harrison at Carl G. Lauro Elementary School.

A one and a two; Central High School music teacher Joyce Bernauenriquez jumps into a lesson on the first day of school.

Suzanne Quinn, a kindergarten teacher at George J. West Elementary School, leads her new students in a lesson during Circle Time.

Find us on Facebook to view more images of our first day of school and dis-cover more about our schools: www.providenceschools.org/facebook

First Day of School 2012 - 2013

New Zone organization for SchoolsWith more than half of Providence’s schools identified for in-tervention by the Rhode Island Department of Education, it is important that we have strong partnerships between our schools and the PPSD central office in order to drive results and promote academic excellence. Over the summer, a new organizational structure was developed that is designed to in-crease support for all schools district-wide.

Providence Schools have been organized into three zones: the Acceleration Zone, the Advancement Zone, and the Innovation Zone. This approach allows the district to more thoughtfully al-locate staff and resources in order to better serve and support schools.(Continued on page 4)

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The new zone configurations cluster schools according to need, grade lev-els and programming. The zones are designed to more effectively target re-sources and supports for students and educators in every building. Each zone will report to and be supported by one of the district’s executive zone directors and a central office support team. All three zones will have a strong emphasis on college and career readiness and pro-moting K-12 integration.

The Acceleration Zone, led by Dottie Smith, includes 12 elementary schools that house most of the district’s elemen-tary bilingual, ESL and dual-language programs. The Advancement Zone, led by Marc Catone, is a K-12 zone comprised of 12 slightly higher-performing schools. The Innovation Zone, led by Dr. Kregg Cuellar, is also a K-12 zone comprised of 12 schools needing the support and flex-ibility to make dramatic improvements in learning for all students. Schools in this zone will continue to pilot comprehensive and innovative reform strategies in order to quickly and substantially raise student achievement; several of the Innovation Schools are supported by organizations acting as “Lead Partners,” a term which means they are deeply embedded and invested in providing supports and re-thinking approaches to learning.

“We are pleased to announce this new organizational structure that will in-crease and tailor supports for all schools district-wide,” said Providence Schools Superintendent Dr. Susan Lusi. “This new zone-based approach will allow the district to more thoughtfully allo-cate staff and resources to better serve and support its schools. We are already seeing the many benefits of the new zone configurations, including targeted support, greater accountability, and im-proved communication between the cen-tral office and schools. We look forward to many additional benefits to this reor-ganization for our schools and students as the school year unfolds.”

(New Zones/Continued from page 3)

The Resident Overnight ParkingProgram is Now Open!

BISHOP101 Sessions Street

KING35 Camp Street

HOPE324 Hope Street

GREGORIAN455 Wickenden Street

E-CUBED812 Branch Avenue

VEAZIE211 Veazie Street

KENNEDY195 Nelson Street

KIZIRIAN60 Camden Avenue

GREENE721 Chalkstone Ave.

MOUNTPLEASANT

434 Mt. Pleasant Ave.

PLEASANT VIEW50 Obediah Brown Rd.

WEST145 Beaufort St.

D’ABATE60 Kossuth St.

LAURO99 Kenyon Street

CLASSICAL770 Westminster Street

CENTRAL70 Fricker Street

MESSER atBRIDGHAM1655 Westminster Street

PCTA41 Fricker St.

STUART188 Princeton Avenue

FORTES234 Daboll St. LIMA

222 Daboll St.LEVITON65 Greenwich Ave.

BAILEY65 Gordon Avenue

FOGARTY199 Oxford Street

COOLEY & PAIS182 Thurbers Avenue

YOUNG & WOODS674 Prairie Avenue

FEINSTEIN AT BROAD1450 Broad Street

FEINSTEIN AT SACKETT159 Sackett StreetRESERVOIR

156 Reservoir Avenue

ALVAREZ375 Adelaide Ave.

WILLIAMS278 Thurbers Avenue

DELSESTO152 Springfield Street

CARNEVALE50 Springfield Street

SPAZIANO85 Laurel Hill Avenue

WEBSTER191 Webster Ave.

SPAZIANOANNEX

240 Laban St.

0 0.25 0.5 1

HOPKINS480 Charles Street

NORTH PROVIDENCE

PAWTUCKET

JOH

NST

ON

CRANSTON

EAST PRO

ACCELERATION ZONEwww.providenceschools.org/accelerationzone

ADVANCEMENT ZONEwww.providenceschools.org/advancementzone

INNOVATION ZONEwww.providenceschools.org/innovationzone

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Providence Schools have been orga-nized into three zones: the Acceleration Zone, the Advancement Zone, and the Innovation Zone.