From Matt:

Coming on the heels of 200 Providence Headstart workers voting to join SEIU and 600 nurses at Kent Hospital voting to join UNAP, North Smithfield school bus drivers voted “Union Yes!” today by voting to join SEIU.

The 34 school bus drivers and aides work for First Student, Inc. and serve the town of North Smithfield. The secret-ballot vote was supervised by the National Labor Relations Board and workers had the option to choose between two unions – District 1199 SEIU (who represents bus drivers in Lincoln and West Warwick) or the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 618 (who represents RIPTA bus drivers) or to choose no union at all. The final tally was 20 votes for District 1199 SEIU, 4 votes for ATU Local 618, and 10 votes for neither union.

Calling all teachers! Are you feeling an uncontrollable impulse to text your 13-year old student/s and let them know the ways in which you are in love with them? Stop! It will backfire, as the above video illustrates.

In other sexy-texting-related news, embattled Detroit Mayor and Sexy-Texter Kwame Kilpatrick will apparantly attempt to argue in court that no one can prove that someone didn’t hack into his phone and send multiple sexy-texts to his chief-of-staff/lover. Good luck, Kwame!

UPDATE: And, in this post’s first incarnation, I forgot to mention that while the average state funds about 60% of education — with the cities picking up the rest of the tab — in RI, the state only funds about 37%.

Enough, enough, enough:

Do ya think, that there’s a possibility, that educational performance might just be predominantly a class issue? Is there a chance that schools in poverty-stricken districts, wherein families move around constantly, and parents work multiple jobs, and city infrastructure is decrepit and services stink, are set up for failure?

This might be even a bit worse in a state that relies more than any other on regressive municipal property taxes to fund education, and in a city wherein 52% of property isn’t even taxable, because it’s owned by nonprofits, the state, or the feds.

And, perhaps, this’d be even worse yet, were the state in question among the two that didn’t bother to fund its schools per a predictable funding formula?

YES — The Providence Public Schools could be better. (Though, given all the awful constraints within which they operate, might be doing a drop or two better than expected.) Can we stop pretending that this is a surprise, and do something about it already?

This is like a bad dream. A bad, hilarious dream.

…It seems some Camden-Rockport Middle School eighth-grade boys are taking it to new heights and allegedly making a game of seeing who can expel the loudest and grossest flatus.

According to this week’s “Fire Cracker” newsletter though, an informal eighth-grade publication, the joke’s on the boys as the penalty for “intentional farting” is now a detention.

“Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS,” the newsletter said. “It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!”

Detention for farting?

No more farts:

‘According to this week’s Fire Cracker school newsletter though, the joke’s on the boys as the penalty for “intentional farting” is now a detention.

“Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS,” the newsletter said. “It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!”‘

 This project has taken a lot of toil to make happen, and was the focus of much of my efforts on the city council. Please join us as we reclaim this historic building (once on the Preservation Society’s “10 Most Endangered Buildings” list) for Fox Point. It’s at Ives and Wickenden Streets.

Historic Fox Point Bath House Reopens Monday as Community Center & School Library

PROVIDENCE Councilman Seth Yurdin (Ward One) today announced the ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the renovation of the long-dormant bath house in the Fox Point neighborhood. The revitalized building will serve multiple purposes.

The second floor will house the library for the adjacent Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, and the first floor will be a multipurpose space for school and community use. “I am proud to see such a historic part of the Fox Point community renewed,” Yurdin stated. “The building has always served Fox Point residents, and now, with this tremendous renovation project complete, the building will be returned to the community.”

According to Yurdin, the bath house was built in 1926 by the City of Providence to provide hot water facilities for local residents, and was used as such until the early 1950s, when hot water plumbing became required in residential homes. The building was used for a short time as library, before falling into serious disrepair.

Here’s the schedule:

Book Fair (sales to benefit the school) - 3p.m.

Exhibit of Historical Materials – 4 p.m.

Presentation re history of the building and neighborhood – 6 p.m.

Reception - 7 p.m.

Refreshments will be provided.

Rules to live by: Distrust the Projo, and quote Spiro Agnew whenever possible.

One should be skeptical of all these damn lists, but given the Projo’s obsession with RI’s rankings along any of a million metrics — especially when we turn up low — don’t you think that this should make the paper:

US News and World Report just ranked Rhode Island’s public high schools 4th-best in the country.

**The link above is to an extensive “best high schools” report. I can’t find a link to the state-by-state rankings, but they’re in the hard copy from Nov 29th, which I had in my lap earlier today. Let me know if you can find it online.

There’s much ado these days in the CHARIHO (CHArlestown RIchmond HOpkinton) school district.

The three towns once realized that they were stronger together than in isolation, and merged their school districts. But in order for a bond to pass - say, to build a new school - all three towns need to approve it individually. And this fall, for the fifth time in seven years, Hopkinton voters vetoed a bond issue meant for district school improvements.

After the ballots were counted last night, talk quickly turned into what this would mean for the district, which must now finance needed repairs out of its capital budget, and whether it would result in its disintegration.

In the end it’s pretty rare that politicians throw around rhetoric quite this harsh:

Disappointed supporters of the plan turned their anger against Hopkinton officials who had openly opposed the building plan.

“What you’ve done, I think borders on evil,” Gregory Avedisian, who led an advocacy group in favor of the project, told Hopkinton Councilwoman Barbara Capalbo and Hopkinton School Committee member George Abbott.

“There is no good reason” for the measure’s defeat. You flat-out lied” when giving reasons to defeat it, Avedisian said.

Further complicating matters, the voters of Hopkinton would need to approve Hopkinton’s being booted-out. Richmond and Charlestown could leave the partnership, but the vast majority of school infrastructure is housed in Richmond, meaning they can’t run off on their own without paying alimony to the others.

So who the hell knows.

In my mind, this is more evidence FOR the need for schools consolidated at the regional level, with regional governance over broad funding matters (and some local control over other matters). It’d mean greater equitability, greater efficiencies, and less of the visceral parochialism that holds this state back in so many ways.