Crisis at 357 Park Place

I attended Woonsocket Middle School from September 1991 to June 1994 -- and they were the three happiest years I spent in school. One would think middle school would be absolute torture for tomboyish, corpulent, adolescent girls, but I loved my time there.

It's amazing how much things can change in a mere 10 years. The descriptions of the school's current state in 2005 from this Providence Journal 5-part series do not ring true to me at all. I guess I sensed things were changing at the middle school when I was in high school and heard stories from my friends' younger siblings. But this?

Woonsocket Middle School -- New England's largest -- has been called a labyrinth, a jungle, a danger zone, and even a haven.

The complex, which covers a city block larger than a football field, is full of snaking hallways, storage closets turned into classrooms, and shadowy stairways known to disorient even the heartiest visitor.This year alone, faulty intercoms, broken bathrooms, corroding pipes, and cockroaches have disrupted learning and eroded morale.

School days are frequently interrupted with arrests, fights, and violent confrontations. Three months ago, a teacher was arrested for hitting a student. Last year, 13 students were suspended for assaulting teachers and 170 students were suspended for assaulting each other.

In 1998, a student was raped in a stairwell. In 2001, another student was sexually assaulted by a gym teacher.

The school is so volatile, teachers feel it is more important to take 10 to 15 minutes out of academic time twice a day for escorted bathroom breaks rather than risk what might happen if they allowed children to tackle the bathroom trips on their own.

Now, sure, there really is nothing unique about this situation. There are bad schools around the country, many much worse than this. Woonsocket surely isn't the only community where parents are yanking their kids out of public school to go to uptight Catholic ones. And teachers clash with an ever-changing repertoire of administrators everywhere. So what's the big deal?

Well, I guess what really disturbs me is how fast the school became an absolute quagmire. To me, it epitomizes the complete disinvestment in public schools that's happening around the country, particularly in urban settings that have experienced recent waves of immigration and only seem to be getting poorer. (According to this article, 32% of Woonsocket Middle School students live in poverty and 61% come from low income families.)

In a recent conversation with someone familiar with urban New England school settings, it was agreed that investment in schools alone is not enough. The ailing schools are merely a consequence of a community that's suffering in a myriad of other ways. So do you start trying to repair the city's economy before the schools? Do you attempt a simultaneous fix? I guess that's what I went to policy school to try to figure out, but hell if I know.

Perhaps the one concrete recommendation that jumps out to me is to build another school -- this structure is clearly too small and old to hold all these kids. Woonsocket is far from being the largest city in New England, so there's no reason for it to have the largest middle school. Split the school in half, have smaller class sizes, you know the drill.

Fat 6th graders who like to wear plaid blazers should feel comfortable at Woonsocket Middle School, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't in 2005. Kids who hate going home at night should have a reprieve during the day at Woonsocket Middle School, and it sure sounds like the nightmare only continues.

Teachers, administrators: learn to get along and friggin' figure out what the hell to do with the students. Mayor, City Council, community leaders: you're no longer a mill town filled with Canucks, Italians, and Irish folk. The population's changed, so get with the program and serve your constituents -- yeah, even the ones who don't have money.