News

State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is responding to teachers who say she has an overbearing management style and is disconnected from the rank and file.  At a meeting Monday night, more than 500 teachers demanded that Gist’s contract not be renewed when it expires next month.

Gist said she welcomes the feedback of teachers and hopes that in the years to come management and staff can avoid acrimony and focus on what’s best for students.

The Atlantic Hockey blog mentions that the University of Rhode Island is being considered by league brass to replace the University of Connecticut, which is moving its Division 1 hockey team into the Hockey East.

The Atlantic Hockey Conference is known as a stepping stone conference for colleges moving up to Division 1. Quinnipiac, for example, started in Atlantic Hockey and is now a national power that plays in the ECAC conference along with such Ivy League schools as Brown and Yale, which won the national championship a few weeks back over Quinnipiac, Yale’s New Haven neighbor.

Moderate Party founder Ken Block, who has hinted for months about a second run for governor, made it official Tuesday, unveiling a campaign Web site and an announcement:

The leader of a prominent Republican gay rights group is coming to Rhode Island Tuesday.

Gregory Angelo, director of the Log Cabin Republicans, will speak to a meeting of the Rhody Young Republicans.

Angelo says he’ll praise Rhode Island Republicans for backing same sex marriage legislation.

Former Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, who had a meteoric rise in Rhode Island politics before losing a Republican primary challenge to then-US Senator Lincoln Chafee in 2006, is headed toward a GOP run for governor in his adopted state of Colorado.

Via KDVR (h/t Kathy Gregg):

Legislation up for a vote Tuesday in the State Senate would allow school districts to shorten the school year, if they make the school day longer.

The bill says districts should be able to scrap the current requirement of 180 days as long as they have the equivalent number of hours. Assuming the school day lasts six hours, that works out to 1,080 hours.

The full State Senate is scheduled to vote Tuesday on several bills filed in the aftermath of deadly shootings at Connecticut’s Sandyhook Elementary School.

The bills would require schools to craft safety procedures in conjunction with local law enforcement and have their plans reviewed annually by the state.

Governor Lincoln Chafee’s choice to lead the state Economic Development Corporation faces approval by the full state Senate committee Tuesday.  The votes comes amid debate over the EDC’s future.

Chafee’s choice, Marcel Valois, was unanimously approved by a Senate committee last week. Valois led the EDC in the 1990s during Lincoln Almond’s tenure as governor. He says Rhode Island needs to do a better job of helping business when it can and getting out of the way when it can’t.

The Rhode Island Dept. of Health estimates nearly 11,000 Rhode Islanders are infected with the Hepatitis C virus but don’t know it. That’s why the department is encouraging testing.

A handful of open government groups are urging Gov. Lincoln Chafee to block legislation that would shroud school safety plans in secrecy.