Editor's note: An abridged version of this commentary will be published in the Thursday, March 6 edition of the Sakonnet Times.

The decision to close Fort Barton Elementary School in my hometown of Tiverton, RI has been weighing on me. I wrote this op-ed to bring attention to the issues that are not being covered and present the history and foresight that is missing. This is an ENTIRE town issue and will have a devastating impact not just on the innocent kids, but the community as a whole – local businesses, especially those around Fort Barton, lower property value, and dismantle the unity of Tiverton. It’s heartbreaking, devastating, infuriating, and disgraceful! Fort Barton honors Tiverton’s history and is one of the reasons why Tiverton is on the map. Fort Barton was named after Colonel William Barton, who courageously led a key battle in the Revolutionary War that changed the course of history. If it was not for his bravery in capturing a British general in the middle of the night, British ruling of America would have continued longer. The Fort Barton Elementary School taught this history to students and is the only school that honored Col. Barton and all courageous soldiers who fought for America with a yearly march down the historic hill to the World War l Doughboy statue at the bottom of the hill to honor Memorial Day. Col. Barton put Tiverton on the map in the 1700s, but it was the elementary school that brought the attention in modern times and attracted families, as a 2X National Blue Ribbon School, the highest honor a school can receive. It won twice in 2014 and 2022 and in 2022 was only one of three Rhode Island schools that received this honor. To win it twice is extremely rare! The other schools in Tiverton have NEVER received this honor. According to 2025 U.S. News & World Report Rankings, Fort Barton is the #1 elementary school in Tiverton and #15 in RI primary schools out of 268 elementary schools. They are the top 20 of RI. According to RIDE, Fort Barton is almost 70% in both Math and ELA proficiency. For comparison, Walter E. Ranger Elementary School is #23 in RI elementary schools, ELA is almost 50% proficient, and Math is almost 60% proficient. Pocasset Elementary School ranks #50 in RI elementary schools, ELA is 52%, and Math is about 70%. Fort Barton, a top school, is the one they decide to close?! These statistics are also on the school districts website! It makes no sense! 

This is why local elections are so important and why it is so important to be an informed voter, elected officials on the school committee made this decision. Actually, only 3 people on the committee made the decision, while the other two were absent from the meeting.  It was held during February vacation and without informing the community of a critical vote. Why is that allowed, all should be present for a critical vote and the community should be alerted a major vote is happening! Where is the transparency and empathy of these elected officials?! Another meeting was held Thursday, February 20, where they passed to hire a consultant costing the district tens of thousands of dollars while in a 1.8 million deficit, this consultant is also a conflict of interest for the superintendent, but it is clear three members are a united front, so no matter how the other two vote their decision passes. Essentially, 3 people making decisions for the whole town with no check from state officials! Information is also not given to all members before votes, limiting their ability to make informed decisions! How is this acceptable? How is it that a few people can make such a big decision?! This needs investigating and what do officials have to say about all this?!  What is the Town Council’s stance on this vote? Some members were denied the ability to speak at the last public meeting! Again, how is that acceptable, they are members of the Town Council! What about State Representatives John G. Edwards and Michelle McGaw and Senators Walter Felag and Louis DiPalma, has anyone asked if they agree with this decision and what actions they are taking on this? Where is Rhode Island Department of Education - RIDE and Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green? What is the point of having all these other elected officials, when just a few individuals make the decision that impacts future generations and the whole town? Those who made this decision will surely be on the wrong side of history and innocent kids will suffer at the hands of these few adults who are not impacted directly by their decisions. Maybe it is time to elect the superintendent, so decisions are checked outside of the school committee?! Also, in November voters passed to now have school financial records shared with the Town Administrator and Council monthly, were the most recent records handed over and looked into before this decision? There needs to be transparency as to where the money is going?! 

