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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Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a campaign rally Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Romulus, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Holy Angels Parish in Barrington is pleased to announce that it will host The Original Take-Out Thursday, a charity food sale and popular East Bay attraction, where Labor Day Weekend will kick off early, on August 29.
New and returning customers are welcome to order from the delicious, modestly priced, carryout menu which offers the following:
PARTY TIME CLAM COMBO (New England “stuffie” and clam chowder): chopped ocean clams, diced onions and celery in a deliciously seasoned ground chourico bread stuffing baked on a half shell; sold with a serving of creamy, potato and clam-filled white chowder and side of oyster crackers… $9
FESTIVE FLAVOR BURGER PUFFS: juicy prime ground beef, crumbled bacon, sauteed onions, and shredded cheddar mixed with just the right balance of ketchup, yellow mustard and sweet relish, then stuffed into two, handmade puff pastry pockets…$13 served w/ golden-baked tater tots and a sweet, creamy dipping sauce
SUN ‘N FUN CHICKEN BITES: eight well-portioned cuts of tender breaded and boneless white meat chicken baked in a savory honey barbecue marinade … $16 served w/ homestyle coleslaw, panko-topped mac n cheese & cornbread
and clock-out of summer with a decadent dessert…
SPREAD THE CHEER CHEESECAKE (contains almond extract, omitted upon request): an individual-size rich, velvety cheesecake in a classic graham cracker crust and topped with your choice of sweet, fresh blueberries, strawberries, or cherries… $4
- Quantities are limited. Sales are based on availability.
- To order, please call or text Judy at 578-0090 or Barbara at 249-1104.
- When ordering, let us know what time you would like to pick up your food: Between 3:30 and 6pm on August 29
- Your order will be ready for you in the parish Presentation Room when you arrive.
- Payment by cash, or check payable to Holy Angels Church, is accepted upon pick-up.
Proceeds will benefit the efforts of the Holy Angels Social Outreach Ministry, whose mission is to provide for those in need. Your support is very gratefully appreciated.
TAKE-OUT THURSDAY WILL FEATURE A RAFFLE DRAWING FOR A $50 GAS CARD!
ORDER TODAY! LET’S CHOW FOR CHARITY!
SMITHFIELD — It was the match Rhode Island FC imagined.
A packed Beirne Stadium, against the new rival, with clinical goals and chances in the run of play. Rhode Island curated its best home atmosphere of the season on a cool Saturday night against Hartford Athletic.
And it was the Ocean State club that rode set piece goals from Grant Stoneman and Frank Nodarse and a late icer from Joe Brito for a 3-0 win vs. neighboring Hartford.
Saturday’s sellout, 5,252 in attendance, was just the second of the season — Rhode Island also sold out the inaugural match in March. It had the feel that derby matches bring, albeit just two games into the newly minted rivalry. Albert Dikwa’s missed opening tally just five minutes into the match previewed Rhode Island’s tempo — a pace Hartford couldn’t match.
More: RIFC cofounder and Ocean State native Michael Parkhurst on the club’s turnaround season
“Really good night, special night,” Khano Smith said. “We talked about it as a team, making it a night to remember. And putting a bigger gap between us and [Hartford], so we felt like we achieved it. But so many people put in so much work into this day.”
Said Koke Vegas on the match: “This is special. I cannot say to you why it is different. I can only say that it’s special. The feel is different.”
It was Jojea Kwizera’s left-footed service from beyond the box that Stoneman headed low into the far corner for the game’s first score in the 29th minute. Five minutes into the second half and Noah Fuson sent in a volley from the end line. But it was Nodarse’s brilliance that doubled the advantage.
Nodarse timed his run from the center of the box perfectly as Fuson delivered the service. Nodarse, running in on the possession, rose for the header that was redirected to the far post. It was more clinical than the opening set piece score and came after Hartford had seized momentum near the end of the first half.
Hartford had misses in the 36th minute and in stoppage of the first half after Joseph Farrell’s header off a corner didn’t sneak inside the far post for an equalizer.
“We started the game in control, and then naturally a goal was scored,” Smith said. “They kind of grabbed control of the game and took a little bit of momentum from us. And ended the half with more of the ball. But I think overall, I think we were in control of the game.”
Rhode Island eased to the clean sheet in the second half behind Vegas. Despite the eight-game unbeaten run, Rhode Island only posted one shutout over that time. The offense carried the club through July after starting the year sluggish.
“That’s probably what makes me the most proud,” Smith said of the clean sheet. “I always feel like we’re going to score, but we noticed that, and we talked about it as a group, the last time we had a shutout was against El Paso. Again, if we want to be a really good team, you can’t go seven or eight games without stopping the opposition.”
Rhode Island (7-5-11) is now seventh in the Eastern Conference standings and a point behind Detroit City FC.
“I think everybody today deserved everything that we watched out there — we are very happy,” Vegas said.
The club announced on Friday that it acquired defender Morris Duggan on loan from Minnesota United FC. Duggan, who entered Saturday’s match in the 82nd minute, is just the second loan acquisition for RIFC this season.
The 6-foot-4, German native was drafted in the third round of the 2024 MLS SuperDraft by Minnesota. He made two MLS regular season appearances this season.
“He will add quality in and out of possession to our defensive unit,” Smith said. [Duggan] is a player we are excited to add to our roster.”
jrousseau@providencejournal.com
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