Letter to the editor

Accountability

Dinsmore & Johnson Continue to Offer a Strong Vision for Chariho School District

Hello Richmond Voters. As you may know, we are School Committee candidates who have offered a bold platform of “All ‘A’s” for Chariho". In previous Letters to the Editor, we’ve outlined our vision for the Chariho School District. Our vision is to be THE BEST School District in RI setting the standard for Academic Excellence. The ‘A’s’ in our “All ‘A’s” for Chariho" campaign platform are Academic Excellence, Affordability, Accountability and Academic Transparency.

The focus of this LTE is Accountability.

Why include Accountability in our platform? Because we must foster a productive learning environment and that doesn't happen by accident. We must be intentional in our effort. With a renewed focus on kindness and respect, we must create a system for reporting bullying while it is only a nuisance, before it ends up on a police report or in a lawsuit. With our renewed focus on high performance and academic excellence, there is no room for bullying.

When we are elected, we will regularly request building Principals report on safety concerns, as well as academic performance and bullying at the school committee level. This will highlight our district-wide commitment to deliver on our promise of student safety and encourage meaningful and productive learning.

We should be the best school district in RI, and when you are the best and espouse a value of excellence, there is no place for bullying.

In addition, this year’s RICAS scores were released last week. While it doesn’t appear the breakdown by grade level has been released to the public as of our writing this commentary, we remain concerned that Chariho’s overall performance in Math and ELA were flat from last year. Specifically, just 47.3% of Chariho students were “meeting or exceeding” expectations in Math and 45.7% were “meeting and exceeding” expectations in ELA. For our “all-in” budget of $70 million, we must do better if we are to achieve our vision of being the recognized state-wide leader in academic performance.

As members of the School Committee, we will set high metrics-based expectations and work together consistently to meet those expectations. We will place academic performance on monthly school committee agendas to track progress. As a school community, we all play a consequential role in achieving our vision of being the best. By that, students, parents, educators, administrators, School Improvement Teams, and the School Committee and are collectively accountable if we want to be the best School District in Rhode Island.

If you share our vision for Chariho, we humbly ask for your vote. For more information about our campaign platform, view our campaign videos and website at www.DinsmoreJohnson.com.