“WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?”

"WHERE ARE THE PARENTS? “ ”

A Conversation with Providence parent organizer Ramona Santos Torres

Low-income parents and parents of color have long been denied a seat at the table in decision-making processes across Rhode Island, despite their children being failed disproportionately by the state’s schools. The barriers faced by marginalized groups in school districts like Providence are well-documented; the now-infamous Johns Hopkins report, released in 2019, illustrates an unequal school system that subjects its most vulnerable students to decaying buildings, demoralized school culture, and low learning expectations. Two years before, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released a report showing that Rhode Island was the worst state in the country to raise Latino children, based on an index that tracks indicators for child development in and outside of the classroom.

Ramona Santos Torres, community organizer and mother to two children enrolled in Providence public schools, tells me she was not surprised by the Foundation’s report when it was released; she and other Latino parents had been living the experience that the data detail for years. But the channels for parents to address these conditions with the district were virtually nonexistent, particularly for families who had neither the time nor resources to navigate the city’s convoluted bureaucratic structure.

It was in the wake of this damning report that Ramona and her co-founders decided to create something new: a space that placed parents at the center of the fight for better schools—where their voices were not just heard, but amplified and acted upon.

Since its creation in 2018, Parents Leading for Educational Equity (PLEE) has done that and more. The organization works with parents in marginalized communities across Rhode Island such as Providence, Central Falls, and Pawtucket to identify barriers to learning in their children’s schools and harness collective power to initiate change. This year, parent organizers who graduated from PLEE’s Advocacy 101 training—a five-week long program designed to empower parents with organizing tools and knowledge of the district’s power structures—voted on the issue they wanted to center their advocacy work around: student mental health. Recovering from a pandemic that not only provoked unprecedented emotional challenges for learners, but also illuminated existing injustices in the distribution and quality of mental health resources, it is a fight that is at once deeply personal and systemically rooted.

It is not easy work. In nearly all of my conversations with Ramona and other parent organizers, there is a grieving acknowledgement that the change they’re fighting for may not come soon enough to improve their own children’s experience in the district. Nearly five years have passed since Ramona co-founded PLEE, and her own daughter is about to graduate from high school. But the parents at PLEE see themselves as a part of something bigger: a sustained, community-based effort to democratize district decision-making processes and build a more equitable school system in the decades to come.

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The College Hill Independent: I want to start by learning a bit more about how you began your work as an organizer and how you ended up founding PLEE. Why did you do it? What need were you seeking to fill?

Ramona Santos Torres: I am a parent of two, and my youngest daughter is a young person with disabilities. It first started with my own advocacy as a parent trying to get her the services she needed in Providence, but then I realized that my case [navigating the district]— egregious as it was—was not unique. Other parents had it 10 times worse than I did. That’s what motivated me to go to school for social work and start studying the system in a different way and to understand why this was happening. Then, as I started to serve on boring commissions and attend these meetings where decisions were being made, I was like, “I am the only person of color here! What’s going on? Where are the parents? Why aren’t parents present in these spaces?”

Based on our experiences as parents and, for my co-founders, as alumni from these districts, we decided that we needed a space for parents— especially parents of color—to come together, to learn together, to cry together, to advocate together. And that’s why PLEE was born. We knew in that moment that we needed to create that space.

The Indy: You and some of your fellow parent advocates have launched a campaign seeking to bolster mental health resources in schools. How did this group of parents decide upon this specific issue among all others in the Providence Public School District (PPSD)? And what are the main priorities of your campaign?

ST: Towards the end of our Advocacy 101 training, there was an agreement that we needed to get to work. What comes next? What are we going to work on after we complete this learning opportunity? There were a lot of discussions about curriculum, about school buildings, about after school programs. We took a vote. And I think at that moment, everyone was struggling with the pandemic. So that was the push that people had—that we needed to work in mental health because we were struggling, and we saw our kids struggling. We knew the school staff was struggling. Mental health was the issue that was decided on, because if we are not well—if the people in our schools and in our communities are not well—nothing else in the system is going to function well.

The Indy: I would love to hear more about collaboration within your mental health campaign. Providence Student Union has been doing a lot of work with their Counselors Not Cops campaign, working to shift district resources away from policing in schools in the form of “Student Resource Officers” (SROs), and towards mental health supports. Are you planning on partnering with them? How do you generally think about partnerships within your work?

