When faced with a struggling school, Central Falls School District superintendent France Gallo had two choices: she could stay the course and keep working with the existing staff, or she could do something radical. She chose to follow Department of Education guidelines and switched from the transformation model to the turnaround model. That means she fired the entire staff at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, giving 93 people a pink slip. From janitor to principal, everyone got fired.
Teachers say the school’s poor graduation rate is not due to failing kids, but a demographic issue with the school’s high (65 percent) Hispanic population, most of which are highly mobile and speak English as a second language. Guidance counselor George McLaughlin says of the school’s 800 students: “We have the most transient population in this state. Nobody comes close to us. So when they say that 50 percent of the people graduate, a very high percentage of our students leave our school. They return. They leave again. They go back to other countries.”
Per Rhode Island state law, teachers who will not be rehired have to be told by March 1; the school board has already approved of the firings. Up to 50 percent of the teachers and staff may be rehired, assuming they reapply for their jobs. The teacher’s union has already started action against Superintendent Gallo and the school board, citing the school’s 21 percent rise in reading and 3 percent rise in math scores as proof that the transformation was working in one of the poorest schools in Rhode Island.
Image: The Melody Censor
Tags: entire school fired by superintendent, Central Falls High School, Central Falls, Rhode Island, entire school fired, all teachers fired at school, turnaround model, Frances Gallo, 93 people fired at high school
