There Will Be Tempered Air

On Thursday, February 20, the School Construction Committee met to make a recommendation about the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems for the new builds at Frenchtown and Hanaford. It was a very thoughtful and engaging conversation. Ultimately, the SCC recommended a hybrid approach, which will allow for the possibility of all-electric buildings someday, with gas-fired burners in place when the buildings open. 

Also, a big part of the conversation that night was an in-depth discussion of the tempered air that WILL be in place in the new buildings. The new buildings will have a condensing fan and a cooling coil to dehumidify the hot air. This means the temperature of the air leaving the HVAC system will be lower than the temperature of the air entering the system. This is a helpful diagram to better understand tempered air: 

This diagram shares the amount of spaces that will be fully air-conditioned (purple) and the areas that will have tempered air (green): 

The green spaces will feel cooler on those very hot days in late May and June, as well as August and September. They won't feel air-conditioned, but there will be a difference between the temperature of the air circulating in those green spaces. It will make those rooms more comfortable and manageable for teaching and learning. 

Thank you to our construction partners for helping us to bring this HVAC system recommendation to the School Construction Committee. This decision is an important step in our process. The work of the Master Plan will continue over the next several months, with the hope that we break ground on these projects in January of 2026. 

We Are Better Together

The Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns has sponsored events to discuss education funding this year. Municipal Leaders, Elected Officials (both Town and School), and School Leadership have been invited to attend. East Greenwich has been well represented at both. Patricia Sunderland, the Director of Finance, presented at the first one on November 15, 2024. Dr. Eugene Quinn, Vice Chair of our School Committee and the Chair of the Finance Subcommittee, was at both events as well, and while not presenting, engaged the speakers thoughtfully at both events. 

The early numbers from the Governor's Draft budget have been reviewed, and it looks daunting for us in East Greenwich. See below: 

This is a slide from the most recent education funding formula event on Friday, February 7. The funding circumstances in East Greenwich were featured in the presentation. We stand to lose more than $842,000 in state aid for next year, and while that feels like a lot of money (which it is), we are being propped up this year by a one-time poverty stabilization payment. In the state funding formula, if an education community's state share declines by more than 2% (which ours did - more on why below), and the calculated aid is less than the previous year (which it is), there is a safety valve. Please note: our poverty stabilization safety valve this year is more than $1 million. In essence, in the current funding formula, without the poverty stabilization, we would have been reduced more than we could have been allocated by the Town at the full 4%. 

Why is this happening in East Greenwich? I worked with Dr. Quinn to come up with a simple way to explain this situation. In short, the median income in EG rose 16.1%. The result: we have the highest ratio to the state median income (191.61%) of any community by far. As a point of comparison, Little Compton is the second highest at 166.86%. 

At the event on Friday, while searching for something appropriate to say, I was buoyed by the comments of Ralph Mollis, Town Manager of North Kingstown and former Secretary of State. Mr. Mollis pointed out that communities like East Greenwich are being hurt by the funding formula to help support other cities and towns in the state. While he agrees that much should be done to help struggling communities, it should not be at the expense of others. In his words, "This is a red flag." 

$842,240 is a substantial amount of money. We will not be able to recoup this by freezing our supply lines. We will not be able to recoup this by failing to fully fund our Facilities Budget, which we have done for the past two years, to my chagrin. We will not be able to recoup this in any simple way. It will take all of us. 

As the official liaisons from their respective public bodies, Caryn Corenthal and Dr. Quinn sat down with Town Manager Andrew Nota and me this week to begin this complicated conversation in advance of our Joint Meeting. With the reality that the Town allocated the full 4% last year and is publicly discussing ways to increase our overall Master Plan amount to meet the needs of our schools, they are demonstrating through their actions their partnership with the School Committee. The four of us have committed to meeting once a month throughout the budget process. 

There will be no finger-pointing. No accusations about what happened in budgets past. We will be better together. 

I invite you to participate actively in our budget process this year. We are working to preserve the conditions that produce the educational outcomes this community expects. We will need your help. 

The truth is, we are better together. 

Learning is About Change

It's the fundamental principle in our profession: learning is about change. We start with the basics in elementary school, teaching little ones letters and numbers, and progress all the way up through advanced courses in high school. We build and scaffold learning so that all students can grow on their own unique path to fulfill the Vision of a Graduate: to be knowledgeable, connected, reflective, and skilled. 

But it can't just be about our students. The adults in their lives, faculty, staff, and families, we have to grow alongside our students as well. That's hard to do. Change is hard. It's uncomfortable but necessary. 

Photo courtesy of The Huffington Post

When I am in front of a group of people and struggling to get their attention, I recall the feedback I received as a first-year teacher. Loretta Jene, whom we called Yoda not just because of her small stature but because every word was full of wisdom, accurately told me after my first teacher observation, "Mr. Ricca, you use your voice to control your class. You need something else in your bag of tricks." She was right. 

It was uncomfortable for me to hear that feedback. I was proud to know I could control my classes with my voice. It was more challenging to try something I wasn't sure would work the next time I needed to quiet my class down. There were a few missteps before I settled on one or two techniques, none of which involved me yelling louder than my students. 

If we are to grow and learn with our students, we will have to endure some discomfort. We can't grow when we're comfortable. Unfortunately, being too comfortable leads to complacency, which is not the recipe for growth. Sometimes, the bravest thing we can say is "help" when someone is next to us trying to help us grow. 

It's fundamental to education that we grow and change. We know this because we are fine-tuning a Master Plan for new educational buildings that will include space for the professionals critical to education today, who did not exist when our current buildings were constructed. And we do grow and change as faculty and staff, to meet the needs of students which are perhaps more diverse than ever before. 

We can always do better. We can always learn more. We strive to meet the educational needs of our students while we are growing and changing at the same time. 

We are educators. 

Photo courtesy of Facebook