In the coming days and weeks, graduates throughout Rhode Island will walk across high school stages and receive diplomas. They better be careful not to trip over those superintendents who just might be leaving.
It’s an elusive number that seems to change with the day – that is the superintendent vacancies, and superintendents who appear, perhaps, to be in jeopardy.
From Warwick to Tiverton, school systems have either recently hired replacements or are actively searching. There have been buyouts and lawsuits, and superintendents that just are finding employment elsewhere more lucrative and less stressful.
Thomas DiPaola, a former Westerly school superintendent who is the executive director of Rhode Island’s Superintendents Association, will tell you these are difficult times for superintendents. In most recent years, school systems have heard calls for book bans, an end to DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs that often don’t really exist, budget battles and uncertain state and federal funding.
One superintendent said he was approached by a member of his town’s council, demanding the school system stop teaching DEI. The superintendent told the council member that the system did not teach DEI and invited that council person to visit the schools and see for herself. The council person has yet to make that visit.
In Chariho, Superintendent Gina Picard has served for five years, guiding a school system that boasts, according to U.S. News & World Report, the 10th best high school in the state of 61 the publication measures, and with all but two of its schools earning four or five star ratings from the Rhode Island Department of Education, with the other two, three star ratings.
Picard was denied a one-year contract extension to 2027 by a school board that just transitioned to a Republican majority. The school chair said Picard should be able to demonstrate her value over the next two years, while others suggest she’s done just that over the last five years.
In Newport, Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain, was faced with a no confidence vote from teachers earlier this year over a dispute involving training for Multi Language Learners.
There recently were job openings reported in several communities, including Tiverton, Pawtucket, Warwick, East Greenwich and Lincoln.
In Lincoln, School Superintendent Dr. Lawrene Filippelli is leaving at the end of June to become head of school at The Woodstock Academy in Connecticut, a position that reportedly will pay him more than $300,000 a year, well above his $192,000 annual salary in Lincoln. Assistant Superintendent Kevin McNamara will assume the Lincoln superintendent’s position on July 1.
In Tiverton Dr. Peter Sanchioni is retiring on June 30 after eight years. There is a contentious relationship between the schools and town council. Finances, an outside audit, and potential school closure all has resulted in friction between the schools, and council and residents.
Tiverton has hired a consulting firm to help it find a new superintendent.
In Pawtucket it’s messy. Patricia Royal, a black woman, was hired in 2023, but went on medical leave earlier this year for what she said described as job related anxiety. She has filed a lawsuit against the city, the mayor (Donald Grebien), school committee and others, and has filed claims of race and gender discrimination with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights and U.S. Equal Opportunities Commission.
The city has hired an interim superintendent. Royal’s contract does not expire until next year.
East Greenwich has also hired an interim superintendent after it parted ways with Superintendent Brian Ricca midway through a three-year contract. That followed a no confidence vote last month by the local teachers’ union.
Ricca signed a separation agreement that will pay him through August, with each side pledging not to make any disparaging comments about one another. Former East Greenwich Superintendent Alexis Meyer was hired as an interim superintendent.And in Warwick Superintendent Lynn Dambruch has retired, after four years on the job. She had been on leave since mid-March. Assistant Superintendent William McCaffrey has been serving as acting superintendent. McCaffrey is the son of the late Eugene McCaffrey, former Warwick mayor.
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