PROVIDENCE — State education officials hoped the hiring of a new director at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf would put the school on an upward path.
Lori Dunsmore, the school’s fourth director in six years, started in September with plans to change the school’s instructional practices and culture after years of troubles that include discontent with the deteriorating condition of the 60-year-old school building, inconsistent leadership, low test scores and poor morale.
But recent conflicts at the 132-year-old school underscore a divide between faculty and administrators that may be hard to bridge.
Last week, at the school’s board of trustees meeting, the teachers reported they had cast a no-confidence vote in the chairman of the board, Marc Gursky, and they voiced their displeasure over disciplinary actions taken against three teachers last fall.
“We respect the students and everyone who works here and we expect respect from everyone in return,” said Mary Cummings, vice president of the Rhode Island School for the Deaf Teachers’ Association, before the meeting, as she passed out bright green stickers bearing the word “Respect.” “On some issues, we feel we have received less respect than we deserve.”
“This is not a factory. This is not just a school. This is a family,” Cummings said. “The teachers here are extremely dedicated and care very much about the students.”
Twenty of the school’s 35 teachers voted in favor of asking Gursky, a labor lawyer, to step down as chairman of the board of trustees. The trustees govern the school much as a school committee oversees a school district.
Teachers said they were frustrated about the treatment of the three teachers who had been disciplined last fall for various reasons, including complaining about poor heat in the building, complaining about a school administrator and seeking a part-time schedule to care for a sick child.
Teachers said they did not blame the new director, Dunsmore, but rather the nine-member board that is officially in charge of what happens at the school, which has 105 students ages 3 through 21.
“The teachers think the director is new and they are interested in working with the director,” said John Leidecker, of National Education Association Rhode Island, which represents the teachers. “They would also like to see evidence of their experience and skills being appreciated, and they feel that has not been happening.”
Gursky, who says he intends to remain chairman, says frictions are inevitable when organizations make major changes, as the School for the Deaf is attempting.
“There’s been an absence of a director with a long-term vision at the school,” Gursky said in an interview last week. “Unfortunately, the school has had to reprimand more teachers in the last three months than it has in the past six years, and I think it relates to an effort to respond to the absence of a director for about the past five years.”
Longtime director Peter M. Blackwell retired in 2001, after 35 years. His replacement, Reginald Redding, the school’s first deaf director, was fired two years into the job after deteriorating relations with teachers. Also, a state audit showed fiscal irregularities and lax student record-keeping during Redding’s tenure. John F. Plante, a longtime faculty member, served as interim director until Dunsmore was hired in September.
Dunsmore, 40, served as principal at the Scranton State School for the Deaf, in Pennsylvania, and the Washington School for the Deaf, in Vancouver, Wash., before moving to Rhode Island last fall with her husband, John Dunsmore, and their two young children.
“I took the job with the understanding that the school is ready to move forward,” said Dunsmore, who is deaf and answered questions through an interpreter of American Sign Language. “I feel like I am here for a reason, to raise the level of expectations and personnel and the performance of the students. I want the students to have a full appreciation of their deaf culture and for them to be proud to be both individuals and members of the deaf community.”
Dunsmore, who has a salary of $105,000 a year, attributes the recent tensions to her plans to align the school’s curriculum with state standards and grade-level expectations, providing an academic structure the school has lacked. Along with that change, she says she will push professional development so teachers can adapt their lesson plans.
Teachers say they are not opposed to making educational improvements.
“We welcome change, but the fact is we have heard nothing about any substantial or positive change to the important elements of any school: curriculum, educational philosophy, innovative teaching strategies,” stated the letter teachers gave to the board last week. “The trust between the teachers and the leadership has evaporated in a very short time.”
The standards, rolled out by the state a few years ago, are the basis for the state’s annual standardized tests, given to students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11, as part of the federal education law No Child Left Behind.
The School for the Deaf has struggled on the state exams. Forty-six percent of elementary and middle school students scored proficient or better on state reading tests and 40 percent scored proficient in math in 2006-07. High school students fared worse: 25 percent in English and 15 percent in math.
State education officials say they fully support Gursky and Dunsmore and their plans for improving the school, which include developing a strategic plan this spring.
