Now Begins Phase Two

A Look Back and a Push Forward

It’s June. The school year has flown by us. As long as we survive our inescapable exams, we are virtually home free until September. Advice for your summer: enjoy it, but do not waste it. This school year represents a milestone. It is an ending. It is a beginning. It is the end of a school where students can graduate without proving theoretical “proficiency” through a diploma system. It is the beginning of a grim reality. When May and June roll around next year, the class of 2008 may still be guinea pigs. Keep in mind, though, the ball is in our court.

We have made a lot of progress. However, that progress will need to continue rather than dwindle if anything substantial is to transpire. I want to take this time to look back on the school year, specifically on the second semester. Second semester of this past school year, to me, was phase one. Together, we reached our administration. Together, we reached the RIDOE. Together, we reached the USDOE. And together, we will achieve more.

Now, we focus our efforts. As we move into summer, instead of relaxing, we need to gain momentum. After being enlightened with experience over the past few months, we now know more specifically where our solution resides. It resides in concentrating our resources on the correct targets, so to speak. And because of the events of the past few months, we now know precisely who and what those targets are.

Write a letter. Or borrow the one(s) I plan on posting in the near future as reusable templates. This may seem redundant, as I have advised you to write letters in the past. However, this time my message is different. At that time, back in February, I saw our issue as a national one. I believed its roots rested in No Child Left Behind.

I was mistaken. As Mr. Sentance, the regional representative for the Secretary of Education, the USDOE official who came to visit our school, explained to me, the USDOE does not create graduation requirements. The USDOE only cares that graduation requirements exist. It is, in fact, the RIDOE’s responsibility to specify what those requirements entail.

Our aim is a new one. First, we must write to state government officials, such as Dennis Algiere, our local State Senator. Also, we must reach out to Governor Carcieri and inform him of our woes as well. For now, I believe these are two viable “targets” for our purposes. Begin to write your own letters, but if you do not feel compelled enough or capable enough to do so, I will create template messages for you all to utilize.

Welcome to phase two…