The Met School educators move to unionize

Educators at The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, better known as The Met School, have voted to unionize with the National Education Association Rhode Island (NEARI).

The Met is a state-funded public school district with a focus on individualized, project-based learning. Across two campuses in Providence and one in Newport, there are 83 educators in total. 

The vote tally for the unionization effort was 46-36, with 82 of 83 eligible voters casting ballots. Stephanie Mandeville, a spokesperson for NEARI, wrote in an email Monday that the vote can become official after five business days, unless the employer files an objection during that timeframe. Otherwise, the aspiring union members can file their first request to bargain a contract after five days, Mandeville said. 

The Met School acknowledged a request for comment Monday, but did not provide comment at the time. 

In the 2023-2024 school year, there were 793 students at The Met School, according to state education department data. Since opening in 1996, The Met School has used what its website labels a “one student at a time” approach, employing learning plans tailored to individual students and crafted in collaboration with youth and their families. 

The Met’s model avoids traditional classroom settings and grading metrics in favor of real-world experiences like internships led by students’ own interests. The school has partnered with over 4,000 local businesses and organizations to supply students with real-world experience, according to its website. 

Advisers form the nucleus of The Met experience, guiding students through their four years of high school. Advisers are typically responsible for groups of about 16 students. Adviser Siobhan O’Malley, who has eight years of experience teaching in Providence, offered a statement on the unionization vote Friday.  

“Met educators are deeply committed to our students, families, and the future of public education. For 30 years, we’ve provided a phenomenal education — one student at a time,” O’Malley wrote. “Now, we’ve organized to ensure that The Met continues to thrive, with smaller class sizes, greater transparency, and a real voice in shaping the future of our school.” 

State data showed that, in the 2023-2024 school year, The Met outperformed state averages in several measures, including postsecondary enrollment. A little over 96% of The Met students graduated in four years, compared to 84.1% of Rhode Island high schoolers statewide. 

The Met School is more demographically diverse than other districts, with significantly higher populations of Hispanic students and economically disadvantaged students compared to statewide averages. A 2.8% dropout rate at The Met is also lower than the state average of 7.9%.

The Met slightly outpaces the state average on proficiency in English Language arts, but trails when it comes to math and science. In the 2023-2024 data, 58.1% of Met students did not meet math proficiency standards, compared to 27.1% of students statewide.

The Providence Met was the first school in the Big Picture Learning network — a collection of over 270 schools globally that pursue the same nontraditional learning model. A Rhode Island state referendum in 1994 for a new kind of high school encouraged the school’s founders to model a new, more personalized approach for learning. By 2003, Rhode Island’s Board of Education started to incorporate some of The Met’s tenets — like advisers and senior exhibitions — into statewide graduation requirements for traditional public schools. 

The Met teachers’ unionization push follows a spate of recent unionizing efforts by educators at non-traditional schools. Teachers at all three grade levels of Paul Cuffee School, a Providence charter, unionized one-by-one in the past year. Highlander Charter School in Providence unionized in August 2024.  

This article was updated with the vote tally.