Archive - Mar 14, 2012 - News Article
WOONSOCKET — If members of the School Committee wanted to rile up city residents about the worth of local education with a threat to end the current school year on April 5, they achieved that many times over Wednesday night.
More than 800 people filled the Hamlet Middle School cafeteria and a spill over room in the school gym to object strongly to that plan.
And when the matter came to a vote two-and-half-hours later, the plan was dropped like the bad egg the speakers had made it out to be.
WOONSOCKET – An unidentified city woman was injured when a fire broke out in the kitchen of her 50 Jackson St. apartment building just before 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Deputy Fire Chief Paul Russell said the woman suffered minor burns and was transported to the hospital by rescue for treatment.
A teenager living in the apartment building also suffered an ankle injury escaping the fire and Russell said a city firefighter was injured in the effort to knock down the blaze.
“It was a kitchen fire on second floor with extension of the fire into the third floor,” Russell said at the scene.
WOONSOCKET – Jim Walker is neatly dressed, well-groomed and articulate. He's also homeless.
The 51-year-old Bellingham native says he got that way after he was laid off from his job as a car salesman and his unemployment benefits ran out.
PROVIDENCE – No matter how the Woonsocket School Committee votes tonight, state officials say they are not going to allow the city to end its school year in April.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee called that idea “a non-starter,” adding that it is “just inconceivable” that the last two and a half months of the school year could get lopped off the education calendar.
Several officials pointed to a provision in state law saying that the commissioner of education would have to give the school department a waiver from the requirement that schools be in session 180 days a school year.
