Infante-Green said the state has been working to address those issues in individual schools and districts across the state, not only in response to the pandemic but also with the longer term in mind. They have offered financial incentives to bring more teachers to Rhode Island, offering student loan forgiveness and assistance with the cost of housing. They’ve offered a free 10-hour course on social-emotional development to all educators in the state — and they hope to share it with parents and families across the district as well.
City education leaders are also working with PPSD’s Parent Advisory Council to better understand parents’ and families’ needs. Melissa Hughes, a mother of two middle school students and a four-year veteran of the Parent Advisory Council, said that while parents’ perspectives are diverse, they tend to agree that there’s an urgent need to prioritize student mental health and support their social and emotional development.
“Issues that maybe already existed… have exploded into an even bigger problem,” Hughes said. “Even now that we’re in this new… ‘normal,’ students still don’t have the flexibility to have casual social interactions in safe spaces, especially for lots of our families in Providence who might not have… access to outdoor spaces or recreational opportunities.”
Cynthia Torres, the principal of Providence’s Reservoir Avenue Elementary School, said a recent grant from the Rhode Island Department of Education allowed her to hire a part-time guidance counselor to support students. But she’s also taking matters into her own hands, working with teachers to drill comforting daily routines into students’ lives.
“At the beginning of the year, we did a lot of work on establishing those routines, shifting ownership to the students,” Torres said. “Now, maybe we have a teacher who’s absent — the kids are the ones saying, ‘We don’t do it that way. This is how we do it in our classroom.’ They are empowered, they own some of those routines, they’re in charge. Routines give our students a sense of security.”
With all of these measures in place, Torres, Infante-Green and others expressed hope for the future of schooling in Rhode Island. Dr. Elizabeth Goldberg, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Brown, said she felt optimistic that in four to six weeks, Omicron infections would peak, students would begin returning to a more predictable schedule and education communities would begin to find a new, improved normal.
“When other states have struggled in certain areas, we have pulled together as a community,” Infante-Green said. “As Rhode Islanders, we forged ahead in the best interests of our students and families. Our state motto [“hope”] fits us well right now.”
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January 20, 2022 at 09:49AM
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Rhode Island educators, students, parents gather to discuss pandemic's impact on K-12 schools - Brown University
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