A vote by the Middletown Town Council to reject a $5,000 funding request to study the impacts of regionalization has been met with a bit of dismay in Newport.
NEWPORT, R.I. – A vote by the Middletown Town Council denying a request to fund a study on the educational merits of regionalization has left some officials here in Newport expressing a note of dismay, while others are describing the decision as only a minor setback.
In a 5-2 vote, the Middletown Town Council decided on Monday against a request made on behalf of the Aquidneck Island Advisory Group to contribute $5,000 to a study aimed at determining the educational impact of various levels of school regionalization.
The study, which had been approved by both the Newport City Council and School Committee was designed to be a follow-up to an analysis released by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council in July. The goal was to collect $5,000 from each community’s respective councils and school committees to help fund the project, with the difference being made up by the state.
“At this point, I’m not that optimistic,” said Dr. John H. Ambrogi, superintendent of the Newport Public Schools. “I didn’t think it would become a problem,” he added of the nominal funding request. “But obviously it has become a problem.”
The problem, as five Middletown councilors saw it, originates with who exactly will be overseeing the study. Although it has been meeting as a working group for over a year, the Aquidneck Island Advisory Group is not an established committee; members of the group were not appointed to their positions and it lacks the specified authority to manage such funding requests.
Led by Councilwoman Barbara von Villas, Middletown councilors expressed a desire to see the funding request made by a formal body with appointees from each of the island’s three communities. Portsmouth has yet to weigh in on the request, however according to several local officials, councilors there could very well follow suit with Middletown until such a time as a formal oversight body is chartered.
Newport City Councilor Justin S. McLaughlin, who also sits on the Advisory Group, said on Wednesday that establishing a formal governing body is an idea the panel has discussed as recently as Monday morning, and had been planning to address in January.
“We had discussed the need to take the next step in creating a regional oversight board,” he said, adding that since the RIPEC report came out, he has recognized a need to set up an official entity. “People would like to see the governance in place.”
The study, he said, was meant to have been a sort of straw poll to gauge the interest of the island’s communities in relation to the regionalization question. “It seemed like a benign step,” McLaughlin said. But addressing the oversight concerns should
“To me, it’s just a hiccup,” he said.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Dr. Ambrogi stressed that without an educational study, much of the work that has been invested in regionalization – including the RIPEC report – would be for naught.
But the issue is far from dead. von Villas has called for a special meeting of her town council on Dec. 14.
On the agenda: the creation of a special committee on regionalization, which would begin the process of formally creating an entity which could provide the governance necessary to a continued island-wide discussion on school reform.
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Newport, RI
