While kids were on their winter break, Newport School Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain remained focused on a myriad of issues, including strategic planning, the budget, and Rogers High School construction. She joins WUN for her monthly videocast on Wednesday, February 28, at 1:30 p.m. to discuss these and other issues in Newport schools.
These are difficult times for school administrators. They are embroiled in budget discussions with town and city councils, are facing the loss of some funding from the federal and state governments, and struggle to fill teaching and other positions as the number of education graduates continues to decline nationwide.
Statewide, there are attendance issues and a growing need to accommodate multilanguage learners.
There are several issues we hope to explore in our time with the superintendent:
- Updates on Rogers High School construction and closing the financial gap.
- Status of the school budget, and what the school department can expect once the City Council finalizes the city’s budget.
- This is also when school departments send out layoff notices to teachers who may lose their jobs because of declining enrollment, or as Jermain says in her newsletter “restructuring/reorganization.” This is an annual ritual. We will want to know how many of those teachers the superintendent hopes to bring back.
- We will look for an update on attendance.
- Strategic Planning – Jermain says in her newsletter that the strategic planning committee expects in March to be presenting several elements of the plan, including its Portrait of a Graduate, to the School Committee.
- As the school year enters its final months, we will want to know about staffing for this year and any concerns for next year. The number of education graduates has been steadily declining over the last half century, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The NCES says the number of education graduates is less than half of what it was in 1970-71.
- In response to an inquiry from a reader we will also explore Rogers High School’s low ranking on the annual U.S. News and World Report listing of the state’s sixty-two public high schools. We will want to know how that ranking is impacted by the large number of multilanguage learners in Newport Schools, and the number of economically disadvantaged students (60 percent) at the high school.
Besides all those issues, we will look for details of the March 9 event at Rogers, a farewell to the gymnasium, and the March 6 Health and Wellness Fair.
Watch our conversation live or anytime afterward below.
