Blackstone Valley Prep High School expansion was rejected by Cumberland. Here's why.

After months of discussions centering around the technical minutiae of traffic studies but also raising questions about the future of the working-class Valley Falls neighborhood and the charter network's rapid expansion, the Cumberland Planning Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject a proposed expansion of Blackstone Valley Prep High School.

Blackstone Valley Prep, which places an emphasis on getting students to attend college, currently has more pupils enrolled in its elementary schools than it will be able to accommodate at its sole high school when the time comes. As a result, school leaders have been seeking to construct an addition to the existing building, which is only five years old.

But planning officials said that increased enrollment would worsen traffic along the busy Broad Street corridor at pickup and drop-off times, and ultimately be detrimental to their plans to revitalize Valley Falls, a densely packed former mill village that is the poorest part of Cumberland.

"This is a neighborhood that the town has neglected for a very long time," Town Planner Glenn Modica said during a Planning Board meeting on Nov. 15. "But it’s a community that we’re finally investing in to build much-needed affordable housing, to improve the climate for existing businesses and attract new business, to make Valley Falls a vibrant, walkable, thriving, mixed-use corridor.”

Throughout the review process, which began more than a year ago, Blackstone Valley Prep's attorneys maintained that fears about traffic congestion were overblown.

Meanwhile, the charter network rallied parents, faculty and students to speak up in support of the proposed expansion. Recent planning board meetings, which stretched on for three or four hours, featured numerous impassioned speeches from proponents who argued that prioritizing traffic concerns would hurt kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.

"The ripple effect down the road of this decision about traffic, twice a day, for a short period of time on Broad Street, will affect these kids' lives for the long term," Brad Collins, a Lincoln resident and current Blackstone Valley Prep parent, said at the Nov. 15 meeting. "Right now, BVP is showing that your ZIP Code doesn't define your opportunity."

Growing enrollment leads to pushback

A major point of contention has been how quickly Blackstone Valley Prep High School outgrew its new campus, which was completed in 2017.

When the Cumberland Planning Board approved construction back in 2016, it was informed that the school would have a total enrollment of 330 students, according to Modica. The school now has slightly more than 400 students, attorney Scott Partington said at Wednesday's meeting.

Last year, Blackstone Valley Prep paid $1.3 million for two small lots of land next to the high school that had a combined assessed value of less than $400,000, and requested permission to expand its footprint. The charter network originally said that the proposed addition would increase the high school's capacity to 550 students.

A recent letter from the Rhode Island Department of Education to the Cumberland Planning Department stated, however, that enrollment "is expected to continue to climb, reaching 562 students in 2027."

Duiring the Nov. 15 meeting, Planning Board vice chairman Roy Costa, Jr. questioned why Blackstone Valley Prep would accept more grade-school students than it has room to accommodate at the high school level.

Blackstone Valley Prep High School head of school Josh Falk said that, to his knowledge, the plan had always been to reach the "charter cap" — meaning that the high school would eventually enroll the maximum number of students allowed under state law.

Planning Board members who approved the high school's construction back in 2016 indicated on Wednesday that they might have voted differently if they had known that was the plan.

Board member Kenneth Bush said that he believed that many of the members had concerns about traffic back in 2016 but "kind of held their noses and voted for the high school" because they believed it wouldn't get any bigger.

In June 2016, Partington told the Planning Board that "at present there are no plans for expansion," according to a meeting transcript. He added that he understood that the school would need to "come back and go through the same type of scrutiny and approval process" if it sought to expand in future.

Blackstone Valley Prep never ruled out the possibility of future growth, Partington told the Planning Board on Wednesday.

"I had no reservations about saying there may be an increase, and I said, 'If we do, if we expand, we’re going to have to come back to you for approval,'" he said. "This wasn't a Trojan horse."

Partington also said that there seemed to be a sentiment that "we knew this was coming and we duped everybody."

"That is just garbage," he said. "That’s not what happened at all."

Planning Board member Gregory Scown responded that he took issue with the fact that enrollment had grown from 330 to more than 400 without the board's knowledge.

"It just gave me a bad taste," he said.

BVP, RIDE warn of 'displaced' students

Blackstone Valley Prep was the first of Rhode Island's "mayoral academies." Under legislation championed by Gov. Dan McKee when he was mayor of Cumberland, they are exempt from many of the rules that apply to other public schools, and are required to admit a mix of urban and suburban students in order to ensure diversity.

