Speaker of the House makes a visit to Oaklawn

By Jen Cowart
Posted 5/10/17

By JEN COWART Each year, the fifth-grade students in Theresa Vessella's class participates in Project Citizen, a civics project which gives students the opportunity to learn about issues at hand in their communities and to work to affect change through

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Speaker of the House makes a visit to Oaklawn

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Each year, the fifth-grade students in Theresa Vessella's class participates in Project Citizen, a civics project which gives students the opportunity to learn about issues at hand in their communities and to work to affect change through legislation to help alleviate those issues.

This year Vessella's students have chosen the lack of a formalized recycling program in the school cafeteria for the breakfast and lunch trash as their issue, and are working to make a change. To that end, part of the process that the students must work through is that of researching their issue and possible solutions to it. Interviewing local experts and lawmakers is one step in that direction, as is an upcoming field trip to the State House next week.

This week, the class welcomed Speaker of the House, Nick Mattiello to their classroom for a visit and to interview him about their issue, their ideas for solutions and what his take is on recycling in the larger community outside of Oaklawn School.

“Folks are much more conscious”

Mattiello spoke to the students first, thanking them for reaching out to him. As the work for Project Citizen is student-driven, it was fifth-grader Julia Kopsick that officially contacted Mattiello's office, inviting him to come and speak on their issue.

"I was pleased to hear from Julia, pleased that she was calling me to come in," Mattiello said. "It's always good to keep in touch with your government officials, and as you grow, it is just as important."

Kopsick ran the interview, with many of her peers adding in questions along the way for the Speaker.

When asked to describe his job, Mattiello shared that as a state representative, a leader is chosen who speaks for all of the members of the House, and similarly to the way in which a teacher organizes the day's plans, the Speaker of the House helps with organization as well, making sure that every piece of legislation, every idea, goes through the full and proper process.

In response to the issue that the class has chosen for Project Citizen, Mattiello said he felt that it was a very important one.

"The environment is important for all of is, and it's important that we keep the earth healthy for you and for future generations," he said. "We can do that by recycling and by reusing so that we do not deplete the resources we have, for the future. It's a little bit scary to hear that our state landfill could be exhausted 25 years from now. We could explore ideas that can extend the life of the landfill, such as opening additional sections of the landfill, or reducing the usage of it, but really we need to be doing both. We really have to reduce the usage of that landfill."

He explained that he can see a difference from when he was younger, to now, in the environmentally conscious nature of citizens.

"I don't think folks cared about being environmentally conscious then as much as they do now," he said. "We need to nurture our environment, and be good stewards, taking care of the environment for us and for the future generations. The good news is that some of you bright boys and girls sitting right here in these seats are part of the solution."

In answer to one of Kosick's questions, Mattiello stated that he does believe that the citizens in the local Cranston community do think that recycling is important.

"Years ago, I think people took the environment for granted, but now folks are much more conscious and interested in preserving it than before," he said. "Take myself for example. If I have a bottle of water that is empty and there is no recycling bin for it, I won't just throw it into the trash. I will take it back with me and recycle it at home. People are much more aware of things like that now, they pay more attention and they are better educated."

Asking for student ideas

He also cited his participation in the passing of legislation in the House of Representatives, which involved green energies, renewable energies and preserved natural resources.

"We are trying to make sure that people's homes are more efficient, that they use things like light bulbs that are energy efficient, and windows that don't let our energy out," he said. "We are also trying to shift from carbon-based energies to more renewable energies."

When asked what types of policies could be put in place to encourage more recycling, Mattiello had some insight for the students.

"We need to be finding ways to incentivize our communities," he said. "Perhaps if there was more of a financial benefit and/or more consequences for those communities who are not recycling enough, perhaps that would encourage folks to do a better job. Sometimes it's too easy to take a bottle and throw it into the trash versus recycling it. We need to educate everybody and make sure that we're making it easier to have people complying with the policies." Mattiello flipped the interview around, and asked the students for their ideas as well.

"Just because I am Speaker of the House doesn't mean I always have all the ideas," he said. "The government is made up of all of us, of people coming together to elect people who hope to come away with good ideas."

The students shared their Class Policy for the project which involved the formation of a Green Team, a committee which would help to start recycling in the school cafeteria.

"We would get a bin to pour the milk into and recycle the milk cartons, and we would get a recycling bin to put at the end of the tables because in the lunchroom there are recycleables that are being thrown away during breakfast and lunch," Kopsick said. "We would involve the fourth and fifth grades so that the program would continue after we are gone. We will also be having Max Man come in for a school assembly"

Mattiello liked the ideas described for the class policy.

"This is an exciting policy and an exciting idea, and it's good that you can educate the other students," he said. When he heard that Max Man was coming in for the assembly, he said that he thought even he could benefit from the assembly, given that the policies for what can be recycled are often changing.

“Seems like a win-win to me”

Maia Riccio shared some of the newer recycling guidelines with him, including those for recycling pizza boxes, which formerly could not be recycled and for large containers up to five gallons.

Emily Lynch explained some alternate policy ideas with the Speaker.

"We came up with the ideas to hire someone from DEM to check in with the schools to see if they are recycling, we had the idea of deputizing the trash collectors so that they can tag and fine people for not recycling," she said. "We thought the fine could be $100 for the first time, increasing each time, up to three times and then after the third time being fined the people would have to go to court."

Vessella explained that the students understood that money is not included in the budget to fund the extra people that are needed to do those jobs and that funding is one issue that is a stumbling block for instituting policies. She also emphasized that the students need to be sure that their policies are constitutional and do not invade the privacy of the citizens in their community.

Kopsick cited four communities nationwide found through their research, who utilize a computer chip in recycling bins to detect how much is being recycled and what is being recycled, with fines being incurred if the proper recycling policies are not being followed. Those communities were Cleveland, Ohio; Charlotte, North Carolina; Boise, Idaho; and Flint, Michigan.

"The money for that comes from grant funding," Kopsick explained.

When asked if the Speaker saw any disadvantages to the class policy the students had created, he said that he did not see a lot of inherent disadvantages to it.

"It seems like a win-win to me," he said. "I'd say the only thing you need to be careful of is intruding on people's lifestyle choices and privacy. Some people won't mind being told what to recycle, but others might say, 'Why should the government be able to tell me what goods I should be consuming and recycling and watching how much I recycle?' Many feel that as long as they aren't breaking the law, they shouldn't have to tell other folks about their behavior. It's always important to create balance, to make sure you're protecting people without being too intrusive. Americans don't like too much intrusion."

In addition to the upcoming Max Man assembly, the students informed Mattiello that they would be taking a trip to the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Center (RIRRC) and to the State House for a mock legislative session where they would be debating issues in the House of Representatives and then having lunch at the State House afterwards. In June, they would be presenting their final project and all of their research to the Project Citizen board for judging.

Mattiello told the students that he would not only try to put a resolution together based on their interest in recycling in the school cafeteria and have it passed in the House of Representatives, but that he would also be at the State House for their tour and mock session next week and run it himself, televising it for them. Each student would be given a copy of it on DVD as well. Additionally, he hoped to be able to come back to the school to see the students present their project to the board later in June.

"Thank you for inviting me today," he said. "Your knowledge of the subject, your interest, and our discussion this morning was very impressive. You should appreciate how bright you are and how good your teacher is, bringing you along so far at this age. You're very mature, very thoughtful, and whatever you do in life, you will be better at it because of this project. It's very, very impressive, and you should be very proud of yourselves."

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