Roger Williams Middle School students and principal Rudolph Moseley Jr. watch as Charlene Bugos and six other students get out of a limo Friday morning. Story below.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

Students rewarded for high state test scores

PROVIDENCE — Students swarmed around a limousine that pulled up in front of Roger Williams Middle School on Friday morning. They cheered. They squealed. They pressed up against the automobile. Was it Usher or Brittany or A-Rod?

No. All the hoopla was over seven middle school students who scored with distinction on the latest state test scores, the New England Common Assessment Program. Principal Rudolph Moseley Jr. was trying to get students pumped about the next round of testing, which begins Monday and runs all week.

With a big assist from Councilman Luis Aponte, who paid for the limousine, the students arrived in style, but the message was clear: Take the test seriously and you will be rewarded.

“Last year was the first time that we made annual yearly progress,” Moseley said. “Our goal is to make it again this year. I asked them to try their best.”

At an afternoon assembly, the entire school turned out to congratulate roughly 60 students who scored at proficiency or above on last year’s NECAP. The scores were released in May.

Five years ago, all of the city’s eight middle schools were classified as low-performing. Today, five of the district’s seven middle schools are making progress (an eighth school was closed for renovations last year when the test was administered), a huge turnaround in a district that has seen three superintendents five years. At Roger Williams alone, test scores are up and attendance rates have blossomed.

Moseley is holding out another carrot: students who perform well on the upcoming tests will get to attend a break-dancing concert by a local dance troupe called 4Runner.

— Linda Borg

Grant to help reunite foster-care children

PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Foster Parents Association and its partner agencies have received a $2-million federal grant to help children in foster care reconnect with family members.

The grant will be announced Monday at 10:30 a.m. at Casey Family Services, 1268 Eddy St., Providence. Attending will be U.S. Representatives Patrick J. Kennedy and James R. Langevin; Patricia Martinez, executive director of the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families; and Jim Gannaway, Rhode Island division director of Casey Family Services.

The grant was awarded by the Children’s Bureau, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Children, Youth and Families.

The grant money will be shared by the member agencies and used to conduct Internet-based searches to find relatives who would be suitable to adopt children in foster care. The money will also be used to provide counseling and other support to new caregivers.

RIFPA’s partner agencies include DCYF, Casey Family Services, the Rhode Island College School of Social Work, Adoption Rhode Island, the Blackstone Valley Advocacy Center, the Providence Children’s Museum, Children’s Friend, Family Resources Community Action and Family Service.

— Linda Borg

Woman pleads guilty to mortgage fraud

PROVIDENCE — A former legal assistant to lawyers John M. Cicilline and Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., who had been convicted with the two lawyers in a conspiracy scheme to shake down a drug-dealing couple, pleaded guilty Friday to an unrelated $1.7-million mortgage-fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

Lisa Torres, 40, formerly of Johnston, who is serving a federal sentence for obstruction of justice, conspiracy and making false statements on the previous case, will be sentenced Dec. 9.

She was due to be released on Jan. 26 on the previous conviction.

At the plea hearing Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee H. Vilker said the government could prove that, between October 2007 and June 2008, Torres, 40, purchased nine residential properties in Providence. She then arranged “sham sales” of the properties at inflated prices to finagle mortgage financing, defrauding the lending institutions of approximately $675,000.

The FBI and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation investigated the case.

— Maria Armental

Federal money to fund various state projects

A congressional conference committee has approved $6.4 million for alternative-energy, flood-prevention and water-restoration projects around Rhode Island.

The money is part of the Energy and Water Development spending bill. It passed in a conference committee Wednesday night, was approved by the House on Thursday, and goes to the Senate next week. The funding was announced Thursday by Sen. Jack Reed, who said some of it should help “provide consumers with greater access to cheaper, cleaner, renewable energy solutions.”

The bill includes $1.5 million each for work at the University of Rhode Island modifying switch grass for use as a biofuel and for fuel-cell research at Brown University.

It also includes $1.2 million to complete bulkhead repairs in Block Island’s Harbor of Refuge, and $200,000 to study dredging in the island’s Great Salt Pond.

Also included is $750,000 to study and map sediments off the south shore, $475,000 to fund the Army Corps of Engineers’ operation of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier and $190,000 to fund its work at the Woonsocket flood-protection facilities.

Included are $285,000 to study repairs of the Point Judith Harbor of Refuge breakwater, $193,000 to study dredging of the Pawcatuck River and Little Narragansett Bay in Westerly, and $144,000 for maintenance of the Providence River shipping channel.

— Staff report

Diamond Hill mountain-biking event canceled

CUMBERLAND — The Take-a-Kid-Mountain-Biking event scheduled for Saturday in Diamond Hill Park has been canceled. Threatened rain jeopardized the safety of participants, according to the planners. The event was being held to raise funds for RETTS Syndrome research.

— Staff report