Cranston
Would there be room in the public sphere — specifically, within the the Cranston West High School cafeteria auditorium — for a banner beginning with the words “Heavenly Father”, if the most recent Establishment Clause precedent issued by the United States Supreme Court were to say that a relevant lower court decision was flawed, because…The…
Steven Frias, a Steve Laffey ally of old and author of a book on Cranston’s political history, relates the origin of school committees’ authority to negotiate contracts (even though they can’t tax to pay for them) and binding arbitration for police and fire. Sadly, there are some discouraging parallels to our proximate future: The leader…
Cranston Mayor Allan Fung announced last evening that he will seek a second term as Mayor. After he made his formal announcement, I had the opportunity to ask him a couple of quick questions… Anchor Rising: Given your two-year track record, and what you’d like to accomplish, what’s the reason people should vote for you…
… but not the usual fallacy that inevitably leads to comical yard signs like “Save our Schools” when contracts are up for re-negotiation. Yesterday, during the last hour of the WPRO Morning News with John Depetro, Cranston School Committee member Frank Lombardi called in to defend the actions of himself and certain other committee members…
It was hard not to give some credit to the union-run New England Laborers/Cranston Public Schools Construction Career Academy when it gave some of its money back to the town to maintain sports programs. Of course, one wondered why it would have extra money — charter schools aren’t fully private schools — but the sentiment…
Two approaches to returning services to Cranston schools have emerged, and it’s conceivable that they highlight the natural line dividing all various budgetary disputes at the town level: [Mike] Stenhouse’s admittedly “more aggressive” stance on political issues caused a rift this week with an earlier local partner, BASICS (Benefiting All Students In Cranston Schools), a…
This is a positive development, for the short-term, but it should be considered a short-term fix before turning around, rather than a short-term transition toward something new in the future: An $88,241 donation from the New England Laborers’/Cranston Public Schools Construction Career Academy, a public charter school, “will just about restore every program except freshman…
Cranston’s recent proposal to merge school sports is currently being weighed by the Rhode Island Interscholastic League. John Gilooly explains why allowing such a merger would set a bad precedent: The problem I see is that as an association of individual high schools, if the Principals Committee allows two high schools from the same city…
Anchor Rising readers shouldn’t have any trouble guessing (let alone discerning) what’s missing from this report out of Cranston: Wednesday night, on what was the first chance for the public to speak on the proposed budget, students, coaches and parents flocked to Cranston West’s auditorium, where the School Committee budget hearing was moved to accommodate…
Cutting or consolidating sports programs is grabbing the headlines as Cranston tries to deal with it’s school budget deficit, but other programs are in danger as well. It’s not just the jocks. The $1.1-million in proposed cuts — which include the elementary school enrichment program along with strings, band and chorus, following the recommendations of…
