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PRESS RELEASE September 6, 2000 Rhode Island Schools to Receive $20 Million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Foundation supports three school coalitions for continued education improvements PROVIDENCE, R.I. -The Providence School District, Coventry School District and The Big Picture Company will receive grants totaling $20 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the creation of smaller, personalized learning environments that help all students achieve. The three grants will be the first in a series of education grants announced by the Foundation this week. The grants will be announced today at the Charles N. Fortes Magnet Academy in Providence. Providence Mayor Vincent Cianci, Jr., schools Superintendent Diana Lam, Coventry superintendent John Deasy, The Big Picture Company's co-directors Elliot Washor and Dennis Littky, will join Ronald V. Gallo, President of the Rhode Island Foundation and Tom Vander Ark, Executive Director of Education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, at the event. The Rhode Island Foundation, the oldest community foundation in America, will administer the grants for both Providence School District and Coventry School District. "We are thrilled to continue working with Rhode Island schools," said Gallo. "These model district grants demonstrate that we already have made great strides, and they hold out the promise for us to achieve so much more." Clear goals and improvement plans, as well as a commitment to meet the seven criteria of high-achievement school districts identified by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, made Coventry and Providence strong applicants, noted Vander Ark. Both districts will use their five-year grants to create smaller learning communities that help all students excel. Specifically, funds will help improve leadership and instruction, raise standards, strengthen assessment and accountability, and infuse technology into the classroom. The major part of the grants (80 percent) will go to the districts' schools, allowing each school to build its own improvement plan. The third grant to be announced will go to The Big Picture Company, a non-profit organization, which designed and created two public schools in Providence - The Metropolitan High School and Highlander K-8 Charter School. The organization will receive $3,450,000 to open 12 similar small schools of fewer than 300 students across the country over the next five years. The new schools would form a network of like-minded schools offering focused learning environments where students and staff are motivated, expectations are high, and achievement levels reflect this dedication. The first school will open in Detroit this September, with schools in Seattle and Massachusetts opening next year. "We are thrilled that the Foundation has seen the value and the promise of Big Picture schools like the Met. This grant will serve as a catalyst to build on their success," said Dennis Littky, co-director of the Big Picture Company. "The commitment to quality education in Rhode Island is evident from the statehouse to the classroom," said Vander Ark. "These three groups of schools have each shown a commitment to creating learning environments that work for all students. We're excited to begin working with each of them and hold them up as models for others around the country." Vander Ark commended Charles Fortes Magnet Academy, the site of today's announcement, for its commitment to an ongoing process of growth and development in teaching and learning. Providence School District will use its $13,568,880 grant to scale up this sort of model, providing more personalized teaching and learning and strengthening parent and public engagement. The district also will expand professional development programs, advance literacy programs and build technology infrastructure. "This is a great honor for us," said Providence Superintendent Lam. "We have an ambitious improvement plan for all of our schools and the grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will allow us to expand and accelerate our work." Coventry School District will use its $2,967,640 grant to strengthen ongoing efforts to provide a standards-based coach in every school, computers with access to the district's mainframe in students' homes, and a safety net program for students struggling to meet the district's high standards. The district's secondary schools have been chosen as one of six national pilot sites for implementation of a new design for secondary teaching and learning. Coventry High School will open this fall as an "America's Choice" model high school, where every student is expected to achieve at high levels, the curriculum is focused around core academic standards, all students leave prepared for college and community partnerships provide strong links at all levels. "With a new model for our high school opening this fall, we already had great expectations and improvement plans underway," noted Coventry Superintendent Deasy. "But this grant raises the possibility that we can enhance and expand our work to reach every student in our district." These three education grants are not the first from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for Rhode Island schools. In May of this year, Rhode Island received both a $780,000 state challenge grant from the Foundation to fund a leadership and technology training program for superintendents and principals, and a model classroom grant of $500,000 to establish 112 high-achieving classrooms infused with technology. Both of those grants are also being administered by the Rhode Island Foundation. Encouraging high-achieving schools and districts, developing quality leadership and removing financial barriers to higher education are the cornerstones of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's education giving. The national model school district/school network grants will support high-achieving districts, networks of schools and statewide coalitions that have a proven record of using innovative learning models that help all students achieve. More information on the grant process is available at www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/education. ### The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to improving people's lives by sharing advances in health and learning with the global community. Led by Bill Gates' father, William H. Gates, Sr., and Patty Stonesifer, the Seattle-based Foundation has an asset base of $21.8 billion. Preventing deadly diseases among poor children by expanding access to vaccines, and developing vaccines against malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis, are central priorities. Other major efforts include extending unprecedented opportunities for learning by bringing computers with Internet access to every eligible library in the U.S. and Canada, and providing scholarships to academically talented minority students in the U.S. with severe financial need through the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (www.gmsp.org). For complete information and grant guidelines, visit www.gatesfoundation.org.
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