For the past year, I have chaired the Providence Recreation Advisory Council. I have witnessed the positive impact the Recreation Department has on the lives of thousands of children every week on an incredibly meager annual budget of $3.5 million. Programming includes after-school enrichment, sports leagues and activities, homework labs, and a variety of other offerings that complement the work done in the classroom. These programs are essential to providing Providence youth with much-needed out-of-school experiences, and many city residents rely on them as an outlet for their children.

Should the city be forced to respond to the demands of RIDE – and now the courts – by making budget cuts for other departments, I fear the implications on essential municipal services such as recreation.

RIDE and Providence Public Schools have a duty to Providence residents to account for how these dollars would be spent.

I also served on Mount Pleasant High School’s community advisory board for its curriculum redesign over the past several years. This experience gave me a unique perspective on the inner workings of Providence Public Schools and RIDE. What I’ve found is that while more money can always be used to upgrade facilities, funded primarily through bond financing, money is generally not the solution needed to change the culture school. This type of desperately needed district-wide change must come through leadership and accountability – something that RIDE and PPSD have been slow to provide to leaders at the school level.

Do our students deserve more from our city and state when it comes to their education? Yes, it certainly does. Is more money the solution? My experiences tell me that this is not the case, and that there needs to be some soul-searching – from our leaders in RIDE, the city’s public schools, and now the courts – about what is really needed to redress our school system.

Imposing unaffordable demands on the city that will force it to make drastic budget cuts to other vital services is not the solution.

Tony Simon is chair of the Providence Recreation Advisory Council, a member of the Mount Pleasant High School Community Advisory Council and former chief of staff for the city.