Parents Warn Permit Changes will Hurt School Culture

Nevari Vargas is a well-rounded student at Rhodes Elementary, scoring well on her NECAP test and routinely getting As and Bs on her report card. 

Her mother, Lammis Vargas, is active in the Rhodes PTA and school functions.

"I feel very comfortable going to Rhodes," Nevari Vargas told the School Committee Monday night. "I could have attended Moses Brown School or stayed at my old private school but my parents knew Rhodes is just as good of an elementary school as a private school."

Sydney King, a 9-year-old who lives in the Edgewood Highlands district but attends Rhodes Elementary on a permit, said she has made lots of friends there and it would be "sad" to leave them all.

"Leaving Rhodes would be a big change for me," King said. "I hope this will change your mind."

The two articulate young girls were at Monday night's meeting to plead with the School Committee to re-think a policy that winds down the issuance of permits for students to attend schools other than their home schools.

Along with impressing the audience with their well-spoken and thoughtful comments, the girls' message reflects a widespread sentiment among local families facing the prospect of uprooting themselves from their school and adjusting to a new school as the permit policy changes go into effect.

Although both girls won't have to switch schools next year, nearly 200 students will be uprooted the year after next after the School Committee approved a three-year phase-in of the new permit policy, which will drastically limit the number of permits granted every year, limiting them to students with IEPs and placements that require a specific school, or legal reasons, such as a restraining order.

It's a dramatic shift from the decades-old, but not-widely advertised policy in the Cranston School District of granting permits to pretty much anyone for any reason. And the effort to change the policy, which is indented to streamline administrating the placement of the thousands of children in the city's more-than 20 schools and eliminate disparities from one school to the next, shows how the system has created a lot of unintended consequences.

For starters, "clustered" students, or students bumped from their home school because of on-permit students taking up spots, end up getting their own permits. They then have grown accustomed to the schools they end up attending.

At Rhodes, many parents, including a large number who don't have permits for their children and live near the school, are worried that the sudden departure of on-permit students will be a blow to the school culture.

Along with tearing children away from friendships, favorite teachers and familiar surroundings, the school PTO and strong community feeling will be dealt a serious blow, parents said.

The same feeling is emanating from Woodridge Elementary, considered one of the city's best schools and a desirable landing place for on-permit students.

"I'm here to support all the wonderful families at Woodridge and across the city of Cranston that have kids as permitted students," Liz Harvey told the School Committee. "Many of these children are thriving at the school, they're friends with my children and it's extremely disruptive to pull their children out of their comfort zone."

Parents argued that on-permit students have parents that are engaged in their child's education, else they wouldn't seek permits in the first place. When a parent and child pick a specific school, they end up invested in the school's successful outcome.

"Permit families are a tremendous resource to our school," said Katy Mottee, a parent of a Rhodes Elementary student. They are actively seeking out and supporting our schools, volunteering for events. These permits are not about better playgrounds and parking. It's about improved community and support."

Chris Baxter, a Rhodes parent, does not have permits but noted that 10 percent of the student body there does.

"My concern is the elimination or phasing out of permits would have a significant effect on enrollment at Rhodes," Baxter said. "I know in the past, there was potential for closing classrooms."

Although many permitted students will not be moved thanks to their IEPs and 504s, there are plenty of cases in which a student is benefiting from a relationship with a staff member or classroom environment at one school but that isn't enough to qualify for a permit, under the new rules.

Take Lynne Chaput. Her child has made so much progress at Garden City School that he was voted out of his IEP. His home school would have been George Peters, but he was put in Garden City after school officials determined that the integrated kindergarten setting there would meet his needs, Chaput said.

"It is disheartening. . .emotional to know that this was not our choice to have him out of his home school — that was something that was decided for us and it's unfair that we have to once again uproot him out of his surroundings for something out of our control," Chaput said.

Other parents argued that their children might not qualify for permits because they don't require specific placements for their medical, social or behavioral issues, but doctors and caretakers have told them that moving them from their school would be disastrous.

Consider a student with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Not severe enough for a placement, but anybody who has learned anything about autism knows that stability and routine are critical and building reliable relationships with peers and adults is hard. There are several students like this that are facing the prospect of moving schools, much to the chagrin of parents and medical professionals.

Most parents agreed that the system does need to be fixed, some expressing anger and frustration that the system apparently was abused and the administration allowed the overabundance of permits to get out of hand.

"It outrages me some of the conversations I've had with parents who've been responsible for taking advantage of the easy [permits]," said Kerri Kelleher, president of BASICS. "We've approved permits for parking and playgrounds and it saddens me that we're now talking about all or nothing with something as important as 320 children."

The permit discussion is far from over. Although the School Committee approved changes to the permit policy on Monday, members said they'll revisit the issue with a work session in August to hear from parents and see if there can be a way to appease lingering concerns at the same time the system gets an overhaul.