You’re on a shaky foundation… where you have banned members of the community from attending the meeting.”

Susie Holloway

I am saying that the residents of Barrington love our small schools.”

Robert Swarts

I was very disappointed that it wasn’t something I could participate in.”

Heather Wilkerson

Barrington residents continued to speak out against the school district’s plan to build two new Grade 1-5 schools, transform Nayatt into an early learning center, and close down Sowams School.

“Option 2B” earned the school committee’s endorsement recently, but has fallen short of garnering much in the way of public support. 

And the voices of opposition continued to speak out at the Barrington School Committee meeting on Thursday night, Sept. 8. A half-dozen people, including one candidate for the school committee, called for the district to reconsider, rethink or reject the plan. 

Susie Holloway was the first to speak during the public comment period. The Democratic candidate for the RI Senate District 32 seat pleaded with the school committee to slow down the process. She asked them to rescind their approval of Option 2B and “give the community more time to be heard.”

Holloway said she was denied the opportunity to share her thoughts on the district’s master facilities plan during the earlier process — she applied to participate in the deep dive visioning session, but was denied entrance. 

Holloway, who is vice chair of the town’s Committee on Appropriations, said school officials have made a mistake, and the community needs more time to discuss this issue.

“You’re on a shaky foundation… where you have banned members of the community from attending the meeting,” she said. 

Holloway also referenced a petition signed by hundreds of residents opposing the district’s facilities plan. Robert Swarts spoke right after Holloway and handed out copies of the petition to each school committee member — more than 500 residents signed the petition which calls for school officials to “return to the drawing board and give us, families and students, the schools we want for the future, to develop a plan that maintains all neighborhood schools to the benefit of every neighborhood in town, rather than to continue to push forward a plan that would make academic excellence harder to achieve in Barrington.”

Swarts also read from the Rhode Island Department of Education regulations, which call for smaller neighborhood schools. 

“I am saying that the residents of Barrington love our small schools. We love our neighborhood schools,” Swarts said. 

The petition questions the process used by the school district during the planning phase: “This was done with minimal meaningful community engagement. A single workshop session was said to have the feel of a sales pitch by a design firm, Kaestle Boos Associates, inc. (KBA). A survey was drafted by KBA with oversight from the Building Committee and distributed to the community. This was not a survey. It was propaganda, with questions so leading that dissent to the pitched options was impossible. The survey was designed to validate a predefined ‘school vision’ to solidify support for unnecessary elementary education overhaul.”

TJ Peck, an Independent candidate running for the Barrington School Committee, also spoke during the meeting. He said school officials need to avoid using clunky analogies to describe the facilities process. He also urged officials to re-think the master plan if they are already pivoting away from portions of it. 

“The concept that we can kick the can and make decisions down the road and pivot is very disingenuous. If you already feel that you want to pivot off that master plan, you should not support that master plan,” Peck said, adding that this project would be the largest public expenditure in the history of Barrington. 

Heather Wilkerson shared an emotional plea with school officials.

“I am here to say please reconsider moving forward on the school reconstruction plan because I just don’t feel that the community is ready,” Wilkerson said. 

She said the process is being rushed and that public meetings have felt like marketing events pitched by the district and its consultant, KBA. 

Wilkerson said she was not given enough information about why Barrington schools are moving forward. She also said there has not been enough public involvement, and questioned the decision to hold public meetings during the workdays — “I can’t take two days off…” she said. “I was very disappointed that it wasn’t something I could participate in.

“Everyone’s lives have been turned upside down for three years. And more and more change is not what people are ready for. We need community building and healing, and I would ask that you take a step back and consider it.”

David Sanchez said many people in town do not know about the plan. He also said there seems to be no benefit to having two large elementary schools, rather than the neighborhood elementary schools.

Another resident, Ralph Carey, went one step further. He said his family moved to Barrington specifically for the smaller neighborhood elementary schools. He said they could have moved to North Kingstown or East Greenwich or Narragansett, which have consolidated schools, but they preferred Barrington’s elementary school model.

If Barrington move away from that, “I don’t see the point in staying here, especially with the taxes,” Carey said. 

Building deficiencies

In a previous interview, Barrington School Committee Chairwoman Gina Bae said the district needs to address the condition of the elementary schools in town. A facilities report drafted by Kaestle Boos Associates details building deficiencies: water stained ceiling tiles, step cracking in interior walls, vertical cracking in walls, missing floor tiles, cracks in chimneys, concrete wall cracks, lintel rusting, aged heating mechanicals, the need for updated ventilation systems, the lack of fire suppression systems, outdated electrical capacity, and more. 

The report, titled “Barrington Public Schools Master Plan,” is the Stage I submission to the Rhode Island Department of Education and serves as evidence for the necessity of building upgrades.