Preschool To Move To South Road School

After nearly a year of deliberations and more than 30 reconfiguration plans, the School Committee voted on Tuesday to maintain neighborhood elementary schools and move its inclusionary preschool program to the old South Road School.

Although the move – which will relocate students for the start of school in the fall – will maintain programs at the South Kingstown Inclusionary Preschool (SKIP) next year, the larger location leaves open an opportunity for expansion as funding becomes available. Committee members were also excited about the possibility for expansion of the district’s alternative high school in the space freed at Hazard.

“With high school graduation becoming such an important part of future success, I look at the alternative high school as being a must, and don’t want to say that it was lost in the process, but that was – to me – a determining factor in moving the preschool,” said Kevin Jackson, committeeman. “To me educationally, that is a big part of this. I look at this as we are strengthening our back end and strengthening our front end educationally.”

The decision came as a surprise to some residents who followed the year-long reconfiguration process. An ad hoc committee charged with brainstorming possible reconfigurations in the district that would increase student achievement as well as its financial efficiency identified a different plan last June, which the committee approved.

Plan 29 would have moved SKIP not to South Road, but to Peace Dale Elementary School. Under this plan Peace Dale School would have been redistricted and space for SKIP freed by reducing its student population and redistributing it throughout the district's other three elementary schools. This would have also balanced enrollment throughout the elementary schools.

In combining services with existing Peace Dale operations and in turn reducing staff, the district could have saved up to $200,000 annually, but Supt. Kristen Stringfellow said actual savings would have depended on the needs of students enrolled. She said the staff needed to service SKIP students – many of whom have special needs – depends on their Individualized Education Programs and changes yearly.

“I have concern with the process, that there was a process that had gone through with a vote and was configured and now we are here look at something potentially different and it may be the exact right thing to do, but I’m just not sure how we got here from there,” said Jonathan Daly-Labelle, a local father of five who said two of his children attended SKIP and ultimately supported the move and possible future expansion opportunities.

“I look at this plan as, in my opinion, 29 A versus B because the structural components don’t change in terms of housing the preschool in one building as it is now, but one gives more additional space,” said Dr. Anthony Mega, vice chairman. “Weather it is Peace Dale or South Road leaves open the possibility of how we can improve the alternative high school program by moving buildings to free up space.”

The move – regardless of whether it is to Peace Dale or South Road – is already paid for in the current year budget. According to John Ritchotte, director of administrative services, it will cost about $60,000 to install fencing and air conditioning, relocate SKIP’s handicap-accessible playground, renovate bathrooms, and make necessary technology upgrades at South Road before students start classes in the fall.

 “Once you commit to creating a program and moving all the kindergarten teachers out of their space, moving around the Peace Dale community, and creating new bathroom facilities, I don’t think that would really be long-term planning if then next year you decide to move to anther school,” said Stringfellow.

“At its core this is revenue neutral, though it has implications for the future and it feels as if the decision before us is really a staging decision,” said Stephen “Scott” Mueller, committeeman. “If we make to use South Road school as a site for a preschool, it opens up possibilities, possibilities that are not available at those classrooms at Hazard and that will be constrained in placement at Peace Dale. And it opens opportunities for an alternative high school.”

“For the first year this is just a transfer of services,” added Stringfellow. “I am not recommending anything this evening about expansion.”
SKIP faculty and administrators were represented in force at Tuesday night’s meeting. All advocated for the switch the school, which serves 166 community and special-needs children, to South Road because of the future opportunities of expanding programs.

“We want to be able to expand and service more children in South Kingstown,” said Kristine Bell, a preschool teacher at Hazard. “Right now we have 35 on our waiting list. Our concern is for where are they, and the fact that we have lost two community preschools in our area. So, where are they to be serviced?”

SKIP faculty, staff and administrators also spoke to pending RIDE mandates that will require the inclusionary preschool – and others like it around the state – to adhere to strict standards by 2014.

“We know we can achieve the educational standards in the classroom, but we really need the structural standards so we hope we can go to South Road School,” said Deborah Hopkins, a SKIP teacher.

“When the School Committee passed plan 29, we spoke of budget concerns, and that we may have to adjust plan 29 because we felt that merely a year later the climate would change and we would need to reassess - looking at the possible need to be more draconian and in a budget situation that would warrant a struggle to maintain programs,” said Mega. “But we don’t feel that. After hearing feedback from teachers… If I’m hearing that the better option is to move the preschool to South Road, then my feeling as a School Committee member would be to take that quality advisement given to me and take it in that context.”

Pam Santos, a member of the Reconfiguration Advisement Committee (RAC) of parents, administrators and community members that met over eight weeks last year to develop plan 29 wondered how the district’s financial position had changed so much since last summer that it was now toying with the ideas of expanding programs in coming years.

“We looked at a lot of different ideas and we loved the idea of expanding the preschool, and we were told we couldn’t do it because the money wasn’t there,” said Santos.

“There was a huge doom and gloom financial outlook and I’m just wondering where all that went,” Santos added.

Chairwoman Maureen Cotter reminded Santos that this fall’s move was simply that. A move. Although SKIP faculty, committee members and administrators all expressed a desire to expand the program down the road as finances and planning permit, the location change will maintain the SKIP program as is currently exists at the Hazard school.

Stringfellow told Santos that the “doom and gloom” of last year’s budget was somewhat alleviated over the past few months thanks to passage of pension reform, settlement of the teacher’s union contract, the governor’s commitment to honoring the state Department of Education funding formula, and a variety of other factors. The RAC’s charge one year ago was primarily to adopt a reconfiguration that would contribute to student achievement and lengthen grade spans, but primarily one that would save South Kingstown schools money.

Under the adopted location change for SKIP, none of the potential savings identified by the RAC in plan 29 could be achieved. According to Stringfellow though not guaranteed, savings could have been reached through shared services at Peace Dale and reduction of staffing.

“In moving in budge neutral, I would not at this time be exploring some of those possible savings,” said Stringfellow.

The move would, however, focus on other core expectations outlined by the RAC, such as creating a long-term solution, producing a model that challenges students to excel, and increasing safety and security.

“Frankly I think we evolved to a plan that would be less disruptive to the community in the context of not having to displace children at their home schools,” said Mega.

“I think that over the course of the past five years of building changes there was a lot of talk about long-term planning and making sure we think about the future,” agreed Raissa Mosher, committeewoman. “I believe that this does that more of a long-term plan than a move to Peace Dale would have been.”

With the unanimous vote to relocate SKIP to South Road School, the committee authorized Stringfellow to put together an early learning team composed of faculty, administrators and private community preschools to explore the costs and logistics of a SKIP program expansion.

“It seems to me we would be wise to set the stage and recognize that there will be yet another discussion of taking advantage of that staging,” said Mueller. “Not taking that opportunity would be an error on our part. This is an opportunity for the community about what investments we are going to make both in our high school students, but also in the youngest of our students that will be educated in South Kingstown over the next decade or more.”

“That is to me the best step we could go – I think in the end an alternative preschool and high school are going to be two core educational parts in this district,” said Jackson.