Smart News in East Side Education

A Classical High School Senior Takes Second in National Competition
Kudos to East Side resident Joseph Zurier, named the second-place winner of the 2014 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, the nation’s premier research competition for high school students. A senior at Classical High School, Joseph was awarded a $50,000 college scholarship for his project, “Generalizations of the Joints Problem.”

This open problem involved counting the number of intersections of lines and planes in space, improving on previous results. Demonstrating that, in a mathematically precise sense, a certain number of lines cannot create too many joints, Joseph’s findings have implications for digital image processing both in general computer science and medical imaging. At Classical, J seph leads the math team, is on the varsity tennis team and is looking forward to college next year.

New French Programs Available at FASRI
Under the leadership of newly installed head of school Jean-Yves Carpanèse, the French-American School of Rhode Island (FASRI), located on John Street, has announced three new programs that will start in the fall of 2015. FASRI will offer a Late Immersion Program for non French-speaking students entering first through fifth grades, an International Program for middle school students with no prior knowledge of French and an Italian Immersion Program for children entering preschool through kindergarten.

• In the past, FASRI accepted non French-speaking students only through the kindergarten level. The Late Immersion Program will offer dual-language learning to students in first through fifth grades, expanding access to language learning to area families.
• The FASRI Middle School’s International Program will offer intensive language instruction to students entering the sixth through the eighth grade with no prior knowledge of French. They will attend regular FASRI classes for English, math and science, and will take an intensive French class taught by a specialist in teaching French at the middle school level.
• FASRI will also offer an Italian Immersion Program for preschool through kindergarten students. Students enrolling in this program will be exposed to French.

A Pilot Preschool Starts its Two-Year Run
Ready For K!, a school readiness project created by Providence Community Library (PCL) and collaborative partners that addresses urgent preschool education needs in Providence, is set to become a permanent program after it completes its pilot two-year run in 2015. A collaborative effort of PCL, Ready to Learn Providence, RI Family Literacy Initiative and the Providence Public School District (PPSD), Ready For K! has been funded by a $250,000 grant awarded in 2013 by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

PCL will expand the number of li- brary locations offering Ready For K! from four to six early next year with remaining branches joining in the fu- ture. Ready For K! will offer three sessions of nine-week courses in January, April and September 2015. Children aged three-and-a-half to five years may enroll in the program with parent or caregiver. New children’s spaces at all locations will ensure that PCL’s youngest patrons enjoy a safe, well-equipped learning environment at all times. PCL also has created special learning kits with bilingual books for families to borrow and purchase age-appropriate toys for each library. Plus, much of the program’s specially trained staff are bilingual in Spanish and English.

Families may register for Ready For K! at PPSD’s registration office and participating PCL locations, which include Knight Memorial Library, Mount Pleasant Library, Olneyville Library, Smith Hill Library, South Providence Library and Washington Park Library. For more information about the Ready for K! program, please contact Cheryl Space, Youth Services Coordinator at 401-467-2700 x1616 or visit www.provcomlib.org.