ST: We are in full support of their campaign. We have testified in the state house against SRO bills and we have been fully on board with participating in meetings with leadership to push them to remove SROs from our schools and increase mental health support. We are unequivocally against police in our schools. And we’ve always worked closely with youth organizations—we have done a bunch of statements with them. I hope we can do more work in the future, too, to try to create spaces where intergenerational building can happen. That’s my hope for the future.

The Indy: It seems like coalition-building is a huge part of this work.

ST: It’s huge. And we need to do more of that in Providence, but I think that Providence is dominated by political conversations. I’ve been thinking a lot about what we’re going to do with this problem that we have here in Providence, and I don’t have an answer. I don’t know.

ST: The bureaucracy that we have here in Providence is so profound. That is one of our biggest barriers really. There is no clear set of roles and responsibilities for any of these entities. I think that we have an issue of selective accountability. We want to hold certain pieces of the system accountable, and not others.

I would like to participate in a process where every single one of these entities is held accountable. We have the Department of Education, we have the district, we have the teacher unions, we have politicians, we have the bureaucracy. We have all of these systems, but we only focus on the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and PPSD. And that’s a major barrier, because we are not having substantial conversations about the real challenges we face. Every single one of those systems was complicit in why we are here in a state takeover today. Everybody should own it. But just a few people want to own their responsibility.

The Indy: In the vein of accountability, I want to talk about the state takeover. In 2019, following the release of the Johns Hopkins Report, R.I. Education Commissioner Angélica InfanteGreen announced that the state would take control of PPSD until 2024, though it was recently extended until 2027. How have new power dynamics and bureaucratic structures brought on by the takeover affected parent organizing efforts and representation?

ST: The state intervention has definitely sparked a lot of parent involvement. Youth organizations existed way before PLEE started—they have history and roots in Providence. But there was this missing space for parents to be organized—especially parents of color. We saw this opportunity to grow, to get funding, to do our work, because people recognized that we had a role that needed to be filled, particularly during a state intervention, when we need parents to be at the table and to be participants.

I remember at the beginning of the takeover there was a lot of momentum. Community forums happened and people were coming to share their experiences. There was very, very good work done there. The Turnaround Action Plan, [which lays out the specific steps and goals of the takeover], was released; whether people like the turnaround plan or not, that came from the community. From there, things went downhill. The pandemic happened. The teacher contract negotiation was brutal—there were a lot of really toxic conversations happening and not a lot of transparency. That took a toll. Then we lost the governor, then all of these other things …

Still, at least for parents, we have gotten an opportunity to learn a lot about a system that we didn’t understand before. This opened up a space and the resources needed for us to gather and learn. And what that will lead to is more parents showing up to these spaces—to demand, to articulate, to call out, to call in. So the takeover is what opened the door for an organization like PLEE to be alive today.

The Indy: So you feel like, in a way, the takeover helped because it mobilized parents in a way that just hadn’t happened before?

ST: 100 percent. When the takeover happened, I said, “I’m not gonna get sidelined. I’m gonna be in this.” A lot of us were hesitant about the takeover—but this is where I need people to talk to the people on the ground and listen to what it was like before the takeover. People were tired. We said, you know what? Whatever. Let’s just try this thing and see where it leads us, because everything else is so broken. We were out of options in this community.

The takeover made it possible for people to get on the ground to do this work that I don’t think people were going to do otherwise if the [existing power structures] would continue. provides this opportunity for change—but that change really needs to happen. Can you speak to that?

ST: My biggest worry is that we are headed into the end of the takeover in the next two years, but these entities that had control before the takeover remain the same. And we don’t talk about that. This is where the selective accountability piece comes into play. Everything is about RIDE and PPSD, but what about these other entities that are going to regain power? What have we—and when I say “we” I’m not putting this on the community—done as a collective to fix the mess that was there before? So that we can at least have something better? Because it’s not better. The city is not ready. The city council is not ready. The district obviously is not ready. So who’s ready for this?

The Indy: We have a new mayor—Brett Smiley— coming into office in just a few months. To what extent does he have power in all of this? Do you have any expectations for him?

ST: Expectations for him are big. You are going to receive the city—what are the structures that you plan to put in place to make sure that families have real and meaningful decision making power? We want to work with him to make sure that those structures are in place.

