But the state education commissioner has the authority to impose a new scheduling plan even though teachers voted 46-40 against it.

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 23, 2004

BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Teachers at Hope High School yesterday rejected a change in their work schedules for the next academic year, marking the first major snag in a two-year-old intervention by the state education commissioner.

The change had been requested by Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson, with the approval of Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, for academic and financial reasons.

The vote was 46 to 40, according to Kim Luca, Hope's delegate to the Providence Teachers Union.

The proposal needed 75 percent approval to pass, or 75 of the 100 teachers eligible to vote.

The next move is up to McWalters, according to Luca and Paul Vorro, the union's executive director. McWalters could not be reached for comment yesterday. Vorro said McWalters has the authority to impose the schedule the teachers rejected.

"He has the right to impose . . . any schedule he sees fit," Vorro said.

McWalters' authority supercedes the contract between the Providence Teachers Union and the city.

He said that he hopes McWalters gives the union and the school administration an opportunity to resolve the schedule problem.

In the last few weeks, teachers have said they feel betrayed by the way the controversial schedule has come across -- as an ultimatum from the top -- the antithesis of the way the three small schools at Hope were supposed to evolve.

For two years, teachers say, they have essentially done McWalters' bidding in dividing themselves into three small learning communities, trying to build personal connections with students and working on improving instruction.

During much of the past school year, the faculty of each small learning community has worked on a plan for self-governance, as McWalters required.

Each community included a continuation of the current schedule -- typically two 95-minute periods and a daily advisory period of about 55 minutes.

But Johnson said the district could not afford to keep the daily advisory period, which all agreed was not working well for many teachers and students.

She wanted more instruction time. McWalters wanted some form of advisory period for students and common meeting time for teachers, a way to reinforce changes in teaching practices.

The result was the proposal that was rejected yesterday, for the second time. It gave teachers an average of three 84- or 85-minute classes a day, the planning time, and reduced the advisory period to 20 minutes a week.

It also changed the lunch break from 20 minutes to 28 minutes, but that was not enough of a change to win votes.

With the school year ending today, Luca said that the best idea is for a committee of teachers to work with the administration to develop a schedule acceptable to everyone.