3/18 Curated News

On February 24, 2026 Janine L. Weisman, reporter and editor for the Rhode Island Current, investigated the recent Rhode Island Supreme Court decision. The decision was in favor of Cumberland and Newport over educating certain youth in custody of the state’s child welfare agency in the residential treatment programs that have an impact on the school districts within the state. The court’s ruling on February 3, 2026, was a 3-1 decision and ended a seven-year dispute between the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), and the Department of Education (RIDE). The issue at hand was the interpretation of a state law amended 25 years ago that governed the financial responsibility of school districts for children who are placed in foster care, group homes, or other residential facilities where special education services are not being provided. In the early 2000’s, the law required cities and towns to cover the cost per student for general or special education. The General Assembly’s language regarding education included both general education students and special education students in the definition. 

However, in 2001, the Assembly discarded the language about general education due to its lower cost in comparison with special education. The law states that since then, a municipality “ determined to be responsible to DCYF for a per-pupil special education cost…shall pay its share of the cost of educational services to DCYF or to the facility providing educational services.” Also, Justice Erin Lynch Prata stated that if the General Assembly intended the municipalities to pay their share of general education costs for children in residential facilities, then the statute would have been drafted to do so. The majority vote following Lynch Prata was Justices Maureen McKenna Goldberg and William P. Robinson III. Dissension from Chief Justice Paul Suttell, and refusal to participate from Justice Melissa Long. A statement from Tom DiPaola, the executive director of the Rhode Island School Superintendents Association, included that the practice of charging municipalities for schooling costs of the youth in the state for services they did not actually receive has been featured for a long time. “ People were happy to see that it was challenged,” DiPaola said, “and we believe it was correctly decided.” 

Newport and Cumberland had filed separate challenges against the state in Superior Court back in 2019, and in 2020, they were consolidated into one case. The Cumberland case that was referred to as M. Doe, who was placed in a therapeutic residential school in Swansea, Massachusetts, known as Meadowridge Academy. DCYF served the officials of Cumberland, holding the town responsible for the educational services provided to the student at the special education rate for a total of $15, 752. Cumberland refused to pay, so DCYF moved forward in February of 2019 to petition RIDE commissioner Angélica Infante-Green for a ruling that was later ruled in favor of DCYF. Cumberland appealed the decision to the Council of Elementary and Secondary Education, which later upheld the commissioner’s decision in December of 2019. The Newport Case was brought in the Spring of 2018, where a teen identified in records as A.Doe was placed at Harmony Hill School, a residential facility in Glocester. Newport had paid Harmony Hill directly at the general education rate of $49 per day instead of the daily education instead of the special education rate that was $130 in 2018, then in 2019 rate was $114. The total in this case for education was $12,446 at the general education rate, instead of being $30,454, at the special education rate. 

Legislatures 

In January of 2019, DCYF petitioned RIDE to order Newport to give reimbursement for the difference between the higher special education rate and the general education rate. Infante-Green ruled in favor again with DCYF and Newport Schooling also appealed to the education council, but was denied. Superior Court Justice Netti Vogel ruled that the two municipalities were responsible for the general education costs of each of the students. DCYF later petitioned for a review of the decision, and the court ruled in 2024 that the state law did not require reimbursement to DCYF at the special education rate where there were no special services provided. In terms of whether to apply the rate for the general education services, the Supreme Court’s majority ruled not in favor. Attorney Stephen Adams for the Cumberland School Committee and William J. Conley Jr., legal counsel for the Newport School Committee and former Democratic State Senator for East Providence, both agreed that it was a complete win for the district. Although, Professor of Law Peter Margulies at Roger Williams University states the court upheld the basic principles of statutory interpretation that impacts every city and town in Rhode Island. Margulies also stated that the legislature knows what it’s doing, and if a term is left out but in another place it is there, know that it is intentional. 

