Nearly 1K Middletown Citizens Petition Town Council to Explore School Unification with Newport

Nearly 1K Middletown Citizens Petition Town Council to Explore School Unification with Newport

Nearly 1,000 Middletown citizens are petitioning the Town Council to reopen discussions about school unification with Newport.

The petition comes after the Middletown Town Council decided to end the discussion of school unification.

“We’re asking the Council reconsider their previous decision and authorize the creation of a joint Middletown-Newport Committee consisting of both citizens and elected school and/or municipal officials to consider in detail how a unified high school should be created and approved by the citizens of both Middletown and Newport. To not do so would be a disservice to both the future of our students and taxpayers,” said Dick Adams, President of the non-profit group Citizens Exploring School Unification (CESU).

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The signatures have been sent to the Town Council along with a recommendation to appear on the December 2 consent calendar.

CESU Holds Public Forums

To get discussions started, CESU co-sponsored two public forums at the Community College of Rhode Island where experts from other school districts discussed school regionalization.

“Based on our sampling of citizens’ opinions and hearing from educational experts, we believe that it is shortsighted and a disservice to our high school students to consign them for the foreseeable future to an obsolete building with a shrinking student population.  We think that unification of Rogers and Middletown High Schools is a first and logical step toward improving the educational opportunities and performance of both school districts,” added Adams.

One person who spoke was Davies Career & Technical High School Principle Adam Flynn-Tabloff.

“The model of educating students in RI has changed greatly. It would not make sense to continue running schools that are twice the size you need for half the enrollment they were built for. It’s time to take a hard look at the amount of money being spent for an antiquated model of educating our children,” said Flynn-Tabloff.