Although it was a cold, wet day, I was able to visit many
places in my scavenger hunt through Central Falls. Elizabeth, Jodi and I started our journey at
the Adams Public Library. The Library
was closed due to the weather but there were many flyers posted of activities
for families and kids to do on winter break.
I loved that they were having Superhero day on the Friday of school
vacation. I was able to find on their
website that Adams library has been open since 1910. Due to the city’s financial crisis the
library closed for a brief time in 2011 but reopened because of a group of
volunteers who stepped up to run it. It
is so nice to see that in this struggling city there is still a value placed on
having a library.
I checked out the schools online and found that Central
Falls has 1 early learning center, 4 public elementary schools, 1 public middle
school and 1 high school. There are also
2 charter schools and 1 private school, which start at Pre-K and go to 8th. We came across the private school on our
journey. It is St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Academy, featured here. While I am happy
there are many options for students at the Elementary level, it puts a lot of
pressure on the high school to perform since that is the only option for many
of these families. With a 90% poverty
rate, I highly doubt many students are able to attend private schools. When I took FNED at CCRI I was able to visit
Segue Institute for Learning, one of the charter schools in Central Falls. At that time, they had a goal to expand their
school through high school. Clearly that
hasn’t happened yet but being at CFHS for this class has shown me that they are
working hard to meet the needs of the students and give them the best education
possible.
One thing that struck me in our travels, were the number of
polite drivers in Central Falls. In
Rhode Island, which has a reputation for impatient drivers, it was nice to see
people who were not fueled by road rage.
People would let me go and did not get all hot and bothered when I was
driving 20mph because I had no idea where I was going. The city is definitely very small. We needed to be aware to not go too far left
or right leading us into either Pawtucket or Lincoln.
Our last stop was the fire station. We had the opportunity to speak with Lt. G.
who gave us quite a bit of information about the fire department and the
city. He told us their station is
responsible for the whole city. Although
it is only 1 square mile, there are still many emergencies that needed to be tended
to, especially with the poverty rate so high.
There could be up to 10 people living in an apartment. Also, since the unemployment rate is so high,
there are more people home during the day so if a fire occurs it is detrimental
they check for people who may be trapped. People are using toaster oven with
the doors off to heat their apartments.
They are also running extension cords to other tenement houses when the
electricity is shut off. The
firefighters try to educate them about the dangers of this but people are just
trying to survive.
Unfortunately, the fire station has limited response due to
the bankruptcy. They are down one engine
and therefore, get quickly inundated. They need to rely on Pawtucket, Lincoln,
and Cumberland to come out and help them.
In addition to the engine shortage, they only have one rescue. This becomes problematic when they have
multiple emergencies at one time. Again,
they rely on the surrounding cities but the time it takes to get to the call is
longer. The other problem they have is
the age of their equipment. The engines
and rescue are old. Thankfully many of
them are handy so they do what they can.
In the meantime, Lt. G works to try and get grant funding to help
out.
Our scavenger hunt was very informative. I was especially happy to be able to talk to
Lt. G. I think he really provided us
with so much information about the city and the population. I hope that each of us found something
different so we can all learn more about this small piece of Rhode
Island.
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI think that the information you recieved from the police and fire departments is extremely important when thinking about CF students. If there are many families sharing an apartment or house it is not only a saftey hazard, but it is also a major distraction for our students. As you said, people are just trying to survive, and school work is hard to focus on when the students are worrying about their families.
Hi Michele,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your travels through CF. Even though we went to some of the same places, you had found information that I didn't find. By talking to one of the firemen, you were able to learn more about the poverty conditions that some of CF residents live in. It is informative to learn these types of things when the students we are interacting with come from these homes. The information you found highlights important things that relate right back to the students and the town they come from.