Before the takeover, parents were bounced around between the mayor, the superintendent, city council, and the school board. Parents were trying to find answers and we were getting bounced around between all of these different structures. So we still need to understand what this is going to look like when control comes back to the city so that we can effectively continue to engage with these folks.

Truthfully, the mayor doesn’t have any power in PPSD right now. The only power that he has is around school buildings because the city owns those buildings. So the upcoming mayor will come with that power, and not all the power.

The Indy: In the most recent election, voters passed a referendum that transforms the school board from a fully appointed model to a hybrid model, where some of the members will be partially elected in 2024. The model was approved to go on the ballot by the City Council in July of this year. How do you think this will affect parent organizing and local democracy?

ST: This hybrid new school board model is going to wreak havoc on the community. That was just a bad, bad, bad decision that is going to come back to haunt this community in really ugly ways. With the way the map was drawn, there is no way people without money are going to be able to run for this. I just don’t know how this is equitable—for anybody.

We know that school boards are going to be battlegrounds for white supremacists and anti-CRT folks. School boards are ground zero for the future of education in the United States— not just Providence, Rhode Island. Providence is gonna become the crown jewel for anti-CRT folks and white supremacists. This new school board model is going to open up the floor for them. We know some of those candidates have money, and they can finance good campaigns.

I am not necessarily opposed to elected school boards, but this model is just terrible. It’s just bad. It’s not equitable.

This just shows how we got into a state intervention—because of decisions being made by entities like the City Council. This was pushed down our throats, even though we— including youth organizations—said, “no, this is not a good idea.” Youth organizations have actually done tons of work doing research and talking about governance, and they proposed their own models to the City Council. They were like, “let us talk to you and show you this good model.” We were not saying we don’t want an elected school board, but we proposed a good model for it.

Nothing, Cameron. All of a sudden, we’re being alerted that the City Council is planning to do this different hybrid model they came up with. Some of us go to the hearing, some of us go to a press conference. We say, “we have a better proposal. Talk to us about a better proposal.” Oh, no. Nope. Nope. It is mind boggling. That is the perfect example of why we are here in a state takeover in the first place.

What I want to emphasize, again, is that we must be able to hold everybody accountable. That decision is going to have a huge impact on education, and that decision was not made by RIDE or PPSD. So I need us to start looking at every single entity who’s making decisions and understanding those structures so we can hold everyone accountable, because this is going to come back to bite us in a really bad way.

This is going to start in 2024, so people might think, “oh, we have two years”—but we don’t have time. We need to really get organized about who is going to run for these positions. Who are we fighting against and who are we supporting for those five elected positions? Because that’s going to be very close to when the city takes control of the district. So the school board is going to have a lot of power and influence again, and we want to make sure that the people there are the right people.

The Indy: This is really hard work, and I’d love to end by bringing some hope into this picture. What pushes you through all of this? What gives you joy in this work?

ST: That is a question that I have to ponder every day, because the last three years have been brutal on me and my health. I have lived and breathed Providence every day for the past three years. I carry a lot of trauma from Providence because I was a parent here. My child, who is going to be a senior next year, is not prepared for college. Who do I hold accountable for my child not being ready to go to college? Who’s going to respond to that—to me, as a parent—and to Rachel, who is ultimately going to have to figure things out in college?

It is hard to do this work, to carry so much trauma, but also to be hopeful about what we are doing. Understanding how long it takes to make change and why we need to continue to push.

What I’ll tell you is that every time I get together with all the parents, that is what keeps me going. There is no other space where I can be as a parent where I feel validated. Because if you’re a parent, you get it. You get the struggle, especially if you’re a parent of color and you are in the system. So the way I’m going to survive this is by continuing to build spaces where parents can come together, even if it’s only to cry. If that’s all we do, that’s good—that’s what we needed to do. And if it’s to fight and to do X, Y, and Z, that’s great, too. But that space needs to be preserved and cared for so that families come and feel safe, feel loved, feel welcome, regardless of their language, their income, or their race. You are welcome. You are loved here. Let’s talk about what’s going on and let’s find ways to change things.

It’s just getting together with families and eating a lot of food. Delicious food needs to be there, and music. That’s a huge priority for us next year: continuing to build those spaces so families come in, because we are having tough conversations. There’s a lot of pain. Families have a lot of pain. So I hope that we can continue to create these spaces to come together. That’s gonna be my way to move forward.

CAMERON LEO B’25 hopes you’ll consider donating to PLEE on their website to support their amazing work!