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RI Students Protest: No Sports No School
CRANSTON -- More than 150 students marched on City Hall and the adjacent school administration building yesterday morning to protest school officials' decision to eliminate sports and all other extracurricular activities to balance the budget.
And just to make sure their voices were heard, about 75 students returned to protest in the afternoon.
While the students were chanting "No sports, no school," school officials were filing a lawsuit in Superior Court in an attempt to get more money from the city.
The demonstrations were the latest skirmishes in an ongoing battle between the city administration and school officials over the school budget, which school officials cut by $3.2 million this week in response to months of pressure from Mayor Stephen P. Laffey. Now, Laffey is unhappy with the cuts, saying he thinks there are alternatives to losing sports and other activities. The mayor has not identified other ways to cut the school budget, except to say the teachers' contract should be reopened in order to reinstitute a health-insurance copay.
With school board members hoping for quick court action, the cuts were calculated based on the assumption that nothing would be eliminated until the end of the first academic quarter, Nov. 6.
Most of the students protesting yesterday morning were from Cranston High School West, having left their campus and piled into a caravan of cars to travel a few miles across the city.
"We felt that it's important to stand up for what we believe in," said April Maccarone, a junior at West. "Sports and other activities are the reason that a lot of kids stay in school."
At Cranston High School East, which is next door to City Hall, teachers and administrators kept students inside. East students watched the morning's action pressed against classroom windows, waving and calling encouragement to their crosstown peers. "Let them out, let them out," the crowd of West students, plus a few parents, yelled outside Cranston East before running en masse to City Hall.
Laffey was ready for them, and quickly stepped outside the building's front doors. Holding aloft his own green varsity sports jacket from his days as a Cranston East student, Laffey told the students that he understood their feelings. He cautioned them that their actions might result in school discipline and that a basic lesson in civil disobedience is that "whatever punishment comes your way, you've got to be willing to accept it."
The students, many wearing Cranston West football jerseys or red-and-gray cheerleading outfits, applauded the mayor as he told them that the city had given the School Department enough money to provide sports.
"I suggest we go to see Mrs. Ciarlo now," said Laffey, speaking through a bullhorn and pointing at the school administration building and the office of Supt. Catherine Ciarlo.
Yelling and cheering, the students swarmed across the lawn and stormed the building, making it into the foyer before they were asked to leave. They did so without incident, but stayed on the front steps, yelling and chanting for their sports and for school officials to come outside.
No administrators came out, but Ciarlo later said that she would meet next week with student leaders from both high schools to discuss the budget problems and explain the court action just launched.
Laffey and the schools have been jousting over the budget for months, with the mayor recently suing school officials to get them to cut their budget and bring it in line with the $104.5 million set by the City Council.
Saying that they are bound by contractual obligations and mandates, school officials had requested a budget of $110.3 million for the current fiscal year. Talks with the City Council helped identify some savings and additional revenue sources, reducing the gap to about $3.2 million.
ON TUESDAY NIGHT, faced with the prospect of a Superior Court ruling on Laffey's suit, the school board agreed to bring its budget in line with the city appropriation and cut $3.2 million. The cuts include the elimination of all sports and extracurricular activities, the elimination of library aides and almost all money for textbooks and classroom supplies. There would be almost no money for substitute teachers, the number of teachers' aides would be reduced, and bus transportation would be reduced.
School officials have emphasized that they did not want to make the cuts and said they would fight for the money in court, relying on a state law commonly referred to as the Caruolo Act. The Caruolo Act changed the budget appeal process, moving the final decision from the state education commissioner's office to Superior Court.
"The School Committee filed the motion in court to initiate the Caruolo Act because they care very much about the students and their needs," Ciarlo said yesterday. "We're going to do all we can to convince the judge that we need these resources."
Before dispersing peacefully yesterday morning, the students positioned themselves on the sidewalk across Park Avenue from Cranston High School East, shouting again for officials to save their sports. Police said the students were well-behaved and there were no incidents or arrests.
Barbara Larivee, the mother of Brian Larivee, the starting hockey goalie for the Cranston East varsity team, was one of several parents in the crowd.
She held a hand-lettered sign that said, "My son had dreams and hope, now all he has is his jersey, '34'."
"This has crushed him," she said, stepping back from the crowd for a moment. "My son wants to go to college to play sports," she said, noting that he has attracted the attention of scouts. "This is not fair," she said. "Why are they taking this out on our children?"
Many of the students at the afternoon protest said that both city and school officials were at fault.
"I thought it was unfair. I don't think they should punish us for the mistakes they made," said Nicole Desrosiers, 13, a Cranston East freshman.
THE STUDENTS who planned yesterday's protests tried to keep the events secret until the last minute.
Laffey said that he got word early yesterday morning from a staff member, and that gave him time to pull his Cranston East "Thunderbolt" basketball team jacket out of the closet.
He said that he did not think that he encouraged the students to storm the administration building.
Ciarlo criticized the mayor's handling of the matter.
"We had hoped that the mayor would work with us cooperatively and civilly to solve the budget problem," Ciarlo said in an interview. "We think it is very irresponsible for the mayor to use students as pawns.
"Fortunately, no students were hurt today," she said, "because if that had been the case, I would have held the mayor responsible. He led them like a Pied Piper with his bullhorn."
When students gathered behind City Hall yesterday afternoon, Laffey came outside to speak to them, fielding questions and blaming school officials for not finding other areas of the budget to cut.
"I've been waiting since my freshman year for my prom, and I'm not going to get it?" said Katrina Pamorada, 18, a senior. "You make sure your grades are maintained just so you can go to these things."
East freshman football player Will Ulloa said that cutting sports will leave Cranston teens with too much time on their hands.
"After school, most kids would be doing mad, stupid things, and instead, they're doing football," Ulloa said.
— Barbara Polichetti
'No sports, no school'
Providence Journal
2003-09-27
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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