Newport Public Schools Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain joined What’sUpNewp owner and publisher Ryan Belmore and editor Frank Prosnitz on Wednesday afternoon for her final monthly conversation — capping a series that has run for several years, now ended by her June 30 retirement after more than 12 years leading the district.
The conversation was equal parts news and reflection: a budget that will not be resolved before she leaves, a state rejection of a one-time loan request, schedule changes coming to Pell Elementary, a transition to incoming interim Superintendent Peter Sanchioni, and a wide-ranging look back at the partnerships, programs and facilities Jermain sees as defining her tenure.
In a newsletter sent to families later Wednesday — her final as superintendent — Jermain delivered her own goodbye. “More than anything, I want to say thank you to our entire school community for the privilege of serving as superintendent for the last 12 and a half years,” she wrote. “Most importantly though, we’ve educated the next generation of Rogers Vikings. Remember — once a Viking, always a Viking.”
Not joining the campaign trail
The conversation opened on a lighter note as Belmore asked Jermain whether she had made her way down to City Hall before the filing window closed.
“No,” she said, laughing. “Everybody else has.”
She wasn’t wrong. The filing period that closed Wednesday produced nine candidates for at-large seats on the City Council, including School Committee Chair James Dring and member Elizabeth Cullen, both leaving the committee to run for council. Mayor Charles Holder, Stephanie Smyth, Jane LeBoeuf, Kevin Michaud, Christine Hope Sullivan, Taryn Mazza and Meagan Elizabeth Landry round out the at-large field.
Six current School Committee members did not seek re-election to the committee — Dring and Cullen for council, with Rebecca Bolan, Sandra J. Flowers, Dr. Robert Power and Stephanie Winslow not filing for any office. Nine candidates filed for School Committee seats.
See What’sUpNewp’s full filing recap: Nine candidates enter Newport City Council at-large race as filing period closes.
RIDE rejects $2.6M one-time loan
The Rhode Island Department of Education has rejected Newport’s request to treat a proposed $2.6 million City Council loan as a one-time expense outside the city’s maintenance-of-effort obligation, Jermain confirmed in both the conversation and her written update.
The district had asked RIDE to set aside $1.5 million of that amount in a restricted account for special education needs, with the remaining $1.1 million serving as a bridge while the district audited its finances and staffing. Jermain compared the request to a pre-COVID approval under former Commissioner Ken Wagner that allowed Newport to purchase one-to-one laptops without the cost counting toward maintenance of effort.
This time, she said, RIDE concluded the funding was for sustaining school operations rather than a true one-time expense, and would therefore have to count toward maintenance of effort going forward.
“So that means next year it could be argued that the maintenance of effort for the school system would be $3.7 million, not $1.1,” Jermain said, adding that future councils would be on the hook to maintain that level. “I think for them, that’s a lot. $3.7 million. But I also do believe it’s a need we have in our school system.”
With the loan off the table, the district is heading into the new fiscal year facing a roughly $2 million shortfall, Jermain wrote in her newsletter.
She noted that Newport allocates roughly 22 to 24 percent of its overall city budget to education — well below communities like Barrington and East Greenwich. “Just like with standardized tests, flip that chart and you’ll see who the high-performing, low-performing schools are based just on that factor,” she said.
Six of 17 teachers expected back; Pell start time shifting
Jermain said she expects to recall at least six of the 17 teachers who received layoff notices, with calls going out this week after a meeting with the finance director. The final number depends on schedules submitted by building principals.
“In order to run a safe school and run safe schedules, we need at least these teachers back,” she said, summarizing the principals’ message. A reading position is among those she expects to restore based on data.
The district has trimmed roughly another half-million dollars from the budget over the past month, Jermain said, through a series of measures including:
- Extending a curriculum contract from one year to three with smaller annual payments
- Permanently eliminating some programs
- Trimming supplies
- Shifting Pell Elementary’s start time from 8:30 a.m. to 8:45 a.m., with dismissal at 3:15 p.m. — a change expected to save $60,000 to $80,000 by eliminating one bus route
- Reorganizing Thompson Middle School to run grade-level teaching rather than the team-based cluster model
No Career and Technical Education programs are being cut, she confirmed.
A special School Committee meeting is set for 5 p.m. tonight at Pell Elementary to set a balanced budget, do teacher recalls and vote on the Pell schedule change ahead of the July 1 deadline. Jermain was candid about what that vote represents.
“Tomorrow night will just kind of be a placeholder. We balance the budget. But we all know without additional funding, we’re not going to make it through the year,” she said. She expects the School Committee will likely have to put the city “on notice” in August that the district will be in deficit again.
Fund balance nearly exhausted
The district’s fund balance now stands at roughly $900,000, Jermain said — though she noted the figure could be closer to $500,000 depending on a pending committee decision. Combined with the $1.1 million city increase, that will exhaust available reserves. Best practice is a 3 percent reserve; Newport is well below that.
“That’s a bit precarious,” Prosnitz observed.
“And that’s what we were trying to do all along — was trying to standardize the funding,” Jermain said, describing the no-win dynamic schools face. “You’re darned if you do and you’re darned if you don’t.”
A transition with multiple moving parts
Incoming interim Superintendent Peter Sanchioni — named to the post by the School Committee on June 5 — has visited Newport multiple times in recent weeks, Jermain said, touring Thompson Middle School and Pell with her on Tuesday and visiting Rogers the week before.
