CRANSTON — The annual School Choice Fair was held at the Rhodes on the Pawtuxet in Cranston, welcoming representatives of religious schools, charter schools, schools for the arts, and trade schools, who provided opportunities for parents and families to become acquainted with the educational landscape in the state to find the school best suited for their children.
Rhode Island Families for School Choice, local branch of the National School Choice Awareness Foundation, is an organization dedicated to promoting both practical measures as well as public policies that make it easier for families to have access to the widest range of educational opportunities for their children.
“School choice, from a parent’s perspective, is having the ability to be well-informed, be able to have a connection or contact with those schools and be able to ask the tough questions that would actually provide some networking for the parents and their ability to communicate those needs to the schools directly,” said Nikoya Powell, director of the Rhode Island Families for School Choice.
Edward Bastia, founder of Rhode Island Families for School Choice, said that parents are looking for options in educating their children.
“When you see all these people here at the same time for the same reason, you realize that there are many, many, many families out there that really want more school choice. They want to be able to enroll their child in the school of their choice,” he said. “Opening those doors to parents is what this is all about.”
In the past few years, interest in the school choice movement has increased. More than 200 people were registered, and 55 educational institutions were present.
Matthew Fitzgerald first volunteered for Rhode Island Families for School Choice through his church. He was asked by Father Edward Wilson, then pastor of SS. Rose and Clement Parish, Warwick, to act as a parent liaison for the Rhode Island Catholic School Federation.
The more he became involved in the group, the more he became interested in taking a more proactive part in bettering the state of education in Rhode Island. Once he heard of Rhode Island Families for School Choice, he felt called to volunteer.
“The most important thing is engagement,” Fitzgerald said. “Parents need to be engaged, because parents are always the people who know what is best for their child. There are so many things going on in kids’ lives. You can look at a child and say, ‘They look perfectly fine,’ [but] they get into school or they get into a home environment that’s not working for them. The school they go to can make a huge difference in their lives.”
Volunteer Sheila Konis said that an educational placement that might benefit one child may not benefit all children in a family.
“They [parents] don’t want to be tied down to just their local school,” Konis said. “Their children may have a great experience at their local school. But they may have one child or more that needs something more than what their local school has to offer.”
Richard Silvia, the director of admissions and the dean of campus life at Bishop Hendricken School in Warwick, informed parents at the fair of the options available at his school.
“We have always understood the value and the power of children being able to choose which school is going to offer them the best education and community. So, this is a fantastic opportunity for them to look at the incredible number of options that they have,” he said.
“We believe strongly in school choice and families having a hand in how the education of their children is being handled,” said Genevieve Medina, admissions representative for Achievement First, a public charter school network with schools in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York with a particular emphasis on ministering to the needs of the poor or racial minorities.
Powell, director of the Rhode Island Families for School Choice, said the organization seeks to bridge the gap between the administration and the home, because many times messages are lost in translation.
“You have difficulties when you have a student that’s not thriving in a particular school but are limited to where they can actually go,” she noted. “Eliminating the middleman and having choice means that when that student has trouble, the parents can really meet the needs of their child in order for them to thrive.”
