- [Michelle] Tonight, why more and more families in Rhode Island are homeschooling.

- I see that they get so much more of a benefit being home than if they were in a public school.

- [Pamela] Then meet the state's new poet laureate.

- My first poetry book came out when I was in my 50s.

- And that's surprising.

- It is surprising, and it's completely not recommended.

(laughing) - [Michelle] And we take a look at the outlook for the upcoming state budget, the big decisions ahead with Ted Nesi.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Good evening, and welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

As the school year winds down, many parents are considering their options for the next academic year.

- There's one choice that's become increasingly common, homeschooling.

Census data shows the pandemic sparked a nationwide rise in homeschoolers, and we found hundreds of families in Rhode Island turned that Covid experiment into a way of life.

- People's eyes have been opened to what is possible, how learning can be done differently.

"During the spring and summer months, Adam also loved to dig in the dirt."

- [Michelle] Janet Kasenga's living room functions more like a classroom.

- 15!

- There you go.

- [Michelle] Her 6-year-old daughter Lucy practices her multiples of five here as she hops onto the right answer.

- An adjective.

- [Michelle] It's also where Kasenga's 9-year-old son James learns the different parts of speech through a game of "Mad Libs."

- And their feathers great for making Legos.

He's really into "Minecraft."

So he is got "Minecraft Mad Libs," and it asks you, you know, put down a noun, an adjective, and a verb.

And at the beginning he struggled with it.

But what I did is I sat on my couch and I'd look at the room and I'd say, what's that TV?

Like, describe the TV.

It's a rectangle.

It's black.

- 7 times 7.

- 49.

- Okay.

- [Michelle] By teaching her son at home in a relaxed, fun way, Kasenga says she helped him learn faster than he would've in a traditional school.

- What comes in between 10 and 20?

- 15.

- [Michelle] Kasenga began homeschooling during the pandemic.

The mother of three says the biggest appeal is getting to customize her children's curriculum.

She purchases them online.

- It can be so overwhelming of how much is available out there for curriculums that I just picked one.

- If not for the pandemic, do you think you would still be homeschooling?

- We would not be homeschooling.

I had asked my husband when my oldest was two if I could homeschool, and he said, "No."

He wanted him in school.

And then once the pandemic hit, I knew it was something that I'd always wanted to do.

But then my husband didn't have any issues with it because we didn't want him in school or at public schools with the masks.

And then we didn't want him on the computer either.

- Now, a lot of homeschoolers are moving away from something.

- [Michelle] Melissa Robb is the advocacy director for Enrich RI, the largest secular homeschooling organization in the state.

She says many parents were frustrated watching their children struggle with remote learning.

- They saw that that wasn't working and they just said, "we need something else."

- It gave people a real chance to regroup and reassess their family and have that bond that they didn't know they were missing.

- [Michelle] Robb helps families interested in homeschooling, so does Jen Curry.

She's the state coordinator for the Rhode Island Guild of Home Teachers, a Christian led support group for homeschoolers.

They say there's one main message they've heard from many parents who began educating from home after Covid hit.

- "I always wanted to homeschool.

I didn't know how," or, "I didn't take the time to figure out."

- It was the catalyst.

It was the jumpstart.

- Yeah.

- [Michelle] The number of homeschool students in Rhode Island surge during the pandemic.

It's declined since its Covid era peak, but is 67% higher than pre-pandemic.

We asked Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green about the uptick.

That's a really large increase.

What do you make of that?

- Yeah, so it's pretty aligned with the rest of the nation.

I would rather that they be in our school system, but I think parents make different kinds of choices for different reasons.

Many of the parents are now working remotely and many of them prefer the convenience, prefer the way that they teach their kids.

- [Michelle] James Dwyer, professor of law at William and Mary, has been studying home education for decades and co-authored a book on the subject.

Are you seeing a shift in why parents are choosing to homeschool?

- I think people that had strong religious convictions that would support homeschooling were already doing it pre-pandemic.

So the new people are mostly not doing it for that reason.

It's mostly that they have enjoyed the educational experience and the side benefits of greater freedom, flexibility.

You can do it while you're traveling.

- When you're done, you're gonna do this page.

It's the same thing that you did yesterday.

- [Michelle] Janet Kasenga says religion and politics did not factor into her decision to teach at home in East Greenwich.

She worries about school shootings and bullies.

She and her husband agreed that she'd teach their children while he works outside of the home.

You live in East Greenwich, which has one of the best school districts in the state.

People move here for the schools.

Why not take advantage of that?

- We did move to East Greenwich for the public schools when we thought we were gonna be putting them in public school.

I see that they get so much more of a benefit being home than if they were in a public school.

- [Michelle] But Infante-Green says there are many benefits to having kids in school that can't be replicated at home.

