Mark your calendars - there are two upcoming Open Houses on the Newport Transportation Master Plan on Tuesday, May 17 at 5:30 at the Newport Library, and Wednesday, May 18 at 5:30 at Pell Elementary School.
The Council is holding another budget workshop this Thursday at 5:30 in City Hall. This workshop will focus on the Police & Parking Fund, the Fire Department, Public Services, and the Harbor Fund. The Council has a final budget workshop on May 16 at 5:30 in City Hall focusing on the Water and Pollution Control budget. Both of these workshops will allow for virtual participation and if you join the meetings virtually, I’d love to hear your impressions.
Following our workshop this Thursday, the Council will be going into Executive Session to discuss the potential school regionalization with Middletown. Newport approached Middletown in 2019 to consider regionalization with the goal of building a consolidated, state-of-the-art high school to improve the educational opportunities for students in both communities with significant reimbursement from the State. After hours of testimony from the public and state and local officials, Middletown ultimately decided not to consider regionalization three years ago.
Now Middletown has proposed regionalization as they are faced with a possible $90 million bill for repairs to their high school, with only the minimum reimbursement from the State. The financial incentive for regionalization has been clear to Newporters for years, but it isn’t clear how combining districts without a concrete plan to improve the programs and facilities will benefit the education of students in Newport and Middletown.
I need to understand how this new merger proposal will benefit our students. I understand how combining a high school and increasing educational opportunities would improve students’ education in both communities, but I am not sure how much that translates when only district administrations are combined. How will it be determined which students going to which school? How will we prevent segregation so that one school is all vocational and the other is all on a college track? In Newport we have been working hard to provide all students enriching classroom and technical education and an equally enriching diverse community; we are building a high school designed to integrate our technical and classroom education classes to give each student the best Rogers education. It would be wrong to allow a merger with Middletown to undermine that work. If we are expected to make this decision, we need answers to these questions.
A regional school district on the island has the potential to provide our students with enormous educational opportunities, but only if the communities focus on the educational outcomes of such changes. In Newport we have always understood the financial benefits of regionalization, and we balanced our books after Middletown rejected our proposal to discuss the feasibility of regionalization three years ago. Any discussion we have on this latest proposal must be based on the educational merits for the combined student body – we can’t simply fund a new school for Middletown at the expense of Newport students. We need to hear from the professional educators in both communities on the benefits of an administrative regionalization before I can support Middletown’s proposal.