Central Falls residents vote in favor of amending city charter to create a school board

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. (WLNE) — Central Falls residents voted in favor of changing the city charter to create a hybrid school board Tuesday night.

According to the Board of Elections, 91% voted in favor of creating the hybrid school board.

This comes after Mayor Maria Rivera announced her desire to see the return of local control of schools for the first time since 1991.

The board will be made up of four elected members and five appointed members.

Rhode Island Department of Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green spoke to ABC6 Wednesday about where things stand with the school district.

“I think that the conversation initially started about Central Falls adding funding to the school system; I think that there needs to be some sort of commitment so that everything can work together, I have been very adamant about that, and very transparent and clear,” Infante-Green said.

She did not indicate when local control will return to Central Falls.

She also said she’s always appointed community members to the Board of Trustees that were elected by community members, and she thinks there’s been some misunderstanding about this whole process.

She said to her, all that’s changing is that she won’t sign off on the names, and the mayor will have more say in who gets put on the school board.