- Our concern because we saw this during the pandemic, is the kids socializing, right?

The kids having the interactions because school is about the academics, but it's the social-emotional piece as well.

- What did the bee do to tell the other bees where the food was?

- So it did a special dance.

- What's the biggest misconception that people have about families who homeschool?

- That we aren't social.

(laughs) - And you would say what?

- We're too social.

(laughing) - Is that Ancient Box?

- [Michelle] On this day, Kasenga's children were playing "Pokemon" with other homeschoolers.

Kasenga says many families form close relationships with one another.

It's a way for both parents and children to develop friendships.

The growth in homeschooling since the pandemic is the latest part of a long-term trend.

There are nearly 1400 more students being homeschooled in Rhode Island now than there were in 2013.

What do you think the increase in homeschooling says about the quality of public schools in Rhode Island?

- I don't know if it actually says anything related to the quality.

It's not only in Rhode Island.

It is a nationwide increase that we saw happen during the pandemic, and in many places it has not gone down.

- [Michelle] Commissioner Infante-Green says the growing group of homeschoolers is affecting funding for local school districts.

But it's hard to identify the full extent.

- Even if you lose, let's say 20 kids, that's a classroom.

But you don't usually lose them all in one class on the same grade.

You lose two here, three there.

So you feel the financial impact, but you can't actually consolidate or figure another way out to budget because it is not all in one shot.

- [Michelle] As more parents nationwide opt to educate at home, professor Dwyer wants lawmakers to tighten regulations.

He's worried about parents who have a history with Child Protective Services, or CPS.

- You would just check CPS records, and make sure this isn't a parent who's, you know, seriously CPS involved, and perhaps removing the child from school for that reason.

There's a huge downside potential in the absence of any kind of state oversight that some children are terribly dis-served by the practice.

- [Michelle] Parents don't need to have a teaching certificate to homeschool in Rhode Island.

They have to agree to provide thorough and efficient instruction.

Dwyer says that's not enough.

- Parents ought to have accomplished something academically themselves, either a high school diploma or a GED.

I think, you know, if you can't complete that minimal academic program yourself, then entrusting you completely with the education of your child is unwarranted.

- "Today's noon dinner was codfish hash."

- [Michelle] Amanda Campbell says more families are discovering what she's long loved about homeschooling.

- We refer to ourselves as secular homeschoolers.

So we don't teach from a Christian worldview.

We teach very open, all knowledge is encouraged and open to my kids.

- [Michelle] She began educating from her home in Cumberland a decade ago when her oldest daughter was five.

- I just kept looking at her and thinking like, I don't wanna put you on a bus and send you away for the whole day and miss the joy really of watching you learn.

So let's put the big one in the middle.

- [Michelle] One of Campbell's philosophies is letting her two children, 8-year-old Elowin and 15-year-old Willow lead with their interest while working to mastery.

- [Instructor] So 3 times 3 is 9.

- [Michelle] On this day, Willow needed help multiplying decimals.

- Multiplying by a tenth is the same as dividing by 10, right?

- [Michelle] So she turned on a video tutorial to get up to speed.

- This is a pretty easy one.

- [Michelle] Meanwhile, Elowin was in the kitchen practicing long multiplication - "In the hopes of finding the..." - [Michelle] Campbell's husband works full-time while she focuses on teaching her daughters.

She says people often assume only wealthy people are homeschooling.

- We have lots of friends who consciously choose to live in smaller houses, in less nice neighborhoods because they don't care about the school system so that they can live on one income so that they can homeschool.

- [Michelle] Campbell offers her daughters the option to go to a traditional school, but neither one is interested in it right now - We're different.

We're quirky.

We like to learn.

We like to do weird things.

Right now, I'm really into science and nature, specifically like biology and also in like the marine field.

So that's definitely something I've explored a lot.

- If I'm in school, I'd be stuck doing the same stuff that all the other third graders are because like it's hard to teach each, like different people to do different maths at the same time.

- [Janet] "Eggs are stored here while they're waiting to hatch."

- [Michelle] Back in East Greenwich.

Janet Kasenga also says she hasn't ruled out eventually sending her kids to public school.

- I think my husband would like them in school by sixth grade.

If it goes with that, my son will be in school in two years.

My daughter, you know, she wants to be with us.

So her opinion might change in like a year or two, but right now she says, "I don't ever want to to school.

I want to stay homeschooling."

- [Michelle] Commissioner Infante-Green says she'd like to hear from homeschooling parents who are considering their children in public school.

- If there are things that would bring them back into the system, we would love to hear it.

We would love to hear what those things are, and try to provide them as much as possible.

- He was born in Jamaica, educated in New York, and is now a major voice in Rhode Island.

