Amended House bill would undercut efforts to restore some power to Providence School Board

PROVIDENCE — A bill backed by House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi guts a companion piece in the Senate that would restore some of the Providence School Board’s authority under the state takeover.

The House bill, amended last minute, would effectively strip Sen. Sam Zurier’s bill of most of its punch.

His bill sought to impose more accountability over state education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green by returning the School Board’s power to hire senior administrators, set districtwide policies, evaluate progress on annual goals and receive feedback from community members on the turnaround plan.

The latest House version eliminates the board’s authority over hiring senior staff and setting policy and removes the need for board approval to extend the takeover of the Providence schools, which began in November 2019.

Passed in Senate: Some of Providence School Board's powers would be restored through RI Senate bill

Senator wants more oversight of Providence schools. Others say not so fast.

More importantly, the bill itself would expire in July 2024.

In a statement, Shekarchi said, “This amended bill will bring people to the table and encourages them to communicate. It is a measured approach that puts all stakeholders on notice that we will be monitoring their progress and we’re not happy with the lack of communication so far. We will be reviewing this issue again when we return to session in January, and if progress has not been made in the next six months, we will revisit this bill.”

The House bill – and the Senate measure – will be heard by the House Education Committee on Wednesday afternoon. The Senate has already passed Zurier’s bill.

Department of Education's answer to the proposals

The Rhode Island Department of Education and Providence Schools Supt. Javier Montanez are staunchly opposed to restoring any authority to the School Board after a damning report by Johns Hopkins University faulted the board, among others, for failing generations of students.

Last week, the Department of Education said the bill "adds the exact type of extraneous bureaucracy identified as an issue in the Johns Hopkins report."

"As Supt. Javier Montañez testified when this bill was in committee, we believe the community deserves the opportunity to see [the turnaround] plan followed through before we revert to the same systems that led Providence schools to this point.”

The takeover stripped the School Board of most of its authority and handed those decisions to Infante-Green.

Senate Oversight Committee: Education leaders grilled over Providence schools' grading policies

But critics, including some community members, several members of the School Board and Sen. Lou DiPalma, chairman of the Senate Oversight Committee, claim no one is overseeing the commissioner or the state Department of Education.

During several heated public hearings, DiPalma accused the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education of abrogating its responsibility to review and critique the takeover, which some say has yet to substantially change how the schools operate.

“If the K-12 council exercised oversight over the takeover, we would not have the vacuum that currently exists,” Zurier said last week. “This bill was designed to help fill that vacuum and to allow the takeover to happen without more preventable mistakes.”

What would the House version of the bill do?

The amended House bill leaves intact language that would ensure that the School Board meets at least monthly to provide public oversight of the district’s progress, something the state Council of Elementary and Secondary Education has failed to do, according to Zurier.

It also preserves 16 annual metrics that would measure whether the turnaround plan is working, including student attendance and suspension rates, safety and discipline, graduation and dropout rates, standardized test scores and whether the district is closing achievement gaps.

The Department of Education has already incorporated most of those metrics in its evaluation of the turnaround plan.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence School Board powers slow to return with amended House bill