Update: Little Compton Parents Choose Portsmouth High School

About 100 parents attended the high school discussion with the Little Compton School Committee on Thursday evening, and after months of gathering input, the choice appears clear: Parents want to continue to have their children educated at Portsmouth High School.

The crowd gathered in the gym for a roughly hour-and-a-half presentation and open discussion about the choice of which area high school to contract with for the next 10 years, starting in 2012. The current seventh graders at the school will be the incoming freshmen under the new contract.

The School Committee returns next Wednesday night, March 16, at 6 p.m. to vote on the contract. A final, brief public hearing will be made available.

Over the last three months, the School Committee has invited Portsmouth, Tiverton and Middletown’s superintendents and high school principals to give presentations to the Little Compton public. Scheduled tours were also taken of each high school, and evaluation and ranking forms were distributed to all Little Compton parents to rank the schools.

Superintendent Kathryn Crowley and School Committee members said the only weighted response they received was from the ranking sheets, as barely any parent attended the presentations, tours or returned the evaluations.

“We wanted to be fair and impartial on this,” said Donald Gomez, chairman, when asked by a Portsmouth-advocating parent why they did the long process. “We had the walk-throughs. They were almost embarrassing. We needed to be transparent on this and give you ample time to respond on this. Next time will be a School Committee vote.”

Overwhelmingly Portsmouth High School, the current high school Little Compton students attend, was favored. Tiverton High School ranked second and Middletown came in third.

Fact sheets were handed out to Little Compton parents, which have since been deemed inaccurate by Tiverton school officials.

However, based on the information presented, some factors favoring Portsmouth were its 13 Advanced Placement classes. Middletown has 11 and Tiverton has nine, respectively. Portsmouth also offers 74 extracurricular activities and sports. Middletown offers 28 and Tiverton offers 22, respectively.

Portsmouth scored 70 percent proficient on their New England Common Assessments Program tests. Middletown scored 69 percent proficient and Tiverton score 63 percent proficient, respectively.

For the 2012-13 tuition, Portsmouth offered Little Compton $9,000, while Middletown offered $9,602. Crowley said Tiverton could not provide a cost, but instead, a range of $14,187 to $15,954. For the 115 slated pupils to attend high school during that first year, with tuition at a 3 percent annual increase, Portsmouth was the lowest. Middletown’s would have increased approximately $69,000 and Tiverton’s approximately $596,000.

Numerous parents gave testimonials of their current positive experience at Portsmouth High School. One parent praised Principal Robert E. Littlefield for his dedication to the job, faculty and, especially, the students.

“Mr. Littlefield is excited and he’s into the kids,” said the parent. “He keeps his entire staff engaged. It doesn’t matter if your kid’s in athletics, or drama. [It] doesn’t matter. The big band has 100 kids. Football has 100 kids. Drama has 100 kids. He believes in community achievement. There’s not a more confident principal to drive the ship of the school.”

Another parent said one can’t ignore Tiverton High School’s 827 suspensions, while Middletown has 252 and Portsmouth has 85, as stated on the fact sheets distributed by the School Committee to attendees.

However, Gomez and School Committee member Joseph Quinn said they liked Portsmouth and Middletown’s academic packages.

“I was comfortable with PHS or MHS,” Quinn said. “They have a real sense of community. As an educator for 43 years, I was very disappointed with Tiverton’s program of studies. Over 10 years, THS wants from us an additional $7 million dollars.”

Quinn added that the tours were really valuable.

Parent Katie Waite said she has one child at Portmsouth and one at Wilbur-McMahon getting ready to go.

"I want Portsmouth," she said. "They're fantastic."

For additional information and video on the presentations and Thursday’s meeting, visit the Little Compton Taxpayers Association at www.lctaxpayers.com. Also, check out the Channel 18 listing for next week's showing of Thursday night's meeting.

(The fact sheet distributed to Little Compton parents by the School Committee was inaccurate. According to Tiverton Superintendent William Rearick, the suspension figures entered into InfoWorks Live, the State Department of Education's website on municipal school district data, were inaccurate. Rearick said Tiverton's 326 suspensions was entered twice by mistake. Also, the Portsmouth and Middletown's high schools do not report their in-house suspension figures because they do not have that program in place. Regarding tuition, Rearick said Tiverton provided a range of per pupil costs, while Portsmouth and Middletown gave per pupil numbers. Rearick said in Tiverton's uniform charter account, Tiverton is at $14,444 for per pupil spending, while Little Compton is at $21,179, Middletown at $13,756 and Portsmouth at $12,973. He said there was not a $4,000 to $5,000 swing between districts making the bid for Little Compton students. Rearick said they were not going to offer a tuition rate that was less than what it costs the taxpayers of Tiverton to educate their children.)