Community speakers press East Providence School Committee to approve student health surveys; committee approves YRBS

Community members who survived or witnessed a 1988 school shooting and local prevention advocates urged the East Providence School Committee on Thursday to expand anti-bullying programming and approve two student health surveys that committee members and advocates said are important for funding and prevention work.

Steven Bernard, a survivor who identified himself as the student wounded in the 1988 Bristol school shooting and the founder of a program he called Project Change, said he created a curriculum called "silence hurts" to teach conflict-resolution and bullying-prevention skills in schools. "I developed a program called silence hurts," Bernard said, adding he offers assemblies and classroom work for middle- and high-school students.

Renee Ignacio, who said she was in the school lunchroom the day Bernard was shot, described witnessing the incident and said it shaped her devotion to students' safety on buses and at school. "Our bullying just doesn't start or stop in our schools. It starts at our bus stops. It happens on our buses," Ignacio said.

Madeline Marlowe, representing the East Providence Prevention Coalition, urged the committee to approve the Rhode Island Student Survey (RISC) and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). "Student health surveys play a significant role in shaping prevention efforts that directly impact East Providence youth," Marlowe said, outlining how survey data supports grant applications, program design, evaluation and student-led prevention work.

Marlowe told the committee that the RISC is administered every other year by the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals and said the YRBS is administered in alternating years and includes a randomly selected set of Rhode Island middle and high schools. She said both surveys are voluntary and anonymous and that aggregated results are used for district- and state-level planning. Marlowe said participation helps the East Providence Prevention Coalition meet evaluation requirements for its Drug-Free Communities grant and supports local prevention programming.

After public comment and brief committee discussion, a committee member moved to approve administration of the YRBS to middle- and high-school students in the district; another committee member seconded the motion. A committee member voiced a single dissenting vote; the chair declared the motion approved.

Why it matters: Local advocates said the two surveys provide the evidence needed to apply for grants and to design and evaluate prevention programs, and survivors urged more direct classroom and assembly programming to address bullying and conflict resolution.

The committee did not set an implementation timetable during the meeting. Marlowe said the RISC would be administered in the fall and the YRBS in spring 2026 if approved and scheduled by the district.

Looking ahead: Speakers asked committee members to consider allowing further presentations about Project Change and to maintain anonymity safeguards for survey administration.