Parents Question Proposed Fifth Avenue, Bernon Heights Changes

Parents are questioning the wisdom of a proposal to close Fifth Avenue Elementary and convert Bernon Heights to a middle school for fifth and sixth-graders.

The changes are a possible part of Superintendent Giovanna Donoyan's new budget plan for the Woosocket Education Department.

The Valley Breeze reports parents and teachers are organizing to oppose the proposed changes. City Council President John Ward said it makes sense to draw up additional budget options.

During the April 17 City Council meeting, Ward noted his own children, who are now grown, attended Bernon Heights, and he sympathizes with the community's desire to maintain the schools as neighborhood schools.

Given the opposition to the proposals, he said, it makes sense for there to be a back-up plan for the school budget. Without a fallback plan, he said, the school department might go forward, "...only to find out that the community is so diametrically opposed to it that they have to back down from it, then we have no budget," Ward said.

Donoyan reports Ward has nothing to worry about. "We've got three different plans," she said during a Wednesday phone interview. All three plans will be presented during tonight's School Committee meeting at 6:30 p.m., 60 Florence Dr. (see attached agenda), she said.

"Any good chief executive officer has plans A, B, and C," Donoyan said.