Providence Pathway to End Gun Violence Advisory Council-10/22/2025-1:00 PM
Roll Call
The meeting was called to order, and the clerk conducted a roll call of the council members and advisory council attendees. A quorum was established with seven members present and six absent.
Discussion on the Rhode Island Safe School Act and School Safety
The council discussed potential amendments to the Rhode Island Safe School Act to address student safety during commutes to and from school. Dr. Dexter Moore from the Providence Public School Department shared his experience implementing violence prevention and intervention programs in Oakland, California.
Discussion on Gun and Ammunition Tax for CVI Funding
State Representative Jennifer Boylan joined the meeting to discuss legislative proposals for taxing firearms and ammunition to secure sustainable funding for community violence intervention. The council explored the steps needed to build a coalition, gain executive support, and draft the necessary legislation.
Discussion on CVI Funding Allocation, Police Resources, and Technology
The council debated the allocation of local funds and the coordination of resources between the police department and community-based organizations like the Nonviolence Institute. Members also discussed the use of digital intelligence, surveillance technology, and AI in proactive policing and violence prevention.
Public Comment and Adjournment
During the public comment period, a resident shared information about a recently published article on gun crime and community violence prevention in Providence. The chairperson thanked the participants and prepared to conclude the meeting.
Speaker 0
-
That's. It's. It's.
Speaker 1
-
Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for coming to today's meeting on, Pathways and Gun Violence Advisory Council. We've had a forum today, which is really exciting even though technically you aren't voting on anything. It's nice, you know, majority of us can come. We'll we'll have a conversation at the later part of the meeting.
Speaker 1
-
We'll turn to the schedule and see if if those are a challenge or close. But with that being said, can we get our roll call, please?
Speaker 2
-
Consulate Miguel Santos. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1
-
Who's that?
Speaker 3
-
I know. Sorry.
Speaker 1
-
Present. Thank you.
Speaker 2
-
Corey Jones?
Speaker 4
-
Present.
Speaker 5
-
There you go.
Speaker 2
-
Diana Donington? Present. Kathir Monica? Yeah. Allen Williams is absent.
Speaker 2
-
Detective David Perez?
Speaker 6
-
Present.
Speaker 2
-
Michael Stevens is absent. Robert Bailey?
Speaker 5
-
Present.
Speaker 2
-
Dean Montz, you have seven present, six absent. You have a phone.
Speaker 1
-
Thank you. So the first item, discussion on the Maryland Safe School Act, the suggestions, sleep strengthen policy. So it's something we've talked about in the past. It's in regards to trying to secure sustainable funding, for this type of wood. As you're all aware, a lot of funding for community violence intervention and similar programs that comes from the federal government.
Speaker 1
-
Historically, we are not seeing, a lot of action on that and under our current, president, has different priorities. So, you know, in in in that aspect of of trying to do our due diligence and and finding funds, because we obviously know, what needs to happen. We we have so many people, that are doing this type of work across the city and the city around this table. So and I mean, we could definitely hash out certain details, but without having, sustainable funding sources for this type of work, a lot of that is being done and if you wanna work on it, it's gonna be really difficult. So this is something that has happened in other parts of the country, and it has been, conversed about at the state house before.
Speaker 1
-
So I think we are gonna be joining firearm. So what's what's the next one? Wanna tell
Speaker 4
-
a little bit about it?
Speaker 0
-
Sure. So with the Rhode Island Safe School Act, I've been working on Sorry. I've been working on, policies to see what we can do to actually strengthen, some of the policies that's already intact. Because as of right now, under this act is blinphobality. Mhmm.
Speaker 0
-
So, what I'd like to see if we could work on adding is the, commute to and from school and, once again, Kennedy Plaza and, during school hours, with our youth. So that was the policies that I feel we should try to work on this treatment. So just to clarify,
Speaker 1
-
so this is an existing, state legislation, and what what you're saying or proposing is certain amendments to be added to to that. Correct. Okay.
Speaker 0
-
So that it also entails, as I said, it doesn't have the, safety of our, to and from school Mhmm. And, during school hours, and and it only actually reflects bullying.
