- When I placed them in the school, I led with blind faith.

I led believing that the educational system would work and only to find out that it did not.

- [Michelle] Isabel Amado says the Central Falls School District failed her seven-year-old twin sons Aiden and Tristan.

They're nonverbal and have autism.

- I just felt like with the diagnosis of autism and nonverbal, everyone knows that there's a window.

The first few years are very important.

And not providing them services, we don't know if they could have been verbal today.

- You wonder if the district plays a role in- - Plays a huge role in that failure.

- [Michelle] Amado says when she approached the district about giving her sons more speech services, she was told they already had plenty.

She went on to hire an attorney.

- As a parent, I should not have to hire an attorney to get services.

They were in a place to tell me, "Hey, Mom, these are the services that your kids need."

But when I requested more, they pushed back to give me less.

- [Michelle] Amado's experience is one of hundreds reflected in a report recently released by Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera.

It outlines what Rivera calls the systemic failures in the city's public schools since the state took control of the district in 1991.

- I don't blame the failure of our students or the outcomes, the low outcomes on anyone.

This is a systemic problem that has happened for far too long, and I feel like everybody who's coming into this district is inheriting this.

- [Michelle] 33 years ago, the city gave the state control of its schools because Central Falls could not afford them.

Governor Dan McKee alluded to this in his state of the state address in 2023.

- The state has intervened in two local school districts, one for far too long and one not quite long enough to get the job done.

- Did you feel like that statement was a call to action for you?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You know, you just can't give me the schools back.

You just can't give me the schools.

I need to have a plan in place.

And I would not be a responsible mayor for the city if I wasn't taking action.

- Rivera wants the city to take back control of the schools, but she says the city does not have the property tax revenue to afford them.

The city has a $21 million budget, and this past school year, the state gave the district more than $51 million.

What do you say to people who say, "Mayor, you want the best of both worlds.

You want the state to pay for the schools, but you want the city to have control of the schools"?

- Well, we continue to fail our kids because I know what this is gonna come down to, right, the finances of the city.

I would love to have more economic development in this community.

I would love it to increase the tax revenue.

But Central Falls is a small community.

It's very limited.

There's not a lot of space.

- [Michelle] Last year, the Central Falls School District ranked last on state standardized tests among all the districts in this state.

It's a reality Sarah Friedman is determined to change.

She is the chief of education strategy for the city.

- No teacher is writing off their kids, but I think the system as a whole, we've gotten complacent in feeling like, well, these outcomes are the only thing you can expect with the composition of this community.

And I refuse to believe that.

I have been immersed with this community.

I know these families.

I know these kids.

And I know these teachers.

- [Michelle] Friedman wrote the report which details numerous failures in the school district.

She says she spoke with some teachers who described feeling pressured not to refer students for special education services.

- I think it's resources.

It doesn't make it right though.

And so there may be practices that are in place to try to live within too small of a pie at the expense of family voice and rights.

And I think special ed is a really prime example of that, where there are a lot of families in this community who don't speak the language, who have limited educational background, who maybe come from another country and are not as familiar with the laws in the United States, and maybe they're not as likely to advocate as in a suburban community.

- [Michelle] The Central Falls School District Board of Trustees is appointed by the State Board of Education.

In 2019, the board of trustees named Stephanie Downey Toledo interim superintendent, a position that later became permanent.

The superintendent declined my request for an interview.

In a statement she said in part, "My focus will continue to be on the systemic leadership required to keep strengthening our schools and the opportunities they provide our students."

Isabel Amado says she wants other parents in Central Falls to know how important it is to advocate for your children.

She wonders what would've happened had she pulled her sons out of the district sooner.

- Just the fact that they may be verbal if they had the right resources is huge.

And part of me blames myself for not knowing that they should have been provided more.

- [Michelle] Friedman and Rivera say the city's public schools are also failing multilingual learners, which make up 52% of students in the district, and less than 5% of them pass state tests.

- You just can't put 30 kids in a classroom with a teacher who doesn't speak the language and expect her to help our students succeed, right?

Like, it's not working, and I get it.

You know, people are gonna say to me, "There's a teacher shortage."

"There's a teacher shortage."

We have to figure something out.

- [Michelle] Central Falls High School sophomore Sofia Roca Ruiz remembers what it was like moving from Colombia to Central Falls several years ago as a multilingual learner.

She says it was hard being in classrooms with teachers who did not speak Spanish.

- I feel like right now my English has improved a lot, but even though I sometimes am, like, sitting at classroom, and I'm like, "Oh my God, what does that even mean?"

Or when I'm with my friends, and they say a word, and I just have to ask them like, "What does that mean?"

and they have to explain it to me, it's like, kind of like overwhelming.

- [Michelle] Another common theme echoed in the findings is the need for more resources and staffing.

A number of teachers reported spending $4,000 to $5,000 of their own money each year on basic supplies for their classrooms.

The report goes on to say that when Friedman was visiting a preschool in Central Falls, she saw two children vomiting into garbage cans while the teacher continued teaching the 16 students on the rug in front of her.

When asked why the children were in the room, Friedman was told they had no staff to send them to, and they were waiting for a nurse to come from another building, since they share a nurse with another school.

- Especially with really little kids, like, they're sick every five minutes.

Any mom knows this, right?

Germs spread really quickly.

And so I had questions about how that decision was made, you know, staffing-wise.

- [Michelle] Rivera says there's an urgency to improve the city's seven public schools.

Central Falls is building a new high school, but enrollment is projected to fall 38 to 49% by 2035 if all planned state-approved charter seats are filled.

- If we do things right, we're getting a new high school, we start addressing these issues, I don't think parents are gonna feel the need to try to figure out where the kids are gonna go for high school, and they'll keep them here in Central Falls.

And that's what we have to do.

- [Michelle] Meanwhile, Friedman says she's exploring viable funding solutions.

She says it's unclear for many in the district who's making decisions.

- When resources are particularly scarce in the state, you see more involvement from the state in saying like, "This is the budget we need you to approve," to the board of trustees.

When resources are more abundant, they tend to step back and say like, "You can decide."

And it's really hard to know who holds the accountability and the responsibility for any given decision in a transparent way.

- Rivera says a community advisory board made up of 26 people recently began meeting to discuss the next steps and come up with a plan to go before the General Assembly early next year.

She's hopeful the city can take back control of the schools sometime next year.

Why are you confident that student outcome will be better if the schools are under local control versus state control?

- Because we understand the needs of this community.

Nobody's really paying attention.

I need people from this community who understand the needs of this community to be involved in the schools.