EDITORIAL: Who Cares About Hope High School? No One in Government
Editorial
EDITORIAL: Who Cares About Hope High School? No One in Government
The decrepit, knee busting courts were inferior to any other team’s courts in the state.
In 2019, the City of Providence finally decided to resurface the courts. They did not remove the asphalt, they just coated over it.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTA year later, the new surface is cracking. Poor workmanship? Or was it that you can’t just slap coating on old asphalt?
No one at Hope High School, the Providence School Department, or the Rhode Island Department of Education reported the cracks growing across the courts.
When GoLocal reached out to the vendor who was paid more than $75,000 to resurface the courts he said, "Out of curiosity why are you contacting me about this and not the city who awarded the job?"
The contractor's quote says it all.
Who cares in Providence?
Does Mayor Elorza, nope.
Providence School Superintendent Harrison Peters, heck no.
Wait, he is not in charge, the state took over the Providence School Department after a study by Johns Hopkins found that the Providence School system was among the worst in America.
Wait, someone must care about the Hope High?
Well, no one cares about the girls playing tennis on their “newly” refurbished cracked tennis courts with torn nets.
And by the way, in the most recent year of testing for Hope High School, 88% of those that took the English language arts tests “did not meet expectations” or only “partially met expectations.”
But, the ELA scores were stellar compared to the math performance on the state assessment test. An amazing 97% “did not meet expectations” or “partially met expectations.”
City and state leaders are consistent, they can’t fix a tennis court and they can’t fix the schools.
It is easier to just slap a new surface coat on it in the short-term rather than fix the fundamentals. So what is if it all cracks a year later.