Rhode Island
How a Central Falls school is inching its way towards year-round schooling • Rhode Island Current
Angelo Garcia likens our current education system to a snow globe. Everybody basically agrees on what should be the bits of educational snowflake materials – the math, science, geography, even recess. Once in a while the globe might get shaken up by demands for accountability, radically changing reading instruction, or whatever.
But in time, with hardly anyone noticing, the snowflakes quietly drift back down to what Garcia, co-founder and executive director of the Segue Institute for Learning, calls “the same inflexible, contained environment.”
With, I might add, the same lackluster results.
For 15 years, Garcia and Segue co-founder, Melissa Lourenco, have been experimenting with how to rearrange the necessary elements of education, but get past its conventional confines.
For example, kids’ summer learning loss is an accepted liability of the agrarian school calendar. For students at this school in Central Falls, the poorest community in Rhode Island, it’s dire.
On a recent, hot summer day, Lourenco took me on a tour of what initially looked like a typical, remedial summer school, with a phonics lesson here and math puzzles there.
A Spanish-dominant group of squirmy little kids hovered around a young instructor helping them unpack the meanings and feelings of emotion words. Would, for example, getting a shot at the doctor’s office make you worried, or “preocupada?” The kids erupted with anxious chatter. The adult switched easily and often between English and Spanish, to translate and commiserate.
The instructor is one of six extra adults who are either doing their teaching practicum through the Rhode Island School for Progressive Education or are completing a B.A. through College Unbound. These programs fast-track would-be teachers who need experience.
Several schools work with these programs since education badly needs more teachers, but especially teachers of color. Other than maternity leaves, Segue has had zero teacher turnover, but they’ll need new teachers eventually. For them, the extra adults helped make the student groups smaller, giving more attention to students who need as much help as they can get.
The kids in that squirmy group are incoming kindergartners getting a jumpstart on language skills, and making friends and adult allies. Few summer programs would bother with students who don’t yet need academic remediation.
The Segue summer strategy has the groups – K-8 – cycling through six “stations” Monday through Thursday. Each station lasts only 25 minutes, so they don’t have time to get bored before moving on to a new subject and place. Three stations are academic – math, English Language Arts and the social-and-emotional learning one we observed. The other three stations promote creativity and collaboration with soft-sell academics woven throughout – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), arts and crafts, and recreation, which is essentially organized recess.
Summer staff experiment beyond the regular curriculum in search of lessons that might be more effective or engaging for use during the regular school year.
On Friday, a.k.a. Fun Friday, kids go bowling, to the beach, the movies, or whatever the grant they got for the purpose can afford. It’s a huge draw.
Indeed, a fifth-grader steamed up to me singing the praises of “all the fun stuff,” while proudly assuring me that while he still had “bad behavior” feelings, “I know how to behave.” He’s apparently a handful, but strongly motivated to stay in the program.
Lourenco says the older kids moan and groan about summer school, but they come. During the regular year, Segue’s 360 urban students have a remarkably low chronic absenteeism rate, 10%. But the 120 enrolled in the summer program come almost as faithfully.
A fifth-grader steamed up to me singing the praises of “all the fun stuff,” while proudly assuring me that while he still had “bad behavior” feelings, “I know how to behave.
A cohort of kids referred for chronic absenteeism work with a social worker who brainstorms with the older kids about how they could get themselves to school regularly. The younger students attend the academic program to make up for lost time and learning while the social worker engages with their families, who should be getting them to school.
Other students come because they have special needs. A few come because their families badly need child care and plead their case with school officials.
Garcia insists that Segue’s is not really a summer school, “but an extension of the school year. There’s always a need to prevent regression, which is why we’re talking about a year-round school.”
Lourenco experienced year-round schooling in another state. She started “whispering” the possibility to the staff, and found them to be surprisingly open. The school would stay within their 185-day year, but take intermittent two weeks off for, say, a fall break. The breaks would be timed differently from the other public schools so families aren’t competing with the rest of the state for flights or space at the Children’s Museum.
To boot, Garcia believes such a year-round schedule would ease teacher burnout as well as staunching learning loss. Teacher burnout is as big a problem as learning loss and probably contributes to it.
That said, teachers already work more weeks than is typical, starting the first week of August. While that sounds like a deal-breaker for many, Segue’s teachers stick around and their chronic absenteeism is zero.
“Obviously,” Garcia says, “Segue is not for everybody.”
But it’s not a snow globe either.
