The Commissioner of Education for the State of Rhode Island, Angélica Infante-Green, visited Tides Restaurant at Warwick’s Career and Technical Center last week for a chat with members of the Warwick Rotary Club, and to see the culinary arts students’ who make up the staff in action.

The Club members branched out from their usual haunt at Chelo’s on Post Road for a triennial Million Dollar Meals, at which donations made to Rotary International come in at a higher percentage. Those percentages translate to larger donations through the Rotary’s International, and local grant programs.

Before lunch, the Commissioner was invited to tour Tides’ kitchens, where students worked at every station in an efficient, professional restaurant setting. The lunch was prepared and served by juniors and seniors in the Career and Technical Center’s culinary arts program, under the management of Chef Austin Irons.

After the meal, and after the “happy bucks” portion of the meeting, during which club members were encouraged to donate small sums of cash and share some good news, Commissioner Infante-Green was offered the microphone.

First and foremost, the commissioner expressed she is impressed at the quality of education the students in the program are receiving. She noted that “Not everyone takes advantage of everything we have to offer like Warwick does.”

Importance of CTE programs

“One of the things that you are seeing here today is really the district moving forward and understanding the importance of CTE programs,” Infante- Green said.

She noted the change in perceived value CTE programs receive now compared to when she, and most of the assembled, were in school. “

How many of you remember CTE being just for a certain set of students?” she asked. “There was a stigma behind that. Those were for the kids who weren’t going to college. That’s not what this is today, this is for everyone.”

“CTE is for everyone,” she continued. “You graduate with a high school diploma and a CTE credential.”

The commissioner noted that these programs not only offer students the benefit of a broader, more tailored education, but often help kids to navigate the economic realities of higher education.

“Many of our kids need to work,” she said, “need to have some sort of employment to actually go to college.”

Infante-Green drew attention to the breadth, still expanding, of possibilities for students seeking career and technical education in Rhode Island. The programs, which can be locally or state sponsored, have expanded to meet a modern economy.

“We have culinary, like you’re seeing it today,” she said. “Also cyber security. We have EMT, we have fire department. We have aquaponics, where you have students actually putting salmon back in the waterways.”

Career and tech education has reached a new milestone in the past year, about which Infante-Green was happy to alert the club members.

“Last year we increased our CTE programs by 23 programs, which now is 300 in the state of Rhode Island.”

She spoke in particular about a prize of Warwick’s, coming to the center in the next few months, the recipients of which Warwick is one of only 15 in the state.

Warwick to get food truck

“Warwick is one of the districts that is going to have a food truck,” Infante-Green said. She spoke of the multidisciplinary implications of education aboard one of these trucks. “[Students are] learning about automotive, they’re learning about culinary, they’re learning about running a business.”

With the significance and of the state’s CTE program established, Infante-Green shifted the topic to Rhode Island education’s other hot topic: chronic absenteeism. Since the pandemic, chronic absenteeism has shot up all across the country, and educators are scrambling to address it.

“Two days a month makes you chronically absent,” she said. “How do you catch up if you’ve missed a month’s worth of learning? That’s very difficult.”

She described some of the consequences of even very young children not showing up to class. “Once kids are chronically absent in kindergarten and first, they will not be able to read on grade level by third grade.

Infante-Green had good news, however. The steps being taken to address the complex and multi-faceted problem of chronic absenteeism are bearing fruit.

“Last month we actually outperformed where we were last year,” she said. “We have 256,000 days less absenteeism than we did last year.” This represents a 30% reduction in days missed by students across the state.

Infante-Green, with the example of Tides Restaurant to add credence to her words, ended her speech with her hopes for Rhode Island schools.

“Our goal is to be the best education system in the nation,” she said. “And it starts by all of us working together.”

After she spoke, the commissioner took questions from the Rotary Club members, mostly focused on the diverse ways in which chronic absenteeism is being addressed, all of which expand beyond the punitive. She shared examples of community initiatives, actions taken at the levels of districts, schools, and individual teachers, and of counselors and social workers. She stressed that the problem demands a holistic solution.

After Commissioner Infante-Green made her exit, the Beacon spoke a while with

Innovation in Warwick

Superintendent Lynn Danbruch, a member of the Rotary Club. She spoke of some of the initiatives the commissioner is working together with the district on. A particular focus is on what she calls “innovative spaces.”

“We have a grant permission to create innovative spaces,” she said. “So 3D printers, flexible seating, green screens… Just giving children the place to be creative and collaborate.”

She spoke as well of plans for outdoor classrooms, the work of another grant.

“Just so that students know that learning doesn’t happen happen in four walls all the time.”

Danbruch describes the classrooms as places for planting gardens and building bird houses and bug hotels, Hiking trails, and sitting as a group to take in nature.

She noted that her own district is tackling the problem of chronic absenteeism head on. One Warwick school was recognized by the governor after its absenteeism dropped 24%.

Danbruch attributes that success to “just communication from administration, from teachers, sending newsletters home and having it at the forefront of every school committee meeting.

“I should give a shout out to some of the schools,” she noted. “So now it's getting a little competitive, and also different grade levels might be competing, who has the best attendance.”

Danbruch spoke as well of a program Warwick teachers are being trained on called Responsive Classroom, again through grant money received with the help of Commissioner Infante-Green, in which active communication is at the center of elementary education.

“They start the day off with morning meeting,” she described. “So you sit around the teacher, who first of all greets everyone at the door like ‘Welcome! Come on! It’s a great day!”

“The teacher might pair students that don’t talk to each other,” she continued. “They might share a story, they might problem solve with each other. So if you and I were on different sides of the classroom and we didn’t play at recess, we wouldn’t really know much about each other. [This] just builds respect and routine in the classroom.”

“When I went to school, a teacher usually had their back to me,” Danbruch noted. Together, at every level from teachers to state administrators, educators are creating a more engaged school experience for Rhode Island students.