Students at Blackstone Valley Prep come from Pawtucket, Central Falls, Cumberland and Lincoln. In a November letter to the Cumberland Planning Department, RIDE Student Opportunity Officer Stephen J. Osborn said that rejecting the proposed addition could affect more than 140 students per year, "many of whom may be displaced and forced to attend a lower performing high school."

Ahead of the final vote, Blackstone Valley Prep Supt. and CEO Sarah Anderson sent out a letter to parents, warning that the charter network expected its expansion plans to be rejected.

"Unfortunately, the implications are significant," she wrote. "One option is to shuttle high school students between our main building and a satellite campus. This reduces quality instructional time and impacts scholar learning.

"Another option is to reduce our enrollment by forcing families to enter a lottery between 8th and 9th grade, meaning all scholars will no longer be guaranteed a seat at our high school when they enter BVP. Families who have become vital members of our community will be forced to leave. Friendships will be broken up. Scholars who have been with us since kindergarten may have to attend a different high school."

The town of Cumberland will also lose out, she said: "The piece of land we own on Broad Street will remain undeveloped and unattractive. The entire community is missing out on the once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest over $10 [million] into the Valley Falls area with funds already approved by RIDE's School Building Authority."

Concerns about traffic as neighborhood prepares for change

Over the course of 10 public meetings, Cumberland planning officials and Blackstone Valley Prep attorneys repeatedly debated whether school pickup and drop-off was already causing traffic and parking headaches on Broad Street.

Though Blackstone Valley Prep devised a traffic flow scheme intended to keep parents' cars off the street, Cumberland officials were not convinced that parents would comply.

"It’s only as good as the enforcement mechanism," traffic engineer Robert Clinton of VHB, who independently reviewed the plan at Cumberland's request, testified before the Planning Board on Nov. 15. "And it seems like this school, rather than other schools, may have a little better compliance. But that’s anybody’s guess."

Though the topic didn't feature as heavily in discussions, planning officials also said that bringing more cars into the neighborhood would be at odds with their goals to revitalize the neighborhood and make it more pedestrian-friendly.

Two major residential development projects are currently in the works: ONE Neighborhood Builders plans to convert the former St. Patrick's Church into 44 affordable housing units, while the old Ann & Hope Mill is also slated to be redeveloped and turned into 241 apartments.

"Using a $100,000 grant from RI Commerce, the Town has hired a consultant to develop a strategic plan to improve mobility; create public spaces and attractive and safe streetscapes; support existing business; attract new investment; and enhance housing affordability," stated a November report from Planning Director Jonathan Stevens and Town Planner Glenn Modica. "The increase in twice daily traffic congestion resulting from an expansion of BVP High School is anathema to the Town’s long-term goals of creating a safe and vibrant Valley Falls.

"Additional traffic burdens on Broad Street, with more through and turning vehicles, presents less safe conditions to pedestrians and bicyclists."

What happens now?

Following the Planning Department's recommendation, the Planning Board voted, 8-0, to reject the project on Wednesday. Many of the board members cited concerns about traffic and the that the school's enrollment had increased without their knowledge. One board member, Christopher Butler, recused himself from voting or discussing the matter because his children attend Blackstone Valley Prep.

Planning Board member Harry MacDonald suggested that students' families should be asking questions of Blackstone Valley Prep officials. "You could ask them, 'Why did you choose to do this this way? Why did you insist on hammering a large round peg into a small square hole?' If this is rejected this evening, in my view, BVP officials have let you down. They have given you false hopes."

Blackstone Valley Prep has the option to challenge the ruling by suing in court or appealing to the state. The charter network has not indicated that it plans to do so.

"We will use this moment as an opportunity to reflect internally as an organization," Anderson, the superintendent and CEO, said in a statement on Thursday. "I remain hopeful all stakeholders can come together to find a solution that works for our families and the communities we serve."

"We accept last night’s decision by the Cumberland Town Planning Board. We remain mission-driven and compelled to find solutions to best support our families and their kids," said Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera, who serves as the chairwoman for the board of directors. "We will evaluate every opportunity to ensure no child is forced to leave our system because of a lack of space and that every parent who entered their child into our lottery continues on the education path they have chosen."

In addition to the potential outcomes laid out in Anderson's November memo to families, it's also possible that the high school could move. Back in 2016, McKee told the Valley Breeze that the high school was expected to grow to 600 students, which would require either an addition or a new location. If the high school moved to a new, larger campus, the building could then be converted to a middle school, he said at the time.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Cumberland RI Blackstone Valley Prep High School expansion rejected