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The Rhode Island Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at June 9, 2025, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from June 9 drawing
30-33-40-43-52, Powerball: 25, Power Play: 4
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Lucky For Life numbers from June 9 drawing
03-07-17-29-46, Lucky Ball: 15
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Winning Numbers numbers from June 9 drawing
Midday: 4-3-1-0
Evening: 6-9-7-2
Check Numbers payouts and previous drawings here.
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02-05-13-32-34, Extra: 03
Check Wild Money payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes less than $600 can be claimed at any Rhode Island Lottery Retailer. Prizes of $600 and above must be claimed at Lottery Headquarters, 1425 Pontiac Ave., Cranston, Rhode Island 02920.
- Mega Millions and Powerball jackpot winners can decide on cash or annuity payment within 60 days after becoming entitled to the prize. The annuitized prize shall be paid in 30 graduated annual installments.
- Winners of the Lucky for Life top prize of $1,000 a day for life and second prize of $25,000 a year for life can decide to collect the prize for a minimum of 20 years or take a lump sum cash payment.
When are the Rhode Island Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 10:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 11:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 10:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Midday): 1:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Evening): 7:29 p.m. ET daily.
- Wild Money: 7:29 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Rhode Island editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Rhode Island
Trump actions could force a recession for colleges, R.I. higher ed leader says – The Boston Globe
Brown University is facing the most pressure, with dozens of research grants cancelled and Trump threatening to halt $510 million in funding to the Ivy League college. Egan said all of Rhode Island’s private colleges have faced some level of cuts, and accused Republican leaders of trying to “force a recession on higher education.”
“They’re well on the way to achieving that,” Egan said.
The Trump administration has cut scores of research, particularly involving race and LGBTQ+ people, arguing it amounts to diversity, equity and inclusion and does not serve public health. The cuts include studies seeking to stop the spread of HIV.
The crackdown on DEI, plans to block international student visas, and proposed changes to student aid could all imperil universities, Egan said.
“Clearly there’s a desire to change the way higher education operates,” Egan said. “There will be an opportunity or a chance that great harm will be inflicted on the sector going forward.”
Brown president Christina Paxson has declined interviews about the Trump cuts, citing the uncertainty around future funding. Egan, who lobbies for Brown and the other colleges, said House Republicans’ proposed increase to the endowment tax could cost tens of millions for Brown, on top of the other funding cuts.
Layoffs would be likely if all of the proposed cuts come to fruition, Egan said. A Brown spokesperson said Friday the university has still not received “any demands or formal notification” about the $510 million proposed cut.
“That will harm small businesses, local businesses, local communities, when folks are no longer working and part of the community and part of the economic engine that is higher ed,” Egan said.
Rhode Island’s other colleges do not yet meet the threshold for their endowments to be taxed under the proposal.
Asked about Brown’s high price tag of $92 million a year and a perception that Brown is not contributing enough to Providence, Egan said most students don’t pay the full price tag because of scholarships and aid. He called the $177 million in voluntary payments from the four private colleges in Providence a “phenomenal gift” to the city, considering the universities are tax-exempt as nonprofits.
He said higher education has a major impact on the economy as one of the top employment sectors in the state.
“For those that question the economic impact, you need to go look at some of those local businesses, the pizza shops, the dry cleaners,” Egan said.
Financial woes for New England colleges predate Trump, Egan noted. A lower birthrate in the Northeast compared to other regions of the country means fewer students are turning college-aged each year. Johnson & Wales University recently announced layoffs, citing decreasing enrollment.
In Trump’s spending package, dubbed the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” Egan said he is most concerned about proposed cuts to Pell Grant eligibility — which would make it harder for part-time students to receive the college aid — and the cap on the amount of money graduate students can borrow.
The Trump administration has said the loan limits are “reasonable,” and called the Pell changes “critical reforms” to “prioritize students who truly need financial assistance while promoting completion.”
The Pell Grant, started by a US senator from Rhode Island, provides grants to low-income students that don’t need to be paid back.
Egan also noted that international students tend to pay the full price tag for college, unlike American students who can access federal aid, so blocking student visas would further hurt the universities’ bottom line.
“I find it ironic that around the globe we’re the envy of the world in higher education, but yet in our own country, from not only our leaders but the general public, we’re not seen in even a similar or equal light,” Egan said.
Watch the RI PBS Weekly interview in the player above, or listen to an extended version on the RI Report podcast.
Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.
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