Sanchioni most recently led Tiverton Public Schools and previously served as superintendent in Natick and Millis, Mass. The committee structured his appointment as a one-year interim hire, a decision tied to the then-pending question of Newport-Middletown regionalization. With that timeline now slipping toward 2027, Jermain raised the possibility Wednesday that the committee could launch a search for a permanent superintendent as soon as this fall.
Jermain said she was not involved in the interim search and could not speak to Sanchioni’s charge from the School Committee, but laid out what he’ll face on arrival: hiring a permanent Rogers High School principal, finalizing the high school schedule, managing the unresolved budget, and entering contract negotiations — the C94 contract is up now, with the TAN teachers’ contract expected to go to negotiations in November or December.
She also disclosed that the district’s director of student services has given notice and will leave during the first week of July. “I think he may have a few other announcements coming,” she added.
Acting Rogers Principal Michael Monahan — who departs July 1 for Portsmouth High School — has offered to help Sanchioni with the principal transition, she said.
Newport Teacher of the Year
Earlier this week, Jermain visited Pell Elementary to honor kindergarten teacher Diane McBrier, named Newport Teacher of the Year.
“As a kindergarten teacher, Mrs. McBrier has helped shape the educational pathways of so many Newport students,” Jermain wrote in her newsletter. “Fellow teachers and her students all praise the welcoming, patient and caring atmosphere she creates in her classroom.”
On regionalization: “It’s going to be out of need”
With Newport-Middletown regionalization legislation off the table this year and uncertain for 2027, Jermain said the financial case for combining the districts remains strong — transportation, central office consolidation, joint purchasing — but the political path is narrowing.
“I’m usually a very optimistic person. I don’t know,” she said. “I feel like the only way it’s going to happen is almost if it’s forced upon the districts… There’s history, there’s traditions, there’s all these things. It’s going to be out of need that people will come together.”
She noted neighboring East Bay districts with fewer students than Newport are “wondering how they’re going to survive in the next couple of years.”
On charter schools and choice
Asked about the legislature’s recently passed charter school moratorium, signed by Gov. Dan McKee, Jermain offered a nuanced view that cut against what might be expected from a public school superintendent.
“As a superintendent who’s leading a public school system, you would think I would be ‘no charters’ because of the funding difficulties and the challenges,” she said. “But at the same time, my conscience is about: well, people want charters. Why do they want charters? Why do they want their children to go to other schools instead of their local schools? I don’t think that’s something we should take away from families.”
She characterized the governor’s signing of the moratorium as politically driven. “It’s an election year. The governor needs the teachers association. The governor needs the superintendents association,” she said, noting her own association had backed the measure despite her disagreement.
In Newport specifically, Jermain said the Met is the only nearby charter drawing local students, and that more are now leaving for private schools like St. George’s and Portsmouth Abbey, drawn by competitive scholarships.
The biggest accomplishment
Asked to name her proudest achievement over 12 years, Jermain did not point to buildings — though the new Rogers High School, the Pell addition and the Thompson restoration all came under her watch. She pointed to partnerships and pathways.
She cited Pathways at Salve with Aida Neary and Dr. Armstrong; Team FAME tennis sending three girls to college this year; Sail Newport; the revived sister city program that has sent students to Japan with Italy hopefully next; the Boys & Girls Club’s after-school and “365” summer programming under Gov. McKee’s initiative; the Martin Luther King Community Center; Conexión Latina under executive director Rebecca; first-generation students going to college; universal school meals; and vans that can transport students “any place, any time.”
“Learning is something that’s continuous and forever, and it just doesn’t happen in a place called school,” she said.
She also credited the district’s COVID response. “I think we did a darn good job getting through COVID. Newport did.”
In her farewell newsletter, Jermain summarized the broader work: “Together we have built new school buildings, implemented a rigorous new curriculum, developed a compelling ‘Portrait of a Graduate’ for the attributes we want our students to take with them into the world, provided our teachers with new professional development opportunities, opened up doors and opportunities through our community partnerships.”
The one wish
Asked by Belmore whether there was something she wished she could have accomplished before leaving, Jermain paused.
“I really wish people put kids first,” she said. “It’s very easy to say that. They don’t do it.”
She spoke of the tension between leadership and local politics — for elected officials and for herself — a tension thrown into relief by the fact that two of her School Committee partners filed for City Council seats Wednesday. “Elected officials have a tough time making decisions that impacts their neighbors, even though it might be the right thing to do,” she said. “I live here too. But this is what we should be doing.”
She extended the critique to organized labor, noting her own background as a former union leader. “Blinders go on sometimes, and I’m like — what are you doing here? Or why are you doing it?”
What’s next
Jermain has no firm post-retirement plans. “I’m gonna take July and just kind of think about things and look around and see what I’d really like to do,” she said. “I’ve never really sought out my career positions. They’ve kind of come in front of me. I’ve been very lucky.”
Belmore opened the door to keeping the monthly conversations going under Sanchioni; Jermain said she’d make him aware of the offer.
What’s ahead
Newport’s last day of school for students is Friday, June 26. Jermain’s last day as superintendent is Tuesday, June 30. Sanchioni begins July 1.
