Providence School Board Chair Decries Filthy Conditions at Schools After Visiting Buildings

Providence School Board Chair Decries Filthy Conditions at Schools After Visiting Buildings

Providence School Board Chair Nick Hemond called out the conditions at least two Providence schools during summer school — and raised questions about who is in charge to ensure schools’ cleanliness.

In June, the Johns Hopkins report on Providence schools had identified, among other problems, glaring facility issues.

Hemond said that in his visit Wednesday to Anthony Carnevale Elementary School on Springfield Street in Providence, he saw a school “that hadn’t looked like it had been swept in quite some time.”

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“That's a school we've had complaints about mice,” said Hemond. “The reason I saw is that breakfast and lunch are being served in the classroom [during summer school for students].”

“I took [Providence Teachers Union President] Maribeth Calabro in to see some schools,” said Hemond, after school officials would not let Calabro into facilities earlier in the week. “[At Carnevale], it looked like the school hadn't been swept in quite some time.”

“I was told that Aramark told teachers it’s ‘not our job’ in the summer. If that's true, we shouldn't have summer school if there aren't custodians,” said Hemond. “They tried to direct my attention to how great the second and third floors are — but there aren't kids there.”

Backed Up Pipes -- and a Sinking School 

Hemond spoke to visiting Del Sesto Middle School up the street. 

“We had a complaint of a sewer problem causing backups,” said Hemond. “The kitchen at DelSesto, I will tell you, was so clean you could eat off the floor.”

Hemond said the issue of the sewer pipe had been fixed — but that the building itself is “sinking.”

“The pipe has been fixed and deodorized. There's no river of sewage flowing under the building. We think it was staff or students throwing things down the toilet that shouldn’t have been there,” said Hemond. 

“That building's sinking -- it was built in 2002, and sunk 7 inches since it was built,” said Hemond. “There's no safety issue, but we've caulked the cracks to make sure nothing gets in.”

Chain of Command

“Everyone has my number -- I'm not hard to find,” said Hemond of being made aware of problems. “If you have a facility issue -- call me -- email me at [email protected].

“I think [these issues] should be handled at the school level. Whether it's supposed to work that way or not, sometimes it doesn’t,” said Hemond. “I met with the Commissioner [Wednesday] morning. The state doesn't want the board to go away, we'll be involved in some fashion [when the state takes over] -- we can still be advocates, we can be a constituent service.”

“If the Commissioner is the one ultimately deciding what's happening with [Aramark’s] contract, that's who we'll call,” said Hemond.