Jason Desrosiers: Turn on the Heat

Letter To The Editor:

To paraphrase the still popular Frozen

The snow glows white on the school today

No maintenance to be seen

A school with no H.V.A.C.,

And it looks like we’re just keen.

I’m writing this on 1/5/16, the day that winter really hit the region for the first time. Frigid temperatures with a low of 9 degrees and a high of 23. And in East Providence we have a tradition as tried and true as snowmen and snow-angels when winter hits, and that is the ‘school without heat’. I know this Townie tradition has been around at-least since I’ve been in school. When I was a child it was a regular tradition at Riverside Junior High School (now Riverside Middle School). Now as much as us Townies love tradition, it has come to this writer’s attention that it may not be conducive to learning and student health to have them shivering with their coats on in frigid temperatures. Of course, there’s always those who take a tradition too far and cause school to be dismissed because of how cold the school was, that obviously disrupts learning.

So it is with a heavy heart that I must call for an end of the ‘no-heat’ tradition. But as much as our School Committee wants to put an end to this disruptive practice by performing maintenance and renovation on our aging schools, they need funding from our city leadership. It is time for the City Manager and City Council to fund the emergency maintenance, repair and renovation of our school infrastructure. Our School Committee and it’s maintenance team has done all that they can with the limited funds provided, but now it is time for our city leaders to pitch in with more resources. We have over four million dollars reserved for capital projects and over thirteen million dollars in our rainy day fund. Well guess what City Council, that rain has turned to ice in our schools and we can no longer tolerate the lack of care put in to these facilities.

It is time for the City Council to ‘let it go’ and take some of that fund to perform necessary repairs, as well as look at bonding and other options for longer-term facility improvements/replacements. It is not time for political entrenchment at the expense of our children.

Let it go, let it go

Can't hold funds back anymore

Let it go, let it go

Fix the heat and fix the door!

Jason Desrosiers

Riverside, RI