When a school closes, there should be a larger conversation about why and how it got to this point, then just oh well it’s sad, when it has major implications for the community. By closing Fort Barton there are now no schools serving the entire south of the town. It is injustice to only be serving half of the town! They already closed the Nonquit Elementary School, another one of the only schools that honored local history for the Native American tribe that lived in Tiverton. In the case of Fort Barton, once they close it, they cannot use it for anything outside of educational purposes or knock it down, because they are still paying off the cost of rebuild/renovations. Also, the front of Fort Barton is historical and when they constructed the new school, they had to keep the original front that was built in 1936. So, no matter what they do with the building the front has to remain intact. How is it that some members of the school committee were the ones pushing for new elementary school buildings and now they want to close Fort Barton, which they approved to be rebuilt?! Since Fort Barton still has to be used for educational purposes, they are planning to have other programs there, however that will still cost money in addition to keeping the building running and maintained. Further, it will cost the district money to reorganize the students amongst the remaining schools. I don’t see how that will help the deficit, which they claim was the reason for the closure, but they are laying off teachers either way. Again, this makes no sense, you close a school that can’t be used for anything else but education, so you might as well keep it open until it’s paid off and then reassess the situation. Those making this decision said they are closing Fort Barton because of enrollment decline and deficit for the whole district, yet you close the top school - the ONLY school in town to earn two National Blue Ribbons?!  They also say it’s because of location, but the location is what allows kids to thrive! The school committee even says it’s “just a building,” but that is wrong, it is the teachers and students that make a building and the learning environment that was created at Fort Barton can’t be replicated. Once you dismantle that award winning foundation that is a 2X National Blue Ribbon School you lose the gold standard in Tiverton education!

Here is what is going to happen with the closure of Fort Barton, first they are seriously considering moving the 4th graders to the middle school and isolating special education students. This will cause major issues and is unheard of to put 4th graders in a middle school, who should not be mixed with upperclassmen and also will not be good for special ed students who need to be integrated with other students. RIDE what are your thoughts on this? Would you even approve this reorganization? The other issue with moving students to the middle school is the building is already maxed out with 5th-8th graders and the school has never been updated or renovated like all three elementary schools. The school was built in the 1970s and there have been no major updates in almost 50 years, and they expect to cram students into an old building?! It’s awful that kids will be crammed into the remaining schools, especially with all the new families moving into town with the new housing construction in the community.  This will result in the student to teacher ratio being high, especially now that teachers will be laid off. Kids will not get the critical learning they need. The teachers that remain will be overworked and overwhelmed trying to serve all the student’s needs, so the curriculum will fall behind, test scores will drop and then when those students move to the middle and high school curriculum, they will be behind and again impact those test scores, some students will have to stay back, hence impacting graduation rates. The National Education Association found that when schools in either urban or rural communities close, students are forced to attend schools farther from their homes. The new distance along with the trauma of displacement affects student test scores, attendance and performance. Research shows student test scores, and grade point averages fall after the decision to close the school is made and immediately after it is closed in their new placement. Students also become less involved in after-school activities even if the number of extracurricular options expand, because of longer distance from home and the adjustment to the new school placement. This is heartbreaking and shows that the decision-makers did not take all of this into consideration. Their decision is a simplistic and destructive approach and an underhanded quick fix that will cause irreparable harm to innocent students, families, and the community.

Fort Barton’s academic excellence and National Blue Ribbons elevate the school district and impact college acceptances. Once the school closes those awards are not transferable. The district can no longer claim to be award winning when the school that earned it, is no longer! The closure of Fort Barton will impact the WHOLE school district. It is public school week, and we are going backwards. Families will pull their kids out of public and go private if they haven’t started already or move out of the town since Fort Barton will no longer be an educational option and the town population will decline. No matter what, the closure will have a negative impact. I am not even 30 and two elementary schools have closed in my lifetime and with this trajectory, we might be down to one elementary school in a few years. Also, it will be difficult to recruit teachers to the town, because who would want to work in a struggling/crumbling school district. Not to mention the remaining teachers won’t want to stay at the district and seek jobs elsewhere or retire early or on time. It will be a snowball effect of this one decision and these decision-makers who are not leaders like Col. Barton do not have the foresight to see how this will impact the future of the town. The decisions and actions of these select officials is not adding up, what is their ulterior motive if it is not the wellbeing of children and the town?!  Is the goal to run the town into the ground?! Now if the federal government decides to close the U.S. Department of Education, the people who made these decisions will oversee your child’s learning and future. Their actions must be investigated now!  People often ask me what contributed to the success of my brother Jacob and I, and a part of that was our educational foundation from Fort Barton and the outstanding teachers who made it so memorable. With the district’s restructuring of schools, it is distressing that the future generations of Tiverton will no longer get the same quality of education that was so pivotal to my brother, myself, and so many others and that students will no longer learn about Col. Barton, who is often referred to as America’s Forgotten Hero, on the actual battlefield he fought on. How many schools in Tiverton or neighboring communities can make the same historical claims?! The town’s decision-makers are erasing history by dismantling and eroding places that make Tiverton unique! Praying for my hometown to reevaluate this terrible decision and come together to save Fort Barton School. 

All my love to the Fort Barton Community! 

Cookinham, who lives in New York, NY, is a member of the Fort Barton Class of 2008.