RIDE, Providence school district grilled over school closures. Here’s what happened.

The Rhode Island Department of Education and the Providence Public School District faced tough questions on Thursday night from the House Oversight Committee, which upbraided them for a surprise announcement of city school closures.

"Convince me otherwise that that was the right way to do it," Rep. Patricia Serpa said of the sudden notices that two elementary schools — Alan Shawn Feinstein at Broad Street and Carl G. Lauro — would be shuttered next year, and that Gilbert Stuart Middle School would start being phased out.

Deputy Superintendent of Operations Zack Scott said engagement on facilities has been done "for quite some time." However, the district's messaging on engagement has been vague, and when it came to decisions to close these three schools, the Providence School Board was not involved. The community was taken by surprise, too.

Pushing for details, Serpa shot back: "You said you engaged stakeholders in appropriate order. Who were the stakeholders that you engaged?"

Scott then shifted his answer, stating that engagement had been the plan until word got out on social media about the school closures — an information leak "that was outside of our control."

Serpa pushed again: "You must have shared the names of those schools with some engaged stakeholders. … What group were those stakeholders from? ... Let’s cut to the chase: Was it you guys?"

Scott then conceded that he and PPSD's leadership team were the ones who deliberated on the school closures — not the community.

Rep. Anastasia Williams later described this back-and-forth as "doing the cha cha."

"It sounds to me that the plan was already made, a decision was clear, without the opinion, the advice the concerns the say or no say of any of the parents or stakeholders that have an interest in all these three schools," Williams said.

Serpa was particularly critical of the impact on children, some of whom teachers have described as distraught.

"Instead of giving them something to look forward to," Serpa said of the impact on children, "you created something for them to angst about — them and their parents — when they’ve already been angsting for, God knows what, about the last two years. So can we agree that that was very poorly handled?"

Serpa was met with silence until RIDE Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green jumped in to defend the handling of the process.

"Our plan was to talk to the families and the teachers," she said. "That was the plan. We had days, we had this plan. We were not planning to go out with this now. That was not the conversation."

The Providence Teachers Union has been blamed by RIDE and PPSD for posting news of the closures on Twitter before they were formally announced. Since then, teachers have said they have faced tearful students concerned about where they will go, and educators themselves will need to be rehired to new jobs.

Though Scott said there would be no layoffs, he delivered a mixed message on the hiring process, claiming it didn't involve reapplying but referencing an application process and an interview.

"I wouldn't call it reapplying, but when they're applying to a school, another position ... we want to make sure there's a good match between staff member and student," he said. "So all teachers will have a position in the district. They are interviewing at schools with openings to find that right match between the school and the educator."

Scott said displaced students will receive "first choice before others" in selecting their new school, which may be closer to home, and siblings will be kept together. At present, Scott said the average class size in the district is 21.5, and is expected to rise to 22.5 once the students are transitioned into new schools.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence school closures: RIDE, PPSD admit no community input