Speaker 1
-
Yeah. I was gonna say if you could just provide, like, a super brief, like, general overview with with folks that might not be in. One of you guys Sure. Provide that for folks that might not be super familiar with the Rhode Island State School Act. So I'm not super familiar, so correct me if
Speaker 4
-
I say anything wrong. Okay. But what it looks like is that it was a statute passed by the general assembly, and then it gave some type of policy making jurisdiction through the Department of Education, where they have this seven page kind of statewide bullying policy, June 2012. And the introduction says, this statewide bullying policy is propagated pursuant to the authority set forth in sixteen twenty one thirty four of the general law of Rhode Island known as the Safe School Act. The statute recognizes that the bullying of a student creates a climate of fear and disrespect that can seriously impair the student's health and negatively affect learning.
Speaker 4
-
Bullying undermines the safe learning environment that students need to achieve their full potential. The purpose of the policy is to ensure a consistent and unified statewide approach to the prohibition of bullying at school. And then it looks like the sections are definitions, school climate, policy oversight and responsibility, information destination, reporting, investigation slash response, disciplinary action, social services slash counseling, social networking, other redress, adoption of policy. Yeah. So I think I like those additions.
Speaker 4
-
I think this is a strong piece of policy that we probably should examine, you know, through in and throughout because, you know, violence starts with bullying, you know, a lot of times.
Speaker 5
-
Right. Yep. No. Go ahead.
Speaker 3
-
I just wanna add that I'm glad that you were mentioning commuting because most recently, we've had several parents and several young people express their safety getting to and from school. We have just helped we have three young people that we are helping, but it's really just a Band Aid. So what we've done is we've given parents a gift card for an Uber, which is, like, a $100 account, so that will probably cover for two weeks of getting them back from school. One parent in particular, she can get her child to school but has major concerns getting him home. So that's just a Band Aid fix.
Speaker 3
-
Right? And we don't have the funds that we can do that for everyone. But even if we did, right, I think we have to think about the fact that we are also now putting Uber drivers Right. At risk as well. You know?
Speaker 3
-
So I don't know the solution, but I just wanted to share that we've been getting a lot of calls in regards to safety with commuting. Mostly commuting home is a is a big safety concern.
Speaker 1
-
And and I would like just to add quickly. Mean, just transportation just generally is already a difficult, thing for the school department and and the city and different schools. I remember last year when, the school district was proposing, reducing the the length that they would cover for, for your trip to pass for for students. So I think we kinda we should probably try to dig a little deeper on on that issue and and definitely try to find some alternatives or further solutions. Yeah.
Speaker 1
-
That's definitely a very popular, unfortunately, place where where a lot of, well, violence, you know, after school, especially, is is happening among the the youth in the city. Mhmm. Do anyone have any else to add to that?
Speaker 4
-
Was Dexter Moore from, PBSD just joined us. He's the new, in chief operating, officer of PBSD. I'm gonna ask Dexter and his introduction to tell us a little bit about his time in Oakland, California, where he worked for the school district there and, actually did some work around community violence intervention. So interestingly enough, when I had met Dexter and he told me he was from Oakland, I was like, oh, I attended a workshop on school safety, you know, CBI at the CBI conference, that Oakland, presented. And Dexter was actually, very involved in that work.
Speaker 4
-
So, you know, I think it's it's helpful knowing that we have someone that has this experience. And, if we're able to, you know, try to make a way to secure these funds that, here at PBSD, you know, Dexter can bring that experience and and work with the CBOs who've been doing it for a long time to execute. So with that, Dexter, you wanna unmute? I know he just got off a flight and, you know, just got to his hotel. So
Speaker 7
-
Yeah. Thank you, director Jones. Can you all hear me okay?
Speaker 5
-
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 7
-
Wonderful. Good afternoon. Doctor. Dexter Moore junior, chief operating officer, PPSD. I think this is week eight or nine for me.
