First Chariho School Day Goes Well, With a Few Traffic Glitches

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA

August 29th 2025

RICHMOND – Chariho students went back to school on Wednesday, and they were met with changes throughout the district.

One of the of the most significant changes was at Richmond Elementary School, which welcomed 186 new students, 82 of them from the now-closed Hope Valley Elementary School.

Principal Sharon Martin said the additional vehicle traffic was an issue on the first morning.

“We had a pretty seamless start to the day,” she said. “I think our biggest challenge was getting the buses all here on time, which is to be expected the first few days, and just making sure I communicate to the families at drop-off at the West entrance,” she said. “There was a little bit of traffic issues, people turning on 138.”

Residents were complaining on Thursday on social media about the morning traffic, which, they said, had backed up into the rotary.

Reached Thursday morning, Police Chief Elwood Johnson said that with the higher traffic volume, it was imperative that people not attempt to make a left turn by crossing over Route 138 after dropping off their children. Many people tried anyway.

“I communicated with Sharon Martin yesterday regarding left hand turns,” he said. “We noticed some parents who were not familiar with the drop-off procedure. We want everybody westbound. Lefthand turns are no good. It’s too dangerous at that time of day.”

Johnson said two officers were on duty at the school on Wednesday morning, but there was only so much they could do.

“The problem is parent drop-off versus buses is just a lot more than usual. It backs up to the roundabout,” he said.

Johnson added, however, that he is confident that the traffic issues will be resolved in the coming days.

In addition to the traffic congestion in front of the school, Martin said that finding room for the new students and staff had been a challenge. Joining the school administration this year is a new Assistant Principal, Nicole Westcott.

“We literally have used every inch of space in this building to accommodate classrooms, which meant I had to put a lot of my non-classroom teachers into shared spaces,” she said.

Martin said she was grateful for the support she had received in getting the school ready for the additional students, a daunting task.

“We were exceptionally supported through the technology department, the maintenance department, my custodial staff,” she said. “My secretarial staff stepped up big time, because there was a lot of clerical work, maintenance work, tons of custodial work – a lot of moving pieces. [Director of Administration and Finance] Greg Zenion was a big help. It took everybody in the district to make this happen.”

The school is without a playground since the closure of the old playground last spring.

“Another challenge is not having a playground, so making sure that all of our students are safe and entertained and engaged at recess until that play structure is up,” Martin said.

Fundraising efforts by the PTO and the Maddie Potts Foundation have been successful, and the Rhode Island Department of Health made a grant to the playground of $25,000. The Chariho School Committee has also approved the allocation of $95,000 from the district’s capital improvement plan. The new playground is expected to open in the fall.

Pre-Kindergarten

Superintendent of Schools Gina Picard said Charlestown Elementary was welcoming the Pre-K children who would otherwise have attended Hope Valley.

“We have prepared our classrooms for our Pre-K students and made sure they are spaces are at least the same as what we had at Hope Valley,” she said.

The Main Campus

A $15 million bond, approved by voters in 2024, is funding improvements to buildings on the main Chariho campus.

“It’s boiler, it’s generators, the electrical upgrade, things like that, and the track the tennis courts,” Picard said.

Richmond School Committee member Jessica Purcell said it would be important to continue to implement the provisions of the district’s capital improvement plan.

“We want to make sure that we continue to work on that so we can do what’s best for Chariho students, staff and the community,” she said. “…The next step for that is that the architecture firm will present options for comparison at the next School Committee meeting. … “We’re really doing it with students in mind first, but also for those people that are employed in our schools and everyone in the community as well.”

That School Committee meeting will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 16.

As part of the improvements on the main campus, the auditorium at the Chariho Middle School will receive upgrades which will include the installation of additional handicapped seating, new seats, new carpeting and new aisle lighting.

The Chariho Tech building is getting a new roof, and

Chariho Tech Director Gerald Auth said some programs were expanding.

The culinary program has a new food truck, funded by the Rhode Island Department of Education.

“It was a program developed for RIDE to provide food trucks for culinary programs throughout the state,” he said. “Now we just have to get the proper certifications in place to get it running, and we’re hoping to do that this fall.”

The food truck will benefit several programs, Auth said.

“We’re really excited about the opportunity it creates for multiple programs in the school, obviously culinary being the primary program that’s going to benefit, but we have a hospitality program as well and we have other programs in the school, like electrical and welding and automotive that can all contribute to the success of this venture.”

One major change is the switch, proposed by students, from the senior portfolio to a senior project as a requirement for graduation. At Chariho Tech, students in the marine tech program built a boat last year as their project.

“Now we’re trying to re-think the way we do that,” Auth said. “We’re trying to partner with some community members, to either build a boat for them or work with one of the local marinas to do that work.”

Enrollment at Chariho Tech is strong this year, and the school is continuing to build new partnerships in the community.

Welcoming the Hope Valley Students

The first day at Richmond Elementary School seems to have been a happy one for all the students, including those who were coming from Hope Valley.

Martin said the preparations began last year, with informal orientations.

“Since last spring, we invited all of the Hope Valley kids over for a welcome day,” she said. “We had a great day. They had pen pals, they had a snack, they played an interactive game, they got to have a tour of the school from the Student Council.”

There was a second new student orientation last Friday, and  on Wednesday morning, Martin said the atmosphere was festive.

 “We were all out there with our pom poms and they all had smiling faces,” she said. “We didn’t have one crier.”