Coventry parents battle district over elementary school consolidation proposal

COVENTRY, R.I. (WLNE) — Many aggravated parents showed up to Monday’s Coventry School Committee meeting to discuss the superintendent’s proposal to consolidate elementary schools in the town.

Superintendent Don Cowart said the consolidation would address the project $1.8M deficit for the next fiscal year and the constraints that come with it.

If the proposal goes through, five elementary schools would be consolidated into four, creating two sets of sister schools.

The proposal would also turn Blackrock Elementary into an early learning center for Pre-K.

Cowart said, ideally, the proposal would make it so students are distributed evenly in each classroom in each school, but parents are outraged over the possible change.

“They’re not in one place, there’s a lot of movement throughout their most critical learning years,” said Melissa Nelson, the parent of a Blackrock Elementary student. “Especially for my first grader, depending on how we redistrict she may go to a different school next year for second grade and then a different school again for third grade, which is just crazy for that age group.”

“Fiscally, not only do we not have the greatest savings but we also have a long term plan because once we consolidate those classrooms,” Cowart explained. “They’re all housed together, so we don’t have to worry about that situation where when we run up the cap of lets say 50, we have to add a classroom or we have to displace students.”

After dozens of parents spoke against the proposal Monday night, the school committee voted to continue the meeting to a later date.