First in a five-part series.
Woonsocket Middle School -- New England's largest -- has been called a
labyrinth, a jungle, a danger zone, and even a haven.
For 6 hours and 11 minutes a day, this massive, jampacked building is
open for business.
To an outsider, that business can seem nearly impossible: educate most
of the city's population of 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds, 1,551 of them.
It costs $12.4 million a year in city and state tax dollars to operate
and to pay the salaries of its 162 teachers, support staff, and
administrators.
The complex, which covers a city block larger than a football field, is
full of snaking hallways, storage closets turned into classrooms, and
shadowy stairways known to disorient even the heartiest visitor.
This year alone, faulty intercoms, broken bathrooms, corroding pipes,
and cockroaches have disrupted learning and eroded morale.
School days are frequently interrupted with arrests, fights, and violent
confrontations. Three months ago, a teacher was arrested for hitting a
student. Last year, 13 students were suspended for assaulting teachers
and 170 students were suspended for assaulting each other.
In 1998, a student was raped in a stairwell. In 2001, another student
was sexually assaulted by a gym teacher.
The school is so volatile, teachers feel it is more important to take 10
to 15 minutes out of academic time twice a day for escorted bathroom
breaks rather than risk what might happen if they allowed children to
tackle the bathroom trips on their own.
No wonder students aren't learning.
Only 2 out of 10 seventh graders know how to write coherent,
grammatically correct paragraphs. Only 1 out of 10 eighth graders are
able to solve math problems and only 2 out of 10 can accurately
interpret what they read.
Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski
Students switch classes during a typical day at Woonsocket Middle School - the largest middle school in New England.
The school is an academic sinkhole, so much so the state ranks it at the
bottom of the ladder: low-performing with no evidence of improvement.
Its reputation is so bad that many parents do whatever they can to avoid
the place.
At Good Shepherd, a Catholic middle school across town, principal Larry
Poitras reports that each year, as many as one-third of his incoming
sixth graders (some years as many as 20) make the leap to Catholic
education as a way of avoiding Woonsocket Middle School and its reported
safety problems.
That number might double, Poitras says, if not for the tuition his
school charges.
But Woonsocket Middle School's physical problems seem minor compared
with the recent infighting between faculty and administrators.
Over the last two years, administrative turnover at the school left a
leadership vacuum that gave rise to teacher autonomy.
Since freshman principal Donna Valentine arrived nine months ago,
followed by three new assistant principals, the faculty has grown so
disenchanted with their presence that students say they often hear their
teachers complain aloud that they "can't stand any of them."
Five years ago, a state report by a team of visiting administrators
found that while the school was academically abysmal, "teachers, support
staff and administrators genuinely care about their students and each
other. Everyone contributes to a warm and friendly atmosphere in the
building."
The latest report from a visiting team describes a very different
environment:
"A toxic school climate exists at Woonsocket Middle School. This climate
is charged with confusion, resentment and open hostility. Poor
communication and an unwillingness to cooperate among the adults are the
catalysts for this. As a result, the focus on students, effective
instruction and academic achievement has been lost. Teachers are
preoccupied with their resentment towards the new administration and the
amount of change expected of them. The administrators are overwhelmed
with discipline issues, the need to improve academic rigor and the
implementation of their plan. While both sides point fingers at the
other, neither seems able to find common ground or a way to move this
school forward."
Meanwhile, the students are suffering.
Adolescents often have trouble focusing on academics, given all the
developmental changes they are going through. Now plunge those students
into a "toxic school climate."
The best way to fix troubled schools like this is through strong
leadership by the principal, according to education experts.
Valentine promises she has crafted a plan to cope with everything from
academics to turf wars. Her advice to the faculty: "Get on board or get
out of the way."
But nine months after she arrived at the school, the specifics of that
plan remain vague and difficult to pin down. It's easy to believe
Valentine wants to see her school improve, but it's hard to know how she
plans to overcome so many obstacles, especially without the support of
teachers.
School Supt. Anthony D'Acchioli also has trouble articulating what he
sees as an effective solution for the middle school. He knows the
academic performance numbers are low. He notes this is a district facing
the obstacles of poverty, student mobility and the highest child-abuse
rates in the state.
Even if those obstacles -- common in urban communities -- were a valid
excuse for poor academic performance, which state officials dispute, the
district seems to have made strides in its other schools.
Several elementary schools regularly fall into the high-performing and
improving categories. The ones that don't have progressed with help from
federal initiatives and new principals.
Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski
A Woonsocket Middle School student makes her way through the school's many hallways.
And Woonsocket High School recently received full accreditation from the
New England Association of Schools & Colleges -- a designation other
Rhode Island schools have failed to achieve.
Ask what's wrong with Woonsocket Middle School and fingers start
pointing.
Some say it's those difficult early teenage years that cause all middle
schools to stumble. Others say it's the poverty rate in Woonsocket
combined with the size of this school that make it more troubled.
It's the teachers' attitudes, the administration's stubbornness, the
crumbling physical plant, the lack of discipline, the parents' lack of
involvement, the students' lack of respect. Sooner or later, you'll hear
it all.
What the real problem may be is a little of everything -- a perfect
storm in which a handful of smaller troubles collide to create a virtual
hurricane, worsened by a pervasive blame game and an unwillingness to
recognize that it's the children who should come first.
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