Deputy Education Commissioner David V. Abbott and Ken Swanson, who heads the state’s special education office, will lead a team of educators to visit the school next month, assessing not only school climate but also the ways students are taught.
State educators acknowledge the School for the Deaf is dealing with multiple education issues, some universal and some distinctive to the school.
“Across the state, kids on individual learning plans [in special education] are being underserved in a number of areas,” Abbott said. “If you have a whole school with kids with IEPs, then you see a microcosm of the challenges inherent in providing high quality in special education.”
About 70 percent of students at the School for the Deaf qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and about half of the students have disabilities other than deafness, such as autism, cerebral palsy and behavioral issues. Most of the students come from urban areas and several come from homes where the parents’ first language is not English.
In addition, because of differences in the deaf community about whether deaf children should learn American Sign Language or learn to use oral language, often with the help of cochlear implants, students at the school use multiple forms of communication, often making classroom instruction difficult.
Meanwhile, Dunsmore has had to juggle proposed budget cuts. Like other state departments and agencies, the school has been asked to trim its budget by 10 percent. In addition, school officials are hoping a new building will be built across the parking lot from the current Providence site in Corliss Park next year. In 2006, the General Assembly appropriated $31 million to build a new school, but difficulties in finding a location have delayed the project.
Some teachers have complained that Dunsmore has not reached out to them and say she spends most of her time in her office. Dunsmore says she is aware of this criticism, and would like to improve her relationship with the teachers.
“I would like to improve teacher relations, particularly through supporting teachers through the change process, with the understanding that we have expectations to improve student performance and meet the [grade-level expectations],” Dunsmore said. “I would like to focus more on cooperation with teachers and staff, and I want them to start to shift some of their ideas and expand their approaches, especially now that we have so many students with multiple disabilities.”
But some longtime teachers say they don’t believe radical change is needed.
“I don’t think they have to reshape a whole lot,” said Cummings, who has worked at the school for 30 years. “If they would just come into the classes, they would see that what the students are learning, the tests are not measuring. Those tests are not designed for deaf students.”
The two sides agree on one point, laid out in a letter from teachers submitted to the trustees.
“…at this point, there is a growing disconnect and a void in communication between the teachers and the administration.”
Lori Dunsmore, the school’s fourth director in six years, started in September with plans to change the school’s instructional practices and culture after years of troubles that include discontent with the deteriorating condition of the 60-year-old school building, inconsistent leadership, low test scores and poor morale.
But recent conflicts at the 132-year-old school underscore a divide between faculty and administrators that may be hard to bridge.
Last week, at the school’s board of trustees meeting, the teachers reported they had cast a no-confidence vote in the chairman of the board, Marc Gursky, and they voiced their displeasure over disciplinary actions taken against three teachers last fall.
“We respect the students and everyone who works here and we expect respect from everyone in return,” said Mary Cummings, vice president of the Rhode Island School for the Deaf Teachers’ Association, before the meeting, as she passed out bright green stickers bearing the word “Respect.” “On some issues, we feel we have received less respect than we deserve.”
“This is not a factory. This is not just a school. This is a family,” Cummings said. “The teachers here are extremely dedicated and care very much about the students.”
Twenty of the school’s 35 teachers voted in favor of asking Gursky, a labor lawyer, to step down as chairman of the board of trustees. The trustees govern the school much as a school committee oversees a school district.
Teachers said they were frustrated about the treatment of the three teachers who had been disciplined last fall for various reasons, including complaining about poor heat in the building, complaining about a school administrator and seeking a part-time schedule to care for a sick child.
Teachers said they did not blame the new director, Dunsmore, but rather the nine-member board that is officially in charge of what happens at the school, which has 105 students ages 3 through 21.
“The teachers think the director is new and they are interested in working with the director,” said John Leidecker, of National Education Association Rhode Island, which represents the teachers. “They would also like to see evidence of their experience and skills being appreciated, and they feel that has not been happening.”
Gursky, who says he intends to remain chairman, says frictions are inevitable when organizations make major changes, as the School for the Deaf is attempting.
“There’s been an absence of a director with a long-term vision at the school,” Gursky said in an interview last week. “Unfortunately, the school has had to reprimand more teachers in the last three months than it has in the past six years, and I think it relates to an effort to respond to the absence of a director for about the past five years.”
