Newport's School Committee Takes Aim at Proposed STEAM Charter

The covered wagons of the local status quo-oriented educational leaders continue to circle; their rifles are now drawn and pointing at one target: the proposed county STEAM charter school. The Newport School Committee is ready to take their collective shot at the proposal on Friday, June 28th 3PM by voting on a formal resolution that mirrors that of their cohorts from Middletown. The resolution's super-charged phrases: "exclusivity and forced segregation" and "fragmentation of our community" are inflammatory and untrue. Sadly, they can't even get the school's name right .... it's the Newport County STEAM Academy which will initially focus on Grades K-6.

It's high noon at the OK Corral and time for all of the county's city and town councils to step up to the bar and become educational change agents by jointly sponsoring a county-wide mayoral STEAM charter high school. After all, Portsmouth has been talking about STEAM for their high-performing high school; Middletown, too, said last week that they'd like to explore the option; and some in Newport have also shown an interest in a STEAM-centric curriculum for the high school level.

So, let's ask our elected leaders to unhitch their circled wagons, put down their
rifles, find some peace pipes and openly discuss what it might take to have a county-wide mayoral STEAM charter high school that might just propel this county's economic development prospects forward starting in 2015.  If they want this to happen, then all they need to do is to submit a short pre-application to the RI Department of Education by December 1, 2013.  I know they are up to the challenge!