Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

Lockers were bent or torn. Floor tiles were missing. Walls and ceilings were discolored. And the desks, many of them 30 years old, were scarred with teenagers' initials.

The high school was in such poor condition that the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), citing health and safety problems, threatened to give Barrington a two-year accreditation instead of the typical five years. Gray budgeted more than $120,000 to fix the most glaring problems.

But Barrington High School was facing another, more daunting challenge: school enrollment was plummeting and would soon drop from a high of 1,200 students to 650, largely due to declining birth rates across the Northeast. And so Gray had to guide his school through a series of painful contractions, including teacher layoffs and program consolidations.

"Despite all of the turmoil, we emerged with a better building," he said. "We had to prioritize but that helped lay the foundation for everything we're doing today."

One of Gray's biggest challenges was helping local residents understand the need to completely overhaul the school facilities. In the 1990s, the district embarked on a $14-million renovation and addition in the wake of a devastating report from NEASC, which placed the school on probation.

Gray points to the refurbished facility as one of his proudest accomplishments.

"When I got here, we had one big IMB main frame and that was it," he said. "Now we have technology in every classroom. We even have our own television production studio."

Twenty years ago, the high school curriculum was fragmented, with lots of electives that didn't fit into any larger vision, and an ineffective way of assessing student performance. Today, Gray said, the school has established uniformly high standards so that every child gets the same instruction and the same assessments.

At a time when many districts are cutting back, Barrington has refused to relinquish its Latin program and recently added Chinese. The school also offers pre-engineering, computer drafting and architectural drafting -- courses that are the envy of career and technology schools.

What challenges remain?

The financial challenge, Gray said. Barrington, despite its wealth, is facing some of the same budget quandaries as less affluent school districts. The local appropriations committee wants to slash $900,000 from the proposed school budget, which is calling for a $1.8 million increase, and next week's annual Financial Town Meeting is expected to be a showdown between school supporters and a large contingent that wants to hold the line on school salaries.

"We are at a crossroads in Rhode Island," Gray said. "Unless we can come up with a fair and equitable state school funding formula, this battle over funding will continue."