Longtime director Peter M. Blackwell retired in 2001, after 35 years. His replacement, Reginald Redding, the school’s first deaf director, was fired two years into the job after deteriorating relations with teachers. Also, a state audit showed fiscal irregularities and lax student record-keeping during Redding’s tenure. John F. Plante, a longtime faculty member, served as interim director until Dunsmore was hired in September.
Dunsmore, 40, served as principal at the Scranton State School for the Deaf, in Pennsylvania, and the Washington School for the Deaf, in Vancouver, Wash., before moving to Rhode Island last fall with her husband, John Dunsmore, and their two young children.
“I took the job with the understanding that the school is ready to move forward,” said Dunsmore, who is deaf and answered questions through an interpreter of American Sign Language. “I feel like I am here for a reason, to raise the level of expectations and personnel and the performance of the students. I want the students to have a full appreciation of their deaf culture and for them to be proud to be both individuals and members of the deaf community.”
Dunsmore, who has a salary of $105,000 a year, attributes the recent tensions to her plans to align the school’s curriculum with state standards and grade-level expectations, providing an academic structure the school has lacked. Along with that change, she says she will push professional development so teachers can adapt their lesson plans.
Teachers say they are not opposed to making educational improvements.
“We welcome change, but the fact is we have heard nothing about any substantial or positive change to the important elements of any school: curriculum, educational philosophy, innovative teaching strategies,” stated the letter teachers gave to the board last week. “The trust between the teachers and the leadership has evaporated in a very short time.”
The standards, rolled out by the state a few years ago, are the basis for the state’s annual standardized tests, given to students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11, as part of the federal education law No Child Left Behind.
The School for the Deaf has struggled on the state exams. Forty-six percent of elementary and middle school students scored proficient or better on state reading tests and 40 percent scored proficient in math in 2006-07. High school students fared worse: 25 percent in English and 15 percent in math.
State education officials say they fully support Gursky and Dunsmore and their plans for improving the school, which include developing a strategic plan this spring.
Deputy Education Commissioner David V. Abbott and Ken Swanson, who heads the state’s special education office, will lead a team of educators to visit the school next month, assessing not only school climate but also the ways students are taught.
State educators acknowledge the School for the Deaf is dealing with multiple education issues, some universal and some distinctive to the school.
“Across the state, kids on individual learning plans [in special education] are being underserved in a number of areas,” Abbott said. “If you have a whole school with kids with IEPs, then you see a microcosm of the challenges inherent in providing high quality in special education.”
About 70 percent of students at the School for the Deaf qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and about half of the students have disabilities other than deafness, such as autism, cerebral palsy and behavioral issues. Most of the students come from urban areas and several come from homes where the parents’ first language is not English.
In addition, because of differences in the deaf community about whether deaf children should learn American Sign Language or learn to use oral language, often with the help of cochlear implants, students at the school use multiple forms of communication, often making classroom instruction difficult.
Meanwhile, Dunsmore has had to juggle proposed budget cuts. Like other state departments and agencies, the school has been asked to trim its budget by 10 percent. In addition, school officials are hoping a new building will be built across the parking lot from the current Providence site in Corliss Park next year. In 2006, the General Assembly appropriated $31 million to build a new school, but difficulties in finding a location have delayed the project.
Some teachers have complained that Dunsmore has not reached out to them and say she spends most of her time in her office. Dunsmore says she is aware of this criticism, and would like to improve her relationship with the teachers.
“I would like to improve teacher relations, particularly through supporting teachers through the change process, with the understanding that we have expectations to improve student performance and meet the [grade-level expectations],” Dunsmore said. “I would like to focus more on cooperation with teachers and staff, and I want them to start to shift some of their ideas and expand their approaches, especially now that we have so many students with multiple disabilities.”
But some longtime teachers say they don’t believe radical change is needed.
“I don’t think they have to reshape a whole lot,” said Cummings, who has worked at the school for 30 years. “If they would just come into the classes, they would see that what the students are learning, the tests are not measuring. Those tests are not designed for deaf students.”
The two sides agree on one point, laid out in a letter from teachers submitted to the trustees.
“…at this point, there is a growing disconnect and a void in communication between the teachers and the administration.”
