RIC says it will close financially ailing Henry Barnard School

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island College on Thursday announced that the Henry Barnard School, a private elementary laboratory school within the college's Feinstein School of Education and Human Development, will close at the end of this academic year.

Parents learned the news during a 5 p.m. Zoom call announced earlier in the day.

“The conditions around our financial situation have not improved,” said Sue Pearlmutter, interim provost for the college. “Our deficit continues to be a significant problem for us and just two days ago we were notified that our budget for the following year will have another significant reduction. Because we cannot afford to keep operating as we have been, we have made the very difficult decision that we will be closing the Henry Barnard School at the end of this academic year.”

Parents, who have been fearful of the possible closing for weeks, reacted passionately on Zoom. Some asked why leadership had not fought harder to save the school and one shouted “Shame on you!” during the call. Parents were also upset that they had only been given five hours notice about the call, which was limited to 30 minutes. In a letter written by parents last month, they complained of a lack of communication from the college and said they felt as though they were being left in the dark about the fate of their children’s school.

“The lack of communication from Rhode Island College over the past several months has been pretty staggering,” said Scott Bromberg, president of the school’s parent association.

Bromberg said he and many parents feel that the leadership at Rhode Island College has wanted to close the school for some time, and that it was now using financial issues as an excuse. Bromberg said parents feel that more could have been done to save the school, including reaching out to alumni families and raising tuition.

“Rather than show vision and find ways to find solutions, they took the easy way out,” he said.

Jeannine Dingus-Eason, dean of education at Rhode Island College, said during Thursday’s Zoom call that deciding to close the school was not easy.

“We realize that this school has been in existence for over 120 years, but as the provost iterated, Rhode Island College is in a very dire crisis right now related to our budget and these are very, very challenging decisions that we have had to make,” she said. “I realize that this news doesn’t land well, and we feel awful that the school has to close.”

The college faces a $10.4 million deficit for the fiscal year ending in 2021 and must reduce its operating expenses by 15%, according to a news release from the college. In addition to closing Henry Barnard School, the college will also implement executive pay cuts, hiring freezes, staff reductions and the delay of cost-of-living adjustments, according to the release.

“The pandemic and its unprecedented impacts have triggered one of the biggest fiscal challenges in Rhode Island College’s 166-year history,” college President Frank Sánchez said in a statement. “As president, my job is to make the difficult decisions that will enable the college to continue accomplishing our core mission, which is to provide a high-quality, affordable college education and the opportunity for a better life to generations of students in Rhode Island and beyond.”

The budgetary challenges, while exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, have been ongoing for years due to lower enrollments and declining investments in public higher education, according to the news release. The college had already predicted a $4.1 million budget deficit for this fiscal year.

The Henry Barnard School has been operating at a loss for the past three years, according to the college. In fiscal year 2018 it lost $1.4 million and it lost $1.6 million in each of the following fiscal years.

The educational model used by the school is also “no longer considered best practice in teacher education,” the news release reads, and the college’s education program is shifting to focus more heavily on serving urban public schools and placing teacher candidates in schools with significant multi-lingual learner and special education populations.

But Bromberg said parents love the Henry Barnard School’s education model that provides students with individual attention and feel their children are being punished for Rhode Island College’s decision.

“As parents we believed in Henry Barnard’s mission, in its curriculum, in its teachers and in placing our kids into a laboratory school that helped educate future RI teachers,” Bromberg said in a statement. “After being left rowing toward a waterfall the administration could see, but would not share with us, the families decided to get together and attempt to save this school. We are taking steps as we speak to reinvent Henry Barnard and keep it operating for children in RI for the next 120 years.”

State Senate President Dominick Ruggerio issued a statement Thursday night saying that he would appeal to Gov. Gina Raimondo and House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello to see what could be done at the state level to salvage the school.

"I am extremely disappointed in the decision of RIC President Frank Sanchez to close Henry Barnard School,“ his statement says. ”This will certainly have a negative impact on students and their parents as they head into what's sure to be an already difficult school year.“

Bromberg said parents are organizing to turn Henry Barnard into an independent school and continue the education model without the oversight of Rhode Island College.

“It would be a true shame if we in RI allow this important tradition and critical option in our educational system to dissolve,” his statement says. “These engaged family members will try like heck to not allow that to happen.”