Our new state poet laureate is Brown University Professor Colin Channer.

Tonight, we introduce you to him and find out what the job entails and why he says poetry is beyond words.

- As a poet, I try to always remember the roots of poetry are in song, are in ritual, are in prayer, are in magic.

- [Pamela] Rhode Island's new poet laureate, Colin Channer, believes there is a mystical connection to such words.

- When we say we're enchanted by something, there's the idea of the incantation in that.

How is it that we can listen to a song in a language that we cannot speak, yet be moved by that song?

- [Pamela] The author of two collections of poetry, Channer says verse gives power to the micro moments of life.

- We have mirrors and we have windows, right?

The mirrors are the elements of a piece of writing that make you see yourself.

And the windows are the aspects that give you a view into different worlds.

And so as a public poet in the role of the poet laureate, I'm in a position to present poetry that will do both.

- [Pamela] Channer is bringing both worlds to his role in Rhode Island.

He was born and raised in Jamaica where his mother declared he was lucky.

- I think that's part of my good fortune.

I describe myself as a weird kid with a strong mother who was influenced so much by the music of Jamaica he didn't realize he was learning the art of poetry through the lyrics of people like Bob Marley.

- [Pamela] His father, a police officer, died when he was just 12 years old.

His mother, a pharmacist, was his major influence and a storyteller.

- I would listen to her and her friends on the veranda in Kingston, Jamaica, laughing and telling stories.

She spoke her mind.

She never hesitated, you know?

She would use quite colorful language, and she would offer declare, "I am no lady."

(laughing) She would say, "I am no lady.

A lot of the ladies come to me for Valium because they can't speak their minds."

- [Pamela] Channer eventually moved to New York and became an associate professor of literary arts at Brown University in 2016 where he continues composing poetry today.

- There's some times where I feel a poem is on me, and it feels like kind of haunting where I know that I am rising a little bit out of the every day.

It's a calling and it's a practice.

- It's kind of funny when you look through and see drafts of poems because some of them are just scraps that didn't make it.

I have very different processes.

Sometimes an idea comes, sometimes a line comes, sometimes I overhear things.

- [Pamela] He is following in the footsteps of late Brown professors Michael Harper and CD Wright.

Channer is the state's seventh poet laureate, a position generated by the general assembly in 1987.

The appointment is for five years with $1000 stipend for each.

The poet laureate has free reign as a literary arts advocate in the Ocean State.

Channer reveals he wants to create something special.

- I would love to see a literary festival in the state on the scale of the Newport Jazz Festival, right?

We have some of the greatest institutions of learning in the country here in Rhode Island.

And we also have a beautiful landscape.

You know, when I go to the state beaches, I just keep thinking every boardwalk is a stage.

And imagine if there were these events down in the state beaches, right, where you could bring your blanket, right, and you could hear the world's greatest authors and the region's greatest authors and the greatest local authors right there as the sun is going down behind you, right?

It would be so marvelous.

- [Pamela] That marvelous experience is one Channer has already co-created, the Calabash Literary Festival in his native Jamaica.

- The way in which the ocean is never far in Rhode island, you know, that reminds me a lot of the Caribbean, but also, too, the way in which people here are vocal.

Rhode Islanders are not quiet people.

(laughs) - So you felt like you fit right in?

- I fit right in.

Rhode Islanders are expressive, they like food, the cultural admixture as well, you know, Portuguese, Italian, Irish, African American, right, Cambodian.

It has that kind of complex mixture, which is a presumption in the Caribbean.

So it's that twin-ness of belonging and exploration that I think are part of who I am as a poet and as a person.

- And yet you didn't start writing until you were in your 30s, which people might find unusual.

- Yeah, my first book came out I was 35.

My first poetry book came out when I was in my 50s.

- And that's surprising.

- It is.

It is surprising, and it's completely not recommended.

(laughing) But also, too, I think a kind of openness and a kind of curiosity about what's possible is something that has always driven me.

And so I was curious about what it would mean to write poetry seriously.

And I kind of did it on a lark.

- [Pamela] That spur of the moment decision has taken flight.

In his most recent collection of poems, Channer was inspired to write about Rhode Island's stormy past after viewing photos of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Carol in '54 and the hurricane of '38.

It's titled "Eye."

- "Mist and drizzles turn to buffets, then all normal snaps from roots havoc sent to ravage wave to wave.

So it was for Wampanoag, Nipmuc, Niantic, Pequot, Narragansett deluge-colonizing, gust insults, bodies shook like canoes in crosscuts, pneumonic fear, and the drowned boy's last view, the eye, what stillness.

One new God's promise.

Peace."

We often think of a hurricane as a destructive force, and it is, right?

But so was colonization.

