Robert Marchand, a teacher and coach, above, talks with sophomore Isabel Canizales who was one of the first to arrive in his homeroom at the start of the school day. At left, Brenda Riveira, left, a mom, helps sophomore Fonzie Garcia, find his home room classroom.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

CENTRAL FALLS

The first day of school was full of activities for students at Central Falls High School but it didn’t involve sitting through classes or getting homework.

They spent the day getting to know their teachers and advisers by talking about themselves or their classmates. They met their new principal, Mario Andrade. They met their new superintendent of schools, Frances Gallo. They had a barbecue on school grounds. They teamed up with students from other grades to compete in games that demanded odd skills such as running while balancing a bowling pin on their palms or racing on dollies backwards, all while a former student played hip-hop tunes for them. They went to the University of Rhode Island Providence campus to talk about going to college.

The first day was part of a two-day orientation plan designed by teachers from the high school with the help of URI over the summer to let the students know the high school has a new partnership with URI and that a lot more is expected of teachers and students.

CFHS and URI devised the partnership after the state ordered the high school to reorganize following four years as a low-performing school.

The first clue that things are new is the answering machine at the high school, which now greets the callers with “Welcome to Central Falls High School, a University of Rhode Island Academy.” That greeting is reiterated on a white sign board outside the high school.

Students spent the first part of their morning getting to know their team of advisers who they will see in homeroom and 45 minutes each Wednesday for help with school life and guidance on crucial requirements such as portfolio graduation requirements.

In Bobby Marchand’s and Alicia Migliore’s advisory homeroom class, some of the students got really bashful when he told them to talk about themselves.

“Tell us one good thing you did for the summer and what you want to do when you grow up,” he said. Some girls put their heads down so not to be noticed but those were the ones Marchand picked on first.

“The hardest thing to do in life is to go first but at least you get it over with,” Marchand said. “Some will be the first to go to college. Some will be the first to do things in your family.”

Isabel Canisales and Ivondra Morales volunteered first.

Isabel took a breath and told about her classmate. “Ivondra is 15. She worked this summer. She was planning to go to China. She is Cape Verde,” she said. Ivondra said that Isabel is 18 and likes to sleep. She went to Colombia over the summer and wants to be a hairdresser.

Marchand and Migliore agreed that teaming would help them guide their students.

Migliore said the advisory team was especially good for freshmen. “A lot of students don’t have an adult that they are close enough to to ask for help,” she said. Marchand said, “It personalizes an adult with a kid. If they are college bound, the adviser will tell the student what he or she needs.”

In the auditorium, seniors met their new principal. Andrade, 35, who was dressed in a suit and tie, told the students that the two days of orientation they would have are about relationships and trust. “This orientation is different. We want to build relationships and community,” said Andrade, who worked at the high school as a special education teacher from 1998 to 2004.

“A lot of people are here to support you so that you can be successful, so now it’s up to you to step across the plate,” he said. “I expect to see you in school every single day. School starts at 7:50 a.m., not at 8:02, not at the end of homeroom. If you are not at school, we can’t teach you,” he said. “If we are going to make you better, I have to make sure the teachers are better. The superintendent makes me better.”

Senior Katherina Charbatji said her first day of orientation had been different from her previous three years. “The barbecue, the battle of the classes. I didn’t believe it at first,” she said. She knew about the high school partnership with URI because she got a letter with the Central Falls High School, University of Rhode Island Academy logo. Maybe, she said URI could help students prepare for college “by showing us how much work we have to do, how to talk in class,” said Charbatji, who wants to be an orthodontist.

Roger Dias, a senior, said he noticed that the school was making an effort to have seniors work with freshmen. “It seems more friendly. People are talking to each other,” he said. Dias said that URI could help by offering students more college preparatory classes. “A lot of seniors don’t think they have to do anything because they are seniors. If they realize they want to go to college they know there are classes to prepare them,” he said.

Near the end of the day, sophomores and juniors took a field trip to the URI/Providence campus.

URI sophomore Brandon Brown, who graduated from Central Falls in 2005, told the students that when he decided he wanted to go to college the people at the talent development program at URI had helped him. He is the president of the URI chapter of the NAACP and is a certified trainer for non-violence.

Jonathan Lewis, a coordinator of the Guaranteed Admissions Program, told the students that he would be at the high school every Monday to help students on homework, talk about SAT prep and bring in different professionals as guest speakers. The GAP program for students could help them get into the university, he told them.

“I picture every one of you out there as those [university] students. All those people who said you can’t. You’re not good enough. They lied to you,” he said.

tpina@projo.com