Last Friday was the groundbreaking at Rogers High School! It was an inspiring day, and I look forward to seeing the work on the new building commence. This new school is an excellent opportunity for our students and our community.
The City Council is meeting this Wednesday with a relatively light docket once again. Due to the ongoing issues with the City’s computer network, we will not be able to livestream the meeting for virtual participation. The meeting will be recorded with the video uploaded to the City’s website later in the week.
Two in-person sessions on the proposed district regionalization with Middletown were held today with participation from residents of Middletown and Newport. I was able to attend one of the sessions, and residents from both communities had many questions and concerns about the proposal. It remains very unclear what the students would gain from regionalizing only our administration, and whether this administrative change would benefit Newport at all. The consultant mentioned that they are on an unusually short schedule, and I remain concerned that we are forcing the voters to make a decision without due diligence.
This week there are two more virtual information sessions about the regionalization question: Tuesday June 21st at 6 pm in English and Wednesday June 22nd at 6 pm in Spanish. These sessions will be hosted on Zoom by the consultants Woolpert and Cooperative Strategies. The consultants have launched a survey asking residents what they envision for a regionalized school district without combined schools. There will also be more information sessions as the consultants continue their research.