This Monday, approximately 35 community members gathered to discuss the future of Gilbert Stuart Middle School, which has been inoperative since last June. Gilbert Stuart is one of four schools across the Providence Public School District that have closed since 2022.
The closures are largely a result of Providence’s $500 million plan to rebuild schools across the district, many of which are over 100 years old, according to the PPSD. The plan utilizes a “newer and fewer” framework for school construction, which emphasizes rebuilding consolidated schools that will serve grades PreK-8.
The Gilbert Stuart School is one such school that the plan highlights will be reopened as a PreK-8 school. The school will open on a new campus that combines Gilbert Stuart with the Alfred Lima Elementary School.
Earlier on Monday, PPSD leaders gathered to break ground on the new Frank D. Spaziano Middle School campus, which has a construction budget of $34.5 million, according to a press release reviewed by The Herald.
But much of the meeting’s focus centered on advocacy to renovate the Gilbert Stuart Middle School and to expand dual language learning options in the school, rather than to tear it down.
Organizers at the meeting, including PPSD school board member Night Jean Muhingabo, passed out forms in English and Spanish asking attendees to rate how important they believed it was for the PPSD to preserve and renovate the building and expand the school’s dual language program. They also circulated a resolution that Muhingabo plans to present to the school board at their Dec. 11 meeting, as well as a petition to support it.
Diego Arene-Morley ’16, a meeting attendee, said that he believes it is important for the community to make their voices known to push for renovations rather than demolition. “Although we don’t have direct influence, we have some,” he said.
Recent school closures have drawn criticism for lacking sufficient community input. One participant at the event said that RIDE needs to better solicit community feedback.
Arene-Morley wrote in an email that he believes RIDE’s takeover of the PPSD has caused decisions to be “poorly communicated with the local communities” and noted that the construction timeline on Gilbert Stuart has not been well communicated.
RIDE did not respond to The Herald’s request for comment.
Teachers from the Gilbert Stuart school shared at the meeting that some of the issues facing the school include a roof that needs renovating, a basement that floods, an elevator that doesn’t always work, asbestos in the building and more. Similar concerns have been shared in the Providence Journal.
In a 2022 press release, the PPSD wrote that the plan “helps put an end to expensive and inefficient ‘Band Aid’ fixes by replacing old, crumbling buildings with fewer new ones.”
The teachers added that there are also “some amazing structural elements to that building.”
Concerns regarding the preservation of the building have circulated for quite some time, as the building was included on the Providence Preservation Society’s 2016 “Ten Most Endangered List.”
At the meeting, Arene-Morley emphasized the importance of the Gilbert Stuart Middle School’s dual language instruction, which he said has been moved to Roger Williams Middle School.
“As of right now a very small portion of the school would be dual language — which just makes no sense,” he later wrote in an email. “Just make the whole school fully bilingual and everyone wins.”
Jennifer Wilson, principal of the Leviton Dual Language School, explained how the school was run and spoke to the benefits of dual language education, including the retention of students’ home language, cognitive benefits and cross-cultural competency.
Wilson noted that dual language learning, though “very difficult to staff … is a wonderful idea, but then we really have to do a lot of work on the backside.”
Concern has also been voiced over the fact that teachers at the affected schools have had to reapply for positions within the PPSD.
Paula Donovan, a resident of Providence who lives nearby, said she attended the meeting because she had heard about the shutdown of 360 High School last year and wanted to find out what was happening with Gilbert Stuart. “Schools are an important part of the community fabric, whether you have children or not,” she said.
Mikayla Kennedy is a Metro editor covering housing and transportation. They are a junior from New York City studying Political Science and Public Policy Economics.
