Charter school plans tech-reliant

DEBORAH PERRY, president and CEO of YMCA of Northern Rhode Island, is among the leaders working to bring the Nowell Leadership Academy to Woonsocket. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON
DEBORAH PERRY, president and CEO of YMCA of Northern Rhode Island, is among the leaders working to bring the Nowell Leadership Academy to Woonsocket. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON

Two groups have submitted applications to the R.I. Department of Education to open their own charter schools. What sets them apart from other charter schools is their proposed reliance on technology and the Internet.
The Village Green Virtual Public Charter School and the Sheila C. “Skip” Nowell Leadership Academy have applied to be the first charter schools in the state to let technology do the teaching. Each school will have a physical address and require attendance. They are not “virtual” schools in the purest sense. But these schools could redefine the traditional school as it is known in the state.
Both schools have recently completed the mandatory public-hearing process; now it is up to the department and the R.I. Board of Regents to determine their fate, a decision both applicants expect by the end of the year.
The Village Green plans to be a four-year high school located in Providence and serve 270 students.
Robert Pilkington, a long-time Rhode Island charter-school leader, designer and operator, has proposed the high school to be located in either downtown Providence or on the city’s South Side; the plans are only now beginning to gel. “It will be a mix between the traditional bricks and mortar school and a complete ‘virtual’ school,” he said.
Like all charter schools in the state, a nonprofit agency must act as a sponsor, a fiscal agent prior to opening. “The sponsor for the school is Destiny House RI, one of the foremost, well-respected and long-standing community-based organizations in south Providence,” he said.
“The school is not a place where students are given a laptop and are told to go home. Kids still are required to meet typical attendance requirements, it’s just that the courses are more individualized,” he said.
The school will utilize e-learning curricula to teach the student body. A 1:1 ratio of computers to students is planned. Rather than be the designer of the curriculum, the assessments or acting as an assignment corrector, teachers will focus more on following students’ developments inside the curriculum. Teachers will judge when a student needs extra attention, allowing for more one-on-one attention.
The Nowell Leadership Academy is very different from the Village Green model.
“This school hopes to specialize in addressing the youth in Rhode Island who find it hard to attend traditional schools because of issues such as teen pregnancy, parenting, care-taking responsibilities, abuse, and other family-related challenges,” said Deborah Perry, president and CEO of YWCA Northern Rhode Island. The YWCA Rhode Island, at 514 Blackstone St., Woonsocket, along with a group of several other organizations are sponsoring the application to the department for a charter high school with the ability – and flexibility – to specialize in meeting the needs of at-risk youth. Locations are planned for Providence and Central Falls, but future schools could be expanded to the Warwick and East Providence metropolitan areas.
The application asks to form a fully accessible Internet charter school. Enrollment will be staged, with an eventual count of 320 students for high school grades 9-12. Like the Village Green, the academy will break the mold of the traditional public high school in an effort to offer a more individual path to graduation via the Internet.
Targeted towards at-risk and under-served youth statewide, the planned school must also offer its services to all students throughout the state. The school must also represent a quality educational option for students who have struggled to succeed in Rhode Island’s traditional public high schools, especially those with scheduling conflicts.
According to Perry, 3,500 students did not graduate Rhode Island high schools in 2010; there were also 900 school-aged children that were recorded as pregnant. Nationally, students most unlikely to pursue their education were pregnant and parenting teens, youth involved in foster care and the justice system and the homeless.
“These young folks can come to our facility, have on-site child care and keep up with their studies,” she said. “We have done some very nice work with these types of programs at the YWCA, but these children deserve better, at least beyond what a General Educational Development [GED] program has to offer.”
State officials are looking forward to the review process for both proposals.
“The commissioner [Deborah A. Gist] has been a big proponent when it comes to the using of advancing technology, so it’s certainly something to look forward to; however, the applications must meet the department’s standards to the very last detail,” said Elliot Krieger, communications director for the Department of Education. •

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