Why You Should Continue to Care About Mt. Pleasant High School

How the 360-Juanita Sanchez Merger, the May 2024 Bond Referendum, a David Morales Bill, and MPHS Fit Into the Bigger Story of the National School Privatization Movement

Photo by Todd Lee-Millstein on Unsplash

Disclaimer: For the full story on the local Mt. Pleasant High School controversy and the related RIDE and PPSD controversies—and why all of you should care—see my other Substack articles entitled “Why You Should Care About Mt. Pleasant High School,” “McGowan Off the Mark on Mt. Pleasant,” “RIDE and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” and “McGowan Off the Mark on Mt. Pleasant Once Again.”

Welcome to Providence, Rhode Island, a city where public schools merge faster and with less public accountability than large multinational corporations do. Oh well, what else is new? The Rhode Island Department of Education’s (RIDE’s) newer and fewer approach to school construction and maintenance has struck again.

As I have said on this blog before, what “newer and fewer” really means is “[prioritizing] building new schools over maintaining (i.e., not demolishing)” old ones like our own Mt. Pleasant High School (MPHS). What it really means is uprooting neighborhood schools, taking a wrecking ball to historic school buildings, and eventually replacing the sense of community they create with a vast charter school network. The experiment has been tried before. It has been attempted in Chicago, in Philadelphia, in New Orleans, and in many other places. And it has failed. Time and time and time again.

Clearly, we are dealing with much more than just another local issue. “Rhode Island, in its own little way, is an important part of a big debate,” as I observed at the very start of this controversy. Charter schools were initially small-scale experiments designed to encourage innovation within the larger public school system. They were not meant to become replacements to that system. They were not meant to slowly choke off the resources to public schools, and they are simply not equipped to absorb the entire public school student body.

So why does our own RIDE seem so wedded to the disastrous newer and fewer, pro-charter school approach? To answer that question, we must go back to the origins of a botched state takeover of Providence’s schools, a takeover that produced little results and even less transparency. That tale began with then-Govenor and now-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, whose many ties to the questionable for-profit charter school industry are well-known. In fact, her role in the current controversies is an overlooked part of her all-around problematic record in Rhode Island (for why these types of extensive and fact-based critiques of Commerce Secretary Raimondo are by no means an attack on the Biden Administration as a whole, see the article linked to above).

But I digress. In my December 2023 article on the MPHS issue, I suggested there was “finally” some news on the Providence Public School District’s plans for Mt. Pleasant. Namely, it initially appeared that a 2024 bond referendum—to the tune of $400 million—might help decide the fate of Mt. Pleasant. Well now, we are learning that may not be the case after all. In interactions with State Representative David Morales (who represents a district that encompasses Mt. Pleasant High School), those in the RI Department of Education and/or the Providence Public School District have apparently claimed that the $400 million bond will have nothing to do with Mt. Pleasant because the money for MPHS “already exists.” And what will the money earmarked for Mt. Pleasant go towards, you ask? We still have no idea.

Here we go again. The Providence School District (PSD) has never been clear about its plans about Mt. Pleasant High. From the very beginning. It first tried to put up a facade of a “community-led democratic process.” Then, when it encountered pushback in the form of questions, it decided to forego public forums in favor of guided tours and small-group sessions with practically no whole group accountability. Eventually, it decided to forego public meetings entirely, and unilaterally dismissed the possibility of a whole-scale renovation of Mt. Pleasant. That, my friends, is true democracy in action.

From there, supposed deadlines have come, supposed deadlines have passed, and still no word. The Rhode Island Department of Education has continually refused to abide by even the most basic standards of transparency. (By the way, the referendum for the $400 million school bond is set for November 2024. If you want to know what the money will go towards, you are once again seemingly out of luck. In his conversations with me, State Representative Morales called the language of that referendum vague and unclear).

We are in desperate need of a solution to the public schools transparency problem. To that end, Representative Morales has proposed a bill outlining a process all Rhode Island public school leaders must follow—regardless of the status of the state takeover. Per the most current version/draft of that bill, :

1. Rhode Island public school leaders must make a public announcement about the initiation of a public school closure or a public school merger.

2. Within 7 days of that announcement, they must offer a quantitative and qualitative report explaining and justifying their decision. (Such a report would offer data/information on faculty conditions, measures of academic achievement, and attendance/enrollment, among other things).

3. After submitting their report, Rhode Island public school leaders must put a transition plan in place. Any transition plans must address where students can enroll as an alternative, and how they can work around any problems with transportation.

4. Rhode Island public school leaders must begin a process of true community engagement. That is, once a report is out, Rhode Island public school leaders have 35 days to start a community meeting process.

   1. The first meeting would be held for faculty of the school or schools being closed or merged.

   2. The second meeting would be held for impacted students and families.

   3. The third meeting would also be held for impacted students and families. However, it would be conducted virtually, so as to assist those students and families who are for whatever reason not able to attend an in-person meeting.

   4. The fourth meeting would be a public forum, open to all community members affected. The expectation would be that the relevant Rhode Island public school leader would be there for the entire meeting (this was a major problem with prior “community meetings”).

5. 7 days after the last meeting, Rhode Island public school leaders would make the final decision on the closure or merger. If they do move forward with the closure or merger, though, they must present revised transition plans for faculty and students.

I fully endorse Representative Morales’s plan. Of course, the RI Department of Education will more likely than not complain about a “one-size-fits-all policy.” Yet make no mistake about it: whether to enforce basic standards of transparency should not be at issue here. What should be at issue is RIDE’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad record of mismanagement and incompetence—and its chronic allergy to public scrutiny.

I look forward to the day when Rep. Morales’s bill receives a robust debate in the Rhode Island State Legislature, and I look forward to its speedy passage. If you are from Rhode Island, and you wish to express your support for the bill, please 1) reach out to your local representative and state senator, 2) call the Speaker of the R.I. House of Representatives K. Joseph Shekarchi at (401) 222-2447 and 3) call President of the R.I. Senate Dominick Ruggerio at (401) 222-6655.

P.S. If you are represented by State Representative Morales and State Senator Sam Bell, then please just reach out to Representative Shekarchi and Senator Ruggerio at the phone numbers listed above.