The legislature is the only resource available to both DCYF and RIDE to go back to. Suttle wrote the lone dissent that the law must be broken and interpreted into two parts: the city or the town that is determined to be responsible for a per-pupil special-education cost to DCYF, and then pay its share of the cost of educational services to DCYF or to the facility providing such services. As of the middle of February 2026, 131 children and youth in DCYF care were receiving educational services in a residential educational setting where a school district was responsible for paying DCYF for the cost of those services, including special education. The decision on which youth are treated in a residential facility that provides services is based on a holistic assessment focusing on the youth’s needs and clinical determination of the most appropriate care for that individual in an environment that is the least restrictive, which includes behavioral health, social, educational and clinical services in an integrated setting.

See more at RhodeIslandcurrent

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article314232620.html

Incarceration to Creation: A formerly incarcerated Man’s dream to Establish A Recidivism Reduction Campus

On February 7th, 2026, Breaking News reporter Twumasi Duah-Mensah covered the story of Kerwin Pittman and his purchase of the Wayne Correctional Facility in Goldsboro, North Carolina. The correctional facility, which had been abandoned for several years, was beginning to decay, being reclaimed by time. However, these empty halls and courtyards evoked an emotional response for Pittman, who had spent 11 ½ years incarcerated at Orange Correctional Center in Hillsborough. Where others saw a rotting building, Pittman saw people moving around and families visiting loved ones. Pittman currently serves as the executive director of the nonprofit Recidivism Reduction Educational Programs Services (RREPS), aiding both those in the prison system and those coming out of it. In October of 2025, Pittman closed on the sale of the former correctional facility for a total of $275,000. According to the RREPS team, Pittman is the first known formally incarcerated man ever to own a prison in the United States. North Carolina’s state council approved the sale in November of 2025. The Wayne Correctional was originally owned by the Cherry Hospital Campus back in the 70s, until the state Department of Health and Human Services transferred the building to the Department of Adult Correction in 1978. The building became a medium security prison that was able to hold around 400 inmates until its closure in 2013. Kerwin Pittman now has a new vision for building. He plans to turn it into a “Recidivism Reduction Campus”. A place where people recently released from prison can live, receive job training, digital literacy courses, and trauma-informed care. 

Normally, when older prisons become outdated in NC, the facilities are transferred between different state departments, often falling into the hands of the Department of Transportation. Pittman’s team discovered some abandoned prisons in the area had been turned into apartments and other company properties, including one that had been transformed into a whiskey distillery. According to Pittman, it had always been his dream to turn a prison into a place of rehabilitation and support after his own period of incarceration. Pittman proclaimed, “One of the recurring things that people say when they are in prison is ‘what if we can have a prisoner transform this into something that wasn’t a prison?” Former correctional officer Mario Davis, who had worked as an officer at the Orange Correctional Center during Pittman’s sentence, even voiced his support reaffirming that Pittman was a serious and committed activist. Pittman had worked a number of jobs under Davis in the Orange Correctional Center, determined to start his dream once out. Kerwin Pittman had been charged and incarcerated for conspiracy to commit murder back in 2007 at the age of 19. By the time he was released in 2018, Pittman was in his thirties. In just 11 years, the technological landscape has changed a vast amount. Pittman stated he had to learn how to work a smartphone, learn to tap cards on payment devices, and make a number of other changes that he had not experienced. 

Despite these challenges, Pittman had housing, a major need that those coming out of the prison system desperately need. According to the article, “A 2024 reentry housing assessment by the N.C. The Joint Reentry Council found that 28% of the nearly 20,000 people who left North Carolina’s prisons that year were homeless.” This lack of housing is exactly what Pittman’s Recidivism Reduction Campus will provide. Pittman stated, “We know when individuals have shelter, and they have great programming, they are more likely to thrive.” The campus will provide two different tracks: vocational and workforce training, which will provide residents with the skills necessary to acquire jobs after course completion. Pittman has made it a point to place residents in job training programs that will pay them a livable wage, something he struggled with upon release. The campus will also provide residents with behavioral health specialists and peer support programs. However, the prison is in dire need of renovation, so Pittman’s campus open date is yet to be established. Before the Recidivism Reduction Campus’s open date, Pittman hopes to raise around $10 million to help with the renovation costs. What once seemed like a far-out dream will finally take center stage thanks to Pittman’s determination and leadership. 

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article314232620.html#storylink=cpy