Speaker 7
-
I'm sorry. I can't be with you all in person. Just landed in Philadelphia for the Council of Great City Schools, national conference, which is, convening of the 78 largest, urban school districts in the country. So here for a couple of meetings on behalf of the district. Appreciate the the introduction and invitation, director Jones.
Speaker 7
-
Just a little background about me. Recently relocated with my family from Oakland to Providence, where I was the, chief of staff in Oakland Unified School District for the last, three years. Worked in the district, for four years. Was the executive director of district strategy out of the superintendent's office prior to that. And director Jones and I were just talking background and kind of shared interest and commitments.
Speaker 7
-
Obviously, public safety and the safety of students, staff, and the larger community is always a priority and top of mind for all of us. And so he asked me just to share a little bit about the work that we did in Oakland and some of the, kind of initial thinking of ways that we might be able to find some intersection here in Providence. Unfortunately, my colleague who oversees, safety directly, Jay Menard, is out, today, but I he reports up to me, and so, we're very synced in terms of our safety protocols. And I know he works really closely with the Department of Children and Youth with the Providence Police Department as well. In Oakland, specifically, a couple of things that we did was there is a Department of Violence Prevention that was set up in the city as a result of a ceasefire report that the district I mean, that the city had commissioned about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 7
-
And so in my role as chief of staff for the district, I worked really closely with the mayor, with the chief of the the, department of violence prevention and the chief of the police department, to eventually stand up, what we call the school VIP team program, and the VIP team was a kinda three tier model. So VIP stands for violence interruption and prevention. And so we, stood up this model, which was really sort of focusing on our high schools who had the greatest need around, incidences of violence, traditional violence, gender based violence, community violence, and how that impacted, student enrollment, student attendance, student achievement, and a lot of the issues that were bleeding from the community into the school and vice versa. And so we set up this program at six high schools. It was a three tier model.
Speaker 7
-
So we had a violence interrupter. We had a life coach, and we had a gender based violence coach. And so it was three personnel, and we partnered with, we know that school districts often don't have either, a, the capacity or, b, the expertise, to really lead this work. It's a really niche work in terms of thinking about violence interrupters and prevention and just being critical messengers at the neighborhood level to really try to intervene, intercept, and, you know, try to address things before they before they get any larger. And so we partnered with a lot of community based organizations who really had the expertise, had the established relationships, to be able to go to an incident and and intervene immediately and then be in communication with us about, how we needed to be at the school site, tightening up our procedures, checking in with students, to make sure that incidents didn't bleed into the school.
Speaker 7
-
And so we set up that three tier VIP team model, was able to secure some, federal funding to do that. So each model, costs about $250,000. So we were eventually subcontracting with these organizations. So pretty costly model. And with limited district resources and also limited city resources, we had to rely on some grant funding.
Speaker 7
-
And so, this is year three of the program being implemented. Unfortunately, unless there are some resources to keep it set up, the district and the city are looking about into how they can try to re resize it so that it's sustainable over time. But in the model, we definitely have seen just some demonstrated impact in terms of having touch points with students for gender based violence, making sure that incidences, again, haven't impacted school sites, and then overall, just making sure that, you know, the the level of violent incidences that happen in the community don't impact our schools. And so we've been able to see some pretty early data there, But it's still early yet promising. So, I'll stop.
Speaker 7
-
I feel like I shared enough for an intro. I'm happy to take any questions I share with director Jones. Yeah. You know, in my new role, I'm really here to more so better understand the role of the committee, and be a listener and to be able to take back some notes and then happy to to come back in person in the in the near term future to to share more. Thank you.
Speaker 4
-
Thank you, Dexter.
Speaker 3
-
Thank you.
Speaker 4
-
So I think it could be helpful. You know, folks in the committee can tell Dexter a little bit about what we've talked about from, you know, what you were saying with the Kennedy Plaza, and, you know, we've had to talk about the safe passage model, right, what Lisa just said about what the nonviolent institute is doing. And, you know, maybe there's even some work that could happen now, you know, with the existing blood pressure team. They work together. Y'all wanna tell them a little bit about that?