Education

The Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education meets this week to consider a budget request for the coming fiscal year.

The Department of Education is preparing two scenarios:  one for level-funding and one for a seven percent decrease.

This is one of just two meetings and two work sessions remaining before the board is dissolved in favor of a single Board of Education. The new board will oversee both elementary and secondary schools and Rhode Island’s three institutions of higher education.

Actress Jemima Kirke, who plays free-spirited but aloof Jessa Johansson on HBO’s breakout show “Girls,” ought to know her way around Providence. She’s a recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Kirke earned a BFA in painting from RISD in 2008. She’s also the daughter of drummer Simon Kirk, of Bad Company fame.

Some of you may know that I’ve been on maternity leave for the last three months, after the birth of my first child.

In fact, anyone listening to Rhode Island Public Radio on July 4th might have even heard a news item announcing the birth of Luna Charlotte Smick earlier that morning.

While schools around the state look for ways to increase their use of technology, some parents are paying thousands of dollars to send their children to a private school with no computers in the classroom at all.