And so I imagine in this poem, the hurricane as this force that comes from offshore onto land, the way in which colonizers came from the ocean and came on the land, right?

And what it might have been, felt like for, you know, Native Americans.

- When people read your poetry, what do you want them to come away with?

What feeling?

- It's not so much a word but a sound.

I want them to come away with some version of "Hmm..." Beyond words.

- Now, the poster poet laureate has one specific requirement.

Write a poem for the governor's inauguration.

And that occasion will be in 2026.

And now on this episode of "Weekly Insight," Michelle and WPRI 12's politics editor Ted Nesi discuss the state budget.

But first they unpack what a federal investigation exposed about the state's most vulnerable children.

- Ted, welcome back.

It's always good to see you.

Rhode Island US attorney Zachary Cunha has put the state on notice that it could face a lawsuit.

And he is making some very serious allegations.

He says that the state violated the civil rights of hundreds of children who have mental health and developmental disabilities, - Right.

These are all children in the care of DCYF, the renowned Department of Children Youth and Families, which is the state's long troubled child welfare agency.

- Cunha says that DCYF routinely left children who were admitted to Bradley Hospital for months after their treatment ended.

Let's keep in mind these children are meant to be there for one to two weeks to stabilize during an emergency.

But Cunha says the average length of stay was 51 days.

He says there were some cases where children were kept there for over a year.

And, Ted, when this news broke, it was shocking to me how many people were not surprised to hear this.

- Yeah, I mean, it is, and these are shocking allegations.

I would never want to undermine that point.

But we have been hearing about this for a long time.

Michelle, just to take an example I'm familiar with, because it was in my own newsroom.

My colleagues, Tim White and Eli Sherman, did an investigation in 2020 where they found that some of these children being kept at Bradley for long periods of time weren't even getting any education.

And it was actually a whistleblower from inside who came to us because they were concerned.

They said they aren't getting any schooling.

Tom Mooney of the Providence Journal, who's covered DCYF very closely for a number of years now, He had a front page story in the paper after Cunha spoke and said that, you know, the allegations were nothing new to people who followed DCYF and the proposed solutions are not really anything new.

So I think that just shows what a thorny problem this is.

- Cunha gave the McKee administration 10 days to respond to his letter outlining the problems at DCYF.

But, again, he's not ruling out litigation.

So right now it's unclear where we go from here.

- Yeah, Governor McKee's office, they've said they're gonna cooperate.

They're going to respond within the 10 days that Cunha has asked for.

We know that the state, they're working on the budget.

We're in kinda the final weeks of budget negotiations.

So perhaps lawmakers will try to put more money in for DCYF.

That remains to be seen.

But the question is if that will satisfy Cunha, and then, of course, will it move the needle because we've been hearing about these problems at DCYF for so long.

- Speaking of the state budget, let's turn to that now.

Governor Dan McKee submitted his $13.7 billion budget proposal back in January, but now is when state lawmakers start to make those big decisions ultimately about what gets funded and what does not.

And they recently received some good news on that front.

What was it?

- Yeah, we just got the latest financial update from the sort of number crunchers in the state budget office.

And they say Rhode Island's on track to run a budget surplus of almost $250 million.

- [Michelle] Wow.

- This fiscal year, which ends June 30th, now, a portion of that, a significant portion's already been allocated toward next year's budget, so it's not all freely available.

But around $80 million of that money is new money that hasn't been sort of spoken for yet in the governor's budget plan.

So it gives them more flexibility, though, of course, Speaker Shekarchi has said over and over and over that there's over a billion dollars of additional asks floating out there for the budget.

- Right, there are so many competing interests like requests for free lunches.

Of course, RIPTA needs more funding.

Healthcare providers are saying they need more of an investment.

What are you watching most closely?

- Well, those are all good examples.

Obviously, DCYF as we touched on earlier.

I mean, we really have no visibility into how expensive or not making the US attorney happy could be there.

The Washington Bridge, we spoke last week about the $455 million price tag now for that project.

Will they try to move any money around there?

I'm also curious what bond questions will wind up going on the ballot for voters to decide on.

So this is how the end of the budget season always is.

There's a lot of different competing interests, and we wait to see kind of what pops out from those closed door negotiations.

- Absolutely.

Thanks so much, Ted.

Appreciate it.

- Good to be here.

- Finally tonight.

We have some exciting news to share.

Our contributor, Steph Machado, received two prestigious Rhode Island Press Association Awards for her stories on school policing and early intervention.

You can see both stories on our website ripbs.org/weekly.

And read the winning stories in the Boston Globe at globe.com/ri.

Way to go, Steph.

- Great honor, and congratulations to Steph from all of us here at Rhode Island PBS.

And